The position taken by Ambassador Churkin, if it represents the present state of play in the Kremlin, is indicative one more time of Russia's endemic sense of inferiority and concomitant paranoia which has so longed plagued its relations not only with the US but the West generally. It may be that the Obama administration did, in part, consider the potential impact of the ABM decision upon Russia. If that was true, it would ill-behoove the administration to admit it publicly given the controversy surrounding the move--particularly the unfounded charges of surrendering to the Russians coming from the Right.
Churkin has a strange understanding of the nature of international relations given his stance that "true partners do not apologize for taking their partner's position into account." Considering that Mr Churkin is not a newbie in the game of nations, he must know that the folks of the Obama administration, like any government, including his own, must give more weight to internal opinion than the ego-stroking desires of other governments.
When the US elicits the cooperation of Russia--or any other country--on a matter of importance to both, the assumption is that the countries have coinciding national interests. It is on the sole basis of coinciding national interest that mutual efforts, collective efforts, can be achieved. With respect to North Korea and Iran, the underlying assumption is that the Kremlin no more than the US sees the expansion of the Nuclear Club as being in the national interest.
So far Russia has been a significant non-participant in the campaign to halt the nuclear weapons development efforts in either the mullahocracy or the Hermit Kingdom of the North. There might have been some hopes among the members of the Obama foreign policy crew who are less inclined to a realpolitik view of life that cashiering the Bush/Cheney era ABM project would result in increased Russian cooperation on Iran and North Korea.
But, it is quite unlikely that this aspiration, pious in nature, governed the move. After all, by ditching the Central European system without proper diplomatic preparation of the local soil, the US has created credibility problems of a major and unpredictable sort in the capitals of the former Warsaw Pact states and ex-Soviet satrapies. To create this sort of unnecessary complication in a critical area of the world on the hope that Russia would fall in line with the US on the Iranian and North Korean nuclear questions is nearly inconceivable--even for the Obama-Clinton duo.
Churkin comments that no one in Russia speaks of "appeasing" the US while there is much talk in the US of having "appeased" Russia with the cancellation. Assuming that Mr Churkin understands English as well as he speaks it, he should understand perfectly well that the accusations of "appeasement" do not come from members of the Obama administration but rather from the opposition. He should understand as well that the target of the accusation is not Russia but President Obama and his people.
Overall, the proper appreciation of Ambassador Churkin's remarks, which run in parallel with some coming out of Moscow over the past few days, is that this public stance is a preliminary for yet another round of Russian diplomats using their favorite Cold War word, "Nyet!" It is a piece of preparation for the utterly predictable position of Russia following the failure of the upcoming conversations between Iran and the P5+1.
Russia is not going to collaborate in the sanctions against Iran. That is a given. The Kremlin does not (the Geek believes correctly) that the sanctions past, present, or proposed have been and will continue to be unproductive at the least. There is no reason from the Kremlin's perspective to attenuate its minimal influence in Tehran or its (quite pious) hopes that the road to peace in the North Caucasus runs through the Iranian capital by joining in the ineffectual sanction regime.
Churkin and the others who have been invoking the specter of the Cold War in the past few days are simply laying the foundation for not providing a "quo" for the American "quid." The irony here is that by laying on the irrelevant rhetoric as thick as a Moscow snowfall, the Russians are reinforcing the credibility of the stance taken by SecDef Gates and President Obama: That the Russians or considerations of Russian sensibilities do not dictate the American defense posture.
Reality, fortunately, remains unaltered by rhetoric--Cold War or otherwise. When the Russians perceive that a national interest of theirs coincides with one of the US, they will cooperate. Even during the most oratorically polluted days of the Cold War, the Russians have shown themselves to be both pragmatic and cautious and quite willing to acknowledge that from time to time their interests coincide with ours.
That day may not be far in the future regarding Iran. There are increasing hints coming out of the still far from transparent Country of the Bear that Iran is a growing threat and not simply a figment of American imagination. Parsing the fragments of contradictory public information leads one to the preliminary estimate that the Kremlin is finally having doubts concerning its capacity to influence, let alone limit, Iran's progress on both nuclear weapons and delivery system development.
This estimate is reinforced by public statements that the proposed American maritime ABM system is "not a threat" to Russia. Another straw in the winds from the Kremlin is found in the new talk of a joint US-Russian defense system directed against Iranian missiles.
As Churkin's revival of talk about "Cold War talk" indicates, there are no easy roads to collaboration between the US and Russia. That's nothing new. All that matters when the cows come home is that from time to time the Kremlin recognizes that it does have national interests which coincide with those of the US. And, acts on that recognition.
So it goes in the never ending Game of Nations.
No comments:
Post a Comment