aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] Tymoshenko on Russia's imperial ambitions andcommentary from Russia's Foreign affairs ministry

[Alexandra Hrycak <hrycaka@reed.edu>]

Foreign Affairs

May-June 2007


Containing Russia

By Yuliya Tymoshenko

 From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007

Summary: Russia's imperial ambitions did not end with the fall of the 
Soviet Union. The Kremlin has returned to expansionism, trying to 
recapture great-power status at the expense of its neighbors, warns one 
of Ukraine's most prominent politicians. The United States and Europe 
must counter with a strong response -- one that keeps Russia in check 
without sparking a new Cold War.



Yuliya Tymoshenko is the leader of Ukraine's parliamentary opposition. 
 From January to September 2005, she was Prime Minister of Ukraine.



THE SOURCES OF RUSSIAN CONDUCT



Sixty-one years ago, a telegram arrived at the State Department from the 
U.S. embassy in Moscow. Its purpose was to examine the sources of the 
conduct of the men who ruled in the Kremlin. Its impact was immediate. 
The "Long Telegram," penned by a young diplomat named George Kennan, 
became the basis for U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union for the next 
half century.



Although the Soviet Union is long gone, the West is once again groping 
to understand what motivates the leaders in the Kremlin. Many believe 
that the principles behind Kennan's policy of "containment" are still 
applicable today -- and see a new Cold War, this time against Vladimir 
Putin's resurgent Russia, in the offing.



I do not believe that a new Cold War is under way or likely. 
Nevertheless, because Russia has indeed transformed itself since Putin 
became president in 2000, the problem of fitting Russia into the world's 
diplomatic and economic structures (particularly when it comes to 
markets for energy) raises profound questions. Those questions are all 
the more vexing because Russia is usually judged on the basis of 
speculation about its intentions rather than on the basis of its actions.



In the aftermath of communism's collapse, it was assumed that Russia's 
imperial ambitions had vanished -- and that foreign policy toward Russia 
could be conducted as if former diplomatic considerations did not apply. 
Yet they must apply, for Russia straddles the world's geopolitical 
heartland and is heir to a remorseless imperial tradition. Encouraging 
economic and political reform -- the West's preferred means of engaging 
Russia since communism's end -- is of course an important foreign policy 
tool. But it cannot substitute for a serious effort to counter Russia's 
long-standing expansionism and its present desire to recapture its 
great-power status at the expense of its neighbors.



THE RUSSIAN JANUS



Thanks to high energy prices, the chaotic conditions that prevailed 
across Russia in the early 1990s have given way to several years of 6.5 
percent annual economic growth and a trillion-dollar economy. Living 
standards have improved (although life expectancy has not), the middle 
class is growing and increasingly confident, and the stock market is 
booming. Russia possesses the third-largest hard-currency reserves in 
the world, and it is running a huge current account surplus and paying 
off the last of the debts it accumulated in the early 1990s. The ruble 
has been made fully convertible and may even be undervalued. Russian 
membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) beckons. Ordinary 
Russians are grateful to Putin for the country's stability and economic 
growth, and they are proud that Russia appears to matter when great 
global issues are debated. No wonder, then, that Putin's popularity 
rating is around 70 percent -- a sustained achievement that any 
politician would envy.



Yet, for every step forward that Russia has taken over the course of 
Putin's second term, it has taken a step backward. Greater state control 
of the economy -- especially in the energy industry, where, according to 
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the 
state's share of oil production has doubled in three years -- has bred 
corruption and inefficiency. Serious political opposition has been 
muzzled. Newspapers and television and radio stations have been shut 
down or taken over by the government and its allies. Kremlin cronies 
have replaced elected regional governors, and Russia's parliament, the 
Duma, has been emasculated as part of the Kremlin's drive to monopolize 
all state power.



Russia's foreign policy has been equally troubling. Moscow has given 
Iran diplomatic protection for its nuclear ambitions, and Russian arms 
sales are promiscuous. The Kremlin has consistently harassed neighboring 
countries; former Soviet nations, such as Georgia, have faced near 
economic strangulation. In February, Putin spoke favorably about 
creating a "gas OPEC."



