Washington Post - 07.29.2001

 

The Washington Post

Talking to Russia

THE BUSH administration appears to have made significant progress in the last week toward winning Russian agreement to a "new strategic framework" on offensive and defensive weapons. Depending on the shape it takes, such an accord could be an important achievement for U.S. and global security. It could ratify a major reduction in the number of offensive nuclear weapons maintained by the United States and Russia; and it could go a long way toward ensuring that U.S. development and testing of missile defense systems in the next few years does not touch off an arms race or destabilize international relations -- though more diplomacy would still be needed with China.

Still, there is a worrying thinness to President Bush's engagement with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It can be seen in the haste with which the administration is proceeding, and its continual threats to act unilaterally if agreement is not reached quickly; in its insistence that the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty be discarded and not replaced with any other such binding accord; and in its exaggerated rhetoric about the virtues of Mr. Putin and the commonality of Russian and American interests. Most troubling of all is the fading from the public agenda of issues that should be central to the U.S.-Russian relationship. Since first meeting Mr. Putin six weeks ago, Mr. Bush has had next to nothing to say about the war in Chechnya, press freedom or the development of Russian democracy. Some efforts to work with Mr. Putin on these issues are underway behind the scenes. Still, there is a risk that the net result of the administration's strategy will be not a partnership but a disengagement with Russia. That could release the United States from any constraint from Moscow over the development of missile defenses, but also de-energize U.S. efforts to push Russia toward a full embrace of democracy and human rights.

In strategic terms, some disengagement is no doubt justified. Administration officials rightly argue that the prospect of a conflict leading to a nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States is now far more remote than during the Cold War -- and so rigid treaties establishing an exact balance of warheads between the two powers are no longer central to global stability. But some administration officials have stretched that logic to argue that the strategic balance between the two countries is now irrelevant -- that Russia has no more cause to worry about the U.S. nuclear arsenal than Britain or France. Any agreements between the two countries, they say, need be no more formal than the defense planning talks between allies.

That's not a realistic view. In fact, Russia and the United States continue to compete for economic and political influence in key parts of the world, such as Eastern Europe and the oil-producing states of the Caucuses, and Russia is still giving support to several enemies of the United States, including Iraq and Iran. The possibility that a serious confrontation could flare in one of these areas during the next decade or so is no more unlikely than that a rogue government will manage to put a nuclear weapon atop an intercontinental missile and make the suicidal decision to fire it at the United States. For that reason, the U.S.-Russian strategic balance -- if not the Cold War's "mutually assured destruction" -- does still matter. By arguing that it doesn't -- and heaping praise, pomp and circumstance on Mr. Putin -- the Bush administration sometimes seems to be trying to get Russia to give up any attempt to regulate the shift in the balance that missile defense and unequal reductions in offensive arms will create -- a shift that will be decidedly, if not yet decisively, in favor of the United States.

The administration would do better to codify a new understanding with Moscow in some substantial way, if not by treaty, with verification measures that will provide a basis for trust between the two countries extending beyond the personal relationship of Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin. Moreover, if the president's goal is really to transform the U.S.-Russian relationship -- and not just clear the way for missile defense -- much more emphasis must be given to fostering democracy in Russia. Though he may be open to a strategic deal, the fact remains that Mr. Putin has been leading his country away from democratic norms -- a trend that if continued will ultimately undermine any security framework not governed by treaty. Mr. Bush must demonstrate that press freedom, Chechnya and other human rights issues are more than boilerplate footnotes to be mentioned only in private. He should make clear to Mr. Putin that they really matter -- often, and in public.