The Hindu May 9, 2006
U.S. makes a return to Cold War rhetoric Vladimir Radyuhin
-In the past few months alone, Russia has stood up to the U.S. on all major foreign policy issues. Moscow has defied Washington on Iran, rejecting its call for sanctions against Teheran, going ahead with the construction of Iran's first nuclear power station, and refusing to back down on a $700-million deal to sell anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran. -What enrages Washington most is that it can do precious little to bring Moscow to heel. Russia no longer needs Western credits, with its economy rebounding and its coffers bursting at the seams from record oil export windfall. -Mr. Cheney showed where the U.S. saw its "legitimate interests" in Russia's neighbourhood when straight from Lithuania he went to energy-rich Kazakhstan to push it to join oil and gas routes that go through Azerbaijan and on to Turkey bypassing Russia. -As one commentator remarked, the Russian train has gone for America, Russia has finally left the Western orbit.
Washington's change of heart has been largely provoked by Moscow's increasingly assertive foreign policy and determined upholding of national interests.
Has the United States declared a new Cold War on Russia? This question is being asked by Russian politicians and analysts bewildered by a virulently anti-Russian speech U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney made at a conference in Vilnius, Lithunia, last Thursday.
Addressing a meeting of Baltic and Black Sea states, including some former Soviet Republics, Mr. Cheney lashed out at Russia, accusing it of curbing civil liberties and using its energy resources as "tools of intimidation and blackmail."
"In many areas of civil society - from religion and the news media to advocacy groups and political parties - the [Russian] government has unfairly and improperly restricted the rights of her people," Mr. Cheney said.
"Other actions by the Russian government have been counterproductive and could begin to affect relations with other countries," he warned. He asserted that "no legitimate interest is served when oil and gas become tools of intimidation or blackmail, either by supply manipulation or attempts to monopolise transportation."
It was the harshest attack on Russia by a senior member of the U.S. administration since the closing days of the Cold War, when President Ronald Reagan branded the Soviet Union an "evil empire."
Curiously, Mr. Cheney nostalgically described Mr. Reagan as "beloved President" in his Vilnius speech.
The U.S. Vice-President's remarks prompted an angry response in Moscow.
Kremlin deputy spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected his criticism as "completely incomprehensible," while former President Mikhail Gorbachev described the speech as a "provocation and interference in Russia's internal affairs."
Russian commentators compared Mr. Cheney's address to a 1946 speech by British leader Winston Churchill in Fulton, the U.S., which gave the green light for the Cold War. "The Cold War has restarted, only now the front lines have shifted [from Eastern Europe to the former Soviet Union]," Russia's top business daily, Kommersant, said.
The White House said Mr. Cheney in Vilnius expressed the views of President George W. Bush's administration.
Mr. Cheney's anti-Russian diatribe therefore reflected a general hardening of tone in Washington towards Russia.
This was earlier evident in a Council on Foreign Relations report on Russia, which said the country was heading in the "wrong direction" and urged "selective cooperation" with it.
A National Security Strategy report released in March warned Moscow that "efforts to prevent democratic development at home and abroad will hamper the development of Russia's relations with the U.S., Europe and its neighbours."
Washington's change of heart towards Russia, since the time when Mr. Bush struck a friendly rapport with President Vladimir Putin during their first meeting six years ago, has been largely provoked by Moscow's increasingly assertive foreign policy and determined upholding of national interests.
In the past few months alone, Russia has stood up to the U.S. on all major foreign policy issues. Moscow has defied Washington on Iran, rejecting its call for sanctions against Teheran, going ahead with the construction of Iran's first nuclear power station, and refusing to back down on a $700-million deal to sell anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran.
Following the victory of Hamas in Palestine, Mr. Putin welcomed its leaders in Moscow and gave financial aid to the new administration against the wishes of the U.S. and the European Union.
Adding insult to injury, the Russian leader lectured the West on Palestine, telling it: "to burn bridges is the easiest, but not the most effective thing to do in politics."
As global demand for oil and gas soared, Russia has boldly used energy resources as a political weapon to tighten its grip on former Soviet states and win a bigger foothold in European energy markets.
Moscow has firmly rejected the West's demand to relinquish government monopoly on energy transit pipelines and open its energy resources to foreign companies.
Washington's efforts to forge a united front of European states against "excessive" dependence on Russia for oil and gas has fallen through when Germany broke ranks.