None of this should be surprising, for Putin's aim has been unvarying 
from the start of his presidency: restore Russian greatness. Unlike 
Boris Yeltsin, who accepted dissent as a necessary part of democratic 
politics -- it was, after all, as a dissenter from Mikhail Gorbachev's 
rule that he gained the presidency of Russia -- Putin was determined 
from the outset to curtail political opposition as an essential step 
toward revitalizing centralized power. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, of Yukos 
Oil, for example, is in prison for daring to challenge the Kremlin's 
authority and perhaps aspiring to succeed Putin. Order, power (including 
the power to divide the spoils of Russia's natural-resource wealth), and 
reviving Russia's international influence, not democracy or human 
rights, are what matter in today's Kremlin.



The backgrounds of the people who make up Putin's government have 
something to do with this orientation. A study of 1,016 leading figures 
in Putin's regime -- departmental heads of the president's 
administration, cabinet members, parliamentary deputies, heads of 
federal units, and heads of regional executive and legislative branches 
-- conducted by Olga Kryshtanovskaya, director of Moscow's Center for 
the Study of Elites, found that 26 percent at some point served in the 
KGB or one of its successor agencies. Kryshtanovskaya argues that a 
closer look at these biographies -- examining gaps in resumés, odd 
career paths, or service in KGB a/liates -- suggests that 78 percent of 
the top people in Putin's regime can be considered ex-KGB. (The 
significance of such findings should not be exaggerated: former secret 
police may hold many of Russia's highest o/ces, but Russia is not a 
police state.)



Despite strong economic growth, Russia's domestic problems are awesome. 
In the long run, the country's systemic weaknesses may prove more 
disruptive to the world than its revived strength. Alcoholism and a 
collapsing health system are fueling a demographic catastrophe: the 
population has been shrinking by 700,000 annually for the past eight 
years despite the fact that the country's HIV/AIDS epidemic has not yet 
peaked. Male life expectancy is among the lowest in the world. Most 
demographers expect that Russia's population will shrink even more 
dramatically, perhaps to below 100 million people by the middle of the 
twenty-first century.



Russia's robust growth, moreover, is precarious, because it is based on 
high oil prices that seem unlikely to last and rising production that 
clearly cannot be sustained, owing to grossly inadequate investment. 
Natural resources such as oil and gas are a mixed blessing for Russia, 
just as they are for other countries. High energy prices and raw 
material exports have allowed Russia to become the world's tenth-largest 
economy. Energy exports finance about 30 percent of the Kremlin's 
budget. But that figure is based on the assumption that oil will remain 
at $61 per barrel, which it has already fallen below. Aside from energy, 
Russian industrial exports primarily consist of armaments, with advanced 
aircraft accounting for more than half of sales. This lack of economic 
diversification leaves Russia vulnerable to any downturn in world oil 
and commodity prices.



Social inequality is vast and growing. Corruption, the OECD reports, is 
far higher today than it was under Yeltsin. State interference in 
business decision-making is at its highest level since the end of 
communism. Moreover, without the rule of law, today's growing middle 
class will never acquire the confidence it needs to sustain a modern 
economy. Meanwhile, the insurgency in Chechnya has been met by the 
Kremlin's local strongman, whose minions openly terrorize, kidnap, and 
kill opponents. The North Caucasus is a tinderbox. The Russian army is 
riddled with graft, with o/cers selling conscripts into virtual slavery. 
And dangerous new forms of tuberculosis -- as well as of Islamist 
extremism among the 17 percent of the Russian population that is Muslim 
-- are being incubated through neglect.



Throughout the 1990s, it was fashionable to liken Russia to Weimar 
Germany -- a nation humiliated and shaken to its core by depression and 
hyperinflation that might fall under the spell of some reckless 
nationalist. But the defeated Germany of the 1920s was already a modern 
industrialized state, and the Nazi regime was only possible because it 
could seize the levers of such a state. These conditions did not exist 
in Yeltsin's Russia. Corruption and governmental chaos meant that Russia 
could not mount any sort of serious strategic challenge. But today's 
oil-fueled revival and the more disciplined government Putin has imposed 
may allow Russia to mount just such a challenge, particularly where 
world energy supplies are concerned.



