Great Powers Initiative

Guest Post by Ben Katcher: Russia, Iran, and the United States

Andrew Lebovich — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:30:00 -0400

Ben Katcher is a Policy Analyst with the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program. This post originally appeared at The Washington Note.

Over at Stratfor, George Friedman has a very interesting piece on the possibility of closer ties between Russia and Iran.

Friedman lays out in detail the key geopolitical factors that are shaping the Iran-Russia-U.S. triangle.

Essentially, Friedman's tentative conclusion is that Washington's aggressive policies toward both Moscow and Tehran are bringing the two hydrocarbon exporters closer together.

Meanwhile, in a related move, Russia this month secured access to Turkish waters for its proposed South Stream natural gas pipeline. South Stream will allow Russia to export gas to Europe without going through Ukraine, with which it has very frosty relations at the moment.

The deal on South Stream comes on the heels of an agreement among Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria and Hungary on the Nabucco project - a pipeline intended to transport Caspian and possibly Middle Eastern gas to Europe via Turkey while bypassing Russia.

The goal of the Nabucco project is to diversify Europe's natural gas supplies away from Russia. Europe is currently dependent on Russia for 25% of its natural gas imports.

Remarkably, United States Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy Richard Morningstar is denying that South Stream and Nabucco are competitors.

Furthermore, Morningstar says that the Nabucco project - which remember was meant to be an alternative to Russian gas - should be open to Russian gas, but not to Iranian gas.

It will be interesting to watch how long Europe and Turkey are willing to follow U.S. orders and refuse to allow Iranian gas to help fill the Nabucco pipeline. Turkey already imports gas from Iran and says that Iranian gas should be allowed to help fill the pipeline.

Meanwhile, Reinhard Mitschek the managing director of Nabucco Gas Pipeline International is leaving the door open to Iranian participation. He says that It will be up to European customers to decide for themselves whether to import Iranian gas.

For all of Washington's talk about diversifying Europe's gas supply away from Russia, it appears that the one move that could actually make a difference - allowing Europe to import Iranian gas - remains off the table.

This situation cannot be sustained indefinitely. Sooner or later, Iran will increase its gas exports and Europe will not be in a position to turn them away.

-- Ben Katcher

Guest Post by Ben Katcher: The China-Russia Strategic Partnership

Andrew Lebovich — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:14:00 -0400

Ben Katcher is a Policy Analyst with the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program. This post originally appeared at The Washington Note.

Lehigh University International Relations Department Chair Rajan Menon recently published an informative report for the Century Foundation called "The China-Russia Relationship: What It Involves, Where It Is Headed, And How It Matters For The United States."

The report provides a useful framework for conceptualizing the relationships among China, Russia, and the United States.

Menon makes a persuasive case that while the "strategic partnership" between Russia and China is based in large part on a shared aversion to unchecked American power, a full-fledged anti-American alliance is unlikely to develop.

The report refutes assertions by the British historian Niall Ferguson and others that Russia and China are engaged in a classic balance of power alliance to counter American influence.

Such an alliance is unlikely for several reasons. Neither Russia nor China believes that an alliance could effectively balance American influence given the United States' extraordinary military and economic advantages, China agrees with Joe Biden that Russia is a weak and declining power, and Russia envisions itself as part of the West and views China's rise with jealousy and suspicion. Furthermore, geographical proximity makes Russia and China natural competitors in Central Asia and the Russian Far East.

The bottom line is that both Russia and China benefit more from their relations with the West than from their relations with each other.

Menon's analyses of the United States' bilateral relationships with Russia and China are strong because he avoids a U.S.-centric perspective and explains how Beijing and Moscow perceive their interests and their relationships with Washington. His acknowledgments that the United States' unilateral decision to abandon the ABM treaty and its obsessive commitment to NATO expansion have been counter-productive are particularly welcome.

One quibble I have with Menon's argument is his statement that "While talk of a Russian-American cold war is ubiquitous in Russia and the United States, there is no parallel categorization about the Beijing-Washington relationship, either in Beijing or Washington."

While you wouldn't know it from last week's Strategic and Economic Dialogue "love fest," there is in fact a large and influential group of China hard-liners based primarily at the Pentagon and in the armed services that views China as an emerging military superpower and conceives the U.S.-China relationship in zero-sum terms. While these views have been crowded out in recent years, they most certainly exist and could resurface in the event of a crisis.

