Boston Globe - 05.23.2002

The Boston Globe

Summit Pragmatism

THE THREE-DAY summit between President Bush and Russia's President Vladimir Putin beginning today in Moscow will be successful if it illustrates the virtues of normal dialogue between two countries working out the terms for increasing cooperation.

The treaty that the two men will be signing to reduce strategic nuclear weapons from 5,000 or 6,000 to between 1,700 and 2,200 is receiving headlines, but the reductions are less than the Russians want and less than Americans can easily afford to make. In acceding to this US-imposed version of arms control, Putin is doing what he has done with other potential causes of conflict with Washington: making a virtue of necessity.

This is the crux of Putin's pragmatism. He is not a leader who allows himself to misjudge the cards he has to play. Since budgetary constraints and the sorry state of the Russian Army mean that Putin can do very little to alter Bush's plans for missile defense or NATO expansion, Putin cuts the best deal Moscow's weakness permits him and then seeks to change the subject to areas of crucial interest for contemporary Russia.

Bush will need to calibrate carefully his use of American leverage. The trick is to exercise that leverage on issues that really matter, such as Russian sales of nuclear power plants and missile technology to the theocratic hardliners who rule Iran, but to be as cooperative as possible on agenda items such as the Kremlin's ambition to join the World Trade Organization.

To qualify for the WTO, Russia must make many substantive reforms - in its banking system, its implementation of commercial contract law, and its practice of giving energy subsidies to inefficient industries. Since it will be several years before these changes are in place, Bush's overt backing for Russian admission into the WTO costs America nothing for now, while it demonstrates to Russians that the path of Putin's pragmatism need not be a one-way street.

More immediate is Russia's pronounced wish to receive Western private investment. There is only so much Bush can say on this issue. He cannot oblige US or European firms to make risky business decisions. The Russian economic recovery that is underway has to be reinforced with more reliable guarantees against arbitrary bureaucratic actions, erratic taxation, and mafia extortion. But Bush can assure Russians that Americans understand the difficulties of their transition and will do their utmost to help them become a prosperous people living in a stable nation.

Bush need not approve of Putin's penchant for using his security services to silence opposition, but Bush does need to show Russians that Putin's pragmatism will benefit them.