It first signed a historic deal to build a new pipeline across the Baltic Sea to pump more Russian natural gas to Europe, then gave Russia access to the European energy distribution network through a partnership agreement between Russia's Gasprom and Germany's BASF companies.
While praising the strategic energy partnership with Germany, Mr. Putin sternly warned other Western nations that their attempts to prevent Russian companies from acquiring energy assets would force Russia to diversify oil and gas exports to the East.
Moscow has also acted on its threat, launching last month the construction of its first oil pipeline to East Asia.
What enrages Washington most is that it can do precious little to bring Moscow to heel.
Russia no longer needs Western credits, with its economy rebounding and its coffers bursting at the seams from record oil export windfall.
Moreover, Russia has been repaying ahead of schedule the multi-billion-dollar loans President Boris Yeltsin took in the West. When the U.S. put spikes in Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organisation, Moscow retaliated by ditching Boeing in favour of Airbus for the purchase of two dozen long-distance airliners and threatened to cut out American companies from lucrative natural gas projects in Russia.
Washington cannot hope, either, to instigate a Ukraine-type "coloured revolution" in Russia, where Mr. Putin enjoys a 70 per cent support rating.
While he could hardly hope to influence the Kremlin leadership, Mr. Cheney had other audiences in mind when he engaged in Russia-baiting in Vilnius.
His prime goal was to knock together a regional grouping of former Soviet states and new European Union members in Eastern Europe that would form a cordone sanitaire around Russia and hamper its emerging axis with Germany and France.
The conference in Vilnius, called to discuss "a common vision for a common region," brought together the pro-America leaders of Lithuania, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria.
Many of these leaders met in Kiev in December to announce the establishment of a "Commonwealth of Democratic Choice," proposed by Georgia and Ukraine as an alternative to the Russia-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States and a vehicle of "coloured revolutions" in the region.
Addressing the Vilnius conference, Mr. Cheney praised the Georgian and Ukrainian leaders as "heroes" of our time, while denouncing Russia as an enemy of democratic change in the former Soviet Union.
"No one can justify actions that undermine the territorial integrity of a neighbour, or interfere with democratic movements," Mr. Cheney said in clear reference to Russia's assertive policies towards its ex-Soviet neighbours.
A few days earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington expected Moscow to "recognise that we have legitimate interests and relationships with countries that are in their neighbourhood even if those countries were once part of the Soviet Union."
Mr. Cheney showed where the U.S. saw its "legitimate interests" in Russia's neighbourhood when straight from Lithuania he went to energy-rich Kazakhstan to push it to join oil and gas routes that go through Azerbaijan and on to Turkey bypassing Russia.
However, Russia has made it abundantly clear it is not prepared to give up its own interests for the sake of the U.S.
In the past few months it has tightened control over energy flows from Central Asia, securing agreements to invest billions of dollars in the region's energy sector and to pump its oil and gas for export through Russian pipelines.
Moscow has also slapped economic sanctions on those ex-Soviet states, namely Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova, which openly embraced the U.S. agenda to the detriment of Russia.
The Bush administration's recent war of words on Russia also has a domestic agenda. Back in 2000, U.S. Republicans faulted outgoing Democratic President Bill Clinton for "losing Russia."
In 2008, Democrats are likely to make a similar charge against the Bush team. To counter these accusations, Republicans are adopting a tougher line on Russia.
White House sources said the Bush administration compiled a list of "recommendations" to Moscow of what it could do to help silence neocon critics of Mr. Bush's planned trip to Russia to attend a G8 summit meeting in St. Petersburg.
The Kremlin has agreed to play up to the White House by including in the pre-summit events a non-government forum on national security and human rights. But there is no chance Washington can win any substantive concessions from Moscow.
When Mr. Cheney bemoaned in Vilnius the fact that "in Russia today, opponents of reform are seeking to reverse the gains of the last decade," he hit the nail on the head.
Only Russians see them as the gains for the West, not for Russia. Commenting on Mr. Cheney's speech, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ironically remarked that the U.S. Vice-President may have been let down by his advisers.
"I don't think the Russian people need to be explained what kind of gains we had at a time when the country was on the verge of collapse," Mr. Lavrov said.
"What the Russian leadership is doing today is to preserve Russia as a single, integral and strong nation in the interests of its citizens."
As one commentator remarked, the Russian train has gone for America, Russia has finally left the Western orbit.