President Barack Obama is in the midst of a spate of moves to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons, his moves coinciding with the ongoing resurgence of Russia.
That there is a strong connection here is only to be expected. America and Russia are the two nuclear superpowers on the planet. Obama can't get what he wants without Russia. And Russia has much that it wants in order to continue erasing the memory of its '90s near-collapse after the fall of the Soviet Union.
With his Washington summit this week with the leaders of 47 nations -- the largest summit hosted by an American president since the 1945 founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco -- Obama's focus is on securing materials that could lead to the possession of nuclear weapons by additional states or transnational terrorists. Clearly he needs Russia's help on that, along with final agreement on securing the country's Cold War materials. Last week, Obama announced a new U.S. nuclear strategy, then journeyed to Prague, site of his speech a year ago laying out his goal to end the threat of nuclear weapons. On Thursday, he and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev signed a treaty to reduce each country's nuclear arsenal to 1550 weapons apiece.
U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev signed a major nuclear arms reduction treaty Thursday in Prague.
There was controversy on the Russian side about this treaty, which came much slower than Obama had hoped, because it did not include specific language guaranteeing that the ballistic missile shield project proposed by the Bush/Cheney White House, slated for Poland and the Czech Republic, would not be aimed at Russia. The rationale for it is to protect against Iran.
But signing the treaty was always in the Russian interest. Reducing the difficulty and expense of maintaining an aging nuclear arsenal outweighs the hazy future risk of a small anti-missile system that could be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. And even with the treaty, both countries still possess the ability to destroy the world many times over.
What Obama wants, as he is now saying, is to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, which he regards as the principal national security threat against the U.S., and to prevent Iran and North Korea from possessing deliverable nuclear weapons. He also needs help with the war in Afghanistan.
While it's in Russia's interest to prevent nuclear chaos, too, what Russia really wants is to project its influence again throughout the post-Soviet space. Both for reasons of its own long-term security -- Russia has historically been far more vulnerable to invasion than America -- and for continuing its resurgence as a global power.
Last April in Prague, Obama laid out his vision of a world free from the threat of nuclear weapons.
So much of this is really about jockeying back and forth around continuing the expansion of NATO towards Russia's borders (a mostly conservative policy that ironically goes back to the Clinton Administration, and the first Bush Administration) vs. Russia projecting its influence outward again through what was the Soviet Union and former Soviet bloc countries.
For his geopolitics to work, Obama has to let Russia do at least some of what it can probably do anyway, while not seeming to abandon new democracies in Eastern and Central Europe.
So after Obama and Medvedev signed the nuclear arms reduction treaty, which will cut the atomic arsenals of both the U.S. and Russia by nearly one-third, he spent the rest of his time in Prague meeting with the leaders of a dozen Central and Eastern European nations.
Obama is in the midst of a nine-day period of intense focus on nuclear weapons. Before the Prague summit last week, Obama announced a new nuclear doctrine for the U.S. He renounced the development of new nuclear weapons and narrowed the conditions under which nuclear weapons would be used, explicitly renouncing the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Which, notably, does not include Iran and North Korea.
Obama declared that nuclear terrorism, carried out by transnational, state-less groups and rogue nations, is the greatest threat to America's national security.
All of these moves appear to be fine with Russia, whose help is necessary in any sanctions regime against Iran.
Iran has not changed its tune on its aggressive nuclear program. The country just unveiled new technology in a splashy ceremony.
Nevertheless, following the treaty signing in Prague, Medvedev introduced a few not unexpected wrinkles.
First, Medvedev called for an American/Russian partnership in the development of a global ballistic missile defense system. Then he said that the just-signed treaty will be nullified if U.S. ballistic missile defense development appears aimed at Russia.
Would Russia really back away from a treaty signed with such fanfare? Or is the concern not so much about a speculative anti-missile system but about the potential commitment of a large number of American troops for the ostensible purpose of protecting the anti-missile installations?
For all this semi-public jockeying, Russia's project of projecting its power in the post-Soviet space has picked up very nicely this year.
Pro-Moscow politician Viktor Yanukovich, villain of the Orange Revolution five years ago, was elected Ukraine's president in February.
First, Ukraine's pro-American president, who wanted to move the Soviet republic into NATO, received only 5% of the vote in the first round of January's presidential elections. A pro-Russian president was elected in February. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the ongoing power in Moscow (Medvedev was his chief of staff), has since offered uninterrupted natural gas supplies and new nuclear power plants.
Then last week, there was a sudden uprising and coup in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan hosts the last remaining U.S. base in Central Asia, a base key to military operations in Afghanistan.
The interim leader of that government, former Foreign Minister Roza Otunbayeva, says that previous international accords will be honored by the new government. Which includes the Manas Air Base, responsible for aerial refueling operations over Afghanistan and the transit hub for the Obama military surge there. I don't know that this includes a second U.S. base there, an anti-terrorism center just announced last month.
