Russia and America: Toward a New Détente
July-August 2015
WITH THE Cold War’s demise,
the menacing Russia that long loomed over Europe seemed to vanish. The
Russia of 1992 was just a fragment of its historic self in military
punch and economic weight. Not even Russia’s still-formidable nuclear
arsenal deflected perceptions of decline. It was inevitable, then, that
Western policy makers would feel that this shrunken Russia was more to
be ignored than feared. They were wrong.
Now, memories of the bad old days are storming back, especially of
Moscow’s capacity to stir up trouble with its military power. While
President Vladimir Putin’s “covert” war in Ukraine continues to inflame
tensions, he also torments his Baltic neighbors and threatens Europe
with provocative military flights and nuclear rhetoric. Western alarms
are heightened by Putin’s seeming unpredictability and his apparently
unlimited internal power. The West can’t reckon how far he will take his
muscle flexing—or how to stop him.
NATO has no strategy to counter mounting Russian pressures. Economic
sanctions, the West’s spear point, have seriously harmed the Russian
economy, enough to squeeze from Putin some dubious cease-fire agreements
on Ukraine, but not nearly enough to make him back down. Europeans are
reluctant to expand sanctions for fear of prompting a Russian military
response and for fear of further complicating their dependence on
Russian oil and gas. On the military side, NATO has deployed mostly
American fighter jets eastward and stepped up joint exercises and arms
deliveries. Unsurprisingly, European NATO allies do the minimum
militarily, and instead press ahead with a weak diplomatic hand. This
diplomatic impotence is so pronounced that President Barack Obama has
distanced himself from it, preferring to let the Germans take charge.
The reason for the West’s limp hand is painfully evident to all:
Russia’s military superiority over NATO on its western borders. If NATO
ups the military ante, Moscow can readily trump it. Moscow has
significant advantages in conventional forces—backed by potent tactical
nuclear weapons and a stated willingness to use them to sustain
advantages or avoid defeat. The last thing NATO wants is to look weak or
lose a confrontation.
NATO’s military and civilian officials have worried about this
situation for several years now—without receiving much productive
guidance from their capitals. Predictably, a growing chorus in America
(and not just the usual hawks) is championing sending weapons to
Ukraine. Just as predictably, these advocates say nothing about what
they would do if Moscow’s response were to escalate.
Thus, NATO’s options have narrowed: more arms aid to beleaguered
friends, but no answers to Russian escalatory responses; more sanctions
that hurt but don’t humble Russia’s economy; calls for a major NATO
military buildup in Eastern Europe with no prospect of realization; and
more diplomacy without leverage.
What, then, can the West do that has some chance of success? The only
sensible path is to develop a diplomatic strategy with real leverage.
This strategy would retain the sanctions regime and credible prospects
for a greater NATO presence until its benefits materialize. It is now
quite evident, however, that these punitive and defensive measures alone
won’t produce the requisite power over Russia, a conclusion shared by a
number of former American ambassadors to Moscow, including Jack
Matlock, Thomas Pickering and James Collins.
An effective diplomatic strategy has to be rooted in what matters
most to Russian leaders—their historical sense of self and their passion
to be treated as a great power. Moscow deserves no less, given the
troubles it can cause and the problems it can help resolve. The West
need not silence its complaints about the Kremlin’s brutality, nor
concede vital interests. It is totally unrealistic, however, to think
that the West can gain desired Russian restraint and cooperation without
dealing with Moscow as a great power that possesses real and legitimate
interests, especially in its border areas.
The strategy proposed here should be thought of as Détente Plus. It
would pick up from the détente diplomacy of the past and go well beyond
it. The old détente was about managing serious conflicts of interests
and values with a mostly implacable foe. Détente Plus would not treat
Russia as an enemy, but as a combination of adversary and partner.
Détente Plus would exceed the arms-control focus of the past and address
first-rank political matters in Europe and worldwide. It would
recognize a wide range of common and overlapping interests, solving both
Russian and American problems.
This cooperation has to be visible, filled with optics. Call it
mountaintop diplomacy. The world would be watching as the two powers
devised common solutions to common problems.
American and Western leverage would stem from the visibility and the
results generated. Being seen at the mountaintop with the United States
would go far toward satisfying Russia’s yearning for status. To maintain
this status, Kremlin leaders would understand their need to bend, but
status is not enough. Moscow would have to benefit tangibly as well,
mainly in improved economic prospects and assuaged political concerns.
