The Opening Moves in Putin's Game of Chess
Summary
Russia's new president, Vladimir Putin, launched his foreign policy
last week. At first blush it appears conciliatory toward the West
in general and the United States in particular. But the new
president is in fact pursuing a more complex, dual-track foreign
policy. As his government moves nuclear arms control measures
forward, it also signals the development of next generation nuclear
weapons and helps set the diplomatic stage for deploying large
Russian forces near Poland. Putin is playing a complex game of
chess: making conciliatory gestures while setting the stage for
confrontation if conciliation should fail.
Analysis
Last week, Vladimir Putin launched Russia's post-election foreign
policy. Now president in his own right, Putin set in motion a
series of policies, signals and gestures that were simultaneously
blatant, subtle, contradictory and, above all, centralized.
Amidst the complex, mixed signals sent out last week, one fact was
clear: the new president is moving to have his government speak
with one coordinated voice on foreign policy, with that voice
controlled by Putin himself. Inconsistencies in former president
Boris Yeltsin's foreign policy could best be ascribed to lack of
coordination and a multiplicity of forces competing to shape
policy. Putin's policy is, we think, coherent, if deliberately
subtle and ambiguous.
Dominating the news out of Moscow last week was the Duma's vote on
two arms control treaties. By wide margins, the Duma approved the
START II arms reduction agreement as well as the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty (CTBT). Together, these events were generally seen as a
comforting sign that Putin intended to follow a conciliatory policy
toward the West in general and the United States in particular.
Putin certainly intended that it be seen this way. From his point
of view, nothing would be better than to have the United States
reciprocate a more accommodating line from Russia.
The need for reciprocation is the kicker that Putin buried within
arms control ratification. The United States wants to deploy an
anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system. An expanded ABM system is
banned under a U.S.-Soviet treaty signed in 1972. The American
justification for the new system is that it is not directed against
the Russian arsenal, which is too large to stop. Rather, it is
directed against "rogue" states, like North Korea or Libya, which
might acquire a few missiles with nuclear warheads and launch them
against the United States.
In no position financially or technically to deploy an equivalent
system, Russia has consistently opposed an American national
missile defense. Moreover, the Russian leadership fears that
deployment would tilt an already lopsided balance of power even
further in the American direction. Such a system would likely close
off the possibility of limited nuclear exchanges; the United
States, if it chose, could strike a few targets in Russia and leave
Moscow with the choice of doing nothing or initiating total nuclear
war.
But the most important reason for Russian opposition is rooted in
symbolism. Moscow needs Washington to acknowledge some degree of
equality. The only area in which any sort of equality exists is in
the arena of nuclear weapons. In this sphere the two nations can
continue to negotiate as equals. But if that equality slips away,
if the United States simply ignores its treaties with the Soviet
successor state, then Russia will have lost all equality across the
board.
Putin can't afford to let that happen. He has therefore made it
consistently clear that he will not renegotiate the ABM treaty.
More important, he has made it clear that if the United States
deploys its system in violation of that treaty, all arms control
agreements will be in jeopardy. The United Nations will begin
debate over the extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
next week, and a high-level Russian delegation will be in the
United States for that discussion.
This series of ratifications on longstanding arms control measures
now puts Russia in a perfect position to confront the United States
- both on the ABM treaty and on the test ban treaty, which the U.S.
Senate rejected last October. Thus, the ratifications are
simultaneously conciliatory moves and traps for the United States.
If the United States proceeds with a missile defense in the face of
the Duma vote, Putin will have created precisely the record he
wants: he reaches out to the United States and is rebuffed.
Putin's shrewd ratification of the two arms control treaties
coincides with the formalization of a new Russian defense policy.
Already widely discussed in Russia, the new policy was made
official last Friday, the same day Russia ratified the test ban
treaty. While the president's security council has not yet released
the document to the public, Putin on various occasions has made
clear the premise and the consequence of the policy. The premise
lies in NATO's willingness last year to take military action
without prior approval by the U.N. Security Council, where Russia
wields a veto. For Russia, this creates a dangerous new situation
in which NATO's unpredictable behavior cannot be controlled by
international organizations. Therefore the consequence - and this
is the critical point - that Russia is prepared for the first use
of nuclear weapons in defending fundamental national interests.
Russia is also signaling that it is pressing forward with a new
generation of nuclear and conventionally-tipped munitions. The
Russian media has reported that the air force began testing a new
missile, designated X-55. The X-55 was originally designed to be
launched from Russian bombers and to be armed with a nuclear
warhead. In new tests, however, the X-55 will be used as a
precision guided munitions using conventional warheads. The point,
however, is not lost. Russia is carefully letting everyone know
that it continues its weapons development program and is capable of
fielding new generations of nuclear and non-nuclear munitions.
