Russia

What's Behind Russia's Syria Veto?

The world's eyes are on Syria as the regime of strongman Bashar al Assad continues to disregard widespread international condemnation in a desperate bid to maintain power—a bid that many are betting will fail. Despite thousands of Syrian civilian deaths, Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution on the crisis, even though it had been watered down already to eliminate language about the need for Assad to step down and for new elections to be scheduled.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the veto a "travesty"; U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice tweeted that she was "disgusted" by the dual veto. And 2011 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Tawakkul Karman said China and Russia "bear the moral and human responsibility for these massacres." But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed all such criticism as "hysterical."

Russia's veto may have been a disappointment, but it certainly wasn't a surprise. Russia's internal and external politics, over the short and long term, made the veto hard to avoid. For Moscow, the following factors were critical considerations:

Internal Stability

Some Russians may be concerned with the potential for renewed unrest in the Caucasus. Lavrov has labeled the opposition in Syria as "militants and extremists," much the same language used to describe separatists in the Caucasus, who many in Russia see as a threat to national stability. Russia's stand in Syria further reflects its general misgivings about the Arab Spring—and the fear that the Arab Spring could provide sustenance and inspiration to the Caucasus.

Russia is also facing a surprising and large domestic opposition movement (or, perhaps more accurately, several movements) in response to the recent parliamentary elections, where charges of vote-rigging abounded, and Putin's decision to return to the presidency. These large-scale protests have clearly rattled the Russian government. Although no one seriously doubts that Putin will win the presidential election next month, he is ratcheting up anti-American rhetoric. This allows him to blame outsiders for his troubles while deflecting critics from the right who think Russia has given too much to the United States under the "reset."

Arms Sales

Russia's arms sales to Syria are big business. Just last month, Russia signed a deal to sell Syria 36 Yakovlev Yak-130 jets worth some $550 million.

Syria's annual arms purchases from Russia are estimated to be about $700 million (anywhere from seven to ten percent of Russia's total revenue from arms sales). If Assad is overthrown, the contract could be canceled. But growing international frustration with Russia would be an extremely high price to pay to maintain a client—especially when Russia has already forgiven about $10 billion in Syrian debt.

Playing the Long Game

Russia's relationship with Assad also has a broader economic dimension. Russia is investing heavily in Syria, to the tune of some $20 billion in infrastructure, energy, and tourism. For years, Russia has helped to prop up a regime that now has little legitimacy internationally.

So why is Russia willing to bear the brunt of international condemnation?

All these practical economic and regional strategic concerns in Syria point to what Russia is actually concerned about and why it is willing to pay a high-price to maintain its relationship with Assad: the United States. Russia's fundamental motivations in Syria seem reminiscent of Cold War great power politics, where Russia seeks to prevent the United States from increasing its influence in the region.

Russia still believes that a limited mandate from the U.N. no-fly resolution on Libya was turned into a push for regime change by Western powers, and it may not wish to trust the same countries to restrain themselves. Russia abstained from the Libya resolution, allowing it to pass. With Syria, it exercised its veto to protect one of the few proxies Russia can turn to in the region in the wake of the Arab Spring.

Russia is, in short, trying to balance short- and long-term interests in the region and it needs Assad in power to realize those interests. But as the brutality of the Syrian regime dominates headlines, Russia's painfully close association with Assad is what people will remember.

Jacqueline McLaren Miller is a Senior Associate in EWI's Strategic Trust-Building Initiative, where she runs the U.S. and WMD programs.

Click here to read a round-up of statements by governments and organizations concerning the crisis in Syria.

Dog Nights

Writing in The Weekly Standard, EWI’s Andrew Nagorski reviews a reissued classic dissident novel about dogs and men in the Gulag.

Late on a frozen, translucent night in Moscow in 1981, I took my collie out for a walk and let her off the leash on the snow-covered playground near our building in the foreigners’ compound where we lived. She was only a few months old and my half-hearted training techniques had done little to restrain her rambunctious spirit.
 
