The Hindu : Putin aligns Russia with U.S.

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Thursday, Jul 18, 2002

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Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Putin aligns Russia with U.S.

By C. Raja Mohan

As India prepares for Vladimir Putin's visit later this year, it should be in no doubt about the new orientation of Russian foreign policy.

IT IS now official. More than a decade after the end of the Cold War, Russia is now firmly tilted towards the United States and the West. The double-headed eagle that represents the Russian state is said to represent Russia's geographic and strategic imperatives in both the East and West. Moscow's policy of looking East as well as West, has often sent contradictory signals about its foreign policy priorities. Would it choose Europe and the Atlantic world or Asia? Or is it the other way around? After a decade of internal struggles on foreign policy orientation, the President, Vladimir Putin, has decided that relations with the U.S. and Europe deserve more importance than those with the powers to the East.

The occasion to signal the reorientation of the double-headed eagle was the 200th anniversary of the Russian Foreign Office observed last Friday. Mr. Putin summoned all his envoys to Moscow to outline his world view and give them a diplomatic checklist. The last time a Russian leader gathered his top diplomats was nearly 16 years ago, when Mikhail Gorbachev unveiled his "new political thinking". That conference in 1986 began the Russian deconstruction of the Cold War with the U.S. and the West. The conclave last week was aimed at preparing Russia to construct a pragmatic and enduring partnership with the U.S. The central message from Mr. Putin was clear: that the Russian relationship with America was about creating international stability not rivalry. He told his ambassadors that ties to Washington "are based on a new reading of the national interests of the two countries and a similar view of the very nature of world threats", after September 11. He added, "it is absolutely clear that in its international relations, Russia has left behind the period of long confrontation, and appears already not as an opponent, not an enemy, but more a predictable and a truly reliable business and... an equal partner." The emphasis was on "equal", a word Mr. Putin apparently used many times in referring to the relationship with the West.The new Russian focus on integration with the West does not mean a neglect of relations with China and India or a squandering of strategic positions in the Middle East and Asia. What it does mean is that Mr. Putin has come to the conclusion that the logic of accelerated economic development and better living standards for his people demand a higher priority for economic and political integration with the West.

As India prepares for Mr. Putin's visit later this year, it should be in no doubt about the new orientation of Russian foreign policy. The Indian political establishment continues to entertain romantic notions about Russia and its international role. More than ten years after the collapse of communism in Russia there is an undying nostalgia in New Delhi for the erstwhile Soviet Union. Within sections of the Foreign Office, there are persistent illusions about Russia's ideological desire to confront the U.S. and the West. An incorrect assessment in New Delhi on where Russia is headed would only delay addressing the much-awaited task of structuring a new and productive partnership with Moscow.

That Mr. Putin was initiating an unprecedented tilt towards the U.S. in the last couple of years should have been clear to any perceptive observer of global politics. His refusal to confront the Bush administration on the controversial missile defence initiative and his refusal to challenge the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to the borders of Russia reflected a very different attitude on the two issues that were so central to Russian foreign policy. The changing Russian approach to the U.S. was also reinforced by the American President, George W. Bush, who quickly discarded the residual Cold War thinking about Russia in his administration and signalled his intent for a new approach towards Moscow.

Mr. Putin seized the moment on September 11 to offer substantive military cooperation to the U.S. in its war against terrorism. He resisted the temptation to see the new American military presence in the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia as a threat to Moscow's own security interests. Instead, he saw cooperation with Washington as a means to stabilise the fragile Eurasian region. Terrorism, emanating from Afghanistan, was the immediate threat to the southern borders that Russia had to confront and not the military presence of the U.S. on its borders. This new understanding was formally stated by the Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, in a recent interview that the main security threats to Moscow came from Asia and not from the U.S. or the NATO.

Two powerful impulses, the double-headed eagle again, tore Russia apart in its effort to build a post-Soviet foreign policy. One was the search for an acceptance by the West and the other a determination to defy the U.S. and demonstrate its independent political influence. Unlike his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, who wildly oscillated between deference and defiance, Mr. Putin appears to have struck a more balanced course. He has conceded the essential principle that Russia cannot achieve economic and social progress in confrontation with the U.S.

Without challenging the U.S. on its broad foreign policy initiatives, Mr. Putin has chosen to negotiate on concrete details. Whether it was the missile defence or the NATO expansion, Mr. Putin's strategy was to engage the U.S. and expand Russia's options through a negotiated compromise.

The coming years are likely to see a dramatic expansion of U.S.-Russian political cooperation in a wide range of areas. These will include creation of a new nuclear order built around a combination of offensive nuclear forces and missile defences, preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, maintaining regional stability in Eurasia, the Middle East and Asia. Energy security is emerging as an important component of this cooperation. The U.S. is beginning to see Russia as a new source of hydrocarbons in its effort to reduce its dependence on the Persian Gulf. Although Russia will never supplant Saudi Arabia as the world's leading source of oil, cooperation between Russia and America could help stabilise the global energy markets. Russia is also determined to join the World Trade Organisation with American help. Even as it reaches out to the U.S., Russia is unlikely to become another Britain, a loyal follower of Washington. It is more likely to emulate France, asserting its independence within the framework of a fundamental commonality of interests with the U.S.

As it prepares to deal with a changing Russia, it would be foolhardy for India to reinvent the old slogans such as creating an Oriental bloc along with China against the West. What the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, should concentrate instead is on rebuilding the economic relations with Moscow which are in a sorry state. India's annual trade with Russia, minus arms and nuclear reactors, is today less than $ two billion. It is about a tenth of the trade with the U.S., less than half of that with China and roughly equal to that with Bangladesh. As Russia moves to join the WTO and accelerates its internal economic reform, old ways of doing business with Russia are dead. India cannot hope to sustain its current excellent political ties with Moscow on a rapidly shrinking economic base.

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