>>It is an unfair thing to do, because the US is only used to making
demands on its relationship with Russia and never granting the
latter's wishes. As Bill Clinton once told former deputy secretary of
state Strobe Talbott in an outburst of honesty when Clinton was
president and Boris Yeltsin was his counterpart in the Kremlin,
We [US] haven't played everything brilliantly with these people [Russians]; we haven't figured out how to say yes to them in a way that balances off how much and how often we want them to say yes to us. We keep telling Ol' Boris, 'Okay, now here's what you've got to do next - here's some more shit for your face.'Today, the Obama administration needs to factor in that Bill Clinton's Russia team still remains largely intact in the Washington circuit even after Ol' Boris left the Kremlin 12 years and six months ago. Put differently, Russia won't take "more shit" in its face anymore.
When the Group of Eight summit took place in Northern Ireland last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the diplomatic grapevine, wanted to use the gym at the Enniskillen resort, but his American counterpart Barack Obama had already booked it.
Neither would want to share the facility and Putin settled for a swim in the frigid Lough Erne, which was beyond Obama's physical stamina. All this might be idle gossip, but it helps capture the awkward nature of the current Russian-American relationship at present. If anybody had thought that the aloof body language at the meeting at Enniskillen revealed that the US-Russian ties have touched their lowest point in very many years, the case of the ex-Central Intelligence Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden tells us that they must deteriorate further before getting any better.
Neither would want to share the facility and Putin settled for a swim in the frigid Lough Erne, which was beyond Obama's physical stamina. All this might be idle gossip, but it helps capture the awkward nature of the current Russian-American relationship at present. If anybody had thought that the aloof body language at the meeting at Enniskillen revealed that the US-Russian ties have touched their lowest point in very many years, the case of the ex-Central Intelligence Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden tells us that they must deteriorate further before getting any better.
In Northern Ireland, Putin and Obama shared a resort town. From the latest indications, Obama, peeved over the Kremlin's decision to give shelter to Snowden, may call off his proposed bilateral visit to Moscow in September prior to the Group of 20 summit at St Petersburg.
Why do things have to come to this pass? Partly at least, it is Beijing's creation, unwittingly or otherwise, by hustling Snowden into an Aeroflot flight to Moscow knowing privately that Washington had revoked his passport and that by the time he landed at Sheremetyevo airport he would be without valid travel documents.
As Fyodor Lukyanov, a top establishment figure in the Russian strategic community, noted wryly in an article in the government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta on Tuesday,
The PRC intelligence services, which put the American on a plane for Moscow and told him that it was better there, deserved their leadership's praise since they spared Beijing a sizable headache. The rest were less fortunate.Most certainly, Beijing acted out of pure unalloyed motives to sequester China's nascent NTR - New Type of Relationship - with the Barack Obama administration from being hijacked by Snowden.
In the event, China has made great propaganda out of the Snowden case, but is is now liberated from having to make difficult decisions regarding Snowden's ultimate fate. It is pillorying Washington on the one hand for its "hypocrisy" in indulging in such massive scale of cyber-espionage against sovereign countries, while at the same time raising higher the bar of human rights standards for Moscow to live up to.
Unnecessary and misleading
However, the fault ultimately lies with Moscow, since it failed to exercise the option of deporting Snowden back to Hong Kong when it transpired that the alien in transit didn't have valid travel documents, which is a usual practice. On the contrary, Moscow chose to take a legalistic line that Snowden was not on Russian territory and to cap it, it enveloped him in a blanket security cover that was unnecessary and misleading.
Again, unlike the complete vow of silence in Beijing, all sorts of running commentaries began appearing on Snowden's invisible presence in Moscow, with sources ranging from Russian government officials to pundits to senior politicians, which only ultimately conveyed the impression that Moscow was indulging in foreplay with Washington while pinning hopes on striking a deal eventually with the US.
Suffice to say, Moscow cannot at this stage indulge in lamentation that Snowden has become its unwanted baby.
Washington, on the other hand, has held on to a single line consistently, from President Barack Obama down - namely, there shall be no "wheeling and dealing" with Moscow over Snowden; and that Russia should expel Snowden who has committed felony under American laws and should stand trial in the US courts.
The US has also let it be known that any perceived lack of cooperation from Moscow could have negative fallout for bilateral ties.
The fact that a high-level under deputy secretary of state William Burns, an old Moscow hand, was deputed to handle the Snowden case underscored the Obama administration's seriousness in trying to convince the Russians that the Kremlin had sufficient legal and practical reasons to expel the fugitive without travel document to the US - in short, that it would be a political call.
But Moscow has taken an absolutely correct legal stance, which is in additional a highly principled one, namely, that a truly great power cannot overlook "humanitarian considerations".
No more wheeling and dealing
However, Russia also expects that the Russian-American relationship will move on as if nothing has happened, so that once media attention ceases, as happened so often in the Cold War relationship, a deal can be worked out between the two governments. This is how Lukyanov concluded:
Edward Snowden will most likely shortly obtain Russian asylum, temporary, as he says, but he could linger in Russia a long time. For the circumstances preventing his return home or relocating to Latin America will not disappear in the foreseeable future. Moscow and Washington have an interest in this business being forgotten as quickly as possible, in it exiting the news field. It would then be possible to discuss without undue publicity what is to be done to extract this thorn in the side of relations.Lukyanov recalled that an "elegant solution" was worked out through a Russia-US deal in 2010 when Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev was overthrown and it turned out to be in the mutual interests of Moscow and Washington to mothball the deposed Central Asian head of state. Bakiyev was, in the event, despatched to Minsk.
