Strange Bedfellows in a Strange Land: The International Coalition to Combat TerrorismExcerpts of speech by Michael McFaul, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment, working on the faculty of the Department of Political Science of Stanford, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has written very widely on Russian politics and aspects of U.S.-Russian relations, most recently in his new book Russia's Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin, published by Cornell University Press.
First I want to talk just briefly about the status of the relationship and the chronology in terms of U.S.-Russian relations. I realize many of you in this room follow that closely, but a good deal of you do not, so I want to update you on that; second, talk about domestic reactions to what Putin has proposed; and third, talk about possible steps for further cementing this relationship in the short term and long term.
First, on the chronology, it's been said and I've been told that President Putin was actually the first foreign leader to reach President Bush on September 11th. It was a rather emotional phone call, a pledge of support - we are with you - and, I am told that President Bush himself was very moved by the openness. And the fact that it was the first call taken I think is significant.
After that, however, there was a week of ambiguity. You'll recall Sergei Ivanov, the minister of Defense, said, "We're not going to get involved in this. We're not going to open our space." General Kvashnin made similar statement of rolling back. And it seemed like we were entering a very classic moment in Russian politics in the Putin era when there would be lots of voices saying different things. And Putin characteristically, in those debates, takes a long time to side with one or the other, and in fact he prefers not to side with those groups. And to oversimplify it, it tends to be the liberals in the governments versus the KGB and military folks that are closer to him, both within his administration and within the institutions that they run. That's a gross oversimplification, by this has been a pattern we've seen in a lot of issues -- economic policy, the war in Chechnya, et cetera - and it seemed like we were inching back towards that.
Putin then goes off to Sochi. Lots of people fly in and confer with him. Deputy Secretary of State Armitage also goes to Moscow around this time. And it seems to me that there was some very concrete discussions about concrete things that the Americans were hoping for. On September 23rd, on a Sunday, there was a 40-minute conversation between Presidents Bush and Putin. And on the 24th, the following day, Putin made his statement, trying to put actual meat and concrete policies on the emotional, rhetorical statement of support he had made on September 11th.
And to remind you, these were the five points that he outlined: one, intelligence cooperation; two, open Russian airspace for humanitarian assistance; three, cooperation with Central Asian allies to allow their airbases to be open for similar kinds of operations -- and then Sergei Ivanov reversed himself 100 percent and took it a step further to say not just humanitarian but military as well -- fourth, participation in international search and rescue efforts; and fifth, increased direct assistance to the Northern Alliance, and he said very explicitly technical and humanitarian but also weapons -- military support.
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Second, most certainly he was just -- in terms of short term interests, the notion of joint cooperation on terrorism is something that President Putin has been pushing for a long time; vindicates what he has been doing in Chechnya. They have tried to get this on the agenda for a long time. It vindicates that.
But I actually think it is much deeper than that and I think it would be wrong to just assume that it's just about that. I think it was something that had to do with norms and kind of Putin's base gut reaction that when push comes to shove, and this is a moment when push does come to shove, he wants to be part of the West and not on the outside of the West. And for a long time, if you look at his history and you look at his background and you look at the issues, he's tried to balance this intuitive Western leaningness with his Soviet background and his Soviet training and Soviet geostrategic thinking. I think on this one he pushed and he went with his gut, not with his interests.
And therefore they were very nervous and disappointed when that speech was not met with the commensurate kind of acknowledgement from the West. And between Monday and Wednesday, there was lots of scrambling going on: Why is the West not acknowledging what we've done, this is truly a big step forward, where is the American response? Well, it did come. It took two days, but it came on the following Wednesday, September 26th, out of the White House. And the Fleischer statement said a couple of things, saluted President Putin's speech, and explicitly called on Chechen terrorists with links to bin Laden to cease those contacts.
And let me just say a couple of things about that statement because I think it was important for a number of respects. First of all, it came out of the White House, it did not come out of the State Department. That was not by accident. There was a battle about it. Second, it violated their own rules of the game in terms of how they talk about coalition partners. For those of you who work out with me in the gym downstairs, we're always down there, we're always listening to Boucher go on and on and on about saying nothing, right? And what does, as we all know, and as my friends in the journalistic community know even more - some of them are thinking of getting new jobs because it's so boring - he says, time and time again, "We're going to let the other countries define their relationships with us. We are not going to comment on anything in terms of what they've done for us." Well, they violated that with Russia in a very pronounced way.
And I think this was a Bush initiative and Condaleeza Rice initiative. That's why it came out of the White House. And it was very well received in Russia, but perhaps not for the way that many of you think, and most certainly not for the way that most journalists who've called me about it think. Everybody assumes that this now gives Russia carte blanche to do what it wants in Chechnya, and that's what President Putin wanted from the statement. That's wrong. That's false. They've had carte blanche to do what they want in Chechnya. They did not need the White House press spokesperson to give them that. Our words, ever since the re-invasion of Chechnya, have had very little effect on the way that they have conducted that war, tragically in my opinion. But what they did want was the explicit linkage of terrorists in Chechnya to bin Laden, and that's what they got from that statement, and that was a change.