After the Soviet Union's collapse, the West made the mistake of assuming 
that Russia's reduced status meant it was unnecessary to accord the 
Kremlin any special diplomatic consideration -- that Russia neither 
deserved nor should be offered a major role in world affairs. 
Accordingly, instead of drawing Russia into a network of dialogue and 
cooperation when it was weak -- and thereby helping it form habits that 
would carry on when Russia regained strength -- the West ignored Russia. 
This indifference caused Russia to regard the West's attempts to 
reassure eastern European countries about their security and place in 
the West as unfriendly acts, leading to today's problems. Had Russia 
been handled better in the 1990s -- had its sense of insecurity not been 
aggravated -- the country's tendency toward expansionism might well have 
been moderated.



UKRAINE EXPOSED



Ukraine's national experience has taught its citizens to regard peace as 
fragile and fleeting, its roots too shallow to bear the strain of 
constant social and political upheaval. We Ukrainians accept the lessons 
of our history and work toward solutions that relieve the sources of 
this strain, lest neglect allow war to overtake peace and authority to 
subvert freedom. This is why we see our future in the European Union: 
the goal of the EU is to confront instability and insecurity with a 
lasting structure of peace and prosperity in which all of Europe's 
nations and neighbors have a stake.



To ensure that Europe's structure of peace is secure in the former 
Soviet East, a clear understanding of the existing power dynamic is 
needed. Much like the periods following the treaties of Westphalia and 
Versailles, the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse features a 
powerful country confronting a group of smaller and unprotected new 
states. Given the economic and institutional links that arose in the 
decades of Soviet misrule, Russia's influence in the region was bound to 
be strong. This is a fact of life that I, as a practicing politician in 
Ukraine, live with every day. It is a fact with which the EU must come 
to grips under the current German presidency, by beginning to negotiate 
a new EU-Russia treaty to replace the one written at the nadir of 
Russia's power. In the coming months, German Chancellor Angela Merkel 
must answer the question of how Europe can forge a lasting and mutually 
beneficial relationship with the powerful new Russia that has emerged 
under Putin.



As a convinced European, I support Germany and the EU in this effort. 
Relations with Russia are too vital to the security and prosperity of 
all of us to be developed individually and ad hoc. If there is one 
country toward which Europeans -- and, indeed, the entire West -- should 
share a common foreign policy, it is Russia. With high world energy 
prices allowing Russia to emerge from the trauma of its postcommunist 
transition, now is the time for a clear-sighted reckoning of European 
security in the face of Russia's renewed power. Relying on Russia's 
long-term systemic problems to curb its pressure tactics will not 
prevent the Kremlin from reestablishing its hegemony in the short run.



Moreover, now is a moment of maximum flexibility, because dependence on 
Russian energy supplies will only continue to grow. Indeed, a recent 
Center for Strategic and International Studies report estimates that 
Germany will depend on Russia for 80 percent of its gas imports -- 
compared with 44 percent today -- once the proposed trans-Baltic 
pipeline is completed. Unfortunately, political leaders usually have the 
least idea of what to do when the scope for action is greatest. By the 
time they have a better idea, the moment for decisive and effective 
action may have passed. In the 1930s, for example, the French and 
British governments were too unsure of Hitler's objectives to act. But 
their obsession with Hitler's motives was utterly misguided. Realpolitik 
should have taught them that Germany's relations with its neighbors 
would be determined by relative power, not German intentions alone. A 
large and strong Germany bordered to the east by small and weak states 
would have been a threat no matter who ruled in Berlin. The Western 
powers should thus have spent less time assessing Hitler's motives and 
more time counterbalancing Germany's strength. Once Germany rearmed, 
Hitler's real intentions would be irrelevant. This was Winston 
Churchill's message throughout his "wilderness years." But instead of 
heeding Churchill, the British and the French continued to treat Hitler 
as a psychological problem, not a strategic danger -- until it was too 
late. What matters in diplomacy is power, not the state of mind of those 
who wield it.



For most of the past 15 years, the response to Russian actions by the 
United States and Europe has been driven by their perceptions of Russian 
reform. Western policy seems to be based on the premise that peaceful 
evolution can be ensured by democracy and by concentrating Russia's 
energies on developing a market economy. Western diplomacy has thus seen 
its main task as strengthening Russian reform, with the experience of 
the Marshall Plan rather than the traditional considerations of foreign 
policy in mind.





