#6
excerpt
Arms Control Today
October 2002
Explaining Mr. Putin: Russia's New Nuclear Diplomacy
By Andrew C. Kuchins
Andrew C. Kuchins is the director of the Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
[Full text: http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2002_10/kuchinsoct02.asp]

Since at least 1999, much of the arms control and Russia-watching communities repeatedly cautioned that U.S. plans to develop and deploy national missile defense would bring on the next “great train wreck” in U.S.-Russian relations (to say nothing of the nonproliferation regime). Some Russian analysts in 2000 and 2001 expressed concern that the one-two punch of killing the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and expanding NATO to include the Baltic states would strike such a blow to U.S.-Russian relations that it risked bringing on another Cold War and an arms race as well as a possible security alliance between Moscow and Beijing.

The Russians repeated over and over the mantra that the ABM Treaty was “the cornerstone of strategic stability” and, if the United States abandoned it, the entire architecture of arms control would unravel. Russian President Vladimir Putin, like his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, warned his American counterparts that U.S. unilateral action on the ABM Treaty would receive an “adequate response” from the Russian side—a warning that U.S. and Russian analysts often interpreted as including a variety of measures, such as withdrawing from the START regime; putting multiple warheads on the Topol-M ballistic missile; deepening strategic cooperation with China, Iran, and perhaps others; and pulling back from cooperative threat reduction efforts to secure Russian weapons and fissile materials.

Although some of these predictions may come to pass—in fact, it can be argued that some already have, with Moscow’s withdrawal from START II and its talk of increased cooperation with Iran, Iraq, and North Korea—it is clear that, at least in the short term, the reaction from the Russians has been much more positive than expected. With the ABM Treaty dead and NATO poised to invite the Baltic states to join its next round of expansion, U.S.-Russian relations and Russia’s ties with the West are arguably better than anytime since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin quietly critiqued the withdrawal from the ABM Treaty as a “mistake” rather than a catastrophe. Despite the withdrawal, he made it clear that he was committed to improving U.S.-Russian relations and supporting the counterterrorism campaign in Afghanistan. Now one may reasonably assert that U.S.-Russian relations have improved in spite of rather than because of Bush administration policies. The fact remains, however, that the Russians have behaved in a manner contrary to the predictions of most experts in the Russia-watching and arms control communities. As Ricky Ricardo often said in response to Lucy’s vexing antics, “You have a lot of ‘xplaining to do.”

The improvement in U.S.-Russian relations stands as one of the major positive developments from the shock to the international system brought on by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last September. It would have raised more than a few eyebrows a year ago to speculate that U.S.-Russian relations would be closer than any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union even after the United States had withdrawn from the ABM Treaty, supported NATO expansion to the Baltic states, established military bases in Central Asia, and sent military advisers to Georgia. September 11 and the decisions of the Putin administration to unconditionally support the United States have had a tremendously catalytic effect toward improving U.S.-Russian relations.

But was it just September 11 that so fundamentally altered the strategic environment from Putin’s perspective that his views on nuclear issues underwent a metamorphosis akin to that of biblical Saul on the road to Damascus? Or did Putin recognize that in Russia’s weakened condition there was little Russia could do in response to U.S. offensive and defensive nuclear strategy that would advance Russian interests? Or did Putin want to distract attention from his decision not to cut a deal with the Clinton administration that might have been more favorable to Russian interests, salvaging the ABM Treaty and generating a new START III agreement?

As is often the case in explaining complex phenomena, no single explanation is sufficient. To understand the response of the Putin administration to the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty we must account for September 11 and changing Russian foreign policy priorities, the post-Cold War structure of the international system, and—to the extent we can—the calculations of Putin in a domestic and foreign political context....

Conclusion

It has almost become conventional wisdom in analysis of Russian foreign and security policymaking that economic imperatives drive much of the decision-making. Whether the issues are energy development, arms sales, or nuclear policy, a lot of mileage can be gotten from an economically driven analysis. Just as the demands of economic modernization led Mikhail Gorbachev to undertake perestroika in the late 1980s, so much of Putin’s foreign policy program is both motivated and constrained by economic factors. But it would be a serious mistake to conclude that economics are the whole story and that politics do not matter in Russia today. Russia is hardly a perfect democracy, but we should not underestimate the importance of public opinion—and not just that of the elites.

Although building good relations with the West, including the United States, remain popularly supported goals in Russia, strengthening those ties at the expense of perceived excessive concessions of Russian national interests is not. For Putin, his high political ratings in Russia constitute essential political capital that he will ration very carefully. On the ABM Treaty, Putin calculated that he was best off letting the United States walk away from the treaty. Reaching a compromise with the Clinton administration or jointly withdrawing with the Bush administration would have been roundly criticized in Russia as kowtowing to the United States. Whether the issue is Kosovo, the ABM Treaty, or now Iraq, Putin can only go so far to accommodate U.S. interests lest he risk, fairly or unfairly, being viewed like Gorbachev, who was pilloried for making many concessions to the United States and getting little in return.

But Putin’s post-September 11 orientation has been reasonably well rewarded, and he can make a plausible argument that Russia is now getting from the West as good as it is giving. First, there is the nuclear arms treaty rather than a handshake. There is a new and potentially tighter institutional relationship between Russia and NATO. Russia has been recognized as a market economy by both the European Union and the United States—important steps in the World Trade Organization accession process. And in July, Russia was accepted as a full member of the G-8 beginning in 2006. Nuclear security is not unimportant, but it is not as important as economic recovery and development for Russia. Not only does Putin understand that his personal political future depends on the latter, but so does Russia’s return as an influential major power.

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