[Peace-discuss] Good historical perspective on U.S./Russia relations

[David Green]

>From what I know of the writer, he is not endorsing such a geopolitical
strategy, just describing historical U.S. intentions.

DG

On Sun, Jul 22, 2018 at 9:33 PM Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu>
wrote:

> Yes, this perspective is needed, but for the reason given in the
> penultimate paragraph:
>
> It is in this respect that the Mueller investigation has caused the most
> damage to the United States–it has interfered in our ability to once again
> attempt to reset the Russian relationship. *Without that reset, our
> antagonistic relationship with the Russians ensures that they drift into
> China’s sphere of influence, weakening the long-term geostrategic position
> of the United States. America’s greatest Cold War success was splitting the
> Sino-Soviet alliance. If we continue down our present path, that alliance
> maybe reconstituted, and the work of Richard Nixon undone.*
>
> I.e., “We”need a “reset" with Russia to be able to maintain control of as
> much of the world as possible. It is not done to have a world free of
> injustice and war.
>
>
> On Jul 22, 2018, at 4:21 PM, David Green via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
> Why Every President Tries to Make Nice With Russia and Why It Never Works
> by Benjamin Studebaker
>
> One of the things I find odd about the way the press is covering the
> Trump/Putin relationship is how devoid of context and historical memory it
> is. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, four new
> presidents have come to power, and each has tried to create a good
> relationship with Russia. Bill Clinton was briefly successful, but the way
> Clinton used his success poisoned the well and made it very difficult for
> his successors to replicate his performance. Today I’ll tell you the story
> of how America has tried to turn Russia into an ally and why this effort
> has yet to succeed.
>
> *Bill Clinton: The Roots of a Bond Broken*
>
> [image: Image result for bill clinton boris yeltsin]
>
> Bill Clinton was very good friends with the first president of the Russian
> federation, Boris Yeltsin. They met eighteen times. Yeltsin was strongly
> committed to liberalising the Russian economy, and Clinton was very cool
> with that. But Yeltsin’s liberalisation program was not popular. Under
> Yeltsin, per capita incomes in Russia plummeted and Russian oligarchs were
> able to seize a massive percentage of Russian wealth and income:
>
>
> <https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2018/07/20/why-every-president-tries-to-make-nice-with-russia-and-why-it-never-works/russia-per-capita-income/>
>
>
> <https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2018/07/20/why-every-president-tries-to-make-nice-with-russia-and-why-it-never-works/russia-top-1-share/>
>
> It wasn’t until 15 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union that
> average incomes recovered to the late Soviet level, and when they had
> recovered the distribution was much less equal, such that the average
> income could be propped up by small numbers of super rich individuals. It
> is still the case today that many ordinary Russians are worse off
> economically than they were in the late Soviet period.
>
> Russians blame Yeltsin for this. By the time Yeltsin left office, his
> approval rating was frequently as low as 2%
> <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/apr/23/russia.marktran>. By
> contrast, President Trump’s approval rating is presently around 42%–he’s 21
> times more popular. The Russians regard the 90s as a dark, miserable decade
> in which their wealth was stolen by oligarchs. Yeltsin was America’s man,
> and America’s man was blamed for all of this. Today, when academics talk
> about the 90s in Russia, the discussion is about how poorly the transition
> away from communism was managed and how this mismanagement created the
> conditions which led to the rise of Putin–a super oligarch ruling over a
> harem of smaller fish.
>
> But it wasn’t just economic policy that went wrong in the 90s. The
> Russians see Clinton as having taken advantage of their famously drunk,
> <https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=82447&page=1> inept leader
> on the world stage. In 1999, Clinton admitted Poland, Hungary, and the
> Czech Republic to NATO. The Russians see NATO as an anti-Russian military
> alliance. By admitting former Warsaw Pact members to NATO, Clinton
> assimilated countries which Russia considered to be in its sphere of
> influence into the western sphere. Beset by a collapsed economy and
> ineffective, incompetent leadership, Russia was in no position to
> meaningfully challenge NATO expansion in the 90s.
>
> So the Russians feel that during the decade in which their relationship
> with the Americans was warmest, they were economically robbed and
> brutalised on the world stage. Their experience of the 90s has taught them