With this leverage, Washington can do two things: first, tame Russian
assertiveness and secure Russia’s restraint on its western border;
second, and often overlooked, step up joint action based on common
interests on other critical fronts such as terrorism, Syria, Iran and
nuclear proliferation. Today’s pervasive atmosphere of hostility and
mistrust obscures these promising possibilities. Given the dangers ahead
and the poor alternatives for dealing with them, the Détente Plus
strategy deserves a trial.
JUST IMAGINE if the United States had lost the Cold War. For some
comparative measure, think about the American trauma after losing the
Vietnam War and after the inconclusive battles over many years in
Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet most Americans won’t give an inch when it
comes to recognizing the far greater trauma for Russians after their
utter defeat in the Cold War and NATO’s almost immediate march eastward
to their borders. Those profound shocks are central to fathoming recent
Russian provocations and key to combating them. That’s why it is
essential to consider Russian history since the collapse of the Berlin
Wall, not to justify Putin’s course, but to comprehend it.
Across Eastern Europe, Communist dictatorships collapsed in short
order and were swiftly replaced by democratically elected governments
that looked west for their future. As Czech statesman Vaclav Havel
remarked, “We have had literally no time even to be astonished.” Germany
reunified and became a leading member of the Western club virtually
overnight. Mikhail Gorbachev exercised considerable restraint as the
outer empire collapsed around him, but the experience could hardly have
been more distressing for his nation. Soviet troops were compelled to
withdraw haphazardly from Eastern Europe and surrender, without a shot
fired, the very territories that millions of Soviet soldiers had died to
secure and dominate just decades earlier.
Conservative critics in the Communist Party and in the military
understood the perilous course upon which Gorbachev’s reforms had set
the Soviet Union, but remained divided on what to do about it. In August
1991, a faction of the conservatives attempted to oust the premier in a
coup, but it was too little, too late. Soviet patriots like Chief of
the General Staff Sergei F. Akhromeyev and Interior Minister Boris K.
Pugo committed suicide rather than face the death of their country.
Within months of the coup, the Soviet Union collapsed, breaking into
fifteen weak republics. As a rump state, Russia lost a quarter of its
territory, half of its population and much of its wealth. Russians
especially lamented the loss of territories like Ukraine that were
integral to Russia’s history and identity. The formerly colossal Soviet
military was devastated as the post-Soviet republics began nationalizing
the forces and materiel stationed within their borders. In 1991, the
USSR had nearly four million men on active duty and could mobilize up to
ten million. The system designed to win World War III was too weak to
save itself.
Compounding Russia’s sense of crisis, the peripheral republics of the
Soviet Union erupted with terrible ethnic, nationalist and religious
violence as the Communist edifice crumbled from the center. Intense
fighting gripped Central Asia, the Caucasus and Moldova. Even the Baltic
republics succumbed to violence in their struggle to secede from the
USSR. While the Soviet Union lasted, its forces were sent in to try to
restore order and stymie budding independence movements, often
counterproductively.
Even after 1991, Russian troops remained engaged in battles along the
country’s southern frontier. Moscow’s concern was that these
nationalist, religious and ethnic convulsions could prove contagious. If
unchecked, they would threaten a multiethnic and multiconfessional
Russia. This fear proved well founded in Chechnya, where the Russian
army was humiliated by guerrilla fighters between 1994 and 1996.
Given the chaos gripping Russia, it was hardly surprising that
Western leaders began to write off Moscow’s interests in ways
unimaginable just a few years before. When Chancellor Helmut Kohl
suggested to President George H. W. Bush in 1990 that Moscow should get
something in return for its acquiescence to the reunification of
Germany, the president responded, “To hell with that! We prevailed, they
didn’t. We can’t let the Soviets clutch victory from the jaws of
defeat.” The Russians felt this disdain acutely, and their frustration
mounted as the West pressed its advantages over the next two decades in
what appeared to be an attempt to encircle Russia.
At the start of their administrations, both Bill Clinton and George
W. Bush made more of an effort to include Russia in European diplomacy
and economic development. Through the Partnership for Peace program and
later the NATO -Russia Council (presently suspended), both presidents
attempted to reduce Russia’s suspicions of the new Atlantic order.
Sensing Russia’s wounded pride over its exclusion from the G-7 economic
club, Clinton and Tony Blair arranged to include Russia as a full member
in 1998, where it remained until its suspension last year.
