Russia and the US: An Uncertain Reset

Predictably, both Russia and the United States have portrayed the recent summit in Moscow as a success. Indeed, the summit did produce some positive signs: a resumption of serious arms control negotiations after years of neglect, an agreement on U.S. military overflights of Russian territory to Afghanistan, and the creation of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission, a structure that could give the relationship a high-level institutional focus.

But much more is needed for the "reset" to be real. Most important, the United States must overcome what I first described in an essay from October/November 2007 as "the unmistakable impression that making Russia a strategic partner has never been a major priority." This will require not only new vocabulary -- such as "reset" -- but a new sense of priority toward Russia from the Obama administration.

Such an approach need not come at a cost to U.S. interests or values. But it will require an honest recognition that, since U.S. and Russian interests are not identical, Moscow is unlikely to accommodate Washington's concerns unless it sees something for itself in return.

The United States' priorities with respect to Russia are Afghanistan, Iran, and North Korea. Regarding Iran, neither Washington nor Moscow wants to see the clerical regime develop nuclear weapons. However, Iran is a major Russian trading partner and -- unlike Turkey, a U.S. ally -- offered no encouragement to separatist movements in the North Caucasus or support for pipelines that bypass Russia. Some in the Russian government fear that a Western rapprochement with Iran could disadvantage Moscow if Iranian gas were to become available for export to Europe.

Although Russian officials strongly oppose any military strike against Iran's nuclear installations, they privately acknowledge that such an attack could benefit Russia by increasing energy prices and creating a global backlash against the United States.

As for Afghanistan, Russia does not want to see the Taliban defeat U.S. and NATO forces and the country descend into chaos. Nevertheless, it is frustrated at being shut out of the Afghanistan after then President Vladimir Putin supported U.S. military intervention and encouraged the Northern Alliance to provide muscle to unseat the Taliban in 2001.

Moscow's priorities are different from Washington's: curbing NATO expansion, preventing the establishment of U.S. missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, and maintaining and enhancing Russia's influence in the post-Soviet region. At times, Moscow can sound like its own worst enemy, when, for example, it makes inflated claims that any expansion of NATO is unacceptable or demands privileged interests in its "near abroad."

However, notwithstanding the August 2008 war against Georgia, Moscow's practical ambitions are fairly limited -- especially in comparison with suspicions that Russia is seeking to reestablish the Soviet Union by coercion and force. It is hard to take Russian statements about dominance in the post-Soviet space seriously when even Russia's closest allies in the region -- Armenia and, particularly, Belarus -- are regularly defiant of Moscow's wishes. As for the Caucasus, although Russia did invade Georgia proper, it did so after its own forces in South Ossetia came under attack by Georgian troops. The Russian army then ultimately stopped short of entering Tbilisi and directly challenging the rule of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Even after the war, most of Russia's neighbors feel free to ignore its preferences and have not expressed fear of a Russian attack.

The United States would be wise, therefore, to make a distinction between Russia's nostalgia and bravado, on the one hand, and its actions and capabilities on the other. This would leave several options for developing common ground. The United States already recognizes that neither Georgia nor Ukraine is ready for NATO membership. (This will not change anytime soon, and few NATO members support accelerating the process.) On the question of missile defense in Europe, President Barack Obama and his advisers do not share the almost religious commitment of the Bush administration -- suggesting that a joint system may be possible, as is providing Russia with guarantees that if the Polish and Czech sites are eventually operational, they could not be used against Russian interests.

Given all this, Russia's immediate concerns can be addressed fairly easily without sacrificing anything of real importance to the United States. The modest results of the summit are less a function of U.S. interests or even Russian conduct -- which too often is counterproductive and provides good cause for those skeptical of cooperation -- and more due to the Obama administration's failure to make the "reset" a priority. In this respect, U.S. policy has not changed much since the Bush and Clinton administrations.

