By Patricia H. Kushlis
Finally, some common sense has been injected into US relations with the Russian Federation. At least, that’s the way I read Vice President Biden’s remarks at the 45th Munich Security Conference on Saturday. This is not a question of saber rattling, of rolling over and playing dead, or even of offering an olive branch. It is simply a matter of pragmatic realism – a formal indication from an administration that intends to talk with friend and foe whether it agrees with them or not.
Here, for instance, is the official text of what Biden said in his speech regarding missile defense: “We continue to develop -- we will continue to develop missile defense to counter the growing Iranian capability, provided the technology is proven and it is cost-effective. We'll do so in consultation with you, our NATO allies, and with Russia.”
Seems to me then that these two sentences are particularly pregnant with meaning: first – the caveat “provided the technology is proven and it is cost-effective.” And second – doing so in consultation with . . .”
Now I have never seen indications that the technology for anything beyond battlefield (tactical) missile defense is anywhere near proven let alone cost-effective. This is one of the many reasons I thought the Bush administration’s plans to install pieces of the system in Poland and the Czech Republic supposedly to protect the US against what seemed to me to be an illusory Iranian nuclear attack sometime in the distant future made no sense whatsoever. But this is also why I thought the Russians were making a large to-do over nothing when they so strenuously objected to the zany proposal in the first place.
To consult does not mean to cave
Biden’s use of the word consultation is also significant because it means discussion with members of NATO – few of whom have been great supporters of missile defense including the Czechs and the Poles. It also, horror-of-horrors, means talking with the Russians – who adamantly oppose it. But please, it does not, repeat not, mean negotiating with or – listen up, Neocons - heaven forbid - being bound by those discussions or consultations.
Let’s face it, the US has major economic problems that have now infected the rest of the world. This country needs to find ways to dig itself out of the financial hole.
Personally, I’d rather see the stimulus package go towards renewing our own civilian infrastructure – from highway maintenance to education, health care and refitting the country to generate power from other than burning fossils – than waste one penny of my taxes on an unworkable, pie-in-the-sky defense system. The latter may make the likes of Dick Cheney sleep better at night but do nothing for the rest of us other than siphon off more funds to the industrial part of the military-industrial complex.
The US also needs to set our relations with other countries on a surer footing and along a straighter path than the one chosen by the Bush administration. This alienated much of the rest of the world through the policies of unilateralism and verbose bellicosity. Biden’s speech in Munich on Saturday was a breath of fresh air as well as a firm step in the right direction.
But the Russians also need to change some habits at home and abroad.
The crash in the price of petroleum has placed a major drain on Russian currency reserves because far too much of the Russian economy is based on petroleum sales abroad. As a result, the ruble is sinking – but at least it’s not in the free-fall of the 1980s and 1990s thanks, apparently, to better economic policies on the part of the current government. Yet, Russia’s stock markets have lost up to 75 percent of their value in the past few months, the money supply is contracting, unemployment is on the rise, foreign investment is running the other direction, ultra-nationalism is rearing its ugly head and Russia’s immigrant population is among the hardest hit.
Whatever one thinks of Russia’s vertical, centralized approach to governance under Vladimir Putin - whether as president or prime minister - or its use of natural gas as a foreign policy weapon as it did yet again this winter in its tiff with Ukraine, Russia still has major problems.
Russia is far from out of the woods
Some of the problems trace back to a decades old population contraction that continues to this day. This is “aggravated by a nationwide drug and alcohol epidemic, a catastrophically underfunded health system, and the rapid spread of AIDs.” It’s no surprise, then that the “average life expectancy for a Russian man is 59 years – which puts the country at about 166th place in the world longevity sweepstakes, one notch above Gambia” in the words of US demographer Murray Feshbach who has been following Soviet and Russian demographic trends for years. Women, he reported, can “expect to live, on average 73 years, barely beating out Moldova.” The low birthrate and poor health of Russian newborns will just make the situation worse.
Meanwhile, the country continues a head-in-the-sand approach to regime critics. Human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and 25 year old investigative journalist Anastasia Baburova were murdered by unknown assailants in broad daylight in the center of Moscow just last week. They are just the latest victims of violent criminality that has hit lawyers and journalists particularly hard and not all of these murders are chance happenings. Chances are good – if the past is a guide - that their murderers will never be found and brought to justice. Whether the “deep State” is a party behind the scenes or whether the police are simply ill equipped to deal with the rise of ever larger and better organized gangs of skin-heads and quasi-Nazis or both, the problem is serious and needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
In a perceptive analysis in The Financial Times over the weekend, Quentin Peel concluded his article “Russia rattles sabers in Obama’s direction” as follows: “Perhaps the entire operation is for domestic purposes. That way it might at least make sense.” He may well be right.