The United States and Russia Bids to Repair their Political Rift

The United States and Russia Bids to Repair their Political Rift

By E. Stanley Ukeni

Amidst often antagonistic rancor, that is occasionally exacerbated by threats of nuclear confrontation—reminiscent of the cold war era, the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and the United States’ Secretary of States, John Kerry, held a rare face-to-face discussion on many issues of contention between the two militarily powerful nations. The over four hours long meeting, at the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, was primarily aimed at finding ways to reengage one another after a significant deterioration in bilateral relationship.

I feel that we have just witnessed a demonstration of the sort of mature and responsible leadership that the world needs in times of gathering crisis.  

This renewed effort at high-level bilateral engagement between the United States and Russia could be seen as an indicator of a somber realization among foreign policy hawks in Washington that the US and EU economic sanctions on Russia—intended at weakening Putin’s political support amongst the ruling political and corporate elites of his country, may be, instead, having an unintended consequence of further hardening the resolve of even the moderates within Russia’s ruling circles. 

I dare to offer the opinion that the United States’ policy makers have, in recent months, observed that a growing patriotic sense that Russia is unduly being maligned is taking hold amongst the Russian ruling elites. Even those within Kremlin’s decision-making circles who were previously amenable to Washington’s position on international issues are gradually joining ranks with the traditional hardliners within the broad political spectrum. This is probably because the majority of Russians now feel that the country is under siege by those who would like nothing more than to see their great Nation reduced to nothing more than a mere marginal power, and the ruling elites have judged the situation politically and socially suicidal to be seen as taking sides with contentious adversaries of Mother Russian at a time of national siege.

This presumable unforeseen development may have become a problem for Washington’s key foreign policy makers who hoped that by inflicting economic pain on Putin’s administration and its key allies outside the Kremlin through multiple rounds of biting punitive sanctions—and isolating President Putin by cutting Russia out of the Group of Eight, among other measures, an exploitable political rift would evolve within Kremlin. They probably had hoped that a chasm within the Kremlin might compel President Vladimir Putin—in a bid to ensure his political survival, to adopt more desirable international policy positions that the US and Europe would find agreeable—especially with regards to the issue of the annexation of Crimea and the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. However, this strategy seems not to have quite played-out as Langley theorists envisaged.

In my opinion, the recent rise in Russia’s global assertiveness is based on the notion amongst the country’s political hardliners and nationalists that Russia has increasingly been short changed in the global race by the major global powers to further enhance their spheres of influence—both politically and economically, through sometimes, internationally unsanctioned, brute unilateral means. The conclusion within Kremlin inner circles, I would venture to argue, is that Russia’s regional and global influence is eroding because the country’s leadership had long maintained a passive posture in the face of the US, EU and China’s ever growing assertiveness in the international arena. I think that the Russian leadership aims to remedy this situation by adopting a more aggressive diplomatic posture in its future international dealings.

My guess is that their exists in Russia currently an increasingly dominant narrative that the United States’ government is advancing a maniacal global policy of ‘controlled chaos’, which is partially designed to undermine Russia’s strategic interests worldwide. Albeit that this narrative is without proof—and most probably untrue, there does not seem to be any individual or groups of individuals, with significant enough clout, that has shown to have the stomach to challenge this malicious narrative within Russia’s ruling circle.  

 It is in the midst of this acrimonious climate of mutual distrust that the top US diplomat, John Kerry, arrives in Russia for a critical meeting with President Vladimir Putin. Although little has been made public regarding the substance of the closed-door discussion between the Russian President and the US Secretary of State, a brief comment by the US top diplomat to the throng global media reporters gathered outside the venue of the meeting gives us a clue about the level of importance attached to the rare face-to-face meeting between the two contending powers.

According to news report, after his exhaustive meeting with President Putin, and with Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, Kerry said, at a news conference with news reporters, “I expressed (I assume to Vladimir Putin) President Obama’s gratitude for Russia’s willingness to engage in this discussion at a time when the exchange of views could not be more important…”

The US top diplomat further stressed that, “there is no substitute for talking directly to key decision-makers particularly during a period that is as complex and fast-moving as this is.”

These telling remarks reveals, among other things, that the meeting was necessitated to ensure that both administrations’ proxies and intermediaries does not unwittingly miscommunicate one another’s intentions to the other’s key policy makers. I understand from this statement to the press that the US side felt that events were quickly getting out of hand, and that either side needed to tone down the escalation, before events unintentionally get out of hand for both sides. The will to initiate this important dialog show impressive leadership ability on the side of the Obama administration.

Another telling statement is this remark by Sergei Lavrov to reporters after his meeting with John Kerry, “We have an understanding that we need to avoid steps which are able to inflict a long-term harm to bilateral relationship between Russia and the United States.”

This should inform the opinion that the Russian side now understand that some of their more recent provocative military maneuvers may unwittingly lead to an escalatory incident. Hopefully there is now a clear understand that the bellicose threats of nuclear confrontation coming from a few exuberant Russian military leaders needs to be reined-in before they cause the other side to misread some of Russia’s aggressive military maneuvers.

Although President Putin’s top foreign policy adviser, Yury Ushakor, told Russian news reporters that the high level meeting between the US top diplomat and President Putin was, “the manifestation of the first signs of understanding that the two great countries should return to normal cooperation”, I have a sense that the mistrust of Washington in Moscow has not abated much.

Even as Russia indicates a willingness to cooperate with Washington, if such cooperation is carried out on the terms that Russia is treated as an equal partner—without any attempts by the United States’ government to dictate to, or coerce, the Russian leadership, the Russians may not readily relent on their current aggressive foreign policy posture. The idea of soft power diplomacy is not currently in vogue at the Kremlin at the moment. The Russian Bear has awoken, and there is no telling when it’ll go back into hibernation.

 Authored by E. Stanley Ukeni, © 2015. All Rights Reserved.