The policeman on duty (there were always policemen on duty at foreigners’ compounds) watched my futile efforts to grab her and snap the leash back on.
 
“It’s always that way,” he declared. “When you give people freedom, they don’t know when to stop—they just run and run. What can you expect from animals?”
 
The irony is that, in the Soviet Union, a lot was expected of dogs—particularly, the guard dogs that were a mix of German shepherds and long-haired hunting breeds. Unlike my free-spirited collie, they were trained to obey every command and played a major role in guarding the camps of the Gulag, ferociously enforcing the rules and tracking down anyone who was bold enough to attempt an escape.
 
Now Melville House has reissued one of the most brilliantly crafted dissident books of the Soviet era, Georgi Vladimov’s Faithful Ruslan, which examines the Soviet system through the eyes of just such a guard dog. It is a slim volume that should be as well known as Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,but has been largely overlooked until now.
 
In 1965 Vladimov submitted an earlier version of his story, first titled “The Dogs,” to Novy Mir, the Soviet journal that had published Ivan Denisovich three years earlier. The editors turned it down, which was hardly surprising. Nikita Khrushchev had already been swept out of power and the brief moment of liberalization was over. When the story first circulated in samizdat, some readers assumed that Solzhenitzyn was the author, since it offered a similarly microscopic examination of life in the camps. But by the mid-1970s Vladimov took his defiance of the Soviet system a giant step further, smuggling out his expanded manuscript, now renamed after his main character, the guard dog Ruslan, to Germany, where it was published by an emigré press in 1978. A year later, it appeared in English, expertly translated by Michael Glenny.
 
By the time I was assigned to Moscow for Newsweek in 1981, Vladimov was one of the last survivors of the 1970s-era dissident movement, which had been nearly obliterated by the imprisonment, commitment to psychiatric hospitals, and exiling of its members. Along with other Western correspondents, I visited his apartment often, at times after the latest search by the KGB. In 1983, he managed to convince the authorities to let him go to Germany to teach; after he left, he was promptly stripped of his Soviet citizenship, and he died in
Germany in 2003.
 
Ruslan’s story begins on the day that “Master,” the guard in charge of him, takes him out and he discovers that his Siberian camp is suddenly empty and silent: “He had never known silence like this before, and it aroused the most frightening suspicions,” Vladimov writes.
 
Ruslan becomes convinced that somehow all the prisoners—“the horde of noisy, smelly people” who inhabited the huts of the camp—have escaped. To his amazement, he sees the gate of the camp wide open, and the watchtower abandoned. What Ruslan cannot know or understand is that Khrushchev, in his famous 1956 speech, had denounced the Stalinist system, and this has led to the release of millions of political prisoners, including the ones Ruslan has been guarding or hunting down when they tried to escape.
 
Although the narrator is clearly human, the reader feels as if he’s observing the events through Ruslan’s eyes, recognizing the dog’s confusion at this unprecedented turn in events and empathizing completely with him. Ruslan isn’t just well-trained; he’s exceptionally smart and loyal. But in a situation where all the rules have changed in a way that makes absolutely no sense to him, his devotion to a master who no longer wants or needs him can only lead to tragedy.
“Ruslan was forever poisoned by his love, his pact with the human race,” Vladimov writes.
 
After his master banishes him from the camp, he goes into the town and, like the other guard dogs that are in a similar situation, gathers daily at the station, expecting to meet the next train that would bring back the escaped prisoners and escort them back to the camp. The dogs had performed such duties with new arrivals countless times, so it seems like a logical conclusion. But no trains arrive, and slowly most of the dogs abandon their posts and find new homes, taking on the jobs of watchdogs for the local inhabitants. Ruslan sees this as a betrayal of their duties, and refuses to follow suit for a long time until his master appears and offers him to a former prisoner. The only reason why the dog reluctantly accepts his new role is that he is convinced he is still guarding the just-released prisoner.
 
