Russian-American relations: Warm and fuzzy

Date: 27/09/03

Russia and America are friends again, but of a rather passive sort

WHEN journalists' mailboxes start filling up with policy papers about Russian-American relations, it is obviously presidential-summit time again. George Bush, write Michael McFaul and James Goldgeier, two American foreign-policy experts, “must be looking forward” to his meetings on September 26th-27th with Vladimir Putin, one of his few real remaining friends on the world stage. Since Mr Putin's alliance with France and Germany against the war in Iraq - which, Mr Bush seems to have accepted, was a reluctant one - their diplomats have worked furiously to patch things up. The two countries, writes Celeste Wallander of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, “can be allies in the best traditions of far-sighted traditional great power diplomacy.” In Moscow, Sergei Karaganov, a foreign-affairs analyst close to the Kremlin, says the relationship could now reach unprecedented heights.

But heights of what? What Russia and America know how to deal with best, whether as opponents or allies, is global-security issues - reducing nuclear arsenals, preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, containing unstable or rogue regimes, fighting international terrorism. And on these the two presidents already agree more and more.

Russia, says Mr Karaganov, is beginning to worry, like America, about a nuclear-weapons programme in Iran (though it still wants to let Iran build nuclear-power stations), and to recognise the threats from instability in the Middle East, not so far from its border. America has placed some Chechen organisations on its list of terrorist groups. The two have overcome differences on nuclear-arms reduction treaties. The devil is in the detail of these issues, writes Mrs Wallander, and the warmth between the two presidents is often not shared by the diplomats, bureaucrats and military officers who have to make the partnership work.

Meanwhile, trade between the two countries is still tiny, just 1% of America's total and 5% of Russia's. Europe's economic ties with Russia are far bigger and will grow faster with the EU's imminent expansion; on this score Russia's foreign-policy people need to work harder: they are still better at geopolitical than economic negotiations. Even the most pro-European of Russian politicians, says a European diplomat in Moscow, have “a very low level of understanding of Europe; even those who want Russia to join the EU can't imagine accepting the acquis [of EU law] or submitting to EU decisions.”

Last week the Commonwealth of Independent States, the rump of the old Soviet Union comprising Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, said they would create a “common economic space”; but even if that ever became a reality, Russia's economic ties with Europe (and, one day, China) will remain more important.

Energy is a much-touted area where co-operation with America could grow. The Americans want energy sources other than the OPEC oil cartel, and Russia, the world's second-largest oil producer, would like to be one of them. Though it now supplies less than 3% of America's oil, that is rising. This week saw a star-studded summit in St Petersburg, with the American and Russian trade and energy ministers and oil bosses from both countries.

But while this Russian-American “energy dialogue” has produced plenty of ideas for speeding up the oil flow - mostly by increasing Russia's export capacity and improving investment conditions - real projects are, as yet, few. The big buzz of the summit was not even oil, but a scheme to liquefy natural gas on Russia's Pacific coast and pipe or ship it across to America - which, at best, will not happen before the end of the decade. In any case, says Igor Leshukov of St Petersburg's Institute for International Affairs, American speakers seemed vague by comparison with the detailed presentations of the Russians. With Iraq and its vast oil reserves not yet fully under control, they are waiting to see what their opportunities there will be before they commit themselves to Russia.

So what else can the two presidents discuss? At least one new issue may crop up: Russia's nascent AIDS epidemic. And many would like Mr Bush to mention Russia's repressed media, biased elections and human-rights abuses in Chechnya and elsewhere. An undemocratic Russia, argue Mr McFaul and others, may become dangerous too. But that argument has so far fallen on deaf ears in Washington. Mr Bush's team, unlike Bill Clinton's, dwells less on Russia's need for democracy.

Article considers relations between the United States and Russia.