Before the summit, Washington promised a "reset" but sent a series of mixed messages. In May, NATO conducted military maneuvers in Georgia despite strong objections from Russia. Although there were good reasons to proceed with the exercises -- they were small-scale, planned before Russia's war with Georgia, and included an invitation to Russia to participate -- the Obama administration could have made a stronger effort to convince the Russians that the maneuvers were not directed against them. A good use of Obama's political capital would have been a presidential or cabinet-level conversation with Moscow to discuss U.S. motives and interests.

Then, days before the summit, Obama criticized Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for having "one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new." Considering that Putin continues to influence Russian national security, it was predictable that Russia's political elite would interpret Obama's statement as endorsing the allegedly more liberal Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, against Putin. This could hardly have been helpful to Medvedev, whose political legitimacy still depends on Putin's support and approval.

Meanwhile, Russian questions about Obama's intent only intensified when Michael McFaul, a top Russia specialist at the National Security Council, said, "We're not going to reassure or give or trade, you know, anything with the Russians regarding NATO expansion or missile defense." He went on to align U.S. "national interest" on these questions with "the interests of our allies in Europe." This statement was seen within Russia as a sign that the Obama administration was not prepared to negotiate on the issues most important to Russia and would instead settle these questions without regard to Russia's perspective and with input from new NATO member states considered antagonistic toward Russia.

In Moscow, however, this is not quite how Obama acted. All issues were on the table and -- to Russia's satisfaction -- the two presidents signed a statement affirming the link between strategic offensive and defensive weapons. This linkage was vague, but Medvedev cited it as an acknowledgement that Russian views counted. Then, to compensate for his earlier criticism of Putin, Obama praised the prime minister's "extraordinary work" while president. Still, this did not overcome the resentment of some on the Russian side over Obama choosing to spend one of his two nights in Moscow at a nightclub with his family rather than with his Russian hosts.

From Moscow's perspective, Russia offered a significant goodwill gesture in allowing U.S. military planes to fly over Russian territory on their way to Afghanistan -- but it did not receive a goodwill gesture in return. In fact, on the question of repealing the Jackson-Vanik amendment -- a move promised by the Obama administration and three preceding administrations -- U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke said in Moscow that Russia must remove restrictions on U.S. poultry and pork imports as "a significant first step" toward persuading Congress to repeal the act.

The Moscow summit was a useful step and certainly did no damage. However, it did not send a clear signal that Obama has decided to make the U.S.-Russian relationship a personal priority. Without such clarity about the president's commitment, the relationship is unlikely to progress significantly. The Bilateral Presidential Commission is helpful as an expression of presidential commitment but cannot be a substitute for it.

More fundamentally, the United States needs to think more strategically about what is required to turn Russia into a responsible stakeholder in international security. Early last century, the Treaty of Versailles excluded Germany and Russia from European security architecture and thereby contributed to a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War II. Now, more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War, Russia remains outside this NATO-dominated structure.

Most officials in the United States and Europe were dismissive of Medvedev's call for a new European security treaty that would include Russia as a full partner. It is understandable that Western leaders are reluctant to do anything that might weaken NATO's mandate, especially when the alliance continues to play a role in providing security in places such as Afghanistan and Kosovo, but this should not obscure the fact that marginalizing a great power such as Russia could push it into seeking partners outside Europe, such as in China or Iran, to the detriment of U.S. interests.

Estrangement from the West would cost Russia dearly, but it would not be without costs to the United States either. An isolated Russia could make it harder to use such international institutions as the UN to advance U.S. interests, as well as provide the hint of an alternative to U.S. primacy, potentially emboldening other U.S. competitors and rivals. Pursuing a partnership with Moscow is difficult and frustrating, but neglecting Russia could severely compromise the pursuit of vital U.S. national interests tomorrow and in the years to come.