> not to trust us, and they are extremely suspicious of everything we say and
> do. The effect is especially profound when you consider that we are still
> dealing with Vladimir Putin–Boris Yeltsin’s immediate successor, a man who
> defines himself politically entirely against Yeltsin. Where Yeltsin brought
> disorder, Putin brings order. Where Yeltsin allowed the Americans to walk
> all over Russia, Putin stops them. That’s his brand.
>
> *George W. Bush: Gazing into Putin’s Soul*
>
> [image: Image result for george w bush vladimir putin 2001]
>
> George W. Bush wanted to cooperate with Vladimir Putin on terrorism. Putin
> was fighting nationalist Islamic factions in Chechnya, and after 9/11 Putin
> was rather hopeful that he could leverage the War on Terrorism into a more
> balanced, respectful friendship with the United States. Even before 9/11,
> Bush and Putin seemed to get along. Two months before 9/11, Bush said
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/18/world/cordial-rivals-how-bush-and-putin-became-friends.html>
> :
>
> I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and
> trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his
> soul.
>
> Joe Biden–then a senator–expressed reservations:
>
> I don’t trust Mr. Putin.
>
> The trouble is that while the Bush administration frequently expressed a
> willingness to cooperate with Russia on terrorism, it continued to take
> advantage of Russia in other areas. In 2004, Bush expanded NATO further,
> incorporating Bulgaria, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and
> Slovenia. This included two countries which share land boundaries with
> Russia. All were at one time part of the Soviet sphere:
>
> [image: A map of Europe with eight colors that refer to the year different
> countries joined the alliance.]
>
> Not only did Bush enlarge NATO, but he then started putting military
> installations in Eastern European countries, negotiating the construction
> of a missile base in Poland. Talks about bases in the east began in 2002,
> and formal negotiation began in 2007. We all remember how upset we were
> when the Soviet Union put missiles in Cuba. The Russians were horrified by
> the Polish plan.
>
> Putin–suspicious of us to begin with because our behaviour in the 90s–took
> Bush’s behaviour badly. He decided to draw a line in the sand–those
> countries which remained in the Russian sphere of influence would stay in
> that sphere, even at the cost of deploying military force.
>
> In 2008, Bush called for Georgia to begin taking steps to join NATO. Putin
> responded by doing everything he could to punish Georgia. Separatists in
> the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia began acting up–perhaps
> with Putin’s encouragement. He also began establishing formal ties between
> Russia and these regions, beginning to treat them as independent states.
> When Georgia responded by attacking the separatists, Russia responded by
> invading Georgia. Georgia lost the war, Russia formally recognised Abkhazia
> and South Ossetia as independent states, and Russian military bases were
> established in each of the territorial enclaves. The message from Putin was
> clear–further efforts to admit Georgia to NATO would result in further
> military intervention from Russia.
>
> At the end of Bush’s presidency, relations with Russia were a shambles.
> This would be the beginning of a trend.
>
> *Barack Obama: Repeating Bush’s Blunders*
>
> Barack Obama began his presidency focused on what his administration
> called “the pivot to Asia”. Obama was concerned by the rise of China and
> wanted to build strong relationships with countries in its vicinity.
> Relations with Japan and South Korea were already good–Obama was looking to
> partner with countries like India, Vietnam, and yes, even Russia. To that
> end, Hillary Clinton went to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
> Lavrov to offer him a “reset” on US-Russian relations:
>
> [image: Image result for hillary clinton reset button]
>
> The Russian word on the button was mistranslated–instead of saying
> “reset”, it said “overcharged”. Like Bush, Obama wanted something from
> Russia, and like Bush, he was unwilling to recognise that for the Russians,
> everything is tied together. If we do something they don’t like in one
> area, they withhold cooperation in other domains. In Obama’s case, the
> mistake was very similar to Bush’s in Georgia–Obama began trying to admit
> Ukraine into the western sphere. The difference was that the move here was
> to associate Ukraine with the EU rather than admit it to NATO. The
> pro-Russian government was removed in what the Russians consider to be a
> US-backed coup. American public officials–like Senator John McCain
> <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia-ukraine-war-kiev-conflict>–were
> quoted in support of the Euromaidan protests which eventually produced the
> collapse of Ukraine’s government. Putin believes the America did more than
> just express verbal encouragement–he thinks