Menon correctly identifies one of the main reasons that the China hard-liners in Washington have been sidelined. The enormous trade and investment flows between the two countries ensure that there are strong domestic constituencies in both countries with a stake in the relationship. The lack of these constituencies is one of the biggest obstacles to stronger U.S.-Russian relations. Menon says

The problems...are compounded by the ease with which the relationship with Russia can be damaged because of the lack of influential constituencies within America that have a strong stake in shoring it up, let alone expanding it. The pro-China business lobby in America has no pro-Russian counterpart, and while there are university professors and op-ed writers who argue strenuously that the relationship with Russia is important and should be strengthened, who has lost money betting on their lack of influence?

One other interesting insight from the article is that while much is made of Russia's dependence on arms sales to China (which make up about 10% of Russia's export earnings), China is at least as dependent on Russia in this area. Because of Washington's ban, Russia is the only place that China can buy state of the art weaponry.

The full text of Menon's article can be found here, and is well worth a read.

-- Ben Katcher

Guest Post by Ben Katcher: Obama's Russia/Georgia Balancing Act

Andrew Lebovich — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:54:00 -0400

Ben Katcher is a Policy Analyst with the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program. This post originally appeared at The Washington Note.

In the aftermath of Vice President Biden's visit to Georgia last month, Alexander Melikishvili over at the Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia blog provides an informative review of the Obama administration's unfolding Georgia policy.

Citing a variety of recent congressional testimonies, Melikishvili makes a persuasive case that the Obama team intends to exercise more caution than the Bush administration in terms of the kinds of military assistance that it is prepared to provide to the Saakashvili regime.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia Celeste A. Wallander's stated this bluntly in her recent congressional testimony:

But Georgia is not ready for the kind of weapons acquisitions that the President [Saakashvili] floated. In the future, that's not off the table, but certainly the United States is not in the position of believing that Georgia is ready for that kind of defense acquisition.

While I find his conclusion to be a bit alarmist, Melikishvili provides a bevy of useful quotes and links. You can read the entire post, called "Parameters of U.S. Military Assistance to Georgia Emerge from Congressional Hearings," here.

Tempering our support for Georgia is sound policy and appears to be the lowest hanging fruit as the Obama administration aims to reset relations with Russia - but our Georgia policy needs to be part of a broader conversation with both the Russians and the Chinese about our ambitions in the post-Soviet space.

-- Ben Katcher

Time to Focus on the Great Powers

Patrick Doherty — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:45:00 -0400

By Patrick Doherty and Ben Katcher

While the media are drawn to the story of the day, which today means the killing of Baitullah Mehsud in Pakistan and the longevity of the "cash for clunkers" program here at home, it is essential for the Obama administration to keep its eye on the strategic ball. In short, while the administration was absolutely right to triage the domestic economy and global crises like Iraq and Afghanistan during its first six months, the President and his most senior advisors must now turn to the great questions of statecraft: great power relations and America's role in the world.

The reality is that the post-war global order, in which the United States asserted a de facto strategy of hegemony, is now irretrievably dysfunctional and, when it comes down to it, triggered the domestic and foreign crisis that consumed the president's agenda until now. That old strategy, as our colleague Michael Lind has written, was founded on a simple bargain: Washington would let the rest of the world export to the American consumer, hollowing out our own manufacturing base but subsidizing our consumer lifestyle. In return, we would assert a kind of global hegemony, using the tools of foreign policy to dissuade the rise of peer competitors (our military budget and capabilities), to reassure the world's powers that we would take care of common threats (Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia), and in those cases of resistance to our hegemony, to coercively disarm them (Iran, North Korea).

It was always a time-limited gambit and time finally ran out a year ago when the economic foundation of the strategy collapsed spectacularly in the U.S. housing crisis. Addicted to the false security of bundled American home mortgages, Wall Street built a house of un-priceable derivatives on the sand of irresponsible sub-prime mortgages -- fueled by easy access to credit provided by exporting nations like China, Japan, Germany and the Gulf States. Borrowing against rising home prices to keep consumption high, American households lost trillions in home value and cut back dramatically on consumption--such that Chinese exports fell 30 percent.

At the same time, our over-stretched military was finding it harder and harder to find the budget and the manpower to match the operations tempo that hegemony required. And despite today's confirmation of Baitullah Mehsud's death, it looks increasingly like that operations tempo will only remain high, if not get higher.

