#7
French Daily Analyzes Russia, US Relations in Aftermath of 11 Sep

Paris' Le Monde
2-3 December 2001
[translation for personal use only]
Commentary by Jan Krauze: "With Washington's Blessing"

Russia still has a few aspirations. The game is to accept those things that it cannot oppose while obtaining substantial advantages.

This was undoubtedly the strangest moment in Vladimir Putin's visit to Washington. A Russian journalist got up during the ritual White House press conference and pointed out to George Bush that since 11 September the American administration seems to have understood the merits of Russia's approach on matters of information. In other words, some limits must be placed on press freedom. Vladimir Putin seized on the occasion to give his audience a lesson in professional ethics.

Mr. Bush, seeming to have felt this was a trap, got out of it rather well by making a joke along the lines of: no, the American press is beyond redemption and I gave up long ago trying to discipline it.... All the same, during a brief moment, there was a kind of unease. It is one thing for the United States and Russia to agree on more or less everything in the name of the holy alliance against terrorism but it is pushing things just a little too far to try to compare the home of the New York Times with the country where certain services, at Kremlin prompting, have diminished the independent media one by one.

The incident - or rather the impropriety - was quickly forgotten. And it does not change any of the essentials. Never have relations between the two countries appeared this excellent. The "convergence" that zealots of d?tente used to chant in the past has now become a reality. Of course, Americans did not just start wishing yesterday to see the Russians in a more favorable light. And the Russians have been working on charming the Americans for ages - almost fifteen years. Long before Putin, there was Gorbachev who achieved a few triumphs in tidal waves of "gorbymania" in Washington and New York. Boris Yeltsin did almost as well by taking off his jacket, straining to make jokes and making crude attempts at some dance steps. In his own way, each one had arguments that were far stronger than Vladimir Putin now does. They were warm and media friendly. They broke taboos and aroused or embraced their country's revolutionary metamorphosis. However, neither one nor the other obtained either from Ronald Reagan or George Bush any outpouring of friendship (on the part of the White House because the American public is henceforth interested in other things). Bush junior put his complete trust on Putin after having looked "deep down in his soul". The decisive moment, the one of the first inspiration goes back to the Ljubljana summit this summer. But the warmth was not in any way diminished in Washington and at the Crawford presidential ranch. So much so that Mr. Bush asserted that on the issue of strategic arms limitations, a "handshake" was worth a great deal more than a treaty. Mr. Putin, who had maintained a certain distance in Ljubljana, even showing through his knowledge of the issues a discreet intellectual superiority over the American president, this time piled it on in the "popular" style - good jokes and good feelings - that are George W. Bush's strong point.

He even outdid his host on his own field when speaking to pupils at a school in Texas.

Is the anointing of Putin's Russia based on an act of faith or on the calculation of interests? It cannot be excluded that George Bush deeply believes in the "sincerity" of his interlocutor. In her latest book (a biography of Ronald Reagan), journalist Peggy Noonan tells the story the current president told her about his first conversation with Putin. Mr. Bush seems to have been especially moved to learn that Mr. Putin's mother had been given a cross and it had survived a house fire. He also learned that Mr. Putin was very attached to the cross and therefore probably believed, as he does, in the existence of a "superior power".

All feelings aside, the "bet on Russia", to use the expression used by Richard Perle, a republican theoretician, seems to be the outcome of a rationale that dates for the most part from before the events of 11 September. This [rationale] has the imprint of Condoleezza Rice, who is an expert on the USSR and the president's national security adviser. The point of departure seems to be that a weakened Russia should not be treated as an equal as was the case with the USSR. Therefore, it is out of the question to ask its consent on decisions that are in America's greater interest and which will in any event be made. This applies in particular to anti-missile defenses (and therefore to the inevitable rejection the ABM treaty over time) as well as the reduction of strategic weapons, which will no longer be an issue for discussion on an equal footing. Rather, this was the subject of a unilateral announcement on the part of George Bush. It is up to Vladimir Putin to fall into step.

At the same time, in order to get Russia to swallow the pill or if we prefer to hide Russia's loss of status as a real superpower, America has offered it external signs of its highest consideration, a place with the European Union at the top ranking of its "friends". It is also adorning its president with all the qualities.

This is an asymmetric approach where the appearances are not really equal to the reality of American supremacy. But Vladimir Putin's Russia has accepted this deal, perhaps because it does not have a better option. It did not do so immediately and without first dragging its feet a little, especially about the ABM treaty, which it is still trying to defend a few scraps. However, when the occasion presented itself on 11 September to justify the trust Mr. Bush had publicly placed on him, Vladimir jumped with both feet. He was first - at least that is what is said in Washington - to call President Bush and he fully accepted the American position on fighting terrorism as his own. Moreover, even though he may have been put before a fait accompli, he did not give the impression of impeding plans for deploying American forces in former soviet central Asia in any way. Was he at the same time taking a risk with Russian public opinion, laying himself open to criticism of weakness and even of aligning himself with the United States? "Russia is beginning to understand that it has no choice other than to slide over toward the West," reckons Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's former national security adviser. And "Putin is playing very well with a weak hand". The game apparently consists of accepting those things that in any event cannot be blocked, while obtaining compensation that in some cases may be very substantial.

The most obvious benefit Mr. Putin obtains from the universal war on terrorism is that it allows him to put the Chechen insurgents and Bin Ladin in the same bag. In the meantime, he has accepted the beginnings of negotiations that we still do not know whether they are just a pure formality or not. But his obvious goodwill after 11 September could also help him achieve one of the Soviet Union's and later Russia's very old diplomatic goals: change the nature of NATO. Instead of uselessly opposing its enlargement to include the Baltic states as he and his predecessors have done until now, he has chosen to take the opportunity that has been graciously offered by the allies and especially by Secretary-General George Robertson. NATO loses its teeth with Russia being treated as a major partner participating in the organization's decision making process - to the point that it exercises kind of de facto veto power. Instead it will resemble more or less what Moscow has been trying to make it into for a long time: a kind of OSCE, an organization for security in Europe.

This "bet", being made by the Russians this time, has not exactly been won. But there are other occasions for the Kremlin to show that it still has some aspirations. Moscow still knows how to surprise even if it has been promoted, or rather demoted, to the rank of a friend of the United States. The sudden arrival of a Russian detachment in the very center of Kabul, while the British are patiently waiting in Bagram, the French are moping around in Uzbekistan and the Americans are chasing Bin Ladin in the south, confirms if need be that the Russians are not out of the "game". It [shows] that its diplomats, generals and KGB colonels were not born yesterday and their experts perhaps know the United States just as well as Condoleezza Rice knows Russia.

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