The (Ex) Washington Realist

I had the opportunity to attend a breakfast with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister who is visiting Washington. A fascinating discussion, but unfortunately off the record.

I have been asked for my perspective on the U.S. - Russia relationship. Here is what I have sent off to the "experts' panel" of Russia Profile:

The "feeding frenzy" in Washington, and a similar rise in anti-American feeling in Russia, reflects the reality that the Russian-American relationship has shallow roots. While senior members of the executive branches of both countries are very aware of the importance of a good working relationship between Russia and the United States to ensuring the security of both states, the prevailing view in the bureaucracies and legislatures of both states has tended to minimize or discount altogether this reality. In turn, for most ordinary Americans and Russians, their sense of personal security and economic prosperity is almost completely divorced from their evaluation of the importance of the Russo-American relationship.

One only has to compare the German-Russian relationship. Angela Merkel certainly does not have the same personal rapport with Vladimir Putin that her predecessor did, but an extensive web of ties between the two countries--notably between the business communities--gives the German-Russian relationship ballast that the U.S.-Russia relationship lacks. The Germans have been quite critical of a number of Russian policy moves--including over the NGO law--but without throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

We are also paying the price for some of the overheated, euphoric rhetoric in the past about "strategic partnership." Americans and Russians still have very divergent narratives, not only about the end of the Cold War (something I discussed in an essay for the International Herald Tribune several weeks ago) but about Russia's "proper role" in the post-Soviet space, the relationship between democracy and stability, and the very nature of the global order. Russia's relative weakness in the 1990s covered up these disagreements. But Russia's growing economic and energy clout (along with some slippage in America's relative power) gives it greater confidence today to stake out an independent course of action. And to the extent that Russia has taken decisions in an opaque fashion and to the extent that the decision-making process remains untransparent allows some Americans to assume the worst about the motives of the Russian government.

We must also recognize that there is no such thing as a la carte partnership; that the United States and Russia could on the one hand be engaged in intense geopolitical competition in Eurasia, for example, and on the other develop the close working relationship (between the two militaries, intelligence communities, and so on) essential for combating terrorism and stemming proliferation. This does not mean that either side has to abandon the pursuit of its political and economic interests, but it does mean working to ensure that issues on which both sides do not agree do not become issues where we disagree on fundamentals.

But I think it will require the presidents to put up real substantial political capital to make the case to skeptical publics in both countries about the value of the U.S.-Russia relationship, and with both Putin and Bush increasingly focused on issues of succession in 2008, I don't see that effort likely to happen.