Would the Obama administration agree to a Minsk formula in the Snowden case? This is the big question - and it seems unlikely, because it essentially means that Washington should do precisely what Obama said he wouldn't do - namely, "wheeling and dealing" with Beijing or Moscow over Snowden's fate.
Therefore, all things taken into account, a poignant moment of truth is arriving for both Moscow and Washington in their post-Cold War relationship. For Moscow, it is nothing less than a crisis of identity, whereas for Washington what is needed is a session of cathartic therapy on the couch that might help it understand itself better.
For Russia, the Snowden case demands that it reboots the Kremlin's foreign policy doctrine. So far it has been a foreign policy riveted on "national interests". Now, ideology is making a comeback. It may not be Marxist ideology, but nonetheless a compelling humanistic ideology that gives primacy to "humanitarian considerations" in foreign policy.
How far can Russia practice an ideology-laden foreign policy in a world that is torn apart by inequities, violence and authoritarianism? This is one thing.
The second question is whether the influential sections of the Russian elites would really afford to accept a situation of being socially ostracized by the West, whom they visualize as their natural partners in the North?
The heart of the matter is that the trans-Atlantic alliance pulls together, finally, despite an occasional hiccup or two, and on an issue that hurts American pride and makes the US appear an impotent superpower America's allies will not carry on business as usual with Russia.
On the other hand, given Russia's social formation in the post-Soviet period, it is improbable that the bulk of Moscow's elites would find Bolivia or the Ecuador to be agreeable destinations substituting for London or Zurich.
This brings us to a third question, which concerns the world order in which Russia needs to operate. Make no mistake that the US will react positively to any decision involving "asylum" for Snowden - temporary or otherwise. If so, what follows?
The entire trajectory of post-Soviet Russian-American relationship has so far been non-confrontational. This can change. And it is a reflection on the world order in which Russia needs to live that, after all, three (or even four, including South Africa) out of Russia's BRICS partners (Brazil, India and China being the others) would not even contemplate the course of action that Moscow seems about to choose; namely, granting shelter to an American fugitive from law out of "humanitarian considerations".
Rewriting Ol' Boris' history
In sum, the Snowden case demands that Russia make up its mind what sort of relationship it seeks with the West. True, Russia is used to a life under Western sanctions; but then, it was a difficult life not out of choice but out of compulsion. There are inherent limitations to innovating Russia's economy and globalizing it without Western technology and investments - the "China option", Eurasian Union project, or World Trade Organization membership notwithstanding.
Simply put, Washington would expect Russia to cooperate - just as Spain, Italy, France and Portugal did by blocking Bolivian President Evo Morales' passage when it suspected Snowden was aboard his plane - although these countries too felt exasperated over the US' cyber-espionage. At the very least, Washington would expect the same degree of "pragmatism" on Russia's part which Beijing displayed in the Snowden case.
Conceivably, the trap that the Obama administration set for Russia may be that the latter is called upon to make an existential choice regarding its identity and role as a great power with global reach and influence.
It is an unfair thing to do, because the US is only used to making demands on its relationship with Russia and never granting the latter's wishes. As Bill Clinton once told former deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott in an outburst of honesty when Clinton was president and Boris Yeltsin was his counterpart in the Kremlin,
We [US] haven't played everything brilliantly with these people [Russians]; we haven't figured out how to say yes to them in a way that balances off how much and how often we want them to say yes to us. We keep telling Ol' Boris, 'Okay, now here's what you've got to do next - here's some more shit for your face.'Today, the Obama administration needs to factor in that Bill Clinton's Russia team still remains largely intact in the Washington circuit even after Ol' Boris left the Kremlin 12 years and six months ago. Put differently, Russia won't take "more shit" in its face anymore.
If the Obama administration is in any doubt, this week's unprecedented military exercise by the Russian armed forces in the Far East should help dispel that misconception.
Russia has no enemies in the Far East. Nor does Russia have to prepare against the likelihood of a war with Japan, China or North Korea. Nor are its famous strategic bombers Tu-95MS going to be called upon to perform real time tasks.
The real message is that the military exercises ending on Saturday, involving 160,000 servicemen, 5,000 tanks and combat armored vehicles, 160 warplanes and helicopters of long-range, military transport, fighter, bombing and army aviation, as well as 70 warships and vessels, were ordered by the Kremlin with a paltry 48 hours' notice and yet they took off and could take place with such finesse.
President Vladimir Putin's presence at the 247th multi-service firing range Tsugol in the Eastern Military District on Wednesday underscores that Ol' Boris has become a part of history - and so indeed the US' post-Soviet triumphalism.
In sum, the charade of the US-Russia "reset" which Obama conjured up during his first term has outlived its utility. Selective engagement of Russia will no longer do. Russia demands a comprehensive, equal partnership based on mutual respect.
The Snowden case testifies to the urgency for Washington to go back to the drawing board and work on a new blueprint of relations with Russia - similar to the NTR China has been demanding.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
(Copyright 2013 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
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[SIDEBAR: WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN SPOILED ROTTEN & CUTE RUNS OUT, to be continued]
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