In other important respects, however, Clinton and Bush were less
sensitive to Russian interests. Over the course of the 1990s and early
2000s, NATO conferred membership upon much of Eastern Europe. In many
cases, this was a sound strategy for the West, Russian resentment
notwithstanding. The alliance, however, pushed its advantage
provocatively far. It extended its protective wing up to Russia’s
borders in the Baltic states. Stating a view shared by many policy
analysts, George F. Kennan predicted in February 1997 that the policy of
NATO enlargement to Russia’s border could be expected “to inflame the
nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian
opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian
democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the Cold War to East-West
relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly
not to our liking.”
Kennan’s sound counsel was flouted and his prophecy fulfilled. George
W. Bush, who had initially sought good relations with Putin, gave them
up in favor of a prodemocracy, human-rights-first agenda. The Bush team
administered the ultimate slap in the face, proposing to NATOize Ukraine
and Georgia, where the “color revolutions” had installed governments
friendly to the West. Here, Western Europe jumped in and said “no.”
Though the democratic uprisings in Tbilisi and Kiev were indigenous,
Moscow inevitably suspected a secret American hand. Moscow also noted an
irony. Even as it asserted its presence on Russia’s borders, NATO was
slowly but unmistakably allowing the military strength of the alliance
to erode.
The new Obama team hinted at greater sensitivity to Russian feelings
when it proclaimed the policy of “resetting” ties with Russia. At that
time, Robert Legvold, a highly respected Russia expert, tried to push
for a wide-ranging agenda that would engage Russia on a number of broad
concerns. He was right about what was needed, but it didn’t take long
for the Obama White House to revert to a more Bush-like approach. For a
while, Obama’s relations with President Dmitri Medvedev seemed to be on
the right track, and together the United States and Russia concluded
deals on nuclear weapons and much-needed cooperation on Afghanistan.
Obama also moved to bring Russia into the World Trade Organization, but
soon undermined its own effort by endorsing the Magnitsky Act, which
established a targeted-sanctions mechanism in response to Russian
human-rights abuses. This measure was intended to undercut positive ties
with Moscow, and it did. The openly anti-Russian activities of several
Obama appointees further enraged the Kremlin.
For its part, Moscow has tried to make the post-Soviet states toe the
line through a number of bilateral and multilateral mechanisms. Russia
became the “impartial” mediator for lingering territorial disputes,
played warring states like Armenia and Azerbaijan off against one
another, and wielded its energy power, especially against Ukraine.
Russia also made futile attempts to corral the post-Soviet states by
proposing Moscow-led international institutions, including the
Commonwealth of Independent States, the Eurasian Economic Community, the
Collective Security Treaty Organization and, most recently, the
Eurasian Economic Union. By and large, Russia lacked the attractiveness
and the clout to make these efforts successful.
When some neighbors rejected Russia in favor of the West, Moscow
chose force. In Georgia, Russia solidified control over the provinces of
South Ossetia and Abkhazia. A democratic uprising in Ukraine triggered
Russian support for revolts in Ukraine’s eastern provinces and the
annexation of Crimea.
At some point over the last quarter century, Washington might have
realized that the Kremlin was not going to sit around and wait for the
West to determine Russia’s fate. Russia’s leaders countered with what
came naturally to them—military power—to ensure they would shape their
own future.
THE STRATEGIC choices made by other modern major powers following
profound losses had zero appeal to post–Cold War Russia. The British
lost their empire after World War II, but figured out how to punch above
their weight through a “special relationship” with the United States.
France, after being humbled by the Nazis and losing its empire, settled
for obvious second-tier status. Defeated Japan opted to forgo military
power and yet still count by becoming a major economic power. To restore
its great-power status, Russia went for military might.
True, some Russian leaders also wanted to take a hard look at an
economically focused strategy. Vladimir Putin was once such a man. When
he took office in 1999, he was considered something of a liberal
reformer, and many in and outside Russia hoped he would succeed in
growing and diversifying the economy. Culture, politics, and the
practices of the old and new elite alike, however, made the task
impossible. In the meantime, oil and gas revenues revived the moribund
Russian economy, making it the eighth largest in the world, but still
leaving it far behind the top nations. Furthermore, this spurt retarded
impetus for reform and diversification. Kleptocracy set in as the
state’s guiding economic principle, while a good portion of the leftover
energy proceeds went to defense.
