WHILE IT HAS seemed to have gone out of its way at times to frighten, antagonise and generally alienate much of the world these past five years, the Bush Administration has made strenuous efforts to stay on friendly terms with one famous former adversary.
The US made collegiality with Russia one of the highest priorities of its foreign policy from the moment five years ago when George Bush looked into the eyes of Vladimir Putin and saw right through to his soul.
This, of course, is the same soul that had been darkened by years of loyal service in the KGB and that would subsequently be shaded further by the widespread imprisonment of political opponents, the suppression of non-governmental organisations, a brutal clampdown on nationalist movements in the Caucasus and menacing behaviour towards nascent democracies in Ukraine and Georgia.
But no matter. Russia was a big important country, and although France and Germany were to be respectively “punished and ignored” for their unhelpful opposition to the Iraq war, in Condoleezza Rice’s famous dictum, Russia was immediately “forgiven”.
Duly absolved, however, Moscow was merely emboldened in the pursuit of its own authoritarian, reactionary agenda. It stepped up its bullying of Ukraine and fomented further unrest in Georgia; it sought to impose a stranglehold on European energy supplies and declined to co-operate in serious efforts to defuse Iran’s nuclear programme. At almost all its tangents Russia’s foreign policy seemed to be designed to impede the interests of America and its European allies.
Nor did the increasingly awkward embrace of the Russian bear sit all that well with President Bush’s pledge in his second inaugural address to work to “eliminate tyranny in our world”.
And yet in spite of it all, in spite of Russia’s intensifying defiance and America’s escalating embarrassment, the unrequited affection Washington has for Moscow is still to be consummated this summer when Mr Putin hosts the G8 summit in St Petersburg in July. It will be quite a moment — the leaders of the world’s seven great developed democracies for the first time gathering as the co-equal guests of a Government that is neither great, nor especially developed, nor in most recognisable senses, a democracy.
Against this troubling backstory of craven capitulation it was something of a shock last week when Dead-Eye Dick Cheney took his marksman’s skills into the Russian arena and took aim — with unwonted accuracy — at the true nature of Mr Putin’s regime.
In a speech in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, Mr Cheney laid into the Russian Government’s behaviour at home and abroad. He suggested that it was reversing the democratic reforms achieved in the post-Soviet era and was bullying its neighbours.
Mr Cheney’s philippic was well received by his Baltic hosts — who know a thing or two about Russian bullying — but went down like a shot lawyer in Moscow. Last weekend the not-so-independent Russian press said that the US was initiating a new Cold War. On Wednesday the Russian President hit back. The US was behaving like a wolf that “eats without listening”, said Mr Putin in a nationally televised address.
So is this indeed the start of a new freeze in US-Russian relations? Is America’s foreign policy finally catching up with its lofty oratory?
Some European governments clearly fear so. They have quickly signalled to Washington their anger at Mr Cheney’s intemperate remarks. Coming just when the US, Britain, France and Germany are actively engaged in an effort to get the increasingly truculent Russians on board for a sanctions regime against Iran, they think that the timing of this new turn is extremely unhelpful.
But there’s less to all this than meets the eye: there was something rather suspiciously choreographed about the Cheney assault and the Putin parry. It looks more like a rather awkward shift in the form of US foreign policy without much real change in the substance.
Mr Bush has been under mounting pressure at home and from allies in Eastern Europe to show a little more spine towards Russia.
A couple of weeks ago in Brussels, John McCain, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for the 2008 presidential election, attacked Moscow’s growing authoritarianism. He has repeatedly said that the US should consider boycotting the G8 meeting Perhaps even more strikingly, his views were immediately echoed by senior Democrats who, if current political trends continue, may well be about to grow much more influential in determining the direction of US foreign policy.
This steadily building unease about America’s embrace of Mr Putin has finally seeped into the Administration’s consciousness and prompted an intense debate about how the US should moderate its enthusiasm, especially given the unpleasant symbolism of Mr Bush’s imminent pilgrimage to St Petersburg.
For months the State Department has been casting around for ideas as to what Mr Bush might do to lessen the impact of the G8 visit. They have pondered the possibility of the President making side trips to Ukraine or even the Caucasus, or having him meet, very publicly, Mr Putin’s critics in Russia, but none of it has so far proved appealing.
So the Cheney broadside looks instead like a kind of clever sideshow. What better way to appease the critics than to have Wild Dick go out and take a few rhetorical shots at Russia and show nervous Eastern Europeans that America’s heart is in the right place? Then Mr Bush can safely proceed to St Petersburg and drink the health and prosperity of the Russian leader and his Government in the apt setting of the Tsar’s old summer residence on the Neva.
It’s a risky strategy. Slapping Russia in the face in public while holding its hand in private requires a subtlety that has not been a striking feature of this Administration’s diplomacy.
Of course, the worst thing that could happen is that they succeed in this ambiguous strategy. Whatever you think about the merits of engaging with an increasingly authoritarian government such as Russia’s, you can’t really argue that in practice it has produced very much. It’s is one thing to kiss up to dictators when they kiss you back. But when they use it as a chance to do their own sweet thing, you can come away feeling rather soiled.
gerard.baker@thetimes.co.uk
Read Gerard Baker's blog at timescorrespondents.typepad.com/baker/