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Third, the military industrial complex and their cronies in the Duma, or those that are bribed by them in the Duma, they have arms contracts with Iraq, Syria and the one you just read about with Iran. They have no interest in reversing that right now. They don't support this.
Fourth, the communists and Zhirinovsky, obviously they don't like it. Fortunately they don't matter that much.
Fifth, the foreign policy elite I think is split. Some, like Mr. Karaganov and Mr. Arbatov I think are leaning westward. Others such as Mr. Migranyan and Mr. Zatulin have already publicly stated that this is a big strategic mistake for Russia.
Sixth, even the liberals are divided on this. Publicly they support Putin and they see this as a big breakthrough, but quietly and privately some of them are very nervous that this kind of grand alliance against terrorism will mean also a grand alliance against democracy and human rights within Russia, and they're nervous about this as well. They're split on this; there's a divide.
And finally, the Russian people. I, too, received many emails and phone calls, an outpouring on September 11th from friends of mine. An immediate public opinion poll showed overwhelming sympathy for the Americans. But in terms of moving forward, one sees a real division within the way that the public is looking at this. There has been a real suspicion - I have the numbers here if you've interested - about American foreign policy intentions for the last decade. And while this event has helped to move those somewhat, it has not erased them entirely.
And the big question, of course - this is the calm before the storm. What happens domestically when things start flying, quite literally? And as one of my Russian liberal colleagues told me, we're a lot more like Pakistan than we are like Germany in terms of the way we're going to react domestically and how destabilizing this could be.
So, what can be done and what should be done? I think now the ball is in the Western court, and in the Bush administration's court.
Let me just tick off briefly some things that I think could be done to help push this beyond just a short-term alliance to something deeper.
One, a statement that says we no longer believe that Russia is the successor state to the USSR. That may sound like an obvious no-brainer to people here, but that would have real implications for all kinds of laws that are still on the book that were written about the Soviet Union, particularly regarding trade, Most Favored Nation status. That would be a symbolic thing. Of course, we could bring those things back in in terms of against Russia, but as everybody knows, it's a lot harder to introduce new legislation than to get rid of old.
Second, push for further integration of Russia into the West, broadly. I think the easiest thing would be stronger statements on the WTO. Secondly, I think we could state more boldly a new plan of cooperation between Russia and NATO, something beyond the PJC. I think it's ludicrous to think that we're going to stop expanding NATO or we're going to transform NATO as some - you know, some Russians mentioned this, I think that's wrong - and most certainly we're not going to create what some Russians are calling the new Northern Alliance. That is not going to happen, but I think we could cement that relationship and outline a map for closer cooperation. That has not been done yet.
Third, allow NATO countries to buy Russian weapons. Just say that. It doesn't mean it's going to happen, but say it, it's a new policy.
Fourth, have NATO allies buy weapons to be shipped to the Northern Alliance. Don't forget, we used to by Czech weapons during the Cold War to send to the Mujahadin. If we could do that then, is it so ludicrous to think that the Italians might buy some Soviet weapons to be sent to the Northern Alliance -- Russian, excuse me. Thank you. [Laughter.]
Fifth, cooperation on fighting terrorism based in Georgia. I think this is a real flashpoint that we should be very concerned about. And why I say cooperation is because I want to prevent Russian unilateral raids to fight terrorism in Chechnya. In fact, this I think could be a real flashpoint. It's not getting serious attention. It may not come from Mr. Putin; it may come from a commander down there. But what then happens? I think we need to be mobilized and state very categorically that we're willing to defend the borders of Georgia and help rid terrorists and their camps in Georgia when Mr. Shevardnadze comes this week.
Sixth, speak more clearly about Chechnya. Not all Chechens are terrorists just like not all people living in Afghanistan are. I think that needs to be stated more boldly. Second, I think, regarding Chechnya, now is actually a moment of opportunity for negotiations. There's been contact between Maskhadov and the Russian government. We should be talking explicitly and promoting that. And third, talk very explicitly about the negative lessons to be learned about how the Russians fought "terrorism" in Chechnya. Russia is not safer today because of the way they fought that war, and they've really helped to inspire terrorists there in terms of the way they conducted that war. We should speak out very clearly against that.
And seventh, we have to continue to push for democratization within Russia. Russia will never be a full partner of the West until Russia is a full democracy. And to think that that somehow is off the agenda I think is really short-term thinking, because right now we have an alliance between what I would call those for order and those for anarchy, those for the status quo and those against the status quo, but that's a short-term cleavage. This is not a war for freedom against freedom, as has sometimes been said. Russia, unlike many countries in this alliance right now, has the opportunity to really change its status within that divide. And I think it's going to take leadership from both our presidents to make that happen.
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