Beginning in the 1990s, Russian leaders came to the consensus that
military might was the key to accomplishing what mattered to them most:
maintaining internal control, preventing the disintegration of Russia
and one day reasserting Russia’s global status. Slowly, haltingly and
inefficiently, Moscow regenerated its military might, but not its
greatness.
The outline for developing the desired military clout was fairly
consistent and included four crucial elements: maintaining nuclear
parity with the United States, streamlining Russia’s fighting forces,
maintaining and modernizing military hardware, and demonstrating
superiority on its borders.
Maintaining nuclear parity with the United States was the first and
last priority of the plan. It was also relatively easy because Moscow
had the nuclear missiles and technology in hand. To compensate for
weakened conventional capabilities, in 1993, Moscow revoked the Soviet
Union’s long-standing promise of no first use. During this time,
however, Russian leaders continued to work with the West on mitigating
the risk of nuclear accidents, on securing so-called loose nukes, and
especially on consolidating the nuclear weapons that were spread around
former Soviet republics into Russia’s hands. Significantly, Moscow and
Washington continued to coordinate closely to prevent nuclear
proliferation.
Differences on nuclear matters between the two big nuclear powers
have mounted in recent years. Putin does not share Obama’s oft-expressed
passion for a “nuclear-free world,” and he did not hide his thinking in
a 2012 statement: “We will not under any circumstances turn our back on
the potential for strategic deterrence, and we will reinforce it. It
was precisely this which allowed us to maintain state sovereignty during
the most difficult period of the 1990s.”
With this last line of defense in place, Russia undertook the more
challenging task of recapturing its conventional military power. After
the Soviet collapse, Russian forces were still potent, yet the kind of
power they wielded was ill suited to the challenges they faced. It was
difficult to mobilize Russian men for what appeared to be remote ethnic
battles between foreign peoples, but the day-to-day manning levels of
most units were insufficient for deployment. Russia needed to reform its
fighting forces.
The Russians knew they needed smaller, fully manned, equipped and
trained units maintained in a state of constant readiness. They wanted
to build a usable army within the army. While Russia’s fears of a
scheming NATO and a dangerous China remained, Moscow’s military planners
saw no need to re-create a force of ten million men. The reforms were
good enough to reestablish control of Chechnya in 2000.
The next major challenge for Russia’s forces came in the 2008
campaign against Georgia. Though they won in five days, they felt that
further reforms were still needed, and the Kremlin launched another
series of even more sweeping changes, known as the “New Look.”
The New Look’s chief elements included a reduction of Russia’s
authorized strength to one million men, severe cuts in the officer
corps, drastic consolidation of military units, centralization of the
six existing military districts into four regional Joint Strategic
Commands, and replacement of the regimental structure of the army with
smaller, more versatile brigades. The program’s chief aim was to develop
an armed service that could function at or near full strength all the
time by relying on professional “contract” soldiers rather than largely
useless conscripts.
Conscription has been retained in Russia, though the term of service
has been reduced to one year. Conscripts are deployed to most units, but
these troops are considered practically worthless in combat. They are
poorly trained and motivated, and useful mostly for logistics within
Russia. Nevertheless, conscription is still seen as the best means of
training future reservists should sudden mobilization be required.
More recently, Russia has given priority to improving its military
hardware. Thus, it now has quality missile-defense systems, first-rate
aircraft and substantial artillery. Putin has insisted upon massive
investment in new high-tech equipment as a hallmark of his third term.
The federal budget sent to the State Duma last September called for
defense spending to increase from 3.4 percent of GDP in 2014 to 4.2
percent in 2015, with the bulk going to procurement.
The aim of this triumvirate of the nuclear backstop, more agile
forces and more modern equipment is to enable Russia to assert military
superiority on its western and southern borders, to establish a
plausible defensive line in the east and to develop a capability to
manage crises, particularly in the volatile Caucasus region.
HERE IS what these reforms have produced.
On the strategic nuclear level, Russia maintains effective parity
with the United States. The two sides have roughly equivalent numbers of
ICBM launchers, ballistic-missile submarines and nuclear-capable
bombers. While Russian bombers are inferior to American aircraft, this
does not affect overall strategic-weapons parity or Russia’s capacity to
absorb a first blow and retain retaliatory effectiveness.