But a far more important factor than reform is Russia's attempt to 
restore its preeminence in the territories it once controlled. The 
Russia that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union on Christmas 
Day 1991 came with borders that reflect no historical precedent. 
Accordingly, Russia is devoting much of its energy to restoring 
political influence in, if not control of, its lost empire. Alongside 
this effort has come a shift of Russia's focus eastward, making it a 
more active participant in the dynamic Asia created by China's rise.



In the name of peacekeeping in places such as Abkhazia, South Ossetia, 
and Trans-Dniestria (restive regions within former Soviet republics), 
Russia has sought to reestablish its tutelage, and the West has largely 
not objected. The West has done little to enable the Soviet Union's 
successor states -- with the exception of the Baltic nations of Estonia, 
Latvia, and Lithuania -- to achieve viable international standing. The 
activities of Russian troops in Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and 
the former Soviet states of Central Asia are rarely questioned, let 
alone challenged. Moscow is treated as the de facto imperial center -- 
which is also how it conceives of itself.



THE RUSSIA QUESTION



What can the West do to dissuade the Kremlin from pursuing Russia's 
age-old imperial designs? In the 1990s, an enfeebled Russia needed help 
from abroad. Unless oil prices unexpectedly collapse, no such leverage 
will be available in the near future. On the contrary, political 
pressure from outside is likely to aggravate rather than change Russian 
behavior. With the Kremlin once again firmly in control, Russia will 
change from within -- or not at all.



That is not to say, however, that the United States and the rest of the 
West can have no influence. Putin, like Russian leaders before him, is 
sensitive to outside criticism, as demonstrated by the Kremlin's 
paranoid desire to curtail the activities of nongovernmental 
organizations within Russia, particularly those with foreign backing. 
Outsiders must be willing to criticize his misdeeds while trying to 
avert the emergence of a leader even more assertive than Putin. 
Maintaining this balance will be hard. Yeltsin was gifted at deflecting 
international skepticism about his rule by portraying himself as the 
last bastion against a communist revival; Putin also relies on promoting 
that type of better-the-devil-you-know thinking.



Western leaders should speak out against any moves away from democracy, 
Putin's policy in Chechnya, and his use of energy to bully Russia's 
neighbors. (Many western European countries have been far too 
circumspect in their criticism and too anxious to make separate deals 
that will supposedly guarantee their national supplies of energy.) As 
the Russian presidential election in March 2008 approaches, the West 
must insist, beginning now, that amending the constitution to allow 
Putin to run again is unacceptable and could result in Russia's 
expulsion from the G-8 (the group of advanced industrialized nations). 
Western leaders should press for free and fair elections, even if the 
Kremlin's handpicked candidate is almost sure to win.



A realistic Russia policy would also recognize that even Yeltsin's 
reformist government stationed Russian troops in most former Soviet 
republics -- all members of the United Nations -- often against the 
express wishes of the host governments. These forces participated in 
several of these republics' civil wars, even as successive Russian 
foreign ministers have put forth the concept of a Russian monopoly on 
peacekeeping -- essentially Russian domination -- in what the Kremlin 
calls "the near abroad." Russia has legitimate security interests in its 
neighborhood. But Europe's peace and international stability require 
that these interests be satisfied without Russian military or economic 
pressure or unilateral intervention. For example, Russia must not be 
permitted to use Kosovo's gaining its independence from Serbia as a 
precedent for promoting secessionist movements in Abkhazia, 
Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Trans-Dniestria, and, most important, 
Crimea, in an attempt to destabilize the national governments. The 
short-term prospects for peace depend on whether Russian military forces 
can be induced to return home and stay there. Russia's relations with 
the Soviet successor states must be thought of as an international 
problem, subject to the accepted rules of foreign policy, rather than as 
solely Russia's problem, subject to unilateral decision-making that the 
West can hope to influence only by appealing to the Kremlin's goodwill.