> <https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2015-05/ukraine-usa-maidan-finance/seite-2>America
> bankrolled the whole thing.
>
> Regardless of whether and to what extent we were involved in the regime
> change in Ukraine, the Russians believe we were deeply involved and they
> were not willing to permit Ukraine to leave their sphere of influence, so
> they invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea, and continue to provide support to
> rebels in the Eastern region of Donbass. That conflict continues to this
> day.
>
> The Ukraine crisis got going in 2013. Barack Obama attempted to avoid
> further antagonising Russia in the final years of his presidency. As his
> former Europe adviser Karen Donfield told *Die Zeit:*
>
> Shortly after the annexation of Crimea by Putin there was the policy of
> not doing anything to provoke the Russians
>
> An unnamed “high ranking adviser” adds:
>
> We can’t deal with the Ukraine problem in an isolated fashion, since there
> are other interests as well. We want to keep open our lines of
> communication with the Russians on topics such as Syria, Islamic State,
> Assad or Afghanistan.
>
> [image: Image result for obama putin meeting]
>
> However, the United States imposed sanctions on Russia and has provided
> military advisers to Ukraine. Russia wasn’t happy about that. It also
> wasn’t happy when Hillary Clinton said
> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2014/03/05/hillary-clinton-says-putins-action-are-like-what-hitler-did-back-in-the-30s/?utm_term=.3cbe88ee0ce8>
>  that Putin’s actions were “what Hitler did back in the ’30s”. To make
> matters worse, while Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had insinuated
> that Russia’s elections are unclean in 2011, when Russia was dealing with
> heavy pro-democracy protests. Putin–highly suspicious, as always–took this
> as an indicator that Hillary Clinton seeks regime change in Russia:
>
> Putin came to see Hillary Clinton as an existential threat to his regime,
> and he was likely determined to do everything he could to ensure she did
> not become president. It is likely that the leaking of Clinton’s emails to
> Wikileaks and the Russian presence on social media were motivated by this.
>
> *Donald Trump: Trying this Again*
>
> [image: Image result for trump putin]
>
> Every American president since the collapse of the Soviet Union has tried
> to turn Russia into an ally on terrorism. Increasingly, American presidents
> also want Russia as a bulwark against the rise of China. These geostrategic
> interests in a good relationship with Russia haven’t changed. What has
> changed is the attitude of the American media, which now sees Russia as an
> essentially villainous state and therefore views all efforts to revive
> relations as potentially treasonous. Trump must, for the good of the
> national interest, attempt to once again get the relationship with Russia
> right. Usually, new presidents have support from the public and the press
> when they try to fix the US-Russian relationship. But Trump must attempt to
> do it without that support, and with sanctions from the previous
> administration still in force. If Trump tries to lift those sanctions, he
> will be painted as a traitor, and so Trump is backed into opposing the
> Russians even as his administration recognises the need to cooperate with
> them.
>
> It is in this respect that the Mueller investigation has caused the most
> damage to the United States–it has interfered in our ability to once again
> attempt to reset the Russian relationship. Without that reset, our
> antagonistic relationship with the Russians ensures that they drift into
> China’s sphere of influence, weakening the long-term geostrategic position
> of the United States. America’s greatest Cold War success was splitting the
> Sino-Soviet alliance. If we continue down our present path, that alliance
> maybe reconstituted, and the work of Richard Nixon undone.
>
> It’s not very likely that Trump would succeed in any case. To have a good
> relationship with Russia, we have to make concessions to the Russians which
> we have been unwilling to make. We’d need to recognise that Russia has
> certain core interests in its immediate neighbourhood and stop trespassing
> in it. At minimum, this would mean keeping countries like Ukraine, Belarus,
> and Georgia neutral, and perhaps even leaving them saddled with corrupt,
> pro-Russian governments. It might also mean tolerating Russia’s bid to
> restore the Assad regime in Syria. Previous American presidents have been
> unwilling to pay the cost of friendship with Russia. Trump would have to
> make big concessions–concessions which would look like a betrayal to many
> old foreign policy heads–to stand any chance of bringing the Russians
> onside. Based on the media reaction to his first meeting with Putin, Trump
> likely has very little room to move. China is the beneficiary.
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