Missile-defense systems are a sore point. To Moscow’s consternation,
Washington withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002. The
United States also sought to deploy missile-defense systems in Eastern
Europe. While Moscow complains that these defenses hamper its
retaliatory capability, in private they recognize that their offense can
readily overcome this defense. Thus, it’s hard to see how these
deployments contribute to Western security; it’s easy to see why they
irritate Moscow.
The tactical-nuclear-weapons balance in Europe is overwhelmingly in
Russia’s favor. The United States maintains some two hundred gravity
bombs on six bases in five NATO countries and is currently modernizing
these to give them a limited standoff capability. Russia, on the other
hand, has a tactical force of several thousand warheads, of which some
two thousand are believed to be active and assigned to naval, ground and
air nonstrategic delivery vehicles.
Recently, Washington alleged Russian violations of the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987. Under its terms, both
countries forswore all land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a
range between five hundred and 5,500 kilometers. The West is unsure
about the seriousness of recent Russian moves in this arena, but it is
concerned by Russia’s increasing reliance on nuclear posturing. Talk of
first use is of special concern to NATO, particularly in light of the
fifteen-year-old Russian doctrine regarding the use of a so-called
deescalatory strike. This means nuclear strikes with the aim of
restoring the status quo ante when Russia might otherwise lose.
NATO is now struggling over whether to regard this as a bluff or a
serious policy—and how to respond.
Insofar as Russia retains large armies for conventional war, these
armies operate primarily in the Far East. Of the four regional Joint
Strategic Commands into which the armed services are organized, only the
Eastern Military District contains four army commands. In the event of a
conventional invasion from China, two armies would serve as the first
line of defense in the east with two more stationed farther west as a
second defensive echelon. Air and naval standoff assets, including from
the Pacific Fleet, would likely be used to delay hostile advances, while
further reinforcements are drawn from the Central Military District.
Interestingly, for all of Russia’s wariness of China, it continues to
sell Beijing high-quality weapons. It would not sell China such good
equipment—and at very good prices—were it not desperate for money. Most
notably, Moscow licenses the production in China of its SU-27
fourth-generation fighter and has done so since the 1990s.
The People’s Liberation Army currently numbers 1.6 million. At the
first possible moment in an invasion, China would likely sever the
Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur rail lines, thereby leaving Siberia
isolated. The only strategic question for Russia in this scenario would
be when to push the nuclear button.
Russia does not fear an invasion from its former Central Asian
republics. The role of the Central Military District, based in
Yekaterinburg, is to orchestrate Russian engagement in local conflicts
within Central Asia, to manage Russia’s bases in Tajikistan and
Kyrgyzstan, and to supply reinforcements from its two armies either to
the east or the west in the event of war. There’s little to indicate
that these forces are deployed to the central region for the purpose of
reconquering lost Central Asian territories. Rather, their purpose is to
forestall instability that might spill over into Russia and to remind
everyone that Russia’s forces in the region are mightier than China’s.
Based in St. Petersburg, the Western Military District houses two
army commands along with the Baltic Fleet, the Northern Fleet, numerous
paratrooper brigades, Spetsnaz, air and air-defense units. Their role is
to maintain clear military superiority along Russia’s western and
northwestern borders, and to play a large part in air defense.
Russia’s air defenses are excellent. Their long-range surface-to-air
missiles are among the best anywhere, particularly the S-300 and S-400
varieties. As mobile, truck-based units, they can secure air superiority
over bordering regions, despite U.S. advantages in fighter aircraft.
NATO reckons that Russian S-400s would have little difficulty taking
down even American stealth aircraft within their 250-mile range. This
likelihood greatly complicates any NATO strategy for establishing air
superiority over the Baltic region. The United States is actively
developing countermeasures to confuse or disable parts of Russian air
defenses, but, all factors considered, any NATO effort to establish air
superiority near Russian borders would be quite costly.
Russian
fighter aircraft lack some of the power, precision and stealth of
America’s best fighters, but are comparable to the F-15 and are a match
for the F-22, according to American analysts and generals. Moscow is
developing a fifth-generation stealth fighter, but currently relies upon
the SU-27 Flanker and its more modern cousin, the SU-35.
Without the trial of battle, defense systems can be notoriously
difficult to compare. Nonetheless, experts must and do make comparisons.
In addition to being lighter and stealthier than their Russian
counterparts, American F-22 and F-35 fighters may be equipped with the
AIM-120 AMRAAM (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile) family of
missiles that allow pilots to “fire and forget.” These missiles are
thought to be superior to the Russian equivalent active-radar-homing
missile, the R-77. Their potency, combined with the F-22’s superior
radar, suggests that American planes would have considerable advantages
in a fight over neutral territory. Unfortunately for NATO, fights are
most likely to take place near Russia’s borders.
Other factors, ones that are even harder to measure, also influence
airpower capabilities. American pilots receive more training hours each
year and have more experience in coordinating combat operations with
other branches of the military. Furthermore, Russia’s drive to develop
fifth-generation fighters and bombers has, to some degree, been
undertaken at the expense of developing better logistical capabilities
such as refueling and troop transport. There is also the possibility
that Russia’s new best-of-the-best equipment will prove less impressive
in battle than on paper. India, a potential purchaser of the
fifth-generation fighter, has complained repeatedly of unexplained
technical malfunctions, charges reminiscent of those China has leveled
after purchasing aircraft from the Russians.
The territorial remit of the Southern Military District, based in
Rostov-on-Don, includes the unstable North Caucasus region, Russian
bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the base in Gyumri, Armenia, and
now, most likely, Crimea. It is also responsible for operations in
Ukraine. Even before that conflict erupted, the Southern district had
the highest priority of all districts for new and modernized weapons and
well-trained personnel. In addition to its two army commands, it
oversees elite airborne troops, Spetsnaz and reconnaissance brigades,
the Black Sea Fleet, the Caspian Flotilla and air units.
Southern forces can be quickly mobilized to respond to regional
instability and, as was revealed in Ukraine, effectively deployed
against Russia’s far weaker neighbors. They can maintain credible
superiority along the country’s southwestern borders. Their takeover of
Crimea was immediate, and relied heavily on elite formations.
Specialized Russian units performed so well in Crimea that Putin
remarked after the annexation, “It was all coordinated so clearly,
tightly . . . that I sometimes wondered: Was it really us?” Highly
mobile and versatile, these units can be deployed in any of Russia’s
strategic theaters.
Of the roughly 771,000-strong Russian military, fewer than a hundred
thousand fight in elite formations. Of these, the number on par with
NATO’s best is in the tens of thousands. Over the summer of 2014, Russia
demonstrated the ability to draw as many as forty thousand troops to
the Ukrainian border, including elite units. While this number was
sufficient to menace Ukraine, it hardly represented a conventional
threat to NATO forces in Eastern and Central Europe.
For the foreseeable future, the principal strategic danger for the
United States and the West is on Russia’s western borders. China can
take care of itself to the east, and Central Asia doesn’t worry about a
Russian invasion, Putin’s occasional glowering at Kazakhstan
notwithstanding. Russian armed forces don’t have the numbers, the allies
or the logistical stamina needed to mount a credible threat to the
former Warsaw Pact nations. It’s Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and the
Baltic states where the West needs an effective strategy for deterrence
and containment.
It strains credulity to think that Moscow would invade and reconquer
these countries. There is no doubt that such actions would result in
Russia’s total isolation from the West, where Moscow understands full
well its future lies. And NATO needs to reiterate such consequences in
blunt language.
The genuine risks revolve around Moscow’s capacity to pull off more
“Ukraines.” Once again, it could exploit the sizable Russian-speaking
populations in its neighboring countries, and provide covert arms and
covert soldiers to pressure the majority populations to make
unreasonable concessions. Along with propaganda and other political
techniques, these tactics are described collectively as “hybrid
warfare.” NATO has no effective military response to this scenario—and
no broader strategy to do the job.
NOT LONG ago, the Obama team spoke of “resetting” U.S.-Russian
relations, and indeed some significant agreements were reached with
former president Medvedev. With the return of Putin, however, Russian
policy took a more aggressive turn, in the face of which Obama withdrew
from the reset in favor of policies that irritated the Kremlin without
checking it. In any event, relations needed much more than resetting;
they needed reconceptualizing.
At its root, the Cold War was a story of two goliaths, each
attempting to impose its vision of the world and its values on the
other. Détente diplomacy in this era essentially strove to keep
conflicts within bounds, particularly avoiding nuclear confrontation.
The context for twenty-first-century Détente Plus is quite different.
