EXPERT OPINION: ARE WE ENTERING A NEW COLD WAR?

Gary Hamburg, Professor of European History at Claremont McKenna College, and Johannes F. Linn, Executive Director of the Wolfensohn Center for Development at the Brookings Institution analyze the current state of U.S.-Russian relations.

— How would you characterize the current U.S.- Russian relationship: are we in fact heading towards a new cold war?

GARY HAMBURG, Professor of European History at Claremont McKenna College, author of several books on Russia and the Soviet Union: U.S.-Russian relations have become difficult for various reasons:
Putin thinks the United States has become a force for instability in the world, by which he means that the U.S. intervention in Iraq has destabilized the Middle East but also that U.S. sponsorship of NATO expansion has disturbed Russia's 'near abroad'; Putin also thinks that the United States has not duly recognized Russian power, political and economic; the Bush administration is disappointed by what it sees as Putin's meddling in Ukrainian internal affairs, by its unhelpful attitude toward Georgia, by its use of oil as an instrument of political intimidation in Europe, and, of course, by the continuing Russian use of force in Chechnya (which reminds Washington of Soviet habits, even though the tacit agreement is for Washington to 'look the other way' while Chechnya is pacified and to classify the suppression of Chechen independence as a part of the international 'war on terror.') The deeper problem in U.S. - Russian relations, I suspect, is that in the minds of the two political elites the old 'cold war' suspicion of the adversary has never died. Does this mean the current tensions should be classified as a 'new cold war'? I think not. There is, as I hinted, a mutual suspicion affecting the political elites, or rather portions of the political elites, on either side, but this suspiciousness in no sense approaches the at times hair-trigger tensions of the cold war era. Could the tensions between the United States and Russia grow more serious? Yes, and they may increase at some point quite sharply to the degree that Russian nationalism becomes more assertive and even aggressive in the 'near abroad,' and, we should add, to the degree that the United States aggressively promotes an anti-Russian policy in Central Asia, the Caucasus and Europe. At the moment problems between the two countries look to be manageable without a return to the military preparedness and bellicosity of the cold war era. We should be thankful for that.

JOHANNES F. LINN, Executive Director of the Wolfensohn Center for Development at the Brookings Institution:
Well let me say first, I hope not. Because I think it would be most unfortunate and unnecessary and quite inappropriate given that the U.S. and Russia in particular have shared long term interests in global as well as regional issues. In addition, it isn’t just Russia and the U.S. anymore, it is and will certainly be Russia, China, India, the U.S., Europe, so it’s not the simple world of the cold war East vs. West, it will be much more complicated. So it’s very important that one doesn’t get into the rhetoric of the cold war because it will just make it that much more difficult to deal with the complex global power equation that we are heading for.
From the Russian perspective, Russia has been in many ways very accommodating and helpful in the last 10-15 years, in the reunification of Germany, supporting, or at least not getting in the way of the expansion of the E.U. and expansion of NATO up to a point, and other areas including being supportive after 9/11. In response, the Russians see the U.S. taking regime change to way beyond its borders: Iraq being particularly a problem, but you can go back to Serbia, where the reaction in Russia was very negative. Therefore Russia sees that as if not threatening, then at least as unhelpful, and I think you can understand that up to a point. So I think the Russian perspective is that the U.S. had not played for Russia a partnership game, number one, and number two, Russia is now clearly seeing itself as reestablishing its economic, and I guess to some extent, military power in the world and wants to assert that. Thirdly, from a domestic point of view it’s useful for Mr. Putin and his colleagues to assert themselves abroad, and these are the reasons why I think the Russians are now showing more assertion and to a point at least more confrontational talk and sometimes action, like on Iran and so on, and that seems to make a lot of sense. From a U.S. perspective obviously Russia’s reaction is seen as unhelpful, particularly at a time when the U.S. is now increasingly weakened by Iraq and these matters. And in any case going back to a lot of old suspicious thinking and talking now on both sides there is unfortunately the new rhetoric, or rather the old rhetoric of the Cold War coming back up, and I just think that it is very unhelpful because is not really appropriate for today’s world. I hope people will get beyond the rhetoric.
Unfortunately both countries are going into an election cycle with domestic posturing taking high priority. The rhetoric could continue to get in the way of serious dialogue. If one can get over the rhetoric and work behind the scenes then Iran and Iraq are the key issues. My view is that Russia has, must have, and I believe does have a long term interest in Iran not going nuclear in terms of weapons, as does the U.S. Thus finding ways for Russia, and hopefully China and the U.S. and Europe to work together to convince Iran that it’s not in their interest either, to go down that route is the most obvious place to start. I think it’s in everybody’s interest, perhaps in the short term less for Russia because obviously Russia benefits from disruptions of oil flows in terms of higher prices for their oil and gas, but I still think in the long term it’s not in Russia’s interest to have a confrontation in the Middle East. So, again, looking in particular in the context of the quartet at solutions and exerting common pressure on those parties to come together and find a way out of the long term crisis is an effective and clear area of cooperation. And beyond that there are more obvious low level, but common, interests, like Russia joining the WTO: that should happen sooner rather than later. The U.S. can be helpful on that side, and I think Russia would benefit, also. So I think there are a number of areas where progress can be made.

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