The West must seek to create counterweights to Russia's expansionism and 
not place all its chips on Russian domestic reform. Such a policy would 
divide the risks of any possible energy blockade equally among all 
Europeans, rather than having governments make separate deals that leave 
others vulnerable to energy blackmail. Of course, not every European 
nation has the same interest in resisting any particular act of 
aggression, and so there will not always be agreement on when and how to 
oppose Russian assertiveness. Some nations may balk at taking action on 
issues they feel do not immediately concern them. But the principle of 
collective security, which has ensured Europe's peace and prosperity 
since 1945, must continue to be pursued. Merkel's proposal to create a 
"collective energy market," which she made during a summit with Poland's 
prime minister last November, is a good start toward building a 
pan-European energy security policy that includes Russia.



PIPELINE POLITICS



One key question is just how reliable the Russian energy supply really 
is. Despite having the world's largest gas reserves, Russia now faces a 
domestic shortage of gas. Gazprom, the country's dominant gas supplier 
(which, when it comes to foreign policy, doubles as an arm of the 
Kremlin), is not producing enough for an economy growing at more than 
six percent a year. Production from Gazprom's three biggest gas fields, 
which account for three-quarters of its output, is in steep decline. The 
one large field that the company has brought on-stream since the end of 
the Soviet era is reaching its peak. Overall gas production is virtually 
flat.



According to the Institute of Energy Policy, in Moscow, Gazprom's 
capital investments in new gas production in the years 2000-2006 were 
one-quarter the size of its investments in other activities: media 
companies, banks, even chicken farms, as well as its downstream 
investments in western Europe's energy networks. Despite the enormous 
revenues to be gained from the new production of gas, Gazprom rarely 
attempts to find or produce more. As a result, it is unable to come up 
with enough gas to meet internal demand and its export obligations.



After more than ten years of delay, Gazprom has decided to develop a big 
field on the Yamal Peninsula -- a barren and barely accessible region in 
the Arctic. But the earliest that gas from Yamal will reach the market 
is 2011. Meanwhile, demand for gas -- from RAO Unified Energy System of 
Russia (UESR), Russia's electricity monopoly, as well as from expanding 
industrial companies and households -- is growing by about 2.2 percent 
annually, according to a recent report by the investment bank UBS. "The 
risk of supply crisis is real," the report noted, if growth in demand 
accelerates to 2.5 percent.



The impending shortage means that Gazprom will not be able to increase 
gas supplies to Europe, at least in the short term -- something that 
European countries should be aware of and concerned about. This may 
explain why Gazprom abandoned its plan to send gas from the Shtokman 
field, in the Barents Sea, to the U.S. market as liquefied natural gas 
and diverted it to Europe instead. The decision, initially interpreted 
as a move intended to irk Washington, may actually have been a sign of 
desperation: sending Shtokman gas to Europe would free up Siberian 
output for domestic consumption.



The problem, of course, is not a lack of gas -- Russia has 16 percent of 
the world's total known reserves -- but Gazprom's investment strategy. 
Over the past few years, the company has spent vigorously on everything 
but developing its reserves. It has built a pipeline to Turkey, taken 
over an oil company, invested in UESR, tried to gain footholds in 
European distribution markets, and become Russia's biggest media 
company. All this was done in the name of creating and sustaining a 
"national energy champion." Yet investment in Gazprom's core business 
was grossly inadequate.



There is another problem facing Gazprom: the actual engineering costs of 
developing new gas fields in Russia. In the Shtokman gas field and on 
the Yamal Peninsula, in particular, the engineering costs, including the 
cost of transporting the output to Europe, are twice as high as for new 
gas fields in North Africa and the Middle East. The international gas 
market is already beginning to recognize this, and, over the long term, 
it could be enormously dangerous for Russia. Indeed, Russia may actually 
be putting itself out of the gas business, because high engineering 
costs for new projects in Russia are signaling to the market that Russia 
and Gazprom lack the capacity to develop these fields. Western companies 
could come in and do the job, but given the Kremlin's recent usurpation 
of Shell's investments on Sakhalin Island, these companies would be 
remiss in their fiduciary duties if they undertook such investments.



The only way to avoid a crisis is to break Gazprom's monopoly on 
pipeline infrastructure and to license independent gas producers. 
Independent producers already account for 20 percent of domestic gas 
sales in Russia and are boosting their output. Further gains would 
require market-based incentives. Europe can help by explicitly linking 
its acceptance of Russia's WTO membership to Russia's ratification of 
the Energy Charter and its attendant Transit Protocol, which would 
guarantee access to Russian pipelines for Gazprom's competitors.



