[Mb-civic] Why America must be pragmatic with Putin >By Joseph Nye

[Michael Butler]

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Why America must be pragmatic with Putin
>By Joseph Nye
>Published: April 10 2006 20:30 | Last updated: April 10 2006 20:30
>>

When George W. Bush, US president, famously looked into Vladimir Putin¹s
eyes a few years ago, he should have seen a new Russian tsar. For a
president who has put democracy promotion at the top of his agenda, Mr
Putin¹s Russia is an awkward problem.

John McCain, the senator, suggested that western leaders should boycott the
summit of the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations scheduled for
Moscow this summer. Meanwhile, journalists report a policy debate between
Dick Cheney, US vice-president, who urges a tougher line toward Mr Putin¹s
backsliding, and Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, who reportedly takes
a more pragmatic position. Mr Bush apparently rejected Mr McCain¹s advice
but the problem of dealing with Mr Putin¹s Russia remains difficult.

I recently revisited Moscow. The city looks more like a normal European
capital than the dreary city of 20 years ago. In the 1980s, Russian
colleagues risked critical comments only when walking out of doors or in
noisy restaurants, but never in their bugged offices. This time I found
students, journalists and politicians willing to criticise Mr Putin openly.
Russia may not be democratic but there is certainly more private property
and personal freedom than there was two decades ago.

Ironically, Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who helped make that freedom
possible, is not very popular in Russia today. At a recent Gorbachev
Foundation conference and concert celebrating his 75th birthday, he was
praised by intellectuals and artists but many members of the public blame
him for weakening Soviet Russia. As one friend told me, when Mr Gorbachev
visited his home city, crowds shouted abuse at him. He stopped and shouted
back: ³Don¹t forget I am the one who gave you the right to shout!²

But free speech is not the same as democracy, particularly when it cannot be
amplified and organised for political purposes. While newspapers and some
radio stations are openly critical of the regime, television is strictly
controlled. As one of Mr Putin¹s supporters proudly explained: ³We are a
manipulated democracy. It is really no different than Berlusconi¹s Italy.²
But despite Silvio Berlusconi¹s influence over his television stations as
prime minister, the outcome of the Italian elections was an open question.
No one suggested any doubt that Mr Putin¹s United Russia group would control
the next Russian election.

What will Russia¹s future look like? One former political leader suggested
that Russian politics is like a pendulum. It had swung too far in the
direction of chaos under Boris Yeltsin and was now swinging too far in the
direction of order under Mr Putin, but would eventually reach equilibrium.

Others were not so sure. A young Duma member told me he foresaw a continual
decline of freedom rather than a return to equilibrium. Dmitri Trenin,
deputy director of the Carnegie Endowment¹s Moscow Center, argues that
³although not democratic, Russia is largely free. Property rights are more
deeply anchored than they were five years ago. Russia¹s future now depends
heavily on how fast a middle class ­ a self-identified group with personal
stakes in having a law-based government accountable to taxpayers ­ can be
created².

Faced with this uncertainty, how should we respond? Ms Rice said last
December that ³the fundamental character of regimes matters more today than
the international distribution of power².

Yet in addition to our democracy agenda, the US has a realist agenda based
on very tangible interests. It needs Russian co-operation in dealing with
issues such as nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea, the control of
nuclear materials and weapons, combating the current wave of Salafi-jihadist
terrorism, and energy production and security (which will be a focus of the
G8 agenda). Moreover, Russia possesses talented people, technology and
resources that can help to meet new transnational challenges such as climate
change or the spread of pandemic diseases.

There may not be as much conflict between these two agendas as first
appears. If the US were to turn its back on Russia, we would not advance the
growth of liberal democracy in Russia. Most Russian liberals I spoke to
believed such isolation would accelerate the xenophobic and statist
tendencies long present in Russian culture and make the liberal democratic
cause even more difficult.

In their view, the US should look to the long run, use our soft power of
attraction, expand exchanges and contacts with Russia¹s new generation,
support Russia¹s entry into the World Trade Organisation and address Russian
deficiencies with specific criticisms rather than general harangues or
counter-productive isolation.

The sources of change in Russia will remain rooted in Russia, and American
influence will be limited no matter what we do. But petulant actions that
play well in American domestic politics may hinder rather than help Russians
who share our values.

The writer is a professor at Harvard¹s Kennedy School of Government and an
author, most recently of The Power Game: A Washington Novel. He was an
assistant secretary of defence and chairman of the National Intelligence
Council in the early 1990s
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