#6278
#10
Vek
No. 15
May 2002
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
RUSSIA-US: IS IT RAPPROCHEMENT OR A POLITICAL GAME?
By Dr. Alexei BOGATUROV (History), Professor
The policy of forming an informal union with the USA, which is the underlying element of Putin's diplomacy, engenders the naive admiration of some, the silent - so far - irritation of others and the consternation of the rest. In fact, all of them wonder what it is, an irreversible turn towards rapprochement or the diplomats of the two countries are just playing a very complicated game of keeping the peace without coming to an agreement.
The key to understanding the situation lies in the answer to the following question: How realistically and seriously do the USA and Russia regard the possibility of shifting their relations from a stage of non-confrontational existence (1991-2000) to a stage of systematic but informal allied relations, which can acquire the characteristics of a genuine union in the foreseeable future?
Russia's interest for rapprochement with the USA has clear-cut considerations. First, it is prestigious. Second, Russia needs US assistance on issues of economic development and full-scale and equitable involvement in international economic life. Third, it wants to use to its advantage the new US striving to shoulder the burden of military-political responsibility for the settlement of conflicts in the former Soviet Union, from Georgia to Tajikistan. And fourth and most delicate element is concerned with the radical solution of the problem of "the western rear," meaning the problem of the recurrence of the threat of attack from Europe, where the most destructive wars of conquest against Russia originated in the past 500 years. This is history, believe me.
Rear is also the key word for understanding the strategic motives of the USA. The September 2001 tragedy and the second Afghan war marked the line of the powerful political slide in international relations and in the system of US foreign policy tasks. For many long decades US strategists proceeded from the assumption that a conflict in Europe would be the most dangerous to US interests. And the possibility of such a conflict was mechanically linked with the threat of an exchange of blows with Moscow.
Today is has become clear, both hypothetically and practically, that the main source of a global conflict has moved from Europe to a region somewhere between the southern borders of Russia in the north, Ceylon in the south, the eastern borders of Turkey in the west and the western borders of China in the east. This region, which can be called Central Eurasia, is rich in oil and has a vast narcotics potential. Moreover, two nuclear powers - Pakistan and India - are quarrelling all the time there, giving a bad example to Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Israel and several other countries.
Besides, this region will supply energy resources to the Western economies, which pretend to have reached the post-industrial stage, which calls for the construction of a network of pipelines that must be reliably protected. This package of problems will harass our future, because they will constitute the key agenda of international negotiations in the new century. It is not surprising that the US foreign policy is feeling an increasing Asian, or rather, Eurasian influence.
This does not mean that the USA no longer needs Europe. Certainly not. For the USA has invested too many resources in it, US-European contacts are too close and mutually beneficial and the USA has irrevocably grown into NATO, which remains the key power instrument of the US international policy. This is true. But it is also true that Europe is retreating to the rear of the US policy, whose battlefront goal is to win control in Central Eurasia.
The USA now has a practical interest in Russia not as the world's only country with the potential of destroying the USA but as a geopolitically indispensable potential agent for settling the situation in the regions that are becoming vital for US aspirations. It is on this principle that the Bush administration is developing its policy with regard to Russia. It is based on a double task. One part of this task provides for continued efforts to lessen the Russian nuclear threat, including with the help of arms control agreements (this explains START-3). The other part of this task entails practical assistance to the involvement of Russia in the Western political partnership structures not as a jealous observer but as a participant, although a wilful one. First Russia became part of the G7 and now it was made a member of the NATO council of 20. In other words, there is logic, although not a selfless one in US actions.
But then, selflessness is not what matters. Russia is not guided by ideals alone; it is also trying to exploit its relations with the USA. This is the guiding rule of international politics. But we should decide if Washington is playing seriously or not. It looks serious and we should use this chance wisely.
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