Furthermore, the basic strategic facts on the ground have changed dramatically since the early 1990s when hegemony was proffered during the George H. W. Bush administration. China is now a massive economy whose GDP is more about building China then exporting cheap goods to the West. Russia is no longer the post-Soviet basketcase it was under Boris Yeltsin, for Vladimir Putin has marshalled its energy resources and nuclear arsenal to make it a real force in the many strategic issues along and beyond its incredibly long frontier. Europe, meanwhile, used the last two decades to absorb Eastern Europe and along the way avoided getting into a balance of trade trap with Asia. Japan remains a major creditor of the United States and is increasingly concerned that American security guarantees in East Asia are not what they once were. Indeed, the combined economies of Russia, China, India and Brazil are likely to outstrip those of the G-7 in twenty years time, according to Goldman Sachs Chief Economist Jim O’Neil.

Luckily, this new reality points directly to the major issues that require a new great power agreement: global macroeconomic rebalancing, the need to adapt and manage global energy markets, and establishing global and regional collective security architectures.

The most immediate challenge is to begin rebalancing the global economy in a way that promotes sustainable global growth. The American consumption-led model of global growth is not coming back. The great powers must work together to create and balance new sources of domestic demand within their own territories. The United States and China in particular must conceive a new economic relationship that reduces the massive trade and capital flow imbalances at the root of the present economic recession. This will require a combination of policies that reorient China’s economy toward domestic demand and develop a new economic engine to power the United States for the coming decades.

Of equal importance is energy. The United States’ Energy Information Agency 2009 Energy Outlook predicts that global energy consumption will increase 44% from 2006-2030. Anticipating this increase in demand and the corresponding increase in prices, the great powers have so far conceived of energy security as a largely zero-sum game, and competed with one another for access to hydrocarbon resources from Africa to Central Asia to the Arctic Pole.

Russia, China and the United States all rely on a highly volatile and fragile global energy system. Such volatility, however, has had negative impacts in each of the great powers in recent years. The rise in oil prices accellerated the financial crisis in the United States, in China, high energy prices forced government energy subsidies that, for a while, took the profit out of their export sector. While in Russia, falling prices undercut government subsidies to its uncompetitive industries and massive pensioner class.

With Russia and Europe competeing over access to Caspian and Central Asian energy, with Russia, China, and the United States competing over Iranian energy resources and the U.S. and China signing a memorandum of understanding committing both to work towards a "low carbon economy," the geopolitics of energy will continue to shape the strategic outlook of great powers unless something changes. A new energy order that allows economies to develop, transform and function while facilitating global stability and prosperity is in all the powers' interest but as of yet is hard to discern.

Finally, the security arrangements and institutions that guided the United States through the Cold War must be updated to reflect current power realities. This requires a serious effort at global institutional reform as well as the creation of capable regional security structures that allow for rules-based regional resolution of threats to international security. At the global level, the UN Security Council and the International Financial Institutions need to reflect the realities of today, not 1945. Looking to models like NATO and the EU, regional organizations like ASEAN, the African Union, and the Rio Group need to increase their capability to promote regional stability and sustainable economic integration. Governor George W. Bush was right: the United States should not be the world's policeman.

As President Obama emerges from his first six months of domestic and global triage, conventional wisdom believes that his next priorities should be the usual laundry list: health care, climate change, Iran, Afghanistan, and North Korea. But a deeper look at these issues, we believe, reveals that most of them can be made much more tractable if the President first strikes a durable great power bargain with Russia and China.

The reasons for focusing on Russia and China should be clear. Russia because of the leverage provide by its energy resources and infrastructure and its nuclear arsenal, and China because of its rising economy and massive population. Europe, Japan, India and Brazil are, of course, real or rising world powers and must be accommodated in any new global concert, but their interests, capabilities, outlook and strategies are simply do not cross the great power threshold.

Of the three great powers, the United States is in the strongest position to lead such an agenda. Our post Cold War grand strategy has met its natural death and the Obama administration came into office with a mandate to not only deliver change we can believe in, but specifically to "change the mindset" that led the United States to war in Iraq. Meanwhile, China and Russia are in the opposite position: their ability to adapt their grand strategies to a new American agenda is extremely limited, giving the United States a significant silver lining.

But there is not much time. Grand strategy must be conceived of and executed well in advance of political judgment days. There are less than three years before the Obama administration must report on its progress to the American electorate and Russia and China's current strategies are every day reducing American maneuverability and options. It's time to focus.

