#2
Izvestia
April 11, 2003
Putin's Choice: Popularity or a Place in History
By Nikolai Zlobin

Nikolai Zlobin is the Director of Russian and Asian Programs at the Center for Defense Information in Washington DC.

Only a month ago, Russia had the opportunity to become a full-fledged member of the anti-Iraq coalition, and then it could have just sat back and waited for the economic and political dividends of a post-Saddam world to roll in. What did Russia have to lose? The US did not ask for Russian soldiers, Russian airfields, or Russia's financial assistance. They asked only for political support, the very thing that Moscow has nearly always received from Washington at the drop of a hat over the past ten years. When Washington finally asked for reciprocation, Kremlin didn't simply refuse to cooperate, like China, but also took an actively antagonistic position, directly blaming Washington for destabilizing the global order, enflaming the embers of an anti-American campaign in the Russian media, and allowing itself to become a tool of French foreign policy ambitions.

The Russian president's declaration that Russia has no interest in an American defeat only worsened the situation. The announcement coincided with news that a recent poll had shown that 58% of Russians supported Iraq in the conflict, and only 3% supported the US - an even smaller number than in Arab countries. These figures, as well as the choice of words: "Russia has no interest in an American defeat," left an unfavorable impression in Washington. The public opinion here is that by taking a stance hostile to the US and expressing solidarity with the anti-American forces in Russia, Putin has shot himself in the foot, sacrificing the country's long-term national interests for his own popularity. Even the recent downturn in the anti-American hysteria is not likely to change the situation.

For the White House, this is an unpleasant and unexpected surprise. Russia has exposed its fickleness as a strategic partner, as well as some not-quite-dead ambitions of a former superpower. "Friend George" took offense to "Friend Vlad" and the incipient breakthrough in our relations, which was based almost entirely on the sympathy and trust between the two presidents, has failed to emerge. Will Moscow gain from this? One shouldn't overestimate the size of the headache this has given Washington - it has already gotten over it. But the amount of damage that Russia has wrought on itself is incomparably larger.

Only recently it seemed that the Russian elite was on the brink of an intellectual breakthrough. But instead the president comes out with an idea, fantastic in its naivete, to return the Iraq issue to the UN Security Council, where it has been stagnating for the past 12 years. Pro-Western Moscow intellectuals discourse on how if Russia is to ally with America, Russia should be the head while America should be the fist and the bankbook. Others want Russia to take a middle stance between Europe, Asia, and the US, to be equidistant to the great world powers. It's not clear why the powers need such a middleman - and if they do need one, why would they turn to Moscow, which is notorious for being unable to reach compromises in foreign relations?

Washington is none too eager to extend Russia a hand and pull it out of the situation it has created for itself. Bush has no policy toward Russia, and it's unlikely to appear anytime soon. He has different priorities; it is no longer 1991, and you cannot expect the administration to drop everything and begin developing a new doctrine of Russian-American relations. Now it has become clear that Moscow has no such doctrine either. This is much worse, for Moscow needs one a lot more than the US does.

Today Putin is facing a difficult situation of overcoming the consequences of what was probably his only serious foreign policy mistake. Moscow has not yet declared the degree of its disagreement with Washington or their outlook on the strategic partnership. This must be done as soon as possible, in action as well as in word. It is unclear how the Kremlin sees this partnership and what, in its view, constitutes the form and content of the relations between the two countries. The recent fiasco in the Security Council as well as the war in Iraq have placed new choices before the international community. Russia was, in essence, against the Bush doctrine, but it is unclear how far it wants to move in that direction.

Russia needs clear positions on the ideas for the new world order, ideas that are today being incubated in the White House. At the same time, the Kremlin should not become a hostage of the political struggle among the various factions in the Bush administration. These are questions more serious than the fate of Russian oil contracts with Iraq. These are questions of Russia's place in the new world order, and the new system of global security that will replace the one of the past half-century. The main issue is how Russia, whether allied with the US or not, can take a position in the world that would be most beneficial to itself, and secure strategic safeguards for its interests. From Washington, it seems the solution is obvious. For Vladimir Putin himself, this is less a question of his political future than of his place in the history books.

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