But Ruslan keeps thinking back to his old life, when all the rules were perfectly clear, as was the purpose of his life, for which he had been bred and trained. Even as Vladimov traces his protagonist’s journey into a perplexing new world, he offers glimpses into the terrifying realities of camp life in the Stalin era. Among the prisoners, as Ruslan and the other dogs learned, there was always a special category of men who were to be treated with respect. They were the informers, who were hated—and sometimes beaten or murdered—by the other prisoners. In one such case, Ruslan easily identified the murderer, who was led out by Master to be shot. As the dog looked on, the condemned man grasped his executioner’s boots and begged for mercy—to no avail.
 
While Ruslan was taught to believe that his master was “great, all-powerful,” he also comes to recognize the differences between humans and dogs. No animal would beg for mercy like that; instead, it would fight for its life even against hopeless odds. Moreover, man is capable of more wanton evil than the animal kingdom ever allowed: As Ruslan realizes, man’s “greatness extends equally far in the direction of both Good and Evil.” Under the influence of vodka, humans “did things that they didn’t like, and without any compulsion—something that no animal would ever do.” When Ruslan shares a yard with a runt who irritates him, he never attacks him because “he was forbidden by the law of his nature from killing his own kind—the favorite occupation of bipeds, so proud of their conquest of nature.”
 
For all his perspicacity, Ruslan is still a product of his harsh training by humans, and he cannot imagine how the new world will function. When he sees new buildings arising at the outskirts of what had been the camp, he is troubled by the lack of barbed wire and watchtowers. As he contemplates the predicament of what he views as a camp that is expanding its border, he realizes it may be impractical to have the same security measures: “Perhaps the time had come to live without any barbed wire at all—and the whole world would be one huge, happy prison camp.” While Ruslan recognizes this vision can’t really work, the metaphor couldn’t be more obvious: Even with many of the camps gone, the inhabitants of the post-Stalinist Soviet Union remained mentally imprisoned.
 
That includes Ruslan and the other guard dogs. In the breathtaking final scene, a train finally arrives at the station and disgorges a group of construction workers who start walking to the camp. The training of the dogs instantly kicks in and they begin escorting the group. The workers are at first amused, then terrified when the dogs attack anyone who tries to break ranks. A pitched battle ensues, and the construction workers corner and beat the dogs who, as Ruslan knew, fight back. Outnumbered by workers with spades and other weapons, the dogs are doomed.
 
Ruslan has two final thoughts. Thinking back to the brief time before he was taken away from his mother and siblings, “He wanted now to return to an animal’s first joy—to freedom, which he never forgot and to the loss of which he was never reconciled.” And about his experiences with men: “He had learned enough in his waking life about the world of humans, and it stank of cruelty and treachery.”
 
The incident with the construction workers is based on a true story after Khrushchev started closing the camps, but the real power of Vladimov’s book is its broader message about the psychological toll of the Stalinist system on an entire people. Little wonder that—even today, after all the dramatic changes following the collapse of the Soviet Union—Russia remains a country where there is profound ambivalence about the notion of genuine freedom.
 
Andrew Nagorski, vice president and director of public policy at the EastWest Institute, is author of the forthcoming Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power.
 

The article was publsihed by The Weekly Standard.

Remembering Vaclav Havel

Writing in The Huffington Post, Andrew Nagorski recounts his memories of Vaclav Havel during his dissident days and early presidency. Havel was the recipient of EWI’s Statesman of the Year award in 1997.

Visiting playwright Vaclav Havel in his Prague apartment overlooking the Vltava River in the 1980s, foreign correspondents were often stopped by police or secret police watching his building, who demanded to see our identity papers. The authorities, of course, knew who we were and who we were seeing, but they wanted us to know that they knew. Havel, who died on December 18 at age 75, always knew that they knew what he and his fellow dissidents were doing because his defiance was deliberately public.

In an era when most people in the Soviet bloc kept their real thoughts strictly private, this left Havel and his colleagues exposed and vulnerable. Their manifestos, which were distributed illegally and broadcast by Western radios, prompted frequent prison terms. Even when they were ostensibly free, they were under constant surveillance. It’s easy to forget how small a group the active dissidents were right up until the cataclysm of 1989 that led to the collapse of communist regimes across the region, propelling their opponents, seemingly against all odds, into positions of power.

