Spreading democracy abroad: A duty, not a whim

The question whether or not the new American administration should continue former President Bush's plan of promoting democracy around the world has been up in the air for years and seems now to be getting its answer. As I mentioned in my previous post, there has been no reaction from the Obama administration to the new charges being brought against jailed Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky once the country's richest person and owner of the most transparent company in Russia. 

I was looking for any proof that this silence was just an accident and instead found an article that suggested the opposite. As reported in an article entitled "Quiter approach to spreading democracy abroad" from the New York Times:

Four years after President George W. Bush declared it the mission of America to spread democracy with the goal of “ending tyranny in our world,” his successor’s team has not picked up the mantle. Since taking office, neither Mr. Obama nor his advisers have made much mention of democracy-building as a goal. While not directly repudiating Mr. Bush’s grand, even grandiose vision, Mr. Obama appears poised to return to a more traditional American policy of dealing with the world as it is rather than as it might be.

The logic of the new administration is understandable. The fight against totalitarian regimes in the world unfortunately seems to have would up bringing more tangible costs than benefits at this point. But nevertheless I think that not trying to promote democracy in other countries is the same as not trying to help a person who is about to commit suicide. It may look to him for the moment that you aren't acting in his interests, but in the end he will be thankful if you save his life.

Don't press the black button

A month ago Joe Biden announced that the new US administration wants to "press the reset button" in its dealings with Moscow. I was reflecting on that and couldn't really understand what that could mean. I never saw any real problem with America's relations with Russia. Russia's relations with the whole world seemed crazy to me.

I'm looking forward to see how the renewed relations with Russia will work, but there is one thing that I already don't like.

In a recent article in the New York Times about the new trial of imprisoned Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovky there is no mentioning of any US reactionto the new charges being brought by the Russian government.

When the presidential election campaign in the US had just started, I remember feeling great sympathy toward John McCain because of his position toward Russia. That is a man, I thought, who really understands what's going on in that country, who wouldn't play its nasty games. I ended up preferring with Obama of course, but continue to respect McCain just for his position on Russia.

As US electoral sympathies of Russians on the whole, there were no real preferences to be seen either toward Obama or McCain. It looked like people didn't like either. I remember listening to Radio Freedom in Moscow (one of the two independent radio stations in Russia. It is financed by US State Department) when a listener called to express his views about the American presidential campaign and said: "I think America is in a real crisis if they can't find any white guy to be president..." Although Russia didn't like McCain for his harsh critiques of Moscow, it wasn't able to consider a black person as an option.

Although McCain seemed more explicit in his positions toward Russia, it was difficult to say who, McCain or Obama would be a better option for those in Russia who look for American support in Russia's road to democracy... It was, however, clear that Obama doesn't bother too much about other countries - he was much more concerned about his own, and that couldn't provide Russian democrats with much hope.

I remember Hillary Clinton not being able to pronounce President Dmitry Medvedev's name.

Now she will be able to personally find out that not only his name is inarticulate.

I'm not sure that "resetting" relations is a good thing to start with. It looks like many people in the US have a really distorted picture of what's going on in Russia. In a recent article about Obama's secret letter to Medvedev, Slate magazine gave Obama extra 25 points for that on its "The-Change-o-Meter" and wrote:

Obama's proposition is a significant shift from previous attitudes about Russia, and murmurs in Moscow suggest Obama's extended palm is a welcome change from Bush's clenched fist. The 'Meter slides up 25 points for burying old assumptions and engaging with a nation whose power and prominence is steadily growing.

Are you guys reading any news from Russia? It seems like you will soon be sending secret letters down a black hole!

Don't make a deal with the devil

Several days ago The New York Times wrote about a "private letter" that Obama sent to his Russian counterpart Dmitriy Medvedev where he allegedly offered the Russian president a deal: Russia stops helping Iran in its nuclear program and the US in exchange stop its plans to build a high tech radar facility in Eastern Europe.
The news sounded strange to me from the very beginning. It looked like a joke: a secret letter, an attempt to make an agreement with a country that has never proven to respect its promises  (not in the least because the country itself never knows what it will look like even in a few years)... But The New York Times sounded pretty optimistic:

Mr. Bush never accepted a Moscow proposal to install part of the missile defense system on its territory and jointly operate it so it could not be used against Russia.Now the

Obama administration appears to be reconsidering that idea, although it is not clear if it would want to put part of the system on Russian soil where it could be flipped on or off by Russians. 

Mr. Obama has been lukewarm on missile defense, saying he supports it only if it can be proved technically effective and affordable.Mr. Bush never accepted a Moscow proposal to install part of the missile defense system on its territory and jointly operate it so it could not be used against Russia.

Now the Obama administration appears to be reconsidering that idea, although it is not clear if it would want to put part of the system on Russian soil where it could be flipped on or off by Russians. Mr. Obama has been lukewarm on missile defense, saying he supports it only if it can be proved technically effective and affordable.

The New York Times' coverage of Russia always looked to me a bit strange, if not stupid. It wrote about the growing wealth of Russia while I, as an alumna of the best university of Russia able to speak two foreign languages fluently, tried to get a job at a foreign company for a salary of 1000 dollars a month in Moscow - the most expensive city in the world. When I came to the US people kept wondering what I was telling them about the way Russian people really live. They thought the streets were paved with gold while most of the regions of the country don't even have any roads...

Anyway, even knowing how strange New York Times' picture of my country could be, I was surprised by their optimistic tone this time. And here is what I have to say about all that.

There are two things to think about when you talk about any serious international agreement with Russia:

1. Russian international politics is just a continuation, an appendix of an internal politics that usually is used by Russian officials as a means to spread political PR inside the country. 

The story with the missile defence that the US was trying to build in 

Poland and Check Republic was a real gift from God for Russian officials. They loved it more than you can imagine and exploited this topic every now and then to show the Russian people who the real enemy is. Russian officials are the last people to be interested in ending the tension with US about that issue.

2. Russia's international weapon trade (including trade with Iran) brings the best opportunity for corruption. 

Imagine that you are a manager of a company with a lot of 

money in a country where there is no law, no person to control your actions. Imagine that you as a manager want to sell something very expensive to another company in another country with a similar manager and similar rules. If you have a particularly fantastic imagination, you already see yourself as one of the richest people in the world. Now try to imagine how you would view somebody who sends you a letter asking you to abandon all that in exchange of something that you don't really want... That's the way Russian officials see Obama now.

As a continuation The New York Times published yesterday another article where Dmitry Medvedev made an obscure comment about the letter:

“If we talk about some bargain or exchange, I can say that the issues were not raised in this way, because it’s counterproductive,” Mr. Medvedev said at a news conference in Madrid, where he was meeting with the Spanish prime minister.

“What we are getting from our U.S. partners shows at least one thing, that our U.S. partners are ready to discuss the issue,” he said. “That’s good, because only a few months ago we were getting different signals — that the decision has been made, there is nothing to talk about, that we will do everything as it has been decided.”

Obama and his Russia advisers should understand as soon as possible that they speak a language that is not understood in Russia and that they deal with a different political system and different mentality. They should know they won't gain by trying to deal with a criminal band by the same means one would deal with a choir of boys in a local church.