Now, Obama Best Consider A Gesture To Russia

Russian President Medvedev has tossed down a gauntlet to the US. He has also handed the Republicans a major issue for 2010 and, tah-dah!--2012. The front man half of the Putin-Medvedev duarchy has announced that not even the current economic distress in which Russia finds itself will prevent a major modernisation of the Russian military capacity.

According to Medvedev and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov something approximating ninety percent of Russia's military machine is outdated. The Deep Thinkers of the Kremlin also believe (or at least pretend) that Russia faces a number of national security threats including "NATO encroachment." The remedy to these looming menaces is an expensive, extensive upgrading of Russia's military capacities including nuclear and strategic forces.

It is doubtful that NATO is casting covetous eyes at Russian territory. Nor is NATO seeking to coerce Russia into compliance with its policy dictates. That doesn't matter. The outside threat is sufficient to provide a stimulus for internal support of rearmament.

Given the history of Russia and the Soviet Union before that, in fact stretching back into the mists of the Russian Empire, the government has never lacked the political will to spend money on the military regardless of negative consequences to the civilian population. It is legitimate to take Medvedev at his word. It matters not that oil prices have fallen, the Russian stock market melted to oblivion and foreign direct investment fled. Defense uber alles will be the watchword.

Or not. There is a big "unless" tacit to the Medvedev declaration.

It is an "unless" predicated upon a real world concern. Or, to err on the side of accuracy, a real world deficiency within the Russian version of the "military-industrial complex." Not to put to fine a point on matters, it is doubtful that Russia currently possesses the physical or intellectual infrastructure to play catch-up with the US and the West in the new categories of military technology.

While espionage might remedy some of the intellectual deficiency in the near future as it did so often in the Soviet past, that force multiplier will not be enough to cure all the systemic lacks suffered by the Russians. It will not, for example, give the core of very highly skilled technicians necessary to construct and maintain the systems. It will not provide the industrial facilities needful to make the devices the Russians must make if they hope to hold their own with the US and the rest of the West--or even China for that matter.

When it comes to countries which may have a political need to inhibit Russian diplomatic actions or coerce the Kremlin into compliance, China has to lead the list for any rational Kremlin strategist. Even if the Men in the Forbidden City harbor no ambitions regarding those portions of Siberia which lingered so long as a bone of contention, there can be little doubt that these men want the most free hand possible in pursuing global ambitions.

This means that the Russians as well as the Americans have to be inhibited, deterred from opposing Chinese policy. The massive improvements in the Chinese military as well as in the underlying economy generally provide the basis for this.

This implies an opportunity for the US. Taking advantage of this opportunity will require more than symbols and smooth words--even if those are a necessary launching pad. The first challenge for the Obama administration is that of convincing the Putin-Medvedev regime that the US sees Russia as a fellow Great Power and will treat it accordingly.

The second challenge is simply not to be taken in by Putin or Medvedev. The record of the past several years shows that both men, particularly the first, are accomplished workers in the snow job department. Apparent affability or seemingly implacable hostility are both tools in the kits of these accomplished political sharks.

All too many European and American diplomatic and policy level politicians have failed to recognise that Putin (and therefore his chosen front guy, Medvedev) is a Russian nationalist. The current regime is nationalist. This reality is not going to change. Not now. Not in the next few years. Perhaps not ever.

European and American statesmen beyond counting made the precise same error in dealing with the leaders of the Soviet Union. They ignored the obvious. Regardless of internationalist rhetoric, Soviet bosses from Stalin on were resolute Russian nationalists. All efforts were bent to securing and protecting Russian national and strategic interests.

This fundamental Russian trajectory did not die with the last of the Czars. It did not fall with the last of the Commissars. It is alive and well today with Putin and company.

Putin, Medvedev, et al are not globalists. They are not sensitive multi-culturalists. They do not accept such soft, squishy ideas as "We are all passengers on spaceship Earth."

They are Russians, the lot of them. This means they pursue Russian national and strategic interest first, last and always.

So, get a grip, folks. Don't bemoan the nationalism of the Kremlin Crew. Don't think of it as backwards, reactionary, a grave violation of the Lofty Ideals of the High Minded of the West.

Work with it! Nationalism is neither inherently evil nor necessarily good. It simply is a brute fact which must be taken into account in formulating and executing foreign policy.

For the Obama administration and for the president personally, this recognition is liberating. It allows, indeed, demands a fresh approach to US-Russian relations. The US and Russia have several critical coinciding national and strategic interests. The list of real world, realpolitick issues which can either divide or unite us is headed by Iran, Islamism, economic imperatives, nuclear proliferation, transnational terrorism and China (not necessarily in that order.)

Putin, Medvedev and company have been waiting to see if the new administration has a better grip on the realities of international life than the neocon ninnies of the past eight years. Medvedev has provided a solid wake-up call.

Will the Obama administration (and the president personally) pick up the phone? Will it and he accept that Russia is a Great Power, first among all other potential claimants of that status? Will it and he recognise that nationalism--not ideology--provides the best, perhaps the only, base for productive relations? Constructive address of mutual interests and concerns?

Obviously it is too early to give the answers to these critical questions. It is not too early to assert that if the US does not give the correct response, we are in for an expensive arms race when we can least afford it and the Obama agenda will be buried in the rhetoric of democrats-are-soft-on-defense as have been so many administrations and agendas before it.