The approval of arms control treaties coincides, therefore, with
the implementation of a new nuclear policy that explicitly permits
a Russian first strike. This duality was repeated elsewhere. For
example, Russia made very public overtures toward Chechnya last
week, while other reports said that the Russians were sending in
more troops. Putin, meanwhile, said last week that Russia has
fundamental interests in the Caspian region and that Western
interests seemed ready to pounce on the area.
Putin's views seemed coordinated with the Communist speaker of the
Duma, Gennady Seleznyov. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
visited several Central Asian countries last week and Seleznyov
blasted the visit, saying, "As soon as links weaken, they (the
Americans) show up. Their principle is to divide and rule. And
that's how it will be in the 21st century." In Moscow, as well,
interior ministers of the Shanghai Five - Russia, China,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan - met on Friday. ITAR-TASS
reported that the meeting focused on suppressing terrorists and
separatists. Both Russia and China have an interest in suppressing
militant Islamic movements in the region and the Friday meetings
were intended to set the stage for a summit of the Shanghai Five in
May. Thus, at the same time that Moscow made a gesture toward
Chechnya, it is gearing up to assert itself in Central Asia.
Similarly ambivalent behavior could be seen to the west, in
Russia's relationship with Belarus. Belarusian President Alyaksandr
Lukashenka announced last week that an agreement had been struck to
create a joint military organization between Belarus and Russia.
Lukashenka said he expected the agreement to be signed by early
June and that it would rate a joint force of about 300,000 troops.
The agreement would place Russian troops directly on the Polish
border in large numbers. The Russians did not deny that the
agreement had been reached, though they tried to downplay the size
of the force or its strategic significance.
The Western media has chosen to focus on Moscow's conciliatory
gestures and is missing the wild crosscurrents in Russian foreign
policy. Those crosscurrents are far from random. To the contrary,
they make a great deal of sense. Putin would certainly like to
achieve some sort of solid reconciliation with the United States.
He understands two things. First, he understands that he will get
nothing from the United States unless he positions himself to
bargain. Yeltsin could not deal effectively with the United States
because he neither controlled his negotiating apparatus nor created
levers for effective negotiation. Yeltsin's successor does not plan
to repeat that error.
Second, Putin understands that no reconciliation may be possible
with the United States; American interests and Russian ones might
simply be too far apart. The United States does not want to have
its military operations limited by the U.N. Security Council.
Russia does not want to be frozen out of decisions. The United
States has major financial stakes in the Caspian region and wants a
degree of political influence to guarantee those interests. Russia
does not want to see U.S. client states created within what it
regards as its sphere of influence. Russia does not want an
American national missile defense deployed.
Therefore, if Putin's first priority is to create a firm
relationship with the United States, his second goal - if his first
fails - is to position Russia effectively in the event of a
collapse of relations. Putin does not want to recreate the
situation from 1946-49 in which the United States was able to
portray the Soviet Union as the prime culprit for the Cold War and
use that perception of Soviet aggression and duplicity to create a
hostile alliance. If U.S.-Russian relations collapse, Putin wants
to create a clear record of American responsibility.
Putin is trying to reach three audiences. First, domestically, he
will be in a position to further undercut liberal, pro-American
elements. Second, and more important, he will position himself for
the inevitable attempt to drive a wedge between Europe and the
United States, by showing that Washington, in pursuing its narrow
strategic interest, jeopardizes Europe's interest in good relations
with Russia. Finally, Putin is addressing an American audience,
which to the extent that it is cognizant of foreign policy at all,
does not want to see a return to the Cold War.
From the Russian point of view, the same policy must be pursued
whether the goal is reconciliation with the Americans or
preparation for a breach. The best hope of reconciliation - on
terms acceptable to the Russians - is to convince the United States
that Russia is capable of threatening American interests.
Therefore, it is necessary to make conciliatory gestures while
simultaneously undertaking diplomatic initiatives that lay the
groundwork for challenging the Americans. This may persuade the
United States to be conciliatory. Should that fail, it positions
the Russians to pursue their national interest.
The ultimate audience is in Europe and, to a lesser extent, Japan.
Leaders there do not want to see a return to even a mini-Cold War.
The Germans in particular, with their heavy financial exposure in
Russia, do not want to see this happen. More than anyone, Putin
understands the Germans. He is now carefully laying out, very
publicly, both his willingness to work with the United States, and
the consequences should that fail. Putin wants to have a neutral
Europe or, at the very least, a neutral Germany. The new
president's conciliatory moves are quite real. They are also
crafting the structure of the world, if conciliation fails.
(c) 2000, Stratfor, Inc. stratfor.com
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