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Source:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65203/dimitri-k-simes/an-uncertain-reset

Tags:

Russia, USA, Medvedev, Putin, Obama, Russia-US Summit, U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission, Treaty of Versailles, NATO, Taliban, Iran, North Korea, Georgia, UN, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Germany, Global Development News, Europe, Ukraine, CFR, Armenia, Belarus,

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China, US Hold Defense Talks, More Planned

Chinese and U.S. officials say the two countries share a common concern over a nuclear-weapons armed North Korea and both countries say they want to avoid confrontations at sea. These were among the issues discussed in two days of high level defense talks that ended in Beijing. Under Secretary for Defense Michele Flournoy headed the U.S. delegation.

Speaking to reporters in Beijing, she said both countries share concern about what she described as North Korea's recent "provocative actions," and discussed the North Korean nuclear issue in general.

She said the two sides did not specifically discuss a North Korean ship off the coast of China that is allegedly carrying small arms to Burma. If verified, this would be in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution that was recently imposed on Pyongyang after it conducted its second nuclear test at the end of May.

"This was not the appropriate forum to have detailed operational level discussions about how enforcement of this U.N. Security Council resolution was going to go," Flournoy said.

Serious concerns about North Korea

The head of the Chinese side, Lieutenant-General Ma Xiaotian, said his country has "serious concerns" about a nuclear North Korea. But he urged all parties to keep negotiating. Ma says he is confident the U.S.-China military relationship will continue to strengthen in the future. Ma says he believes military ties will continue to make progress despite all the difficulties.

One recent issue has been a series of encounters between U.S. and Chinese ships in waters off China's coast that Beijing claims are within its so-called exclusive economic zone. The Pentagon has said the U.S. ships involved were operating in accordance with international law.

U.S. and Chinese military officials will hold special consultations in July, to address the sea confrontation issue.

Tension over Taiwan arms sale

The two sides also discussed shared interests in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, and with international anti-piracy efforts off the coast of Somalia. The just-concluded defense talks resumed after an 18-month hiatus. China suspended the meetings last year, after the Bush administration announced a multi-billion-dollar arms deal with Taiwan, a separately governed island that Beijing considers a renegade province.

Under Secretary Flournoy said the Obama administration "inherited" the arms-sale to Taiwan and is in the process of deciding how it plans to proceed.

Source: http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-24-voa19.cfm

Tags: China, USA, Defense, Military, Ma Xiaotian, Taiwan arms sale, Somalia, The Pentagon, Under Secretary Michelle Flournoy, North Korea, UN Security Council, Global Development News,

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North Korean Heir Apparent Makes Top-Secret Visit To China

The son and heir apparent to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il joined a delegation of senior military officials for a top-secret, week-long visit to China in mid-June in spite of Beijing’s claims that no such trip occurred.

The visit was intended to shore up support for the inexperienced Kim Jong-woon, Mr Kim’s 26-year old son, and reassure North Korea’s closest ally that a smooth leadership transition was already under way, military, intelligence and diplomatic sources have told the Financial Times.

The Swiss-educated Mr Kim has apparently been given the title “bright leader”, following a tradition in which his father is known as the “dear leader” and his grandfather Kim Il-sung, late founder of the totalitarian Stalinist state, is referred to as the “great leader”.

The younger Mr Kim accompanied Jo Myong-rok, first vice-chairman of North Korea’s National Defence Commission, which is regarded as the country’s top governing body, and Jang Song-taek, a member of the Defence commission and Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law.

Mr Jang, who is a powerful political figure in his own right, has been put in charge of establishing Kim Jong-woon’s legitimacy, analysts say. The North Korean military delegation arrived by air in Beijing on June 10 and met senior Chinese officials during a clandestine visit that took them to Guangzhou, Shanghai and Dalian. They returned to Pyongyang on June 17.

The itinerary closely matched that followed by Kim Jong-il on his last official visit to China in January 2006, although this latest trip was conducted far more discreetly and the delegation was housed in secure military hotels. This month, China’s foreign ministry denied any knowledge of such a visit. The ministry’s official spokesman said at a subsequent press conference that the report was totally false and compared it to something out of a spy novel.

