I arrived in Moscow from Washington highly optimistic, a day after
the vigorous, historic handshake between President Medvedev and
President Obama in London. I left—after visits with officials and
colleagues—more than a bit concerned. My optimism was not based on such
cheerful gestures as pushing reset buttons, although such tone-setting
steps have their place. I believed that a major deal between the two
countries could be made, one based not on identical or even
complementary interests of Russia and the United States—but one that
would build on profound differences in saliency.
Allow me to explain. When Party A has some things that Party B deeply
desires but Party A does not care much about—and Party B has some
things Party A keenly wants but Party B is not much invested in, a
mother of all deals is plausible. The fact that this notion has some
legs became clear when the Obama Administration, which is far from
invested in building a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech
Republic while Russia is rather troubled by it, offered (in effect) to
trade it in. That is, exchange it for Russia’s help in encouraging Iran
to give up on its nuclear arming program. As the US sees it, an Iran
with nuclear bombs would gravely endanger America’s allies (not just
Israel but also Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan) if not the United
States itself; that is, Iran’s nuclear program is highly salient for
the US, but Russia seems not to have a great stake in a nuclear armed
Iran, to put it mildly.
In addition, it seemed that another such exchange could be built into
the mother of all deals: The Obama Administration’s interest in
expanding the membership of NATO in the foreseeable future is far from
salient, while this issue matters a great deal to Russia. At the same
time, the United States is much interested in accelerating the
Nunn-Lugar programs that aim to neutralize fissile material from which
terrorists can make nuclear bombs and further improve the security of
tactical nuclear arms, matters which Russia has little reason to
oppose. Voila, the conditions of a major deal seem to be in place.
Why did I leave less optimistic, much less optimistic? Both sides seem
to have decided to pile on a large number of additional items, some of
which have a rather different profile of needs and interests than those
mentioned above, including items that gravely concern both sides,
especially the quantity and quality of nuclear arms to be maintained.
In addition, Russia seems keenly interested in changes in trade and
economic policy, such as the additional opening of American markets to
Russian products and membership in the WTO and OECD, issues that are
particularly difficult to deal with currently given the recent tendency
to increase rather than lower national barriers to trade. Half a dozen
additional items have been raised, ranging from the incentives Russia
seems to have provided to Kyrgyzstan which led it to move to close a
major supply line for American troops in Afghanistan to helping Russia
secure its “territorial integrity”. (Still other points were raised in
a recent editorial by President Medvedev in the Washington Post.)
The escalation of ambitions and expectations are by no means one-sided.
President Obama’s trademark is thinking big and moving on many fronts
at once. Up to a point, one cannot but admire such a drive not just to
remake the United States internally, but also to build a new global
architecture, with a partnership with Russia as a key element. However,
such ambitions become problematic when they pay little mind to matters
of relative saliency and respective pace.
Thus, it is rather obvious that the more items that are thrown into the
mix, the more complex the negotiations will become and the less likely
they are to succeed, especially as they involve items of similar rather
than different saliency. Even more detrimental is the fact that some of
these processes and policies have internal clocks that run at very
different speeds.
This is especially true when one considers Iran’s nuclear arming
program, which may well cross a red-line within a year, while matters
of trade or even those concerning the conflict in Afghanistan have a
significantly longer trajectory. It would be much better to focus first
on those items that have hard and short deadlines rather than mixing
them up with those that do not. Finally, all items that require action
by the US Senate—such as approving treaties or changing laws (e.g.,
Jackson-Vanik)—must be assumed to face a slow journey, even given the
Democratic majority.
I have not lost faith in the dawning of a new era in the Russian-American relationship. I am especially encouraged to find mountains of goodwill (mixed with some residue of feelings of distrust). I just hope that matters that need to be and can be settled in short order will not be undermined by those that cannot and those that must be allowed time to be worked out.
Comments