The Limits of U.S.-Russian Friendship
Putin has to worry about his domestic critics on the ABM Treaty
By Kimberly Marten Zisk
Nov. 16, 2001
NEW YORK -- Talk of a long-term strategic partnership between the United States. and Russia is premature. While the two countries share a strong common interest in fighting terrorism and defeating the Taliban, there are many areas where the security views of the two sides continue to collide.
This was made clear at the end of the Bush-Putin summit this past week. Despite its cordial atmosphere, and despite the predictions of many pundits, the summit failed to produce the agreement that Bush most wanted: one that would modify the ABM treaty to allow U.S. testing of anti-ballistic missile defenses in Alaska.
It is not surprising that agreement did not emerge on this issue. Russian opinion leaders have devoted too much time and too many resources in recent years to opposing U.S. policy in this area, not just under Bush, but under Clinton as well.
Washington has consistently tried to persuade Moscow that a missile defense program won’t harm Russia’s security interests. The ABM system, U.S. leaders insist, would be designed to protect American territory from a few missiles fired by a rogue state or a terrorist group, not from an all-out massive Russian strike. Since Russia’s deterrent capability would endure, Russia logically should not object to the ABM deployment, the argument goes.
But in addition to the substantive disagreements over the treaty’s enduring value, what this argument misses is the emotion and the expenditure of domestic political capital that lies behind the Russian position. It is not that Russia really fears for its nuclear security. The Russian arsenal will decline in future years because the expense of keeping it up is too high. Even so, experts expect that Russia will retain over 1000 warheads. Furthermore, Russia has the ability to manufacture sophisticated countermeasures, such as dummy warheads mimicking real missiles, that could confuse the American ABM system.
So what is the real reason behind Russian objections? It is that significant Russian elites have worried for the last ten years that the U.S. has stopped taking Russia seriously as a world leader. They have built their reputations, as well as key alliances with uniformed military officers, on the positions they have staked out. Having spent years arguing that the American ABM deployment is destabilizing, they cannot turn around and accept the U.S. position without grave loss of face.
What this demonstrates are the limits of Putin's domestic flexibility. He has done a remarkable job of convincing Russian hard-liners in both the Duma and the military to cooperate with the United States on counter-terrorism efforts. The intelligence sharing that has occurred between the two sides in recent weeks is particularly amazing, according to U.S. officials. But on a range of key issues--not just the ABM treaty, but also Russian arms sales to Iran, and United Nations sanctions against Iraq--agreement will be difficult. The interests of the Russian security bureaucracy are at stake. In policy toward Iran and Iraq, so are the immense commercial interests of Russia’s defense and petroleum industries.
Putin is negotiating in two forums simultaneously—both with the Americans, and with his domestic audience. He already has wrested more control over his opponents in Russia than either Gorbachev or Yeltsin managed to achieve in their many years in office. But Putin is not immune from domestic pressure. As long as significant disagreements remain between U.S. policy positions and Russian domestic interest groups, cooperation between the two sides will be constrained.
Bush and Putin connect at a personal level. Bush has spoken of looking into Putin’s eyes and finding a trustworthy soul behind them. Yet what matters most to Putin is how he is seen domestically, since that is his ticket to staying in power. He will cooperate with the United States as long as broad Russian interests are served by doing so, but we should not expect true friendship anytime soon.
Kimberly Marten Zisk, a Russian expert with Foreign Policy In Focus, is an associate professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University, and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Copyright 2001, Global Beat Syndicate, 418 Lafayette Street, Suite 554, New York, NY 10003 http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate).