Wider Europe
Policy Brief
June 26, 2009
Summary: In July, President
Obama will shortly meet Rus-
sian President Medvedev for the
second time to hear the results of
the negotiations for an agreement
to replace the START treaty, which
is set to expire this year. Using
Cold War means, arms control, to
cope with post-Cold War problems
allows Russia to divert attention
from the real problems we face
and claim superpower-like pres-
tige for which it longs.
Arms control might be an opti-
cally useful slideshow, but only if
it does not lay a diverting veneer
over serious differences about
contemporary security threats.
The Obama administration will
need more than the last century’s
legacy at the core of its program
to reset a difficult relationship with
Moscow.
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An Anachronistic Approach to Russia
by Joseph R. Wood1
President Obama will shortly meet Rus-
sian President Medvedev for the second
time. In their first meeting earlier this year
in London for the G-20 conference, they
agreed to begin negotiating a legally bind-
ing agreement to replace the START treaty
that will expire this year, and their upcom-
ing July meeting will allow them to hear
the results of negotiations this far. The
Bush administration also tried to begin
negotiations in 2008 on such a new treaty
but made little headway, probably because
Moscow calculated it would gain more by
negotiating with a new administration.
The Bush administration had more suc-
cess with practical results in agreeing with
Moscow a slender treaty in 2002 to reduce
strategic nuclear warheads to a window
around 2000 on each side.
While the value of arms control negotia-
tions during the Cold War was arguable,
they at least provided a means of dialogue
between the two nations who led funda-
mentally opposed blocs with the real risk
of nuclear confrontation. This confronta-
tion was the central security problem of
the era. It defined the Cold War and arms
control was one means to deal with it.
But nuclear confrontation between the
United States and Russia is not the central
security question of this era. Obama and
Medvedev agreed earlier this year to dis-
agree or punt on other key questions that
really matter to western security, especially
slowing the Iranian nuclear threat and
building the associated missile defense
1
Joseph R. Wood is a senior resident fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). The views expressed are
those of the author and do not represent the views of GMF.
installation in Poland and the Czech
Republic, as well as dealing with Russia’s
clear ambitions and definitive actions to re-
establish a sphere of influence. Using Cold
War means, arms control, to cope with
post-Cold War problems allows Russia to
divert attention from the real problems we
face and claim a superpower-like prestige
for which it longs. This will not make us
or those nations around Russia, or Russia
itself, safer.
Moreover, today’s Russia looks and acts
less like the Soviet Union pursuing 20th
century global domination than like
another kind of 20th century totalitarian
power pursuing 19th century goals. Con-
temporary relations between the Kremlin
and major Russian corporations in energy,
resources, and armaments are straightfor-
wardly corporatist-statist. The suppres-
sion of free media, informal state sanction
of violence against journalists and civil
society leaders, and the enforced relegation
of alternative political parties to the wilder-
ness are all strikingly totalitarian. So is the
personality cult, frayed of late, that elevated
Putin to the status of mythic hero, and the
youth groups which exist to advance state
goals. While one can hope that Medve-
dev is different in character than Putin,
evidence thus far suggests Putin remains
in control of Russian policy. Medvedev
himself defended a Russian sphere of privi-
leged influence last year, so the range of his
actual differences with Putin on foreign
policy seems narrow.
Wider Europe
Policy Brief
Beyond its borders, the Kremlin offers a grievance-based narra-
tive, like that of fascist Germany or Italy, that blames the west for
its problems. Russia blames the west, especially the United States,
for its domestic troubles in the 1990s that followed the fall of the
Soviet empire. Moscow treats Russia’s loss of influence during
those years as a western humiliation, capped by the alleged provo-
cation of “color revolutions” in parts of the former Soviet Union.
More recently, the day after the London G-20 meeting, Medvedev
blamed Russia’s economic problems on America and Europe.