It is not clear whether Kim Jong-woon met Hu Jintao, China’s president, but a person involved in aspects of the visit said that Mr Kim did meet Chinese vice-president Xi Jinping, the man expected eventually to succeed Mr Hu, as well as former Chinese president Jiang Zemin. The talks focused on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and its testing of a nuclear weapon as well as the North’s requests for China to forgive some bilateral debt and provide more energy aid.

But the main purpose of the visit was to establish Kim Jong-woon’s legitimacy as successor and give him some valuable experience in dealing with his country’s giant neighbour, analysts said. “Kim Jong-woon is too young and it is too early for him to meet world leaders on his own so that’s why he had to travel with his uncle and other senior figures,” said one analyst, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The elder Mr Kim is believed to have suffered a stroke last year and has looked frail and sick on the few official occasions where he has been shown on North Korean state media recently.

At a bilateral summit in Tokyo on Sunday, Taro Aso, Japan’s prime minister, and Lee Myung-bak, South Korea’s president, said they “can never accept” North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons.

Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1f2db63c-640e-11de-a818-00144feabdc0.html

Tags: Kim Jong Woon, China, North Korean Heir, Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung, “Bright leader”, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Taro Aso, Lee Myung-Bak, Nuclear weapons, power transition,

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Security Council Set to Tighten Sanctions on North Korea

UNITED NATIONS — The Security Council’s five permanent members agreed on Wednesday on a draft resolution that would ratchet up sanctions against North Korea by concentrating on its financial transactions and its arms industry, including allowing for inspections of its cargo vessels on the high seas.

The sharply worded resolution, while diluting some of the sanctions sought by the West and Japan, would still serve notice on North Korea that its nuclear and other weapons programs had created sufficient alarm to forge a rare unified front among the world’s major powers.

Written by the United States, the resolution came after more than two weeks of negotiations among the five permanent members — China, Russia, the United States, Britain and France — as well as with Japan and South Korea. It was presented to the full Security Council on Wednesday, and although no timetable for a vote was announced, it could come as early as Friday. Given its supporters, the measure seems assured of passing.

Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador, told reporters, “Having sanctions and things like that is not our choice, but a certain political message must be sent, and some measures must be taken, because we are facing a very real situation of proliferation risks.”

North Korea did not react immediately, although its reclusive government has said in the past that ship inspections or other intrusive steps would be considered acts of war. If the resolution is approved, the next hurdle will be ensuring its highly technical provisions are all carried out. Not all resolutions are equally respected by United Nations member states, and, as Ambassador Jorge Urbina of Costa Rica noted, the draft resolution is complex.

The biggest question mark involved China, which has been reluctant to deploy the full weight of its influence on North Korea out of fear of destabilizing it amid a leadership transition. But various analysts suggested that it would not have publicly backed such sanctions unless it was serious about responding to North Korea’s underground nuclear test on May 25.

“They are deeply troubled by North Korean actions,” Jonathan D. Pollack, a professor of Asian and Pacific studies at the Naval War College, said in a telephone interview from Beijing.

The nuclear test followed a series of confrontational actions taken by the North, largely reversing every step it had taken to abandon its nuclear program in recent years.

“It is important for there to be consequences, and this sanctions regime, if passed by the Security Council, will bite and bite in a meaningful way,” said Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador, who shepherded the resolution through the negotiations.

The United States and its allies had wanted the draft resolution to include mandatory cargo inspections, if there was reasonable suspicion that the cargo was weapons-related — something Washington had been seeking outside the United Nations during the Bush years through its Proliferation Security Initiative. But China and Russia balked at mandatory inspections. In a compromise, the resolution requests that states inspect ships on the high seas. If the country where the ship is registered decided to reject an inspection in international waters, then the country would be required to direct the vessel to a nearby harbor for an inspection. If neither happened, the episode would be reported to the Security Council’s sanctions committee. The resolution also suggests that states should cut off “bunkering” services, like refueling, for North Korean vessels.