There is nothing resembling the old worldwide political and ideological
clash. A good case can be made now that these two powers have more
shared interests than conflicting ones. Based on this reality, Détente
Plus has to make that cooperation possible. It has to create a concept
and a procedure for fixing problems together that can’t be managed
separately.
For this new diplomatic partnership to be effective, both parties
must enter into it with a realistic mind-set. That is the first step.
The United States has to accept the fact that Russia is a great power
and treat it that way. Washington has to be sensitive to Moscow’s
perspectives and interests, particularly on its borders. The Kremlin has
to realize that to receive great-power treatment, it’s got to behave
far more responsibly and accept responsibility for joint solutions.
Putin can’t go on trying to dominate and intimidate his neighbors, just
as the U.S. president can’t be seen as seeking to pull these neighbors
out of the Russian orbit.
Second, both sides have to recognize their very real complementary
interests. That’s perfectly obvious now when it comes to regional
issues, fighting terrorism and nuclear proliferation. There’s no denying
that there are serious conflicts on Russia’s western border or that
Russia has clear military superiority there. Russia can cause real
turmoil for Europe, which is why both parties have got to understand
that the solution lies in diplomatic sensitivity and compromise, rather
than fighting. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that the
present mutual hostility imperils the interests of both sides.
How would Détente Plus work in practice?
First, both sides have to commit to diplomacy at the highest levels.
Particularly in the initial years, there would have to be annual
presidential summits and semiannual meetings of foreign and defense
ministers. Only top-level political leaders can make the decisions
required of Détente Plus.
Second, these joint ventures must be given high visibility. Optics
are critical both to reestablish Russia’s status as a great power, and
for the United States to gain more restrained and cooperative Russian
behavior in return. Kremlin leaders are surely realistic enough to see
this trade-off and curb themselves. Until this mountaintop diplomacy
begins to produce, Western nations are fully justified in sustaining
sanctions and continuing to build a more credible military presence
eastward.
Third, Détente Plus has to progress on two fronts: maintaining the
basic integrity and independence of countries on Russia’s borders while
being attentive to Russian interests there; and fashioning joint action
on broader issues such as Middle East instability and terrorism.
Securing Russia’s restraint on its western borders requires both
political and economic dexterity. The cases of Georgia and Ukraine are a
master class in what not to do. As the Maidan protests unfolded in
Kiev, the White House should have been in regular top-level
conversations with Moscow. Of course, no American president can turn his
or her back on democratic movements anywhere. At the same time, it
makes no sense to ignore the interests of nearby and historically vested
great powers. But that’s precisely what Washington did in Georgia and
Ukraine. Their leaders reached out to the United States, which was fine.
Yet they ignored history and geography and assumed U.S. security
support that did not and could not materialize.
Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili challenged Moscow repeatedly,
in large part because private cautions from the George W. Bush
administration were contradicted by public encouragements. Saakashvili
brought out his meager armed forces, and Russia throttled them, taking
over two disputed provinces on their mutual border. Georgia was humbled,
and so was the United States. The only way to have avoided this was for
Bush to have told the Georgians from the beginning not to count on U.S.
intervention.
When a new pro-Western government came to power in Ukraine last year,
one of its first acts was to limit the use of Russian as an official
language. This and other anti-Russian noises were more than enough
pretext for Putin to initiate the present crisis. If anything, the Obama
team seemed to be egging Ukrainian nationalists and would-be democrats
on, when it should have been encouraging restraint. The White House
should have been warning Kiev to take away Moscow’s excuses for
intervention, like the ill treatment of Russian minorities.
Washington should have gone out of its way to urge caution and
restraint in both Georgia and Ukraine. The United States had to clarify
up front what it would and would not do. Most importantly, America
should have encouraged these nationalists not to gratuitously poke at
Russian sensibilities. And we must not forget Bush’s effort to bring
these two nations into NATO; Moscow certainly hadn’t. Russia needs and
deserves the requisite assurances about its historical sensibilities now
and in the future if it, too, demonstrates real restraint.
To be sensitive to Russian interests and urge caution among its
neighboring states is not to condemn them to living under Moscow’s
domination. Indeed, the truth is that recognizing Moscow’s interests in
the short run is the only way for the neighbor states to acquire more
freedom and independence from Russia over time.
Meanwhile, the West should think of states like Ukraine and Georgia
as buffer or bridge states and resist the urge to absorb them
politically or economically. Georgian leaders are already cooling it,
and their Ukrainian counterparts have to take a deep breath as well.
