Washington Post - 12.25.2002

The Washington Post

. . . Russia's Values 

By Masha Lipman

MOSCOW -- Iraq has announced that it will abrogate its contract with one of Russia's biggest oil companies, Lukoil. This unfriendly act may be explained by Lukoil's activities in the United States: For some time now, the company has been working to make sure that it will retain its position in Iraq after Saddam Hussein's regime is gone.

Russia's oil interests in Iraq and Iraq's $7 billion debt to Russia are the two major factors underlying Russian reluctance to support U.S. efforts against Saddam Hussein. But apparently President Vladimir Putin has realized that his country has nothing to gain by resisting the United States -- certainly not after fellow Security Council member France, another country with huge oil interests in Iraq, chose to support the U.N. resolution. In any event, Putin, and the Russian establishment for that matter, don't express much concern about impending U.S. operations in Iraq.

Russia has come a long way since Sept. 11, 2001. That was when Putin set the country's foreign policy firmly on the path toward the West. His choice caused strong discontent among the country's defense and foreign-policy hawks, but Putin stuck to it.

Back in fall 2001, some of Russia's highest-ranking officials might have denied the possibility of American deployment in Central Asia. Putin made it clear that he did not object to such action. He then moved to close down long-established Soviet military bases in Vietnam and Cuba. Passionate public indignation followed, but it had no effect. Likewise, the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty gave rise to an angry reaction from Russian conservatives. But the complainers got not so much as an approving nod from the Kremlin, and the outburst gradually subsided. In each case, Putin made it clear that while he might not like the U.S. initiative, he was not about to make a lot of rhetorical noise about it or attempt to counter it.

Putin's firm, though by no means confrontational, stand and his high ratings in the polls have succeeded in muffling critics of his pro-Western policies. The Communist constituencies may still find anti-Western rhetoric attractive, and Communist politicians are always ready to deliver, but they are becoming less and less relevant for Russian policymakers.

By the time of the recent NATO enlargement, anti-Western energy in Russia was all but gone. The prospect of having NATO on the borders of Russia, which in 1995 cost President Boris Yeltsin long months of fierce struggle against his political opponents -- and as recently as a year ago evoked outrage from Russian conservatives -- was accepted with indifference when it was actually realized last month. President Bush's mid-December announcement that the Pentagon would soon field a limited missile defense system was barely noticed.

Putin's approach is apparently based on the understanding that without integration with the West, Russia will never make it out of its dire economic situation. The day before the NATO summit in Prague last month, Putin's loyal foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, summarized the president's pro-Western and pro-American foreign policy in a newspaper article. "A blow on the American economy is a blow on the economy of all other countries," Ivanov wrote. He added that Russia and many leading countries "have values in common and have tremendous potential for mutual understanding."

The Russian people may not share their leader's determination to integrate with the West, but as Russia's claims to world dominance fade, they tend to be less and less interested in faraway conflicts. Whether the question is Arab-Israeli turmoil or the forthcoming U.S. action against Iraq, the majority avoids taking sides and is all for Russia's just staying away from any war that is not its own. In a 21/2 hour television Q and A with the public Dec. 19, Putin was not asked about Iraq. (In fact, not a single question was asked about foreign policy. Of course, there is no way of knowing whether this was the result of careful selection of questions by the Kremlin or a genuine lack of interest.) Governments of some Arab countries may refuse to support America for fear of public outrage. Putin has more freedom. Because people in his country are generally passive and indifferent, he can proceed with his pro-Western foreign policy without much regard for public opinion. To be sure, one small but influential Russian constituency is deeply concerned about an American attack on Iraq. It is made up of Russian petroleum companies, such as Lukoil. To them the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime might mean big economic losses. But for now they seem to have made their choice: As they look for ways to secure their presence in Iraq, they have turned to America. Iraq's recent action on the Lukoil contract makes their choice much easier.

There remains one big problem with Putin's Western tilt, however: It has little to do with the values that Ivanov mentioned in his article as being common to the world's leading nations. Under Putin's guidance, with the Chechen war having gone on for three years and a self-serving bureaucracy suppressing various institutions, Russia's fragile democracy and liberal freedoms are in fact seriously jeopardized, even as its foreign policy hews to a pro-Western line.

The writer, deputy editor of the Russian newsmagazine Ezhenedel'ny Zhurnal, writes a monthly column for The Post.