It is assumed that North Korea would balk at any inspections of its ships, analysts noted, and the resolution does not come under a United Nations provision that would allow the use of force as the ultimate fallback. The sanctions basically fleshed out measures that were first listed in a Security Council resolution passed after North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006. They were never enacted, because the North agreed to participate in talks to dismantle the program.

The draft resolution condemns the latest North Korean nuclear test, demanding that North Korea conduct no more tests and that it suspend its ballistic missile program and rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The theme salted throughout the resolution is choking off anything that might feed the country’s nuclear and weapons programs, including a complete arms embargo, with the exception of small weapons.

Arms generate significant earnings for North Korea, Ms. Rice said, “and we think it important that that source of revenue be entirely curtailed.”

Analysts said the proposed sanctions with the most bite might be the financial ones. They called upon member states to cut off financial services related to the North’s nuclear and weapons programs, to avoid any new grants or loans to the country and to halt other trade support like export credits. Financial transactions for humanitarian or development purposes would be allowed.

William H. Tobey, the former senior Bush administration official for nuclear nonproliferation, who is now at Harvard’s Belfer Center, said that North Korea imported about $3 billion in goods annually, $2 billion of it from China. It exports about $1.5 billion legally, so it needs significant credit to make up the difference. “It would put a significant crimp in their ability to import,” he said of the financial sanctions.

In recent years, efforts to sanction rogue states like Zimbabwe have foundered on the split between Russia and China, on one side, and Western nations on the other. The fact that all five permanent Security Council members agreed on the draft showed how seriously they viewed the gradual global decay in the nuclear nonproliferation treaty — a message aimed not only at North Korea but at other countries suspected of trying to develop nuclear weapons, like Iran.

“They have to get North Korea right, because it has implications for the entire nonproliferation regime,” said Robert C. Orr, the United Nations assistant secretary-general for policy planning.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/world/asia/11korea.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Tags: UN, United Nations, UN Permanent Security Council, China, Russia, USA, Britain, France, Global Economic News, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Nuclear weapons, Economic Sanctions, Croatia, Costa Rica, Vitaly Churkin, Robert C Orr,

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Obama Warns N Korea of Further Nuclear Tests

The US president has said that North Korea's leaders will not receive preferential treatment following recent missile tests. Barack Obama made the comments before a ceremony on Saturday in France to mark the D-Day landings, a turning point in the second world war.

 

Obama said moves by the North Korean government, which included nuclear tests, had been "extraordinarily provocative", pushing diplomacy to its limits. He said that his preferred use of diplomacy to solve tensions may not continue, particularly if North Korea does not respond in "a serious way".

 

'No rewards'

 

"We are going to take a very hard look at how we move forward on these issues," Obama said after a meeting Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, the city of Caen in Normandy, northern France.

 

"I don't think that there should be an assumption that we will simply continue down a path in which North Korea is constantly destabilising the region and we just react in the same ways.

 

"They have made no bones about the fact that they are testing nuclear weapons, testing missiles that would potentially have intercontinental capacity.

 

"We are not intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation."

 

North Korea last launched a long-range missile in April. It has since carried out a nuclear test and several short-range missile tests. North Korea is believed to be preparing for a further long-range missile test.

 

Obama said that the UN security council was preparing a new resolution on North Korea. He asserted that China and Russia - the two major powers closest to Pyongyang - were also taking a stricter stance.

 

"They understand how destabilising North Korea's actions are," he said. Obama was talking ahead of a ceremony to mark the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings, a key date for the allies' victory in the second world war.

 

Tags: obama, north korea, d day, nuclear tests, missiles, sarkozy, france, kim jong il, kim jong un, china, un, un security council, global development news

 

Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/06/200966124659929919.html

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