Using grievance as grist for domestic political support is effective
in Russia, but it ensures that the grievance has to be perpetuated
to sustain the narrative. Medvedev recently distorted the work
of Alexis de Tocqueville in an effort to draw parallels between
Russia and the United States. Writing in the 1800s, however, de
Tocqueville knew that Russia has the long-standing habit of cor-
recting perceived grievances by force of arms against its neighbors,
resulting in servitude for those around Russia. Russia’s efforts to
control the energy supplies and infrastructure of Europe, together
with occasional threats of attack (and actual cyber-attack) against
the newer NATO allies in central Europe, are a latter-day means
toward this 19th century set of priorities.
These problems with Russia will not be answered by returning to
a Cold War-like dialogue with arms control as the central means
of mediating conflict. This is especially the case given Russia’s
recent arms control record. It suspended its participation in the
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe agreement, which has no
suspension clause, after refusing to implement its “Istanbul com-
mitments” on force deployments. Moscow took the opportunity
once again to cast this as a grievance against the west. They are
doing the same with NATO enlargement, claiming that their con-
cerns are ignored while never mentioning the 1997 NATO-Russia
Founding Act that was negotiated to deal specifically with those
concerns.
An additional danger for the United States, one that is present for
any administration, is the premium we place on visible success.
President Obama has put his “policy prestige” on the line by mak-
ing the new treaty a priority in U.S.–Russian relations. Speaking in
Prague in April, he added America’s moral prestige to the mix by
calling for broad nuclear disarmament, noting the unique respon-
sibility of the United States as the only country ever to use atomic
weapons. A new treaty would be a visible “deliverable” along the
disarmament path. The United States may thus be in a posi-
tion where we want the treaty more than Russia, which benefits
mainly from the prestige that attaches to negotiating bilaterally
with America as a nuclear equal, rather than actually achieving a
good result. Russia has its own reasons, including a deteriorating
nuclear deterrent, for wanting a treaty, but these are long-term
motivations that a treaty will only partially remedy. Russian nego-
tiators know how to exploit such a mismatch of incentives.
Arms control might be an optically useful sideshow, but only if
it does not lay a diverting veneer over serious differences about
contemporary security threats. The Obama administration will
need more than the last century’s legacy at the core of its program
to reset a difficult relationship with Moscow.
Joseph R. Wood, Senior Resident Fellow, GMF
Joseph R. Wood joined the German Marshall Fund in November 2008
as senior resident fellow. His work covers Europe, Eurasia, and trans-
atlantic relations. From 2005 until coming to GMF, he was Deputy As-
sistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs at the White
House, with responsibility for all policy involving Europe, Eurasia,
and Africa. He is a retired Air Force colonel, and his career included
operational and command fighter assignments in Korea and Europe;
faculty duty in the Department of Political Science at the Air Force
Academy where he taught U.S. foreign and defense policy; service at
the Pentagon as speech writer for the Chief of Staff and Vice Chief of
Staff of the Air Force; two years as Special Advisor for Europe in the
Office of the Vice President; and temporary assignments in the Joint
Staff, the U.S. Mission to the Conventional Forces in Europe Talks in
Vienna, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and NATO SHAPE
Headquarters in Mons, Belgium.
About GMF
The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) is a
nonpartisan American public policy and grantmaking institution
dedicated to promoting greater cooperation and understanding
between North America and Europe. GMF does this by supporting
individuals and institutions working on transatlantic issues, by
convening leaders to discuss the most pressing transatlantic themes,
and by examining ways in which transatlantic cooperation can
address a variety of global policy challenges. In addition, GMF sup-
ports a number of initiatives to strengthen democracies. Founded
in 1972 through a gift from Germany on the 25th anniversary of the
Marshall Plan as a permanent memorial to Marshall Plan assistance,
GMF maintains a strong presence on both sides of the Atlantic. In ad-
dition to its headquarters in Washington, DC, GMF has seven offices
in Europe: Berlin, Bratislava, Paris, Brussels, Belgrade, Ankara, and
Bucharest.