Mourners turned out Friday in Kyrgyzstan's capital city of Bishkek to honor those who died in Wednesday's uprising which led to the sudden replacement of the government. The new government says it will keep the U.S. base there open, and welcomes assistance from Russia.
Of course, this declaration by the leader of a just declared interim government can hardly be taken to the bank. It took the personal intercession of Obama last year to keep the base open, along with a substantial increase in U.S. payments to the impoverished, landlocked nation.
The head of the new interim government, Otunbayeva, began her tenure by asking Putin for major economic assistance. Otunbayeva was educated at the elite Moscow State University, and served as Soviet ambassador to UNESCO and Soviet ambassador to Malaysia prior to Kyrgyzstan becoming an independent country.
On Thursday came Medvedev's turn on the global stage with Obama in Prague.
Then on Saturday, in a quirk of fate sure to be fodder for conspiracy theorists, Polish President Lech Kaczynski, a pro-American, relatively anti-Russian figure who welcomed the Bush/Cheney Administration's proposed anti-missile base in Poland, was killed in Russia.
Kaczynski's aging, Russian-made presidential plane crashed on approach at the fog-shrouded Smolensk airport.
Some 96 other people died along with the Polish president, including Poland's first lady, the head of the armed forces general staff and the commanders of each branch of the Polish military, the head of the national security council, and the president of the national bank.
Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and some of the country's most prominent military and civilian leaders died Saturday when the presidential plane crashed as it came in for a landing in thick fog in western Russia.
Kaczynski was such a staunch nationalist conservative that he once accused Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa, who launched the revolt against the Communist state in Poland, of having been a spy for the KGB.
Putin said that he will take personal charge of the investigation into the crash of the Polish presidential jet. Ironically, the Polish leaders were arriving to commemorate with Russian leaders the infamous Katyn massacre by Soviet secret police of the Polish officer corps (captured after the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland) and many other Polish leaders.
Whatever caused this latest tragedy, and the landing was being attempted in dense fog, the net effect is the removal of a critic of Russia from Poland's presidency, and the devastation of much of the country's top leadership.
Not surprisingly, Russia declared a day of mourning for the victims. And Medvedev will attend the late president's funeral on April 17th.
As will Obama.
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NATO's changing composition does concern me - vested interests and power struggles within - and not just in Central and Eastern Europe.
Interesting article too.
If things continue to develop as they currently do, then Russia will one day be confronted with a neighbour that is hungry for natural resources and is looking for a place to put some of its population to alleviate the population pressure on the homeland.
Since Russian are thinking strategically they will be keeping an eye on that as well and we'll be hedging accordingly.
Russia was a wreck after the collapse of the USSR. Only now is it "resurging."
>>>> I don't think though that there is a "resurgent" Russia. Russia has been Russia for 1200 years and the collapse of the USSR wasn't going to change that.
I especially enjoyed listening again to Obama’s speech in Prague last year ... “...the United States is now ready to lead!” Music to my ears, still. And, quite notably, one of the biggest applause lines in Prague, too! For me, that is precisely what November 2008 was all about.
It’s definitely going to be fun to watch all of this unfold. Except for the part where US domestic politics intervenes as the 'toxic and dysfunctional media and political culture will undoubtedly attempt to threaten the march of progress toward lofty goals.
Russia is not "resurgent." That's a convenient storyline, b/c it's sensationalistic and simple, but it's a bit more complicated than rolling out Cold War era idioms. In reality, Russia's relative power isn't so much what is changing as its assertiveness. Russia isn't resurgent, its active foreign policy is. This was bound to happen after it put its domestic house back in order.
The real lesson here is that as long as the post-communist states are treated as part of a geopolitical chessboard, we'll perennially find ourselves in a shifting series of unstable alliances. These countries aren't to be divided between Russia and the U.S. To do so will perpetuate the pro-Moscow v. pro-U.S. illusion, which will undermine any ability to understand the pressing interests of local populations and the more complex dynamics these interests infer.
Yanukovich hasn't yet jettisoned the European agenda, and he has a number of domestic business interests that have zero interest in seeing the Russian elite acquire their own holdings. Look for a shift in rhetoric, but a very careful balancing act. Also, his win can hardly be attributed to Kremlin strategy (though it is without a doubt that the Kremlin and PM played their hand much better this time).
Kyrgyzstan: this was NOT a coup. Coups are directed by elites. Present evidence still indicates the interim government was a bit surprised (though certainly opportunistic) in the face of a popular revolt. When the Western media interpreted the Tulip Revolution as a democratic revolution (it was closer to a coup) the misunderstanding of the present situation became inevitable. The same misunderstanding shows up again here, where Kyrgyzstan is presented as important solely based on the presence of the Manas AF Base.
You can like Russia but don't be blind to the reality that it was a wreck and now it is resurgent.
>>>> Russia is not "resurgent." That's a convenient storyline, b/c it's sensationalistic and simple, but it's a bit more complicated than rolling out Cold War era idioms.