Any worthwhile energy security policy for Europe would also seek to 
loosen Gazprom's monopolistic grip on the pipelines. European 
competition policy, which has successfully brought companies as big as 
Microsoft into line, could -- if used skillfully -- also help turn 
Gazprom into a normal competitor. Establishing an independent regulator, 
as Russian Economy Minister German Gref has suggested, would also be an 
important step toward splitting Gazprom into a pipeline operator and a 
production company. But Putin has vehemently rejected such a move. Thus, 
he now faces a choice between domestic gas shortages that threaten to 
slow economic growth and losing the Kremlin's "national energy champion."



Beyond tackling Gazprom's monopolistic power, a realistic energy policy 
for Europe would also seek to share the risks of any possible energy 
blockade equally among all Europeans, rather than allowing separate 
deals that leave others vulnerable to energy blackmail. Such a policy 
would need to incorporate a consensus that no country could reach a deal 
with Gazprom that undercuts EU plans to help construct pipelines from 
Central Asia that bypass Russia. Another counterweight could be built 
through trade. By extending the single market eastward to include 
Ukraine, the EU would shift the center of gravity for the region's trade 
relations. Today's negotiations over a "deep free trade agreement" 
between Ukraine and the EU need to lead, eventually, to an agreement 
that will give Ukraine candidate status for EU membership.



A NORMAL COUNTRY



The West should support Russia when it pushes for democracy and free 
markets but bolster the obstacles to its imperial ambitions. Indeed, 
Russian reform will be strengthened if Russia is encouraged to 
concentrate -- for the first time in its history -- on developing its 
national territory, which sprawls over 11 time zones from St. Petersburg 
to Vladivostok, leaving no rational cause for claustrophobia.



It does Russia no good to be treated as if it were immune from the 
normal considerations of foreign policy; treating it so will only force 
Russia to pay a heavier price later on, by luring it into taking steps 
from which it cannot easily retreat. The West should not fear frank 
discussions about where its interests and Russia's converge and diverge. 
Western leaders should not hesitate to insist that signed agreements, 
such as those to withdraw troops now stationed in the countries of the 
former Soviet Union, be fully honored. Realistic dialogue will not 
unhinge the leaders in the Kremlin. They are smart and can readily grasp 
a policy based on mutual respect. In fact, they are likely to understand 
such a calculus better than appeals to goodwill and friendship.



Two objectives must be kept in balance when dealing with Russia: 
influencing Russian attitudes and affecting Russian calculations. Russia 
should be welcomed in institutions and agreements that foster 
cooperation -- most important, Europe's Energy Charter and the Transit 
Protocol, with their reciprocal rights and responsibilities. But 
Russia's reform will be impeded, not helped, if the West turns a blind 
eye to its imperial pretensions. The independence of the republics that 
broke away from the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, must not be tacitly 
downgraded by the West's acquiescence to Russia's desire for hegemony.



Ukraine can help Europe and the United States create a viable structure 
within which Russia can exist securely. Our destiny is to be neither a 
forgotten borderland nor a bridge between the so-called post-Soviet 
space of "managed democracy" and the real democracies of the West. By 
strengthening our independence, we can shape Europe's peace and unity as 
we roll back the crony capitalism and lawlessness that are now the norms 
of the post-Soviet world. During my premiership, we sought to achieve 
just that, working with Moldova and Romania to standardize the region's 
customs regimes and thereby crack down on criminal enterprises in the 
breakaway region of Trans-Dniestria (which is trying to secede from 
Moldova only because of Russian support).



We acted in concert with our neighbors because we know that 
self-determination does not mean isolation. Achieving national 
independence today means having a new status, not withdrawing from the 
world scene. New nations can build with their former occupiers the same 
kind of fruitful relationship that France now has with Germany -- a 
relationship founded on equality and mutual interests. That is the 
relationship I seek with Russia, and that is how Ukraine can help extend 
the zone of Europe's peace.