That means granting more autonomy to eastern Ukraine, which harbors many
ethnic Russians.
Dicier still is the security of the Baltic states. The challenge is
unique because of NATO’s Article 5 commitment to their defense. While
the Balts deserve protection, all parties recognize the uncomfortable
realities. Russia can prevail militarily, and NATO will never
contemplate forward deploying forces sufficient to stop the Russians.
Here, too, the burden has to fall on Détente Plus diplomacy. The Balts
hold tightly to their independence, but are trying not to aggravate
Moscow. It doesn’t take much to do so, which is all the more reason to
develop the Russian-American diplomatic partnership inherent to Détente
Plus. Neither side should want to test Article 5.
The economic dimension of Détente Plus is central to driving the
whole relationship. It’s got to account for Russian, Western and border
states’ interests. Alas, the European Union has demonstrated the wrong
way to proceed in the last two years. It essentially proposed to
incorporate the Ukrainian economy into Europe’s and leave Russia behind.
It pursued a Europe-win/Russia-lose approach rather than the win-win
policy argued for here. Obviously Moscow couldn’t accept this and turned
the competition to its strength—stirring up Russian speakers in eastern
Ukraine and sending in Russian arms and men.
The right way for the West to develop the economic dimension of
Détente Plus would be to include Russia in the earliest planning stages
as well as in the implementation process. So far Obama has done almost
the opposite. He has excluded Moscow from both European and Asian
free-trade negotiations, only compounding Russia’s doubts about its
ability to compete in a rules-based trade regime. Given Russia’s
increasing economic woes, Western leverage will depend heavily on
providing Russia with economic opportunities, which must be palpably
beneficial to Moscow. In any event, a Russian role would not have to be
concocted out of thin air: Russia is still a principal supplier of oil
and gas to Europe, Ukraine included.
Over time, this all-inclusive approach to developing the region
economically will redound mostly to the coffers of the West. European
economies are far more attractive and promising than Russia’s. Kremlin
leaders know this full well, which is why it is essential that Moscow be
part of the planning process and garner big and visible rewards. The
economic move west has to be slow enough for Moscow to feel comfortable
with the process and the timing. It goes without saying that Europe has
to be involved fully in Détente Plus, but mainly as a key player on the
economic front. U.S.-Russian ties have to be central.
Dealing with China is more complicated. The very fact of Détente Plus
will unnerve Beijing. Nothing can be done about that; indeed, it might
have a salubrious effect on China. Both Russia and the United States
worry about Chinese economic and military muscling, and it wouldn’t be
bad for Beijing to consider Moscow and Washington as a counterweight.
For the foreseeable future, Russia’s and America’s interests coincide
more with one another’s than with China’s.
To be sure, all of these calculations about Détente Plus have an
abstract quality. No matter the potency of the arguments for
cooperation, it will be very difficult for both sides to adopt a Détente
Plus strategy. Formidable segments of the policy communities on both
sides will not reconcile themselves to such a relationship. The American
right wing will never believe the Russians are negotiating in good
faith, and vice versa.
Since the early twentieth century, no country has so consistently
roiled Americans as has Russia. Apart from Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and the
Bolshoi Ballet, almost everything about Russia has inspired revulsion:
czarist dictatorship and the secret police, horrid anti-Jewish pogroms,
atheist totalitarianism, the Stalinist tyranny over Eastern Europe, and
now military force against its weaker, peaceful neighbors by a
Dracularized Vladimir Putin. Now, as ever, Americans seek to cure Russia
with democracy and fail to understand that societies have their own
special roots and must change from within. And most certainly, all these
American attitudes and moves drive Russian leaders insane.
Though the benefits of Détente Plus are so tangible, it’s hard to
imagine overcoming generations of mutual mistrust. It’s harder still
since realists in both capitals seem to be in short supply. But if there
is any one move that can relieve the flood of crises worldwide, it is
the reality of Washington and Moscow combining their powers. Détente
Plus could do this. Mounting Russian bad behavior in Ukraine and
elsewhere does not preclude this approach. It makes it essential.
Leslie H. Gelb is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, a former columnist for the New York Times,
and a former senior State and Defense Department official. He gives
special thanks to John T. Nelson, his research associate, for his
excellent research and expertise.
Image: kremlin.ruOriginal Link: http://nationalinterest.org/feature/russia-america-toward-new-detente-13077?page=show