Looking back at my encounters with Havel both before and after 1989 when I covered those upheavals for Newsweek, I’m struck by three dominant character traits: his moral courage, his ability to recognize and live with the contradictions of human behavior, and his sense of the absurd. All three were essential ingredients of his improbable success. They also offer lessons for others seeking to overthrow dictatorships—and for those who are trying, as is the case today in much of the Arab world, to figure out what comes next.

Havel’s moral courage was long evident, but the thinking behind it was what was truly remarkable. In his seminal essay “The Power of the Powerless” and interviews, he would harp on the theme that individual actions matter, pro forma subservience to a totalitarian regime matters, and that non-violent defiance matters even more. So long as such regimes could maintain the pretense of unity, with citizens going along with such empty rituals as phony elections, the powerful weren’t threatened and any dissidents remained isolated. But Havel had an almost mystic belief in the “radioactivity” of words that exposed the lies of the system. “When free speech is suppressed, speech paradoxically has a special weight and power,” he told me in 1986.

A society might appear completely conformist, as Czechoslovakia did then or Tunisia did before a street vendor set himself alight last year, but the powerful example of even a small number of souls who were willing to speak the truth could abruptly change everything. If that implied that one day the truth might really set Czechoslovakia free, Havel wasn’t basing his actions on any calculation that he would live to see that day. In fact, the surest way of guaranteeing inaction, he reflected, was to try to calculate whether dissent could succeed. The only sure path was to follow one’s conscience, no matter what the price.

But Havel was anything but a humorless moralist. Just as he recognized the contradictions and ironies of a totalitarian society where public and private perceptions of reality were completely at odds, he immediately noted the irony of his ascension to the presidency of a free country. “God has punished me,” he joked when I met him in his office at the Prague Castle in July 1991. As a dissident, he had carefully chosen each word of his appeals for maximum impact; as president, he was forced to speak constantly, producing a flood of words with rapidly diminishing impact.

In his writings, he was quick to admit that newly liberated societies were full of disappointments, including “an enormous and dazzling explosion of every imaginable human vice.” With the disappearance of the police state followed by a period of uncertain transition, free speech and the arts flourished, but so did aggressive criminal behavior. Thus, he was less startled by such negative developments than many of his compatriots, while remaining optimistic that new societies based on individual responsibility would gradually evolve and begin to reverse such trends. I suspect that today he would be far more troubled by some of the political forces unleashed by the Arab Spring, but he would still counsel patience, avoiding a rush to judgment.

Havel considered the early suggestions that he might seek the presidency an “absurd joke.” In his world, though, jokes always had meaning. Shortly after the first free elections in neighboring Poland in June 1989, a group of Solidarity activists who were now suddenly elected to parliament paid a visit to Havel at his country house. Over a hearty meal served by Havel’s wife Olga, everyone consumed copious quantities of beer. Then, Havel led his guests outside to relieve themselves—offering a full frontal view for the secret police surveillance cameras deployed around his house.

Czechoslovakia’s final reckoning with its Communist system was still several months away, but a police state that prompted such open mockery was doomed. It was a scene that fits perfectly into the play that should be written about Havel’s life.

Andrew Nagorski is vice president and director of public policy at the EastWest Institute. He is the author of the forthcoming book Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power.

A Russian View of Drug Trafficking and the Financial Crisis

The EastWest Institute hosted Russia’s top drug enforcement officer on November 18 in cooperation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Viktor Ivanov, director of the Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) of the Russian Federation, discussed the global drug trade and the key role of poppy production in Afghanistan with a diverse audience representing numerous U.S. federal agencies, uniformed and civilian military officials, civil society, industry and diplomatic missions.

Ivanov argued that the global drug trade is closely tied to the world financial system, where drug money represents a “at least half” of global criminal flows. These funds, he said, in some cases provide much-needed liquidity in the financial system at a time of crisis.

