The missing debate
None of the remaining presidential candidates has seriously addressed what should be our greatest foreign-policy concern — Russia’s singular influence over our national security. Moscow will remain important long after the war in Iraq ends. Despite its diminished status following the Soviet breakup, Russia alone possesses weapons that can destroy the U.S., a military-industrial complex nearly our equal, vast quantities of questionably secured nuclear materials and the planet’s largest oil and natural gas reserves. It is the world’s largest country by size, situated at the crossroads of civilizations, with strategic capabilities in Europe, Iran, North Korea, China, India and Afghanistan.
Russia-U.S. relations are worse today than they have been in 20 years. There are as many serious conflicts as during the Cold War — Kosovo, Iran, Ukraine, Georgia, Venezuela, NATO, missile defense, energy and Kremlin policies — and less actual cooperation. How did it come to this? Washington’s approach to Moscow since the early 1990s inaugurated a new triumphalist narrative: America “won” the 40-year conflict and post-Soviet Russia was a defeated nation analogous to post-World War II Germany and Japan.
That meant that the U.S. had the right to oversee Russia’s post-Communist political and economic development while demanding Moscow yield to U.S. international interests. It meant Washington could break strategic promises to Moscow despite Putin’s crucial assistance in Afghanistan after 9/11. It even meant America was entitled to Russia’s traditional sphere of security and energy supplies. A backlash was bound to happen. It came under Putin, but it would have been the reaction of any strong Kremlin leader. Because the first steps in this direction were taken in Washington, so must be initiatives to reverse it. Three are essential and urgent: a U.S. diplomacy that treats Russia as a great sovereign power, an end to NATO expansion before it reaches Ukraine and a full resumption of negotiations to reduce and secure nuclear stockpiles, which requires ending or agreeing on U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Europe. Presidential campaigns are supposed to discuss such issues, but McCain, Clinton and Obama have not done so. Instead, to varying degrees, each has promised to be “tougher” on the Kremlin than George W. Bush has allegedly been and to continue the encirclement of Russia and the hectoring “democracy promotion” there, both of which have only undermined U.S. security and Russian democracy.
To be fair, no influential actors in American politics have asked the candidates about any of these crucial issues. They should do so now.
Stephen F. Cohen is professor of Russian studies at New York University and professor of politics emeritus at Princeton.