The real test of statesmanship is the ability to protect one's country 
against unfavorable and unforeseen contingencies. The fatal flaw in 
Russia's current oil- and gas-powered assertiveness is that the leaders 
in the Kremlin have lost their sense of proportion. Today's budget 
surpluses have allowed them to overestimate the extent of Russia's 
economic renewal, and they seem to have forgotten that by bullying their 
immediate neighbors they are also sending shock waves across the entire 
West. Of course, the Kremlin leadership will find it hard to admit that 
the centralized system that it is re-creating lacks the capacity to spur 
initiative, that Russia, despite its vast natural resources, remains a 
very backward country. The subservience that the Kremlin demands is 
stifling the vitality and creativity that Russia needs if it is to grow 
for the long term, let alone sustain its place in the world.



Russia will damage its own interests if it turns down serious U.S. and 
European offers to participate on an equal basis in the structures of 
European and Middle East security. Failure to cooperate sincerely on 
energy security would eventually isolate Russia in the face of serious 
strategic challenges to its south and east; it would deprive Russia of 
all but the crudest methods of influence.



Russia's leaders deserve understanding for their anguished struggle to 
overcome generations of Soviet misrule. They are not, however, entitled 
to being handed the sphere of influence that tsars and commissars 
coveted for 300 years. If the West, particularly Europe, is to ensure 
its economic prosperity and energy security, it must be ready to demand 
of Russia what Russia has so far been unwilling to provide. And if 
Russia is to become a serious partner for the West, it must be ready to 
accept the obligations of stability as well as its benefits.

	
МИНИСТЕРСТВО ИНОСТРАННЫХ ДЕЛ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ

ДЕПАРТАМЕНТ ИНФОРМАЦИИ И ПЕЧАТИ
______________________________________

119200, Москва Г-200,Смоленская Сенная пл., 32/34 тел.:(495) 
244-4119,факс:244-4112
e-mail: dip@mid.ru, web-address: www.mid.ru


Комментарий Департамента информации и печати МИД России в связи с 
вопросом РИА «Новости» относительно статьи Ю.В.Тимошенко «Сдерживание 
России» в журнале Foreign Affairs


578-16-04-2007


Вопрос: Как бы Вы прокомментировали статью Ю.В.Тимошенко «Сдерживание 
России», которая должна появиться в очередном номере журнала Foreign 
Affairs?

Комментарий: Обычно мы не комментируем статьи в зарубежных СМИ. Но в 
данном случае есть все основания сделать исключение из правил. Очевидно, 
что речь идет о своего рода антироссийском манифесте, попытке вновь 
провести разделительные линии в Европе и вернуть мир как минимум в 
атмосферу «холодной войны». Те, кто готовил эту статью, явно скучают по 
прошлому, испытывают ностальгию по по-военному простым отношениям в 
Европе. Как Бурбоны после реставрации, они ничего не забыли и ничему не 
научились. Отсюда столь тщательная «проработка вопроса» – от «длинной 
депеши» Джорджа Кеннана и далее. При этом явно игнорируются уроки 
«холодной войны» и более поздние оценки самого Джорджа Кеннана, который, 
в частности, признавал, что вместо политического урегулирования 
разногласий «от Советского Союза требовалась безоговорочная капитуляция, 
а он был слишком силен, чтобы ее принять».

Примечательно и признание Г.Киссинджера, который писал, что США 
политикой сдерживания «создали у советской стороны впечатление, что 
стремились загнать СССР в перманентно проигрышное положение». Можно 
также согласиться с тем, что США «также недостаточно хорошо сознавали 
потребности безопасности континентальной державы (каковой был Советский 
Союз)» и «были невосприимчивы к проблемам страны, подвергавшейся 
неоднократным нашествиям». Картину того периода в мировой политике, за 
который всем государствам пришлось дорого заплатить, дополняли 
демонизация соперника и черно-белое видение мира.

Убеждены, что сегодня как никогда важна непредвзятая оценка истоков 
«холодной войны», которая была развязана решением, принятым в узком 
кругу двух держав. Одна из них видела в идеологическом расколе мира 
приемлемый вариант сохранения своего глобального статуса после 
неизбежной потери империи, а другая – возможность утвердиться в мировой 
политике с опорой на военную силу. Сегодня кто-то, руководствуясь своими 
корыстными интересами, тоже хотел бы решать за всех.

