#6036
[Second Issue of the Day]
#6
Novaya Gazeta
No. 4
January 21-23, 2002
FROM ELECTING PUTIN TO PUTIN'S CHOICE: WHO SUPPORTS HIM
About Putin's decision to change the course of Russia's foreign policy
Author: Alexander Mineev
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
PUTIN'S INITIATIVE TO MAKE RUSSIA'S FOREIGN POLICY PRO-WESTERN HAS GENERATED RUMORS IN POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CIRCLES ABROAD. OPINIONS HAVE BEEN DIVIDED, AS USUAL. SO IS PUTIN'S INITIATIVE A STRATEGIC MOVE OR A NEW TREND IN RUSSIA'S FOREIGN POLICY?
While President Putin was confirming that his new foreign policy is aimed at expanding cooperation with the West, the leading analysts in the West were arguing in Brussels, where a forum on security issues took place.
How stable is this course, and how stable is the decision Vladimir Putin made on September 11? What is the decision based on, and might a new, impulsive turn be expected one day?
Many European governments are afraid that another sweeping turn in the anti-Western direction may occur in Russia's foreign policy, and are calculating the possible political aftermath of their steps to meet Moscow's initiatives, Stephen de Spiegeleire, director of RAND's Center for Russia and Eurasia said.
On the other hand, a support of the pro-Western policy inside Russia depends on the mutuality of the West. An ambivalent understanding of Russia's development prevails in the West. There are reassuring signals from economic and legal spheres, but a new centralization of the power, unscrupulous methods of waging warfare in Chechnya, infringement on the freedom of the press are on the other scale. Even though the West has temporarily disregarded some aspects in response to Russia's friendly effort, it would not last for long. And the first signs of it are evident already.
Some participants of the forum skeptically considered that supporting of the anti-terrorist coalition by Putin was nothing more but a tactical maneuver. However, the majority of forum participants tended to believe that it was a considered strategic decision. In the opinion of Dmitry Trenin of the Moscow Carnegie Center, the decision was based on fundamental interests of Putin: to choose the Western, but not the Stalin's variant of modernizing Russia.
Angela Stent, Director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies of the Georgetown University was trying to perceive, what exactly circles of Russia's political establishment are backing this policy and guarantee its steadiness. However, in the US both the "circles" and the "establishment" shape and secure the policy, and the policy is slightly changed when a new president comes to power.
In the case of Russia the whole point is that the strategic decision is not yet a strategy.
A course in foreign policy taken on September 11 is only the choice of the president, his sole decision, caused by defectiveness of the democratic system in Russia. A manifestation of authoritarianism, one might say. Therefore Putin's personal popularity in the country and consistency in his actions can be the only guarantee.
Russia's relationship with the West and its European policy is an internal, rather than an external problem.
In response to Putin's impulsive decision, the Western leaders offered similar impetuous initiatives, summoned to accelerate Russia's involvement in the democratic family. These initiatives are reduced to establishment of new institutions and structures, in which Russia would immediately be given the role of an influential partner and ally. There is also Blair's initiative of establishing a NATO-20, and Chiraq's proposal of the European Security Council.
However, as some participants of the Brussels' forum rightly noted, institutional framework is always of secondary significance.
Have the bad institutions ever impeded strengthening confidence between Russia and the EU, Russia and NATO? Has the Partnership and Cooperation agreement with the EU exhausted itself? Is the NATO-20 likely to resolve the problem of relations between NATO and Russia easier than the Permanent Joint Council, in which Russia formally has, by the way, 50% of the vote instead of 5%? The imperfection is about the contents of the institutions' work, rather than in their quantity. More exactly, the drawback is about the lack of mutual wish, which should reveal itself.
There is shortage for people in the milieu of Russia's bureaucratic and security structures, who would really share liberal values and to which the declared policy of closing in with the West is appealing. We need a real bureaucratic revolution, an inflow of new blood, an appearance of a new generation of diplomats and generals to replace the current ones, who are mainly raised up in conformity with the standards of the Soviet Union.
(Translated by Andrei Ryabochkin)
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