Mother of all deals- II

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.