“In order to develop adequate solutions, we need to have a better picture of global drug flows,” Ivanov said. He added, “Two obvious drug flows are Latin American cocaine and Afghan heroin.”

Ivanov was in the United States for meetings in Chicago of the U.S.–Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission's Drug Trafficking Working Group, of which he is co-chair. FSKN and EWI, as part of an ongoing collaboration, worked with the Chicago Tribune to produce an infographic and interview with Ivanov exploring the complex dynamics of "Afghanistan’s heroin pipeline" (PDF).

Speaking with the Tribune, Ivanov underlined the role of international civil society in confronting the issue of drug production in Afghanistan during a time of conflict.

“[O]ur group and I personally are engaged in extensive cooperation with leading U.S. think tanks, especially the EastWest Institute, and also such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Nixon Center (now the Center for the National Interest), the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation,” and others, Ivanov told the Tribune.

Ivanov noted that drug production is a consistent source of income for some, and said fundamental changes in the economy of Afghanistan are necessary to undermine the rationale for cultivation.

“The key way to liquidate global drug trafficking is to reformat the existing economy and to shift to the economy that excludes criminal money and provides reproduction of net liquid assets, [that is], to the economy of development, where decisions are based on development projects and special-purpose credits,” Ivanov said.

The Lessons of Fallen Giants

 

The 20th anniversary next month of the Soviet Union’s collapse is an occasion to reflect on three giants — Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin and Eduard Shevardnadze.

They each made history, but lost their way as societies changed and expectations went unmet. Vladimir Putin should heed their lesson if, as is likely, he retakes the presidency next year.

Shevardnadze, with whom we each worked closely, offers a telling example of the path from successful leadership to an unhappy end. As the Soviet foreign minister in the 1980s, he helped Gorbachev, then the Soviet leader, achieve historic arms accords and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from a losing war in Afghanistan. In 1989, Gorbachev and Shevardnadze facilitated the peaceful fall of the Berlin Wall and the liberation of East European satellite regimes.

After the Soviet collapse in 1991, Shevardnadze went home to become president of his native Georgia, now independent. He ended a civil war, but failed to maintain control over the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

If Putin reflects on this history, what lessons might he learn?

First, reform is vital to counter stagnation. In 1985, when Gorbachev came to power, communist ideology had lost its appeal and the economy was deeply troubled. His reforms were erratic but bold, and they were too feeble to save the Soviet Union.

In the 1990s, in Georgia, Shevardnadze nurtured young leaders who won control of the parliament in fair elections, but he retreated when they challenged his weak governance. After rigged elections in 2003, the new generation forced him to step aside in what became known as the Rose revolution.

Russia today is freer than in Soviet times, but cynicism and pessimism are again pervasive. Young people and capital flee abroad, and health and demographic crises depress society. Putin could relieve the tension by permitting fair elections, independent opposition parties and an honest debate about social ills and remedies.

Second, executing reform requires vision and determination. Gorbachev wrongly believed he could fix the Soviet system; Yeltsin in Russia and Shevardnadze in Georgia backtracked on reform when entrenched or corrupt elites resisted.

Putin shows little interest in real reform. He defends inefficient large enterprises, many of which he renationalized and combined into cumbersome behemoths. While Putin welcomes some outside help in the energy sector, the trials of Mikhail Khodorkovsky demonstrate insensitivity to investors and the rule of law.

Third, future leaders are important. In Georgia, Shevardnadze clung too long to power, telling us that the new generation lacked experience. Yeltsin gave young leaders early rein and reforms jump-started future prosperity, but he backtracked in the face of popular disgust with corrupt implementation and calls for more stability and authority.

Putin scorned the “color” revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, but he will face similar pressures, especially from organized younger leaders. His best hope to meet rising expectations is to encourage democratically inclined leaders and modernize governance.

