Loki: You said: "Other European nations should step in and publicly support the US viewpoint expressed by Clinton."
Firstly, European nations are much closer to Russia geographically, culturally, economically, in shared experiences (pleasant and unpleasant) and in matters of national security. The Europeans nations represent a larger market than the US. In the foreseeable future, the European common currency will rival the US dollar as a reserve currency. The interest of the European nations in Russia is not subordinate to that of the US. There is no intrinsic reason why they should support the viewpoint of the US but lots of reason why the US should support the viewpoint of the European nations - or better still, why the US and all other nations should develop a constructive joint approach to Russia.
Secondly, the European nations have been taking a proactive role in supporting Russia from the beginning of the crisis and before that. They have given direct technical assistance, cash and have encouraged trade and investment, and the development of democratic institutions, cultural and political exchange. In an earlier posting you questioned my statement a few days ago when I reported that the UK and Austria were taking a proactive role last week in mobilisng international organisations such as the G8 Group and the IMF well before the US had a public reaction to the crisis. Germany's leading role as an investment banker to Russian is well known.
The US is important to Russian because of the lingering nuclear security concerns, joint space exploration programmes, because of its important role in NATO and because of its influence with the World Bank, the IMF and the United Nations. But many in Russia discount and reject US influence. At this moment, US authored theories of reconstruction do not have a great deal of credibility in Russia ( fairly or unfairly). Many in Russian are more influenced by their European cousins.
If Reagan could be considered fit for high office towards the end of his Presidency when he was clearly already suffering from pre-senile dementia or worse, then Yeltsin's difficulties should not be exaggerated. His demeanour at the press conference and recently was not as bad as has been depicted on this board, and in some respects was better than was expected. Although he is severely weakened in Russia he retains substantial constitutional strength, and potential electoral strength, if only because there is no obvious alternative capable of holding together the factions. I have no doubt an alternative will emerge in the next two years, or during whatever period is left before an election.
Clinton did well in his address to the students to admit - not to the Lewinsky affair which most Russians would consider to be incredibly trivial and out of place at this level of discourse - but to America's historical difficulties, in creating a constitution over its first ten years, in holding together its regions, in a civil war, in the divisive effects of slavery and its aftermath in bad racial relations, in the poverty which followed the Great Depression and in its vulnerability to the sometime irrational and unfair effects of the international economy and its markets. Most Russians are aware of these American events and characteristics and Clinton's recitation and acknowledgement of them would cause the rest of his message to be received more sympathetically.
Victor |
