Washington Profile News Agency www.washprofile.org The US is ruining its relationship with Russia. An interview with Stephen Cohen December 4, 2003
Stephen Cohen is a Professor of Russian studies at New York University, Professor Emeritus of Russian politics at Princeton University, and the author of several books on Russia and the USSR.
Q:What is your view of the Yukos affair?
There are many aspects of the Yukos affair, and there are many motives behind it. The single most important element of the Yukos affair is the instability of the oligarchic economic system created in the 1990s. As I see it today, the oligarchic economic system in Russia had no legal legitimacy everyone agrees that it was done without any real law. Secondly, it lacks popular legitimacy. And thirdly, it hasn’t been able to achieve economic legitimacy, in the sense of pulling the country out of poverty and depression.
And it didn’t necessarily have to be Khodorkovsky, whom I actually know, and whatever he’s done, he’s certainly a charming and likeable man. But the arrest of Khodorkovsky and the freezing of his shares, and the continuing investigation of Yukos and now Sibneft are the beginning of a struggle over the future of this oligarchic system, and I think it was inevitable. I think it didn’t have to be Khodorkovsky, but it was Khodorkovsky because he more than anyone else in Russia today symbolizes the system he’s the richest, he was the politically most active, and he was the best-connected to the West, with ties to the White House, and he was personally charming. When you arrest the most charming, richest, and most connected oligarch, that means you’re talking about the system, not one person.
Q: What about political motivations?
Let me say that I believe that it was a factor. I don’t think it was the main factor. Let’s begin with the charitable explanation that the American media does not do a very good job of reporting on Russia. They tend to get an idea and stick with it. And where do they get the idea? They get it from people in Moscow who can speak English, because so many of the correspondents don’t speak Russian well enough to speak to a wide range of people. Look how often they quote Gaidar, Nemtsov, this whole English-speaking crowd that has a vested interest in the system. Nemtsov is in a panic, saying that millions of people will be arrested, that this is Stalinism. This is all hyperventilating he is very worried because he is a child of the oligarchic system. After the arrest of Lebedev, on July 2, by chance I saw Khodorkovsky the next morning at the American embassy. I went immediately to him and said, is this serious? He made it clear he thought this was a turning point. He didn’t think this was just games, or a warning, he thought that something big had begun.
I think he was arrested, and his shares frozen, because the faction in the Kremlin behind this believed that at any moment he was going to sell a blocking equity share a large enough share that control of Yukos in Russia would be lost. I believe that this involved the highest strategy of the Putin group, which was that Russia’s only chance of economic development is to use its natural resources as it wants to use them at home. And that if you sold 40% of Russia’s largest oil company, it would remove not only part of today’s wealth, but that you would lose the future wealth that this oil would create. That was a strategic economic decision. And when they thought that Khodorkovsky was going to do it anyway, the Kremlin became convinced that they need to stop this, and they only way the could stop him was to arrest him and take his shares. That’s what I think precipitated the arrest.
But the American media view that this is all about democracy and politics seems to be nonsense, for several reasons. First, democracy in Russia, and I lived there during a good part of democratization of 1988-91, began to be turned back when Yeltsin destroyed the parliament in 1993. That was the turning moment. And in addition, the destruction of the Parliament enabled Yeltsin to go forward with this oligarchic privatization. The connection between the two events was well known, because the parliament was against it. Many of the things we lament about Putin today control of the press, the war in Chechnya, the rise of security officials in the government all this began under Yeltsin. The press was controlled in a different way Gusinsky was given NTV on the condition that he support Yeltsin. Berezovsky was given ORT on the condition that he support Yeltsin. These trends began under Yeltsin, and they’ve intensified under Putin. So to say that it’s about democracy is nonsense.
Secondly, to say that Khodorkovsky represented some kind of political threat to Putin I think is also nonsense. The two little parties that he was giving money to SPS and Yabloko he could have given them a trillion dollars, and they’re still not going to get more than 12% of the vote between them. They simply don’t have a constituency in Russia. SPS is the party of the oligarchs, and people hate the oligarchs. Yabloko might have had some possibilities, but its problem is not money but leadership. The notion that somehow Khodorkovsky’s money would somehow keep Duma from Putin is complete nonsense. Moreover, let’s be grown-ups the Kremlin, if it wants to, has the ability to falsify elections. We know this. Nobody believes that Yeltsin beat Zyuganov in 1996 by that big a margin. Nobody believes that the 1993 constitution actually passed. The notion that a few dollars will change the elections is naïve. Money is a factor, but it’s a side factor that American journalists who talk to the English-speaking pro-oligarchic intelligentsia in Moscow pick up. “Oh, it’s about democracy. Khodorkovsky was fighting for democracy.”
And this idea that Khodorkovsky was going to run for president let’s be serious. Russia is not going to make an oligarch the president, it’s not going to make a Jewish oligarch the president this is just complete nonsense put out by gullible American journalists in Russia. Khodorkovsky himself has said that he could not get elected. So we have to strip away these factors that angered the Kremlin the fact that he was giving money to parties, he was breaking the rules of the game. If it hadn’t been for the impending sale of Sibneft to the Americans, I doubt very seriously if the Kremlin would have cared very much if Khodorkovsky wanted to waste his money on Chubais and Nemtsov.
Q: How will this affect the US-Russian relationship?