It is in the long term interest of the USA to seek a partnership with Russia to balance the ascendency of China. It is just smart policy. It is amazing that Republicans oppose this, but then again, they have shown a steadfast determination to oppose anything resembling intelligence in foreign policy (see W's tenure)...
The 1995 incident was less about miscommunication between the U.S. and Russia, and more about the domestic chaos in the latter. The U.S. reported the incident to the Russian military, which then lost the paperwork.
Certainly though, Bush picked a fight with a country that had a soft skin. It would have taken so little for him to woo Russia solidly for decades to come. Instead, Obama is left with a more difficult situation to pick up the pieces from. Story of the year.
Though, it may take considerably longer than a couple or three years for this administration to straighten out the monumental mess - on the order of magnitude of the Augean Stables, no less - left by the previous administration, on any number of fronts.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You had somebody in your mind, I think. (LAUGHS)
MEDVEDEV: Obviously I do have someone on my mind. I don't want to offend anyone. He's eager to listen to his partner, which is a pretty good quality for a politician. Because any politician is to a certain degree a mentor. They preach something. And the ability to listen to their partner is very important for the politician. And he is pretty deeply immersed in the subject, so he has a good knowledge of what he's talking about. There was no instance in our meetings with Mr. Obama where he wasn't well prepared for the questions. This is very good. And after all, he's simply a very pleasant man with whom it's a pleasure to deal with.
This is called respect. I like the fact that President Obama is respected by world leaders. Too bad some Americans don't extend the same respect.
Perhaps this tragic event has a silver lining and will serve as a new jumping off point for a more cooperative relationship between Russia and Poland. It seems that the way the Russian leadership have acted throughout this sad episode so far - especially Putin - has really set the stage for improved relations. Call me a cockeyed optimist.
Snap to now. Night and day.. Obama is actually working for a common cause. No one wins Nuclear wars. It is for the entire worlds benefit that we as a group of nations on a shared planet make sure we never have Nuclear war fare. Obama is sane. lol
that is what it always boils down to. Obama might not be perfect.. but he is sane.. and shows flashes of what a more evolved world could look like. And the most remarkable thing is that he seems to be taking the steps needed to set us on the path to that more evolved world 'think'.
He is doing it. One step at a time. Focused. Goal oriented. Far sighted and steady handed. I'm impressed by him.
I'm impressed, too. But, you know, he has had a little help from his vice president in all of this ... credit where credit is due, and all that. :)
Who's that?
:)
Russia lacks spare parts, delivery systems, readiness to launch, fuel, people......
It really does not matter what we sign about stockpiles, then, with Russia.
Sure, it provides some cover to a story about containing Iran (or anyone else) but little will change.
Now, Russia asking about joint missile defenses -- In that is a real story.
The US should not ever, for one second, assume that Russia's leadership thinks like we do. They want to project strength. Stop. They could care less about much else.
And they tend to show up when the price of oil is down; when it is up, they're "bigger"
So, when they talk about joint defenses, then, consider what they'd get access to, or what they think they have to gain.
And don't forget, it is a police state, even today, so believe nothing.
;}
1. Unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable; (Most nations are at some point or another.)
2. Playfully mischievous; or a scamp; (Some might say activities at Summits are "playfully mischievous.")
3. A wandering beggar; or a vagrant; (Well, there's been a lot of borrowing going on lately.)
4. A vicious and solitary animal, like an elephant that has separated itself from its herd; (All nations are kinda solitary and vicious at times.)
5. An organism, like a plant, showing an undesirable variation from some standard; (Standard? What standard and who gets to decide?)
Or are we using "rouge" as an adjective?
2. Large, destructive, and anomalous or unpredictable nation. (There's a very long list of these nations, many in the West, too.)
3. A nation operating outside normal or desirable controls; ("Desirable controls?" Who's in charge of the controls? Who gets to define what's "desirable?")
Looks like when it comes, to "rogue nations," each nation better keep its eyes on every nation in the world.
Moral equivalence, the bane of the left...
Moral equivalence, the bane of the left..."
You know there was once a teacher who used parables. Now they don't often come to mind but when some nations, who, due to their military power or financial dominance, get to define what nations in the world are "rogue," it might be wise to "first remove the beam from their own eyes, so they can see clearly enough to remove the speck" from the eyes of those they condemn as "rogue." And I don't mean by reducing one-third of nuclear stockpiles but keeping enough to destroy the world many times over. There are many nations who've never been sanctioned for acts against humanity who are now part of a group pointing fingers at other nations and making the rules. I call that "hypocrisy."
>>>> Pro-Moscow politician Viktor Yanukovich, villain of the Orange Revolution five years ago, was elected Ukraine's president in February.
>>>> Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and some of the country's most prominent military and civilian leaders died Saturday when the presidential plane crashed as it came in for a landing in thick fog in western Russia.