Better Days Ahead for the US-Russia Relationship
In a recent talk at the Woodrow Wilson Center, SAIS professor Michael Mandelbaum described the US-Russia relationship in gloomy terms: “We are in a bad place. Relations are worse, and more dangerous, than at any time since the beginning of the 1980s. Each side regards the other with suspicion and growing hostility.” Mandelbaum attributes the current dismal state of US-Russia relations to a number of factors, including the
perception on the part of many Russians that US-backed “shock therapy” in the 1990’s destroyed Russia’s economy, society and influence in the world. NATO expansion to Russia’s borders over the past two decades, plus plans to base missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic, combined with US indifference to Russian opinion on Kosovo and Iraq, have made things even worse. It has come to the point, says Mandelbaum, that Russian policy smacks of a “reflexive opposition to any initiative sponsored by the United States, and of a general policy of trying to weaken the American position in the world however and whenever possible.”
But all is not lost. I have been consistently reassured by those involved that robust US-Russia cooperation continues in many important arenas, including nuclear non-proliferation and counter-terrorism. So while the rhetoric is certainly grim, it is not clear that the core of the US-Russia relationship has suffered. Here are just a few examples of ongoing engagement between Moscow and Washington, which seem to reveal both sides’ recognition that close cooperation is still a win-win scenario:
1. High-level Security Dialogue: Earlier this week, Adm. Michael Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, traveled to Helsinki for a meeting with his Russian counterpart, General Makarov, at the Russian’s request. While Mullen was clear that full NATO-Russia cooperation remained limited after the Georgia invasion, he said, “It wasn’t a meeting about disagreements (so much) as it was a dialogue and a commitment to continue the dialogue – in particular between him and me.” On the agenda, according to a senior US official, was the Iranian nuclear program.
2. Crisis Management: The ongoing standoff between the pirate-held ship Faina and an international naval flotilla has become the setting for another ray of light in the US-Russia relationship. In the same week that the US imposed sanctions on Russia’s state arms export concern, Rosoboronexport, for selling weapons to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the US, Russia, and Ukraine have been coordinating closely on efforts to end the standoff, and free the Belize-flagged ship’s Russian, Ukrainian and Latvian crew. Ironically, the ship is carrying Soviet-designed military hardware possibly intended for illegal sale in African war zones.
3. Securing Loose Nuclear Material: Since 2005, the US and Russia have cooperated to recover US and Russian-origin nuclear material from countries around the world. The program hasn’t been even close to derailed by the latest tensions between Moscow and Washington. In fact, the National Nuclear Security Administration reported this week that a joint US-Russian team completed a two-year effort to remove 341 pounds of spent fuel from a nuclear reactor in Hungary and ship it to Russia for reprocessing.
These are but a few examples of how US-Russia cooperation persists in the face of what Professor Mandelbaum rightly calls dangerous and hostile rhetoric. And they are indeed hopeful. Yet it would be foolish to presume that fulsome US-Russia cooperation can long survive a further chill in the high-level political relationship between the two countries, or that either side will seize on new opportunities to work together, if our societies return to Cold War style postures of mutual suspicion and distrust.
Now is the time for the US to offer an olive branch. With weakening oil prices and a global economic crisis hitting the Russian market even harder than Wall Street, Moscow can longer fortify itself behind walls of cold, hard cash. Meanwhile, a new US administration will enjoy a window of opportunity to redefine its relationships with Russia, and focus on areas of mutual interest and benefit. At the top of the agenda must be preventing nuclear proliferation (with a special focus on Iran), restoring confidence in global markets, and negotiating a long-term security arrangement for all of Europe that neither alienates Russia nor abandons the former Soviet republics to Moscow’s “sphere of influence.” We can’t undo what has already passed, but we can chart a course for better days ahead.
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