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Since the near collapse of U.S.-Chinese relations in the spring over the EP-3E spy plane, Moscow has found itself in a pleasant position, courted intensely by both the American and Chinese governments. Russia has become the vital swing player in a global game of three-player poker.
Donald Rumsfeld’s trip to Moscow is part of an unfolding American gambit, ironically couched in the bid to develop a missile defense. To build a National Missile Defense, the Bush administration must blunt Russian criticism; opinion in European capitals and Beijing depends on this. And so the Bush administration is signaling that it may scrap large numbers of U.S. nuclear weapons, lowering the implied threat to Russia.
The Russians are listening. The Russian government will issue a political response to NMD, not a military one. Such a scenario would free Moscow from spending on its own massive and aging nuclear forces. The Putin government is playing along but has more immediate concerns. Moscow still wants the United States out of the Balkans, an end to NATO’s eastward expansion, economic aid and a return of Russian influence over Central Asia, the Baltics and the Caucasus. The American gambit will probably fail, at least for now.
Russia has made the most of its situation, balancing delicately between the Chinese and American governments, signing a treaty with Beijing here, flirting with Washington there.
Russia has three goals. First, it wants to prevent the other two powers from uniting. Second, Moscow wants to prevent any one power – the United States, namely – from becoming so powerful that the game ends. Last, the Russian government wants to extract maximum advantage, concessions and solicitous concern from both the Americans and Chinese, without ever closing the door to either.
So after a cordial summit with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, President Vladimir Putin went to Genoa where he met with U.S. President George W. Bush. Concerned over the warming of the Sino-Russian relationship, Bush worked hard to persuade Putin that Russia’s interests lie with the United States. Putin knew this because he needs Western, including American, investment.
Yet the Russian leader also knows that there will be no investment under the current economic circumstances. And so, Putin is just as interested in territory. In Genoa, Putin clearly indicated that he wants the United States to recognize a Russian sphere of influence over the former Soviet Union and as far away as the Balkans and the Baltics. If he couldn’t get money, he would settle for the geography.
Washington cannot formally recognize Russian political rights over the former Soviet Union. The whiff of an implied recognition would spark serious problems with allies from Central Asia to Western Europe.
Instead, the Bush administration seems to be dangling a different enticement so the Putin government will end its flirtation with China. That began to unfold in Washington last week, when Russian and American delegations met in preparation for this week’s trip to Moscow by Rumsfeld and Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The United States appears to be offering the Russians a new arms deal. The Bush administration is framing these proposals as dramatic initiatives that would probably relieve some of the implied threat of attack by U.S. nuclear forces. Rumsfeld was quoted as saying the United States is pursuing a new strategic relationship not premised “on fear as to the possibility of attack.”
Washington’s signals couldn’t be more loud and clear. Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, the Pentagon spokesman, said the Moscow trip is “the first of many such talks that would describe a totally different kind of relationship between the United States and Russia, one not based on outdated Cold War thinking, but one that reflects the very different relationship that we can and we hope we should have with Russia in the years ahead.” National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said, “I am hopeful there can be a new day with Russia. We are talking about a bigger issue than what we do about missile defenses and strategic weapons.”
Unable to recognize political claims or deliver billions in economic aid, Washington is trying to position a reform of the existing arms control regime as a dramatic transformation of relations between the United States and Russia. The Russians are listening and open to this, so long as it is the preface to more substance.
Both sides can gain. Washington gets rid of missiles it doesn’t want anyway. The Russians accept the changes in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, paving the way for NMD. The Russians can spend less on their strategic weapons and more on the conventional forces needed to control the Russian near abroad. The whole package redefines U.S.-Russian relations.
But the Putin government probably suspects the American initiative. Embedded in the American offer is NMD, and around NMD are other elements such as increasing U.S. power in space, restructuring U.S. power projection capabilities and developing new generations of weapons. This policy faces two challenges. First, the current force structure must change, shifting resources from the U.S. Strategic Command to the Space Command. Second, the arms control regime that limits missile and space defenses would have to change.
The Russians are happy to play along, but if this is all the Americans are offering, the deal won’t fly. Unless this is the opening of an overture that includes billions in economic aid or recognition of a larger Russian sphere, the American offer is only the thing that Russians would have wanted in the 1970s and 1980s, not in 2001.
Most likely, Moscow will see an accommodation to changing military technologies and strategies, but not a fundamental redefinition of U.S.-Russian relations. Putin himself seems more interested in U.S. forces leaving the Balkans, an end to NATO creeping eastward and a recognition of Russian influence in Central Asia, the Baltics and the Caucasus. ABM treaties are interesting, but a $20 billion line of credit – on favorable terms – is much more interesting.
Watching Putin work is fascinating. Soviet leaders used to wield enormous power with extraordinary clumsiness. Putin has much less power but displays extraordinary skill. He has forced the United States and China to pay court to what is, after all, a geopolitical and economic cripple.
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