Source: Carnegie

Last week a commission headed by Republican Rep. Christopher Cox of California released a report sharply critical of the conduct of U.S. policy toward Russia. On the eve of an election and a new administration, the report does the country a service in sparking a debate on Russia policy.

While assailing the means pursued by the Clinton administration, the Cox report endorses its basic objectives: promotion of democracy and markets in Russia and integration of Russia into the West. Apparently, George W. Bush and his advisers disagree, since they have advocated less engagement in these areas and a return to a more traditional, Realpolitik approach to foreign affairs in which the internal composition of other states is not considered important.

But to have a real debate, some omissions of the report need to be corrected. The first is the beginning of the story. The missed opportunities in U.S.-Russian relations did not begin in January 1993, when Clinton took office, but in December 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed.

The Cox report rightly states that the Soviet dissolution "presented America with its greatest foreign policy opportunity since the end of World War II." This euphoric moment ushered in a new, truly reformist government that initially had the backing of the people. The Bush administration had more than a year to work with and support this new team. It did not. By the time the Clinton administration took over, the Russian reformist government had been ousted.

The second error of omission is a failure to acknowledge the real menu of choices foreign policymakers face, especially when dealing with a revolution in midstream such as Russia's in the '90s. The same Mikhail Gorbachev who let the Warsaw Pact fall apart and helped Germany reunite also let his government loot Soviet gold reserves and allowed his armed forces to kill innocent people in Georgia and the Baltic states. Was George Bush wrong to deal with such a leader? The same Boris Yeltsin who bombed his parliament in 1993, invaded Chechnya twice and allowed corruption to flourish also destroyed the Soviet empire, introduced markets and democracy to Russia, destroyed thousands of nuclear weapons, acquiesced to NATO expansion and cooperated with the United States to end the Kosovo war.

In retrospect, Clinton should have criticized Yeltsin's horrible mistakes more vociferously, but then what? Work with the communist opposition on NATO expansion or Kosovo?

Congressional leaders, in fact, know about these hard choices because they too had to make them. Though the Cox report rightly calls for less money to the Russian state, Congress continues to earmark multimillion-dollar subsidies to the Russian state through the Nunn-Lugar program--designed to destroy and make more secure Russian nuclear weapons. Congress surely understands that Russian military officials are no less corrupt than other Russian officials, but probably calculates--rightly--that this program advances U.S. security interests even if it may also have indirectly supported bad people and bad practices. Choices regarding Russia are not black and white. Under Russia's new president, Vladimir Putin, they will become even grayer.

A third omission is a critical actor in this drama--Congress. The report calls for more aid to the Russian people when in fact Congress has steadily cut grass-roots assistance programs in Russia during the past decade. The report's call for more attention to the Russian opposition in parliament would have been blocked by Congress just a few years ago. I remember. As the field representative in Russia in the early 1990s for a congressionally funded nongovernmental organization, I was reprimanded for working with centrist and leftist groups in the Russian parliament. "Congress," I was told, "does not fund aid to communists."

The fourth omission is the absence of Russia in the narrative. In the great international drama of our lifetime--the end of communism--the United States played only a marginal role. The report chastises the Clinton team for failing to transform Russia into an ally like Germany and Japan. But we did not occupy Russia! At the end of the day, when we can finally make a
determination whether Russia has been won or lost, it will be Russians who should be primarily blamed or praised, not U.S. officials.

The final omission is a clear guide to the future. The report ends with sound and obvious recommendations for land reform, more rule of law and a better investment environment in Russia. To encourage change in any of the areas, however, the next administration will face the same set of tough choices that confronted Bush and Clinton. After pages and pages about the corruption of the Russian government, Recommendation Five of the report calls for more frequent high-level meetings with the Russian government! A contradiction? Yes. Easy to avoid? No. Welcome to the real world of international diplomacy.