Fourth, Putin could lose the North Caucasus. In Georgia, Shevardnadze deftly showed respect to minorities while neutralizing warlords one at a time. He was too weak, however, to deflect ultranationalists from destructive aggression in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Putin faces a more daunting challenge as terrorism and insurgency spread across the North Caucasus. The region is veering out of Moscow’s control. Putin should open dialogues with local minorities, mostly Muslim, and be far more flexible and imaginative. Brutality and bribes have inflamed passions and wasted resources. Russia might also improve relations with Georgia to help contain threats in the North Caucasus.

Putin is his country’s most popular leader. He excels in a political culture that values a strong hand, nationalism and independent great-power status. But Russia is also changing. Civil society, while still weak, is gathering force. Dissatisfaction with corruption and the lack of electoral choice is growing.

Status quo policies are insufficient but remain Putin’s predilection. He dissipates energies and discomfits neighbors by pressing for a Eurasian union that will bring little benefit. Russia’s main foreign interests and customers are in Europe. Russians admire it and many like to travel or even buy property there.

Putin can succeed as president if he effectively addresses Russia’s main challenges. This time, however, he will encounter a more sophisticated and demanding electorate. When Shevardnadze could no longer solve Georgia’s problems, he was swept away. Putin may run the same risk unless he learns from Shevardnadze and the other giants who went before him.

Denis Corboy is director of the Caucasus Policy Institute at King’s College London and a former European Commission ambassador to Georgia and Armenia. William Courtney is a former U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan and Georgia, member of EWI's Experts Group on EuroAtlantic Security and special assistant to the U.S. president for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia. Kenneth Yalowitz is director of the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College and a former U.S. ambassador to Belarus and Georgia.

Click here to read the article in the International Herald Tribune. 

The Reset: Down - but not Out

During Wall Street’s latest gyrations, Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called the United States a parasite on the global economy.  In response to the U.S. Senate’s recent unanimous resolution condemning Russia’s continued post-war military presence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, President Dmitry Medvedev possibly called U.S. senators senile—or maybe it was just senior citizens. Either way, you get the point. And in the most recent spat over U.S. plans for ballistic missile defense in Europe, Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s Ambassador to NATO, labeled U.S. Republican Senators Jon Kyl and Mark Kirk “monsters of the Cold War.”

By every rhetorical indication, the “reset” of U.S.-Russia relations is in trouble again. In fact, many observers in both Russia and the United States are proclaiming, sometimes jubilantly, that the reset is doomed. But such a judgment is decidedly premature. The reset survives—and, despite profound disagreements, the two sides could still find it in their interests to work together on a broad range of issues and temper their rhetoric, trying to keep emotions in check going into an election year.

That won’t be easy, especially when dramatic human rights cases like the death in police custody of Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old lawyer working for a Western investment firm, are triggering new angry recriminations.  After he accused police and interior ministry officials of perpetrating a $230 million fraud against the Russian government, Magnitsky was jailed by those same authorities for alleged tax evasion. An investigative commission has now pinned the responsibility for his death on two prison doctors, but human rights activists charge that this is only an attempt to cover-up the complicity of higher officials in his brutal mistreatment that led to his death. Frustrated with what they saw as the Obama administration’s weak response, Republicans and Democrats in both the House and the Senate introduced legislation named after Magnitsky to ban Russian officials connected to the case from traveling to the United States as well as freezing any of their U.S.-held assets. Similar bills have made headway in Europe and Canada.

Russia’s establishment has responded with mixed signals about the case, promoting some of the officials involved while claiming it will make sure that any abuses will be punished. But there has been nothing ambiguous about its reaction to the proposed bills on Capitol Hill. After the State Department quietly enacted a travel ban on certain Russian officials, Russia instituted a tit-for-tat visa ban on U.S. officials, allegedly targeting those responsible for the extradition of Russian arms deal Viktor Bout from Thailand. (Neither government has released the list of banned officials.) And the Obama administration sent a detailed memo to Senators raising its concerns with the legislation. Instead of seeing the Obama administration’s actions as an attempt to straddle the controversy and soften the Congressional legislation, Kremlin officials argued that this proved that they couldn’t count on the White House either. In other words, forget the reset.