Guest Post by Steve Clemons: China-US Strategic & Economic Dialogue Discussion

Andrew Lebovich — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:39:00 -0400

Steve Clemons standing next to statue commemorating Xu Xiake (1587-1641), who chronicled his travels throughout China during the late Ming Dynasty. This picture was taken at Liyuan Park on the edge of Lake Taihu in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China. (photo credit: Peter Pi)

Steve Clemons directs the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program. This post originally appeared at The Washington Note.

For those interested in US-China relations, here is a digital clip of a discussion in which I participated on the Diane Rehm Show yesterday.

Others on the panel including Albert Keidel, former acting director of the Department of Treasury's Office of East Asian Affairs; Ambassador Stapleton Roy who now directs the Kissinger Institute on China and the US at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and myself.

Susan Page of USA Today moderated the discussion.

-- Steve Clemons

Guest Post by Steve Clemons: The US-China Strategic & Economic Dialogue Power Dinner: Love Fest Clarifies Obama Priorities

Andrew Lebovich — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:49:00 -0400

Steve Clemons directs the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program. This post originally appeared at The Washington Note.

Former AIG Chairman Maurice "Hank" Greenberg waited outside the Ritz Carlton in a very long line of well-heeled Washingtonians waiting to be allowed by the organizers to access air-conditioning and get into the event ballroom. I clicked my iPhone weather application and it was 89 degrees outside -- high humidity. Lots of old people in that line.

The event was organized by the National Committee on US-China Relations, the US-China Business Council and a long roster of co-sponsoring groups.

Some DC political players in the line deserved the heat -- others didn't.

But what the powerful and connected were there for was the power dinner of the two day long US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue.

The luminaries were out in full force. One seasoned observer of American foreign policy and a probable heavyweight Obama emissary one day told me before the dinner began: "Never have so many of the great and mighty been assembled to hear so little. . ."

Another Democratic national security icon there told me before the dinner doors finally opened after an extensive reception, "Very little will be said here -- but what is more interesting is to note what is not said. . ."

Those I connected with or saw at the dinner included Ambassador designate to China and Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr., former US Ambassador to China and Indonesia and Wilson Center Kissinger Institute Director Stapleton Roy, Henry Kissinger himself, former Beatles super aide and global impresario Peter Brown, US Institute of Peace chief and key player in opening China Richard Solomon, uber political/poll commentator Charlie Cook, Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein, former Secretary of the Treasury and chief spear-carrier for hyper-neoliberalism (aka "Rubinomics") Robert Rubin, State Department Policy Planning Director Anne-Marie Slaughter, former State Department Chief Legal Counsel and David Addington-foe inside the Bush administration John B. Bellinger III. . .

. . .former New Jersey Governor and "What Happened to my Republican Party" Republican moderate Christine Todd Whitman, former AID Deputy Administrator Ambassador Hattie Babbitt and her former presidential candidate husband Bruce Babbitt, newly appointed IFES President William Sweeney, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chief International Economics Advisor to Senator John Kerry Heidi Crebo-Rediker, former Hong Kong Chief Executive and CPCC Member CH Tung, Center for Non-Violent Conflict patron Peter Ackerman, former US Trade Representative Carla Hills, Peterson Institute for International Economics President C. Fred Bergsten, former Middle East Quartet Chief and World Bank President James Wolfensohn (who was also out in the stultifying heat in a long line outside the Ritz for a long time), global finance expert and former Citigroup Vice Chairman Michael Klein, US-China Business Council Chair and Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris, Former State Department Counselor and Clinton Envoy for North Korea negotiations Wendy Sherman, National Journal economics columnist Bruce Stokes, and a whole slew of others. . .

I took a bundle of notes for the dinner -- hoping something memorable worth writing about would be said.

It happened only once in real terms. China Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Dai Bingguo said:

Don't Lose Any Sleep over China!

The crowd sort of chuckled, and that was the most tense moment of the evening. The rest was an incredibly upbeat, tummy-rubbing night of mutual admiration.

But it was valuable to be there and to see starkly clarified what the priorities of Barack Obama and China President Hu Jintao are: make the US-China relationship as smooth as possible -- no public expression of distance or difference on anything from climate change to human rights to defense concerns to currency levels.

Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner shared charming vignettes about their counterparts -- Dai Bingguo in Clinton's case and State Council Vice Premier Wang Qishan. Clinton talked about agreeing with Dai to always bring pictures of their kids and grandkids to these meetings to remind themselves and their delegations of the importance of what they were discussing and its impact on the future.

Geithner, whose father Peter Geithner used to be the Ford Foundation's China director and was known to Wang Qishan, laid out the only substantive note of the evening. He said that the US and China coming together the way it had in the last two days would send "positive market signals" to the rest of the world -- and that America knew that it could no longer live beyond its means while China would have to rewire its economy to boost domestic consumption, expand services, and build greater basic demand there.

Wang Qishan commended the US for finally fully committing to have a national pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai as Wang Chairs the World Expo Committee much like he chaired the 2008 Beijing Olympics Committee.

Hillary Clinton in one of the funnier moments of the night talked at substantial length about the US Pavilion that she'd been working hard to encourage private sector support of -- thanking General Electric, Pepsico (I saw the Coca-Cola rep at the dinner shift in her seat at that moment), Marriott, Chevron, and other firms for supporting the project. She said that she was going to build the Pavilion herself if that is what it was going to take to get the thing done on time. Ambassador Elizabeth Bagley was saluted by Clinton for getting this all together.

And Clinton who apologized for going on so long about the Shangai Expo US Pavilion said:

Shameless I know -- but that is part of the job. . .

Henry Kissinger, who was on the edge of sentimental tear-ing up while reflecting on China's opening nearly 40 years and where the relationship has come through eight presidents and four generations of Chinese leaders, was treated by both sides as the Deng Xiaoping of the night -- the elder whose vision started it all.

This was a remarkable night when compared to the high-stress start in US-China relations under Bill Clinton's term when Warren Christopher was hammering on human rights issues, or the equally stressful start under George W. Bush who ratcheted up tensions quickly (because Paul Wolfowitz pushed it) with China in April 2001 when an American EP-3 spy plane collided with a Chinese jet fighter.

Last night was a love fest -- and it is clear that unlike what Barack Obama said the other day: "the US-China relationship is as important as any other of our bilateral relationships," there is no doubt that Obama and Hu Jintao and their retainers across the political spectrum view the US-China relationship as the single most important relationship of the early 21st century.

The next of these high level dialogues will be held in Beijing -- and Dai Bingguo expressed concern about being able to generate the same level of warmth, hospitality, and good feeling that was abundant during the last two days and last night at the Ritz Carlton.

In my view, the US-China relationship needs to be central, but we need to discuss problems in the broad context of both the bilateral game and global challenges. Issues of concern -- about currencies, manufacturing, strategic objectives, non-proliferaton, economic management, human rights, and the like -- should be there along with the pleasantries.

That kind of approach wasn't accomplished last night -- but hopefully there was some serious talk behind closed doors that we didn't get much access to at the gala.

-- Steve Clemons

Guest Post by Ben Katcher: Nabucco Highlights Potential Russian-Iranian Energy Competition

Andrew Lebovich — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:25:00 -0400

Ben Katcher is a Policy Analyst with the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program. This post originally appeared at The Washington Note.

Finally, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria and Hungary have agreed to begin building the Nabucco project, a 2,050 mile natural gas pipeline that aims to diversify Europe's gas supplies away from Russia. The project, first proposed in 2002, gained momentum when Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in January, raising concerns about Russia's reliability as a supplier.

Now that the initial agreement has been made, the next question is, Who will supply the gas to fill the pipeline?

The surest bet right now is Turkmenistan - which has ample supplies and has expressed its willingness to pump them through Nabucco. Azerbaijan is also considered a major potential supplier, but its close relationship with Moscow makes its participation uncertain. The same goes for Kazakhstan.

Iraq is also in the mix, but years of underdevelopment and enduring political instability make its participation questionable as well. Syria and Egypt have offered to participate, but their supplies are limited.

The potential shortfall makes Russia and Iran the two elephants in the room. Both countries possess natural gas supplies, but whether they will be permitted to participate remains unclear. Given that lessening Europe's dependence on Russian gas is a primary motivation for developing the pipeline, using Russian gas to fill the pipeline seems to defeat that purpose.

Meanwhile, Iran's participation is questionable because of its ongoing conflict with Washington. United States Special Envoy Richard Morningstar said yesterday that

I don't think there would be an agreement at this point among the Nabucco consortium for Iranian participation at this time...Our European