Condoleezza Rice Is Coming to Moscow
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Moscow today. It will be her first visit here since Russian President Vladimir Putin's memorable speech in Munich and his speech at the May 9 parade in which he compared the United States to the Third Reich. Rice will start a new phase in Russian-American relations with her visit. As in the time of the late USSR, Washington will be guided by “strategic tolerance” in relation to Moscow.
Rice's current visit is clearly the most complex in all her time as secretary of state. Tensions between Moscow and Washington have reached new heights in the last few days. The pretense of friendly relations was shed in February when Putin stated in Moscow that the U.S. was bending other countries to its will and wants to create a “world with one master.” The White House was impressed with that speech, but not as much as with Putin's speech during the Victory Day parade on Red Square, when the Russian leader said that now, as during the times of the Third Reich, some countries were showing “claims to world exclusivity and dictate.” The White House quickly demanded an explanation of the Kremlin. Tony Snow, press secretary to the U.S. president, said that the U.S. embassy in Moscow contacted Russian officials, who stated that Putin was not referring to the U.S. and did not intend to compare U.S. policy to that of the Third Reich.
According to the White House pres service, U.S. President George W. Bush called Putin the next day to discuss the details of Rice's upcoming trip. Bush asked Putin to receive her personally, and the Russian leader replied that he would be glad to do so. The meeting between Rice and Putin will take place tomorrow in the Kremlin. Today, Rice is dining with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Rice has been busy preparing for her visit. At the end of last week, she appeared before a Senate subcommittee on international relations and spoke in detail about Russian-American relations. She said the countries are undergoing a complication period, the two main causes of which are American concern over the political situation in Russia as elections approach and Russian concern over the situation in the CIS. The whole world is concerned about the course Russia has taken in recent years, she said, and the U.S. is alarmed over the concentration of power in the Kremlin. Rice spoke unambiguously about the CIS, saying that the U.S. has tried to convince Russia that the democracy emerging on its borders, in Ukraine and Georgia, will not be a problem and that Russia does not accept that relations between the U.S. and its neighbors, formerly part of the Soviet Union are relations between independent nations. No member of the U.S. administration has spoken so openly before, especially on the eve of a visit to Moscow.
Rice has plenty to talk about in Moscow. Washington's plans for a missile defense system in Europe, the U.S. administration's support of Estonia in its recent conflict with Moscow, plans to diversify energy supply sources in avoidance of Russia, disagreements over Kosovo – and those are just the most recent problems.
That many problems have collected between the two countries mainly because no one intends solve them. Instead they continue to worsen. Washington has been trying to convince Moscow for months that its plans for an antiballistic-missile system in Europe is to defend the continent from Iran and is not a threat to Russia. At the same time, the U.S. is emphasizing that Moscow cannot influence its plans. “The Russians should understand that they are not part of NATO and cannot change this project,” Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns told Le Monde.
Moscow has reacted with obvious mistrust to all those explanations as well as to the invitation to collaborate on the system. Kommersant sources in Washington are inclined to think that the Kremlin's unwillingness to accept the defensive system is due to its conscious politicization by the U.S. Under Secretary pf State Daniel Fried called the transition from topic for specialists' discussion to a political topic a result of Putin's Munich speech. He also suggested that the upcoming presidential elections in Russia could be a reason for changes in its foreign policy. He warned against accepting Russian rhetoric as a final position at a press conference at the beginning of the month.
Thus, Rice will discuss all the issues that have arisen, but no progress is expected in any of them. Neither side is inclined to problem solving. The practical purpose of the current visit is to bring relations with Russia into a new phase, one that will differ significantly from the former “critical dialogue.” The main principles of the new American to Moscow during “the complex period of the expected transfer of power in Russia” was described by Fried on May 9 at the European Forum in Berlin. He said that the U.S. and European Union should cooperate with Russia when possible, oppose it when necessary and always take a realistic view of events. This resembles a modification of the U.S. “strategic tolerance” doctrine during the late Soviet Union, which consisted of patiently waiting for the changes in the Soviet system, cooperating and avoiding conflict. Fried acknowledged that Russia is, nonetheless, freer today than during communism, and possibly under the tsars as well, and that that is a very low point of comparison. “We understand exactly what is going on in Russia and we have great tolerance,” a sources close to the administration commented.
Dmitry Sidorov, Washington; Mikhail Zygar
All the Article in Russian as of May 14, 2007
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