#3
Moscow News
May 29-June 4, 2002
Triumph Still a Long Way Off
What lies behind the new stage of Russian-U.S. cooperation
By Stanislav Kondrashov

Not so long ago, but in a totally different historical era, I had occasion to witness, in November 1985, the first meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, at the Fleur dEau villa in Geneva. Thirty selected reporters from the two countries saw them shake hands, closely watched by their bodyguards, in the piercing wind blowing from the cheerless lake. That was the first gleam of the dawn of a new era, seen close to, just three yards away.

Politicians have since been holding one round of meetings after another, some of them fairly dramatic, until, sixteen and a half years later, George W. Bush, the upholder of the cause of Reagan, and of his own father, George Bush Sr., came to Moscow last week. Gorbachev and Yeltsin have already dropped out of big-time politics. Putin is, rather, a victim of historical inertia. It is easier to pursue a political course in Washington even though September 11 marked the beginning of a rough patch for George W.

Because of his Alzheimers disease, Ronnie, 90, does not remember what he has achieved. As for Bush Sr., in the summer of 1991, in Moscow, he and Gorbachev signed the START-I Treaty while in January 1993, two weeks before he was due to leave the White House, he signed the START-II Treaty - also in Moscow, but with Yeltsin, the next Kremlin occupant. In his trademark manner, Yeltsin told the world loud and clear that, unlike their predecessors, it had taken him and Bush not years, but days to prepare the treaty.

Thus Bush Jr. carried on the cause of his father, signing with Putin a more radical strategic offensive weapons reduction treaty. While proclaiming Russia a friend, Bush Jr. and his team reserve for the United States the right to store rather than dismantle its nuclear warheads although the verification system is to be dismantled: Do real friends distrust each other? Bush talks about Russian-American friendship forcefully and assertively whereas Putin shows a measure of implicit reservation. Emerging as very much the worse off from its friendship with the IMF under Clinton, Russia is not getting any obvious economic dividends under Bush, either. Given our condition, these would seem paramount. Incidentally, in a display of touching concern about freedom for chicken meat nicknamed "Bush legs" in Russia, the Democrats - Bush opponents in the U.S. Senate - once again blocked the elimination of the Jackson-Vanik amendment. Meanwhile, American dividends from a changing relationship with Russia are substantial: as sistance in the antiterrorist operation in Afghanistan and access for the Pentagon machine to the post-Soviet area in Central Asia and Transcaucasia.

Bush Jr. does not have the makings of a great strategist, but he had a rare if tragic piece of luck fall into his hands together with the New York twin towers that collapsed on September 11. Shaken (and encouraged), the Americans acquired more than just an enemy while their president acquired something more impressive than the role of the leader of an international antiterrorist coalition. Now the United States positions itself as not simply the sole superpower but as a world empire. Bush Jr. as a world emperor - this title that he got from multinational mass media is suggestive not only of ridicule but also of concern. Bin Laden has yet to be caught; al-Qaeda is underground; the Pentagon and the FBI declare the Statue of Liberty and the New York bridges the next likely targets for international terrorists. Before the U.S. presidents six-day European tour all of that worked toward the overriding political/psychological objective - to present the world order Americana as a fait accompli. That much was evident even from the vigorous protest demonstrations in Berlin on the eve of the Bush visit, and even from the tongue-in-cheek comments in the West European press.

There is a wide spectrum of opinion on this count in Russia. Judging by opinion polls, America in general and the Bush administration in particular are not exactly in favor, which is to a very large degree a product of the liberal/amateurish imitation of American models in the Yeltsin-Clinton era. Yet the entire sensible Russian public recognizes that America must be reckoned with, although there is a certain measure of extremism and even lobbyism here.

Here is what one of our well-known America watchers writes, for instance: "A great deal in the evolution of a new world order will hinge not on the leader (i.e., the United States. - S.K.), but on countries like Russia: If they find a way to bring about a rapprochement with the leader, becoming part of its system of interests, then the entire world order will become more stable; if not, it will be dominated by instability and unpredictability." The method? "Abandonment of outdated national traditions, narrow-minded stereotypes, and dubious values, and transition to other, more forward-looking traditions, stereotypes, and values." Its as easy as that: To fit into the superpowers "system of interests," Russia should become an America - a nation of immigrants with its ability to easily discard all things old - from sofas and vacuum cleaners to friends and traditions. Traditions are but a show of top models on the catwalk, strutting their stuff.

Russia's first essays in "self-negation," which extended for nearly a decade, have disappointed both sides. Now Washington, under the pressure of circumstances, would like to make Russia a different kind of friend than what Moscow offered under Clinton. The American dividend from this new friendship is thus far more obvious than the Russian one.

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