What does the next president need to do about US-Russian Relations? Former US Ambassador to the USSR Jack Matlock says the first thing is to understand why, in many respects, our current policy is not serving the national interest. It is not as defective and dangerous as it was when President Obama took office, but it is still, in many respects, on the wrong track.
Duke University
Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies
Focus Program
Rubenstein Fellows Academy
DEALING WITH RUSSIA:
ADVICE TO THE NEXT PRESIDENT
by
Jack F. Matlock, Jr.
September 12, 2016
209 East Duke, East Campus
What does the next president need to do about this?
First: Understand why, in many respects, our current policy is not serving the national interest. It is not as defective and dangerous as it was when President Obama took office, but it is still, in many respects, on the wrong track. We seem trapped in never-ending wars, many with quixotic, unobtainable goals, politically split into antagonistic factions at home, tied to “allies” whose interests are not the same as ours, estranged from potential partners whose basic interests are consistent with ours. Meanwhile our infrastructure and the cohesion of our society suffers, even as we continue to pile up debt to fight wars abroad. Overall our policy has become much too concentrated on militarism and the use of force to solve problems, even when the application of force exacerbates the problem.
As a people, we Americans—at least those who dominate our politics—seem incapable of learning from history, perhaps because we make so little effort to understand it and assess it. Part of correcting losing strategies is to understand why they are losing.
Back to Basics
What are the most serious threats to us today?
1. Nuclear weapons – the only existential threat to the U.S. Existential threat to everyone! It is the elephant in the room that nobody seems to see. (Let me add that a rogue state with a dozen or so would be a serious problem, but not an existential threat. Only the U.S., Russian, and (potentially) Chinese arsenals pose that degree of threat. They pose the threat through their very existence.
2. Global warming and environmental degradation. This is a threat somewhat farther out, but it too can eventually make the planet hostile to human existence. More effective means to slow and, if possible, eventually reverse current trends are vital for future generations.
3. Failed states and terrorism.
4, Disease
5. International crime and corruption
None of these major problems will be solved by military means. All are actually exacerbated by the excessive or inappropriate application of force. None can be managed without the active cooperation of Russia, China, India and other large, populous countries.
The future of the world, and indeed mankind, will not be determined by geopolitical competition for control of territory. The most serious challenges transcend national boundaries and can be managed or overcome only by international cooperation.
U.S. Mistakes
“Triumphalism” and unilateralism (world is not and has never been bipolar or unipolar); Cold War ended by negotiation in interest of all.
Violations of international law and of prior agreements. (Kosovo; Iraq)
“Democracy campaign” abroad seen as instrument of imperialism. Based on several false premises. View by Russia and China exactly as we viewed international communism—an attempt to use subversion to subjugate.
Robert Burns: “O wad some powr the giftie gi’e us; To see oursels as ithers see us.”
How others perceive terms like “Leader” and “Exceptional nation.” Their meaning to Americans is radically different from meaning elsewhere.
Russian Mistakes (It’s not all our fault!)
Overreaction to U.S. moves and inappropriate reaction
Military intervention with neighbors has made all more resistant to closer ties
Annexation of Crimea costly; can lead to generations of tension with its most important neighbor
Donbas: Bleeding wound on border. No easy solution.
Georgia: Irredentist claims.
These mistakes have their own costs and can have a different dynamic if the U.S. stays out.
Mistaken ideas on both sides
1. Control of land and people = strength. (Nothing weakens a country more than trying to rule people who don’t want to be ruled by that country.)
2. Goal should be to maximize power. (Power for what? Monopoly is bad for everybody, including—maybe first of all—the monopolist.)
3. Fallacy of considering power as a hierarchy. We are all, in a sense, “global” and “regional” and “local” powers.
4. Rivalry for control of territory benefits nobody. Only people on spot are affected by where boundaries are. If they don’t like where they are, it is a problem for that country.
5. Military power is the principal instrument of change. (Application can—and usually does—have the opposite effect.)
Once again, a basic truth:
The future of the world, and indeed mankind, will not be determined by geopolitical competition for control of territory. The most serious challenges transcend national boundaries and can be managed or overcome only by international cooperation.
Priority Tasks
1. Restore nuclear cooperation with Russia, which requires taking military confrontation off the table. (Importance of the agreement by Reagan and Gorbachev at Geneva in 1985: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, which means there can be no war between us.”)
We must end the confrontational and competitive atmosphere in our relations with Russia (and China!) regarding other, much lesser issues.
2. Review alliances; no sudden radical change possible, but, for start, stop expanding. Then, make clear limits of cooperation (Turkey’s behavior is, on the whole, not consistent with U.S.—or NATO–interests.)
3. Stop military competition with China; (need Chinese and Russian cooperation re N. Korea).
4. With both China and Russia: seek areas for cooperation where interests converge. Welcome cooperation toward common goal. That’s the way we ended the Cold War.
Longer term
Can’t be done overnight, but start process to:
1. Reduce military component in our foreign policy; steadily lower defense budgets; limit requirements; cut personnel, exp senior officers.
2. Withdraw from other people’s fights.
3. End aggressive democracy promotion abroad; concentrate in improving democracy at home. (Burke quote)
4. Give Russia incentive to feel part of post-indutrial “West” (in broad sense: includes Japan, S.Korea, Singapore, etc.)
Hopeless? No (but not prediction)
U.S. presidents rarely follow the scripts they used to get elected. The responsibilities of office have a sobering effect. Even an egotist (what politician is not—as least since Calvin Coolidge, and who wants a Calvin Coolidge?—is going to think about his or her legacy. Who would have predicted that Reagan would start negotiations that ended the Cold War? He said one thing to get elected and something else to get important things done.
Idea that U.S. president is “most powerful person in the world” is nonsense. He or she can do very little without support in Congress and the public. The character of the House and Senate (particularly latter) is vitally important.
Trump could be convinced that he had to follow different policies to be considered a “winner.” (A real long shot, but possible.)
Clinton could (possibly) be convinced that she has a better chance of improving on the records of Obama and her husband by going the “peace” route (a la Reagan). Just maybe… (She is competitive and would love to leave a more impressive record than her predecessor, and particularly, her husband.)
Specific recommendation to the winner:
Take time before you take office to read a couple of books: Polk’s Violent Politics and Cervantes’ Don Quixote.
Polk’s Violent Politics makes clear why our current “war on terrorism” is not succeeding. It does not give answers but explains why a different strategy is needed.
Don Quixote is the classic portrayal of the danger of letting good intentions lead one to do stupid things.
And if you really think a “strong leader is needed, do read Archie Brown’s The Myth of the Strong Leader.
We need wise leaders to lead us in the right direction, not “strong leaders” who lead us off a cliff, or pied pipers who charm us with their “music.”
Even if you don’t have time for books, at least pay attention to wise advice from other American political leaders who have defined what America should do:
Senator William Fulbright—the only senator who was right about Vietnam from the very beginning:
“Power tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is particularly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God’s favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations—to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image. Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence. Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God’s work.”
General (and President) Dwight Eisenhower—
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. … This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
President John Quincy Adams, also our first Minister to Russia (we didn’t have ambassadors in those days!)
From his July 4, 1821 speech:
“Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. “
Observance of the principles these great Americans enunciated should prepare the way for more fruitful cooperation with Russia, China, and other countries whose cooperation is vital to deal with the most serious problems facing us today.