In Praise of the Transactional – the Case Against a Strategic Russian-Western Partnership

File Photo of Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama Seated Before Russian and U.S. Flags

Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014
From: Kirk Bennett <kirkbennett7@yahoo.com>
Subject: In Praise of the Transactional ­ — the Case Against a Strategic Russian-Western Partnership

In Praise of the Transactional ­ — the Case Against a Strategic Russian-Western Partnership
By Kirk Bennett, U.S. Department of State, retired. The opinions expressed are his own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. government.

Since the November 6 U.S. elections, Russian figures as diverse as Aleksey Pushkov, Andrey Piontkovskiy, Nikolay Zlobin, Gleb Pavlovskiy, Viktor Kremenyuk, Boris Nemtsov and Giorgiy Bovt have joined in a funerary lament over the U.S.-Russia reset. Some argue that it succeeded in picking the low-hanging fruit but has now exhausted its potential; others sniff that it never really amounted to much in the first place. Against this backdrop, the reported assertion of Federation Council Deputy Speaker Aleksandr Torshin that “the U.S.A. and Russia will continue to remain strategic partners” sounds either recklessly optimistic or hopelessly naïve.

Indeed, a broad spectrum of Russians contemptuously rejects the notion of Russia integrated as a “junior partner” into the West. Russia has risen from its knees, they assert, and no longer needs Western aid or lectures. It will not play second fiddle in someone else’s alliance, but stand as a strong and independent pole in a multi-polar world. As Russian foreign-policy expert Fyodor Lukyanov put it, “We will resolve our problems on our own, and you will have to deal with Russia as it is today and on an equal footing.”

That’s not how it was supposed to be. A variety of Western policies and approaches since 1991 were intended to “integrate” Russia and make it a partner to the West.

Many of these efforts have been economic, yet even when they have succeeded economically, they have not generated the desired broader strategic partnership. The energy symbiosis between Europe and Russia has kept Europe warm and Russia flush with cash, but supplier and consumers eye each other warily, with the EU pressing anti-trust measures against Gazprom. It is hard to find a more mutually beneficial economic arrangement, yet the relationship remains fraught with tension.

Similarly, it is difficult to argue that Western investment has moved Russia much toward strategic partnership. However much Moscow seeks Western investment for the “modernization” (variously understood) of the Russian economy, it does not intend that modernization as a vehicle for Russia to join the West, but to better compete with the West ­ and, for that matter, with the other centers of power in the new multi-polar world of the 21st century.

Another Western approach to “integrating” Russia has been the post-Soviet attempt to bring Russia into international organizations (e.g., the G-8, the Wassenaar Arrangement, the Missile Technology Control Regime), culminating in Russia’s accession this year to the World Trade Organization. The operating principle has been the old adage that it’s better to have them inside the tent rather than outside. However, Russia, far from becoming a constructive partner, has (from the Western perspective) tended to play a spoiler role in most organizations. The problem of what to do when they’re inside, but soiling the tent, has yet to be resolved.

Russians seem quite sure in their own minds why a Russian-Western strategic partnership has remained elusive ­ the West ignores Russian interests and refuses to treat Russia as an “equal partner.” Whatever the merits of this complaint, it does beg the question of why Russian interests seem to diverge so often and so dramatically from those of the West. The very idea of partnership presumes a considerable overlap in perspectives; as a purely practical matter, how does one “partner” with someone who approaches an issue with radically different assumptions and goals? Thus, the Arab Spring, which quickly generated a broad congruence in Western perceptions and objectives, has left Russia ­ hardly for the first time ­ a surly outlier. As for “equality” in the Western-Russian relationship, one might reasonably wonder how Russia would envision an “equal partnership” with the West in the post-Soviet space.

In this connection, it is worth underscoring that Moscow’s Eurasian Union project is a critical threat to good Russian-Western relations ­ not because the scheme will succeed, but precisely because it will come up far short of Russian expectations, and probably fail spectacularly.

The Russian gospel of a multi-polar world has fallen on fertile ground, though not exactly where the Russians had intended. Elites throughout Russia’s Eurasian periphery cherish the opportunity to play the geopolitical field, and even the most Russophile among them want to keep options open. Weak nations historically dominated by larger powers, these states are almost genetically predisposed to continue what they have traditionally done ­ maneuver among the great powers, maintain as much wiggle room as they can, and extract whatever benefit they can from any quarter. They will welcome increased trade with, or aid from, Russia, but they hardly share the vision of a mighty Eurasia under Russia’s aegis, nor will they gladly enlist as foot soldiers in Russia’s broader geopolitical endeavors.

The Eurasian Union is old wine in a new wineskin, and it is difficult to fathom why it should succeed where the CIS has failed. However, Russian elites, steeped in Soviet-era mythology about the “friendship of peoples” and convinced of Russia’s magnetic drawing power for its neighbors, will hardly accept the impending stillbirth of the Eurasian Union as “just one of those things.” Especially in the (likely) event that some of their neighbors experience a “color” revolution or gravitate irreversibly toward NATO and the EU, Russians will accuse the West of actively poisoning the Eurasian well. The narrative that views Hillary Clinton as the instigator of Russian protests in December 2011 will characterize her Dublin remarks in December 2012 as the kickoff of Washington’s campaign to block Eurasian integration. Once again, Russians will complain of the West “ignoring” Russian interests and failing to treat Russia as an “equal” partner.

If a strategic partnership à l’occident is unacceptable to Russians and therefore unlikely to materialize, there remains in theory the possibility of a weakened West coming around to Russia’s way of thinking. Much recent Russian commentary on the decline of the United States and schadenfreude about the Eurozone crisis reflect a hope for such a turn of events.

The idea of a triumphant Russia dictating its terms to a prostrate West might be the ultimate fantasy of Russian great-power patriots and Eurasianists. However, the likelihood of such a development is infinitesimal, if only because a collapse of the West, upon which Russia depends for revenues from hydrocarbon exports, would ravage Russia as well. A devastated Russia can dictate nothing even to a devastated West.

What, then, might it take to forge a strategic partnership between Russia and the West?

Something like a strategic partnership emerged in World War II and (briefly) following 9-11, in the face of forces that posed an immediate existential threat to both Russia and the West. Developments that could produce a similar confluence of interests include a) a Talibanized Pakistan with its nuclear missiles pointed in every direction; b) an Arab Spring gone seriously wrong, bringing al-Qaida-affiliated regimes to power across the Middle East; or c) a China that has thrown its customary caution to the wind and recklessly embarked on an irredentist path.

Quite apart from the question of how likely any of these developments might be, they are all nightmare scenarios infinitely more menacing than the prickly, often unconstructive, but eminently manageable Russian-Western relationship.

In the absence of a genuine strategic partnership, Russian-Western relations are likely to entail transactional cooperation in a few areas of clear mutual interest (the Northern Distribution Network comes to mind), a fair amount of damage control, some horse-trading, mutual recriminations, and much tacit agreement to disagree.

Which, given what it would probably take to forge a genuine strategic partnership, is maybe not such a bad thing after all.

Comment