В статье за подписью Ю.В.Тимошенко нет ни одного тезиса, который мы бы 
не слышали в последние годы в том или ином исполнении. До боли знакома и 
лексика. Несмотря на окончание «холодной войны», в глобальной политике 
продолжают действовать силы, которые никак не могут переступить через 
себя и преодолеть интеллектуальное и политико-психологическое наследие 
того периода, включая установку на «сдерживание России». В мире вновь 
становится душно от идеологии и официальной пропаганды. По сути, под 
проведение старой политики в новых условиях подводится 
псевдотеоретическое обоснование, апеллирующее к худшим предрассудкам и 
инстинктам недавнего и более отдаленного прошлого. Их живучесть, 
возможно, объясняется наблюдением Г.Моргентау, который отмечал, что 
идеологическая приверженность США антикоммунизму «была гораздо сильнее и 
менее скорректирована соображениями национального интереса, чем русская 
приверженность распространению коммунизма».

Наверное, надо только приветствовать, что эти силы решили выступить с 
открытым забралом. По крайней мере, для всех многое проясняется и встает 
на свои места. Уже за одно это можно поблагодарить авторов статьи. 
Нежелание сотрудничать с Россией на равноправной основе, курс на 
реидеологизацию и ремилитаризацию международных отношений, расширение 
НАТО на восток, тактика «беспокоящих действий» в отношении России на 
пространстве СНГ, планы создания базы глобальной ПРО США в Европе – все 
это вписывается в единую стратегию, призванную, надо полагать, утвердить 
вопреки фактам реальность «однополярного мира». 15 лет – вполне 
достаточный срок, чтобы убедиться в иллюзорности этого проекта. Не 
хотелось бы думать, что и нынешний кризис на Украине является частью 
этого сценария «повторения пройденного». Как и всегда в истории, это 
может вылиться только в фарс и дальнейшую дестабилизацию положения.

Нельзя недооценивать опасность попыток повернуть время вспять. В любом 
случае Россия не даст себя вовлечь в новую конфронтацию, для которой нет 
никаких объективных оснований. Не будем поддаваться на провокации. 
Подобный сюрреализм в мировой политике чреват и тем, что сократятся 
возможности для международного сотрудничества по всему спектру общих для 
всех государств проблем, включая новые вызовы и угрозы безопасности и 
устойчивому развитию, урегулирование региональных конфликтов. А это не 
отвечало бы ничьим интересам.

Возникает устойчивое ощущение, что кто-то просто привык жить под сенью 
«стены», разделяющей Европу. Хочется вновь ощутить прежний «комфорт» – 
только по ее «правильную сторону». Пробивается и желание зарабатывать на 
жизнь на расколе Европы, на попытках обустроить территорию вдоль 
западных границ России как прифронтовую зону. В условиях, когда здесь 
проходят процессы, вызывающие озабоченность в остальной Европе, трудно 
не усмотреть в таких попытках нечто большее и опасное, чем тоска по 
прошлому. Эта ситуация является составной частью тех процессов, которые 
определяют рубежность нынешнего этапа в европейской и глобальной 
политике, о чем предупреждал Президент В.В.Путин в Мюнхене.

Считаем, что такая политика бросает вызов всей Европе, всему 
международному сообществу, многосторонней дипломатии. В этих условиях 
Россия будет продолжать последовательно придерживаться своих 
внешнеполитических принципов, таких как прагматизм и многовекторность, и 
продвигать позитивную повестку дня международных отношений, 
конструктивные альтернативы решения проблем современного мирового развития.

Статья подтверждает актуальность призыва Президента Российской Федерации 
В.В.Путина в его Мюнхенской речи к серьезному и откровенному разговору. 
Причем российский руководитель сделал это прямо и открыто, в то время 
как у тех, кто скрывается за заказной статьей Ю.В.Тимошенко, не хватило 
мужества поступить столь же достойно. Очевидно, что без общего понимания 
того, в каком мире мы живем, вряд ли удастся далеко продвинуться в 
международном сотрудничестве. Ясно также, что тем, кто уходит от таких 
дебатов, есть что скрывать.


16 апреля 2007 года