Even if, in President Obama's estimate, the Russian version of international politics is "Nineteenth Century," this in no way obviates the reality that the US needs Russia's active cooperation on critical matters such as the Iranian nuclear program. Thus, it does American national and strategic interests no good whatsoever to copy the egregiously blundering approach to Russia that was a hallmark of the Bush/Cheney years.
During the long years of the neocon ninny ascendancy, the American tone toward Russia was alternately hectoring and condescending. The administration acted as if Russia was a defeated power, reduced to the status of second or even third rate. As a result Russia was not cooperative in areas of (supposedly) mutual concern and heaved up roadblocks whenever and wherever it could.
Now the Obama administration, or at least Vice President Biden seem hellbent on repeating the profoundly wrong approach of Bush/Cheney. While the WaPo clearly agrees with Biden's reaming out of the Putin/Medvedev understanding of relations with the US, the Geek does not.
Everything which Biden states in his interview with the WSJ about the Russian birth rate, economic failures, banking system on the verge of collapse, and so on may be absolutely true, but that is irrelevant. What is relevant is the impact of a high visibility figure saying so in blunt, utterly diplomacy-free words in a major American publication.
The NYT, like the Russian government, finds the Biden Diatribe "perplexing." The Geek would use the term "idiotic" to describe Joe (I-Can-Say-Whatever-Without-Thinking) Biden's assessment of what is necessary and proper for US-Russian relations.
As every student of Russian and Soviet history (including Robert Gates who holds a doctorate in Soviet Studies) well knows, Russia has a very long history of hyper-sensitivity based on an equally long standing feeling (and fear) of inferiority to the nations of the West. This sensitivity and fear has tinged every Russian regime from Peter the Great to Vladimir the Bare Chested. It is a key factor in understanding how and why Russian regimes act the way that they have and do.
By bashing the Russians in the mudhole of their own social, political, and economic failures (failures from Biden's point of view, that is), our Vice President has been, in the words of the renowned Sovietologist George Kennan, "primitive and unconstructive." Russian nationalism is easily irritated and aroused. Indeed, central to Putin's great successes since going from the bowels of KGB to the corridors of the Kremlin has been the stoking and stroking of Russian national pride.
By offending this national pride Joe Biden has made the task of gaining agreement from the Russians much more difficult than it needs to be. He has, in a very real sense, out-Bushed Bush, with results which will not make the accomplishment of assorted tasks ranging from the Iranian bomb to peace in the Mideast and ending the war in Afghanistan at all easier.
We may well oppose the Russian notion of having a special "sphere of interest" in the states of the former Soviet Union, but the bashing of Russian internal problems and the issuing of a virtual we-will-give-you-nothing decree will not grease the path of negotiation aimed at urging the Russians to lighten up on the subject. It may be, as the WaPo asserts, praiseworthy to confront the Russians squarely on its ambitions, but that does not mean it is useful.
And, lest anyone forget, the purpose of foreign policy, of diplomacy in all its myriad aspects, is to achieve useful goals. To protect and advance national and strategic interests. That's it. All else is mere cant.
Every utterance by a senior foreign policy or administrative personality--and Joe Biden is both--must be carefully calibrated to achieve national and strategic interests. Truth, emotional satisfaction, bad hair day are all either irrelevant or harmful to the task.
At one time, not that many months back, Joe Biden went to Russia to "push the reset button." That effort was followed recently by the Obama trip to Moscow. The Russians responded with a badly needed permission for US troops to be flown across Russian territory en route to Afghanistan. The Russians also speedily agreed to another round of strategic arms reduction in pursuit of a "finite deterrent" based force package.
Not bad after the Bush/Cheney years, which saw Russian bombers again probing our air space and overflying our task forces at sea. Not bad after the Bush/Cheney years, which saw the Russians bring back their favorite Cold War word nyet to the Security Council.
Now, all on his very lonesome, Joe Biden has threatened to put US-Russian relations back in the deepest of deep freezes. It is one thing to support Georgia and the Ukraine as Biden correctly did during his recent fast jaunt to the region. It is another matter all together to dismiss the Russians as a decaying society and economy stuck in the past days of lost empire who can serve their own interests best by subscribing to whatever American policy interest we present them.
It is even more gripless to suggest as Biden does that the "emerging nuclear threats" in Iran and North Korea will "force" Russia to comply with American requirements. Come on, Joe, get a grip. The Russians have shown an unsurpassed ability to act unilaterally and with overwhelming force when they are faced by a genuine threat. Given the continuing competence of the Russian armed forces which have not decayed as much as some might like to think, abating any potential Iranian or Korean menace is well within Russian capabilities. It is necessary to keep in mind that the Russians have no particular love or need for the fig leaf of collective action or UN sanction to protect national interests.
Got to hand it to Joe Biden. Secretary of State Clinton managed to outrage only Pakistan and Israel by her lack of diplomatic finesse. Biden has managed to hack off Russia which remains, no matter of what Biden may think, a Great Power. More, a Great Power whose support we must have to achieve many of our most critical foreign policy agenda items.
Way to go, Joe!
Now the matter is up to President Obama. He has to either back up the Veep or disown the remarks. Given that the Nice Young Man From Chicago is both naive regarding the game of nations and post-modern, it is hard to predict what he will do. Perhaps, given his own recent lesson in shooting off his mouth, the President will order underlings to issue clarifications by the truck load, drowning the matter in obfuscation.
Perhaps, Mr Obama will be inclined to call up Vladimir and Dimitri and invite them over for a beer along with Joe. The boys can sit on the Truman Balcony or out at Camp David and hoist a few, swap lies, and slap each other's knees over the inadvertent humor provided by Joe's ever expanding mouth.
Well, it is an idea.
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