With the occupation of Iraq soon to enter its sixth year and the looming possibility of war against Iran, it’s easy for Americans not to notice the Bush administration’s attempt to expand the U.S. military presence in Europe. A new Cold War between the United States and Russia threatens. And the U.S. media is paying little attention.
Voting is just a month away, but a landslide is already rumbling through Russia. The pro-Kremlin Unified Russia party, whose list of candidates for the December 2 legislative elections is headed by President Vladimir Putin himself, seems well on the way to securing a huge majority in the 450-seat Duma. In fact, the latest polls this week show no other party, not even the stalwart Communist Party, surmounting the 7% barrier needed to earn seats in the new legislature. If that happens, then a few mandates will be automatically accorded the second-place party — no matter how few votes it gets — under a provision of the election law that prevents one party from monopolizing the legislative branch.
Since Putin tied his name to the party’s fate on October 1, Unified Russia officials have cast the elections as a national plebiscite on Putin personally and his policies in general. Putin’s decision to run on Unified Russia’s ticket has thrown Russia’s political scene — never very delicately balanced — completely out of whack.
With elections in Russia fast approaching, relations with the West are deteriorating drastically. Three recent events highlight this downward trend. The most dramatic has been the failure of the United States and Russia to compromise on anti-missile defense (AMD). Reflecting months-long tensions, the latest round of talks in Maine between President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin ended with U.S. insistence on setting up a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
In Albania, nearing the end of his six-nation tour of Europe, President George W. Bush hopped out of his limo to have his head rubbed and his cheeks kissed by an adoring crowd in what The New York Times called a “virtual mosh pit” of enthusiasm.
Surely, he was delighted and relieved to be warmly welcomed in the mostly Muslim nation. It was a tough week in Europe: the president endured long meetings, pointed criticisms, huge protests, and an upset stomach that took him out of some of the Group of Eight Summit meetings.
Key Points
As editorialists from across the United States and Western Europe have reiterated lately, Russian democracy is under assault. During a joint press conference following the recent summit meeting in Slovakia, President Bush outlined for President Putin the importance of Âa rule of law and protection of minorities, a free press, and a viable political opposition. BushÂs comments represented the culmination of months of growing U.S. dissatisfaction with the backsliding of democracy
in Russia, a dissatisfaction ostensibly based on three recent developments in Russia: the campaign against former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the progressive limitations on independent media, especially television, and the decision to abolish direct elections for RussiaÂs regional
governorships.
The arrival of U.S. troops in Georgia on April 29 raised as many glasses in Ankara and Baku as it did jitters in Moscow. Touted as a new front in the “war on terror,” the Bush administration is in reality scrambling for Caspian oil in a bid to oust Russia from its traditional backyard. Washington insists its “train and equip force'” of 10 combat helicopters and 150 military instructors is solely intended to help Georgia combat Islamic radicals in the lawless Pankisi Gorge, allegedly a safe haven for al Qaeda militants and their Chechen allies. But other motives became apparent, although largely unnoticed by the Western press when Georgian Defense Ministry official Mirian Kiknadze told Radio Free Europe on February 27: “The U.S. military will train our rapid reaction force, which is guarding strategic sites in Georgia–particularly oil pipelines.” He was referring to the embryonic Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) project, set to reduce Georgia’s and Azerbaijan’s energy reliance on Russia and bring the southern Caucasus into the U.S. fold.
With the military campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in the mopping up stage, the United States and Russia are struggling to identify the boundaries of strategic cooperation. Initial optimism about broad cooperation has faded. In Moscow, officials and foreign policy experts are now concerned that the United States is experiencing “dizziness from success,” and is embarking on a unilateralist course.
Abkhazia Again: The UN Helicopter Shootdown By Robert M. Cutler October 15, 2001
The first Bush-Putin meeting will not take place in a vacuum. Their one-day summit in Slovenia will come after Bush concludes a swing through Spain, Belgium, Poland, and Sweden (which currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union). President Vladimir Putin will have already assessed the new U.S. president personally through psychological profiling and consultations with European leaders who have met him. He already has his agenda, which is to use the meeting to influence European elite and public opinion, which is already skeptical about Washington’s plans for National Missile Defense (NMD).