This is far from the only issue bedeviling U.S.-Russia relations.  The ongoing application of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the 1974 Trade Act, which links trade relations to emigration practices, is a long-standing source of Russian ire (see earlier article).  Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama have been unable to get Congress to graduate Russia from the amendment and grant permanent normal trade relations. Ballistic missile defense also continues to spark controversy. Obama’s decision to move away from Bush’s planned deployment of assets in Poland and the Czech Republic provided just a momentary lull. And the lingering fallout from Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia continues to provide ample opportunities for mutual recriminations, including a leaked U.S. intelligence report linking a Russian intelligence official to a bombing near the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi.

Despite these contentious issues, the reset has scored some significant successes. To be sure, it was slow to deliver on its initial promises. The negotiations for New START dragged on for over a year, allowing START to expire. After finally concluding negotiations with Russia, the Obama administration had another hard-fought battle in the Senate to get the treaty ratified. But the entry into force of the New START treaty was one of the major foreign policy successes for the Obama administration and its reset policy.

There has also been progress in addressing other strategic U.S. concerns, most significantly Iran and Afghanistan. Washington secured Russian agreement on both over-flight rights for lethal cargo and overland transit of non-lethal cargo to resupply the Afghanistan effort. This took pressure off the Pakistan supply route—now estimated to be used for only 35 percent of supply efforts as compared to about 90 percent two years ago.  And Russia recently agreed to expand the distribution network by allowing two-way transit and overland shipment of lethal goods.  The United States was also able to gain Russian and Chinese support for sanctions against Iran because of that country’s continued intransigence on international inspection of its nuclear enrichment facilities.

The benefits of the reset have been mutual, as demonstrated by New START. Moscow also had reason to be particularly pleased when the U. S. implemented the 123 civilian nuclear agreement, laying out the parameters of peaceful nuclear cooperation with Russia that needed to be in place before U.S. and Russian companies could expand commercial collaboration. After the Russian invasion of Georgia, it had been withdrawn from congressional consideration. Another success of the reset is firm U.S. backing for Russia’s World Trade Organization aspirations. It is expected that Russia’s tortured 18-year application process may finally come to an end at this December’s WTO ministerial in Geneva. Russia is the largest economy outside of the organization and Medvedev’s ambitious modernization program needs the benefits of WTO membership

What both sides need to understand is that the reset offers the best hope of maintaining cooperation on key areas of mutual concern and keeping inevitable disagreements within reasonable bounds.  To that end, leaders in Moscow and Washington should deliver that message to their highly skeptical domestic constituencies more often.  The Obama administration needs to undertake a sustained effort with a Congress that is still deeply suspicious of Russia and could still undermine the reset, especially during an election year. And Russian leaders should think twice before they engage in the kind of rhetorical overkill that only fuels Cold War thinking.  Angry rhetoric won’t disappear anytime soon, but it needs to be kept in check. Otherwise, both sides are likely to lose out.  

The WTO and the Reset

It took Barack Obama several months and some tough lobbying to finally win congressional approval for the New START treaty last December, which was seen as the key to the administration’s reset with Russia. Another fight could already be brewing over Obama’s support for Russia’s World Trade Organization (WTO) membership, which is the next big goal of the administration’s Russia policy. Citing Russian human rights abuses and lack of democratic development, congressional critics want to keep Russia subject to the Jackson-Vanik amendment—a Cold War relic that, if left in place, would effectively nullify both Russian and U.S. gains from Russian WTO membership. But, somewhat surprisingly, the administration could develop a win-win outcome by taking a page from its dealings with China, another country whose human rights practices stir congressional unease.

The Jackson-Vanik amendment to the 1974 Trade Act denies permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) to non-market economies that restrict emigration. The amendment was passed unanimously by both houses of Congress to pressure the Soviet Union to allow Soviet Jews to emigrate. In 1994, the Clinton administration found Russia to be in full compliance with the amendment’s freedom-of-emigration requirements. And in 2002, the United States officially began describing Russia as a market economy. Presidents Clinton, Bush, and now Obama all declared their intention to work with Congress to repeal the legislation as it applies to Russia, but no action has been taken. The reason: Congress still sees Jackson-Vanik as a lever to punish Russia for its human rights record even when the executive branch is prioritizing the security aspects of the bilateral relationship.

Jackson-Vanik’s ongoing application has been a major symbolic irritant in the relationship, even though the United States has granted Russia a waiver every year since 1992. But once Russia joins the WTO, which could happen next year, Jackson-Vanik will go from being a symbol of mistrust to inflicting actual harm both to Russia and the U.S.-Russia relationship.

Jackson-Vanik is inconsistent with WTO requirements on unconditional application of most-favored nation status. If Russia enters the WTO and is still subject to Jackson-Vanik, the United States will have to invoke the non-application principle, by which a member can opt out of its obligations to a newly acceded member. The United States has invoked non-application before—and is the only WTO member to have done so. Non-application, however, is reciprocal. U.S. businesses would face market barriers in Russia that other companies would not be subject to. Congressional refusal to pass legislation to permanently graduate Russia from Jackson-Vanik would then hurt the U.S. economy.

With U.S. support and some of the hardest negotiations behind it, Russia is, according to some observers, 95 percent of the way to WTO membership, after first applying nearly 18 years ago. By comparison, China’s accession process took 15 years; the average is five to seven years. And although there are still economic and political barriers to Russian accession—Georgia has a significant role as a possible spoiler of Russian WTO ambitions—the United States is actively working to support Russia’s bid.  As Vice President Joe Biden puts it, membership would produce “stronger ties of trade and commerce that match the security cooperation we have achieved.”

There are clear benefits that would accrue to Russia from joining the WTO—including an expected 3 percent increase in GDP. There are also significant benefits that would accrue to U.S. companies that do business or want to do business in Russia, including greater predictability, transparency, and access to mechanisms for dispute resolution.  All of which would translate into greater access to the world’s tenth largest economy—and the largest economy currently outside of the WTO. The President’s Export Council estimates that U.S. exports to Russia, totaling nearly $6 billion in 2010, could double or triple once Russia joins the WTO. But if the United States has to invoke the non-application principle, this could make U.S. products more expensive and U.S. companies less competitive in the Russian market. This is not the first time that Congress has grappled with how to support WTO membership for a country that many members feel does not respect human rights and the rule of law. China was graduated from Jackson-Vanik shortly after it joined the WTO in December 2001, despite such concerns. But the legislation granting China PNTR also created the Congressional Executive Commission on China, which is tasked with monitoring human rights and the rule of law. This provides a workable model for how to decouple the economic and political issues, without downplaying the legitimate political considerations stressed by members of Congress from both parties. There is still a forum for addressing those highly sensitive issues, but the economic relationship isn’t held hostage to them.

Even if the administration decides to propose this kind of solution for Russia, however, it may not be willing to push hard for it.  While it claims it is prioritizing the economic aspect of the reset, the administration has relegated Russia to at least fourth place in its queue of priorities. It is currently pursuing congressional approval of free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama, and the Republican leadership in the House has indicated it will not consider Russia’s Jackson-Vanik status before these FTAs are considered. While these three countries are larger trading partners for the U.S. than Russia, there is also a compelling strategic interest in promoting the U.S.-Russia relationship that goes beyond pure economics.

The administration should start laying the groundwork now for the repeal of Jackson-Vanik rather than waiting for Congress to consider the FTAs for South Korea, Colombia, and Panama. And the administration should offer a way forward for Jackson-Vanik graduation for Russia that separates the economic issues at hand from long-standing congressional concerns about Russia’s dubious record on human rights and the rule of law. The legislation approving China’s PNTR status provides a ready example of how to move forward. WTO accession would be good for Russia, it would be good for the United States, and it would be especially good for American business.

Miller is a senior associate at the EastWest Institute.

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