Subjectively, it pains me greatly that so many Russians believe that the US government is a leading supporter of the hated oligarchic system. Why do so many Russians believe this? Because it’s true. Everyone remembers that when the system was being created in 1993-97 by Yeltsin, the Clinton administration called it reform and said it was good. They applauded his destruction of the Parliament, they applauded the loans-for-shares, they applauded the creation of oligarchic capitalism. And whenever an oligarch is treated badly, the American government protests sometimes loudly, sometimes softly. Did you ever hear the American government protest the amount of poverty in Russia, the unlivable pension, the so-called minimum wage which is really a starvation wage? My educated friends who are not Communists are curious why the US is only interested in the fate of the oligarchs.
The US, Ambassador Vershbow for example, has quietly protested Khodorkovsky’s arrest and treatment. How was that received in Russia? Well, we know that the overwhelming majority of people in Russia support his arrest, so obviously 80% of Russians resent Vershbow’s statements. I believe that given our history in participating in the creation of the oligarchic system, the American government should keep its mouth closed. This is, in fact, an internal Russian affair. The US has been deeply involved in Russia’s internal affairs since the end of the Cold War, which has not done anything except make things bad between the US and Russia. The US has to get out of Russia. It has to shut up and go home and fix its own problems and let Russia sort this out.
The main danger to the American-Russian relationship is not Khodorkosvsky. It’s two things. First, it’s the twelve year pattern of American policy toward Russia in which the US takes very large concessions from Russia and giving nothing in return. It began when Gorbachev agreed to the re-unification of Germany and Germany’s membership in NATO. He was promised by the first president Bush that NATO would not expand eastward. But of course, under Clinton NATO expanded first to the former Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe, and now it’s expanded to the former Baltic republics. Russia caved in to the American bombing of Serbia. It went along with the abolition of the ABM treaty, which was the centerpiece of Russia’s nuclear security. It agreed to sign a fake nuclear reductions treaty according to this treaty, you put the missiles in a closet, and with a 90 days notice you say you don’t want to belong to the treaty anymore and get out. After September 11, Russia agreed to American use of its air space, its intelligence, it allowed bases in Central Asia. And what has Russia gotten in return? Not a single thing. The US has not even gotten rid of the meaningless but symbolic Jackson-Vanick amendment. Have they helped Russia with its national debt? No. Are they worried about Russia’s national security? No. Anybody who knows anything about international relations or human relations knows that a ferocious backlash is going to come from Russia.
Secondly, if you look at a map, and I’m sure the Kremlin looks at the map every day, a literal American-NATO encirclement of Russia is underway. NATO is now in the Balkans. American bases are in Central Asia. There is a growing American military force in Georgia. There will probably be American troops in Azerbaijan very soon. Rumsfeld has announced that many of the troops that have been in Germany since WWII are now going to move closer to Russia Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria. In other words, the whole might of NATO and America is coming closer to Russia and encircling Russia. I have a friend in Russia who was in the Gulag under Stalin, who hates Stalin, who said to me not long ago, “You know, Stalin was right about one thing you really will encircle us if you have a chance.” This is so unwise. The lack of concessions from the US and the ongoing encirclement of Russia is guaranteeing a very bad relationship with Russia in the very near future. And this is terrible, and tragic, and this is the real danger, not Khodorkovsky’s arrest.
Sergei Ivanov said a few weeks ago that it’s time for American troops to leave Asia. Now of course, they’re not going to leave. And he said a week ago that Russian natural resources belong to the state. Now that’s a policy statement, because at the moment they belong to the oligarchs. These are bad times for Russia, bad times for the Russian-American relationship, and I don’t see anything getting better. I really worry about our American policy I think it’s stupid beyond belief. It’s counterproductive. It’s almost like we have a death wish when it comes to Russia, and we don’t care.
Q: If Bush loses the election next year, will this policy change?
Hope dies last, that’s the proverb. So I hope that if there’s a different president, there will be a different policy, but I don’t think it will be so. This policy toward Russia began under Clinton. If you look at Strobe Talbot’s memoirs, it’s clear they knew exactly what they were doing treating Yeltsin as a big ol’ friend, old Boris, and getting everything out of him that they could without giving anything in return. They were doing it unwisely, they embedded a time bomb in the Russian-American relationship, but they knew they were doing it. I don’t see a fundamental change, because there is very little wisdom in the political elite, particularly about Russia.
We still think about Russia in cold war terms what’s good for Russia is bad for America. That’s stupid, reckless, and dangerous. But look at the reaction of the Democratic candidates after Khodorkovsky’s arrest. Some of them have said, “Well, we have to crack down on Putin.” They’re criticizing Bush for admiring Putin and Putin’s vision of a democratic Russia. Every American president mistakenly thinks, and for many years now, that the way you have a valuable productive relationship with Russia is to have a good personal relationship with the Russian leader. But that’s only a personal relationship this is about state interests. Yeltsin’s close relationship with Clinton only brought grief to the US-Russian relationship, and now we see that Bush’s relationship with Putin has not gotten Bush what he wants it didn’t get him support in Iraq, or prevent the arrest of Khodorkovsky, or end the wear in Chechnya.
I worry that the Democrats will decide that the way to run against Bush is to run against his Russia policy. Remember, Russia is going to be important in this election. Everyone in the US agrees that for the first time in years, foreign policy is going to be important in a presidential election, because of Iraq. Bush doesn’t have many foreign policy successes he is hated in Europe, he is booed in London, and the American occupation of Iraq is a complete nightmare there’s no way out. The war was a big mistake, and they know it. So what can he say he’s done good “Well, look at my relationship with Putin” The trouble is the Democrats will go after that and say that Putin is bad, that Russia is bad, and that’s the wrong thing to do, but that’s the way the political pendulum will swing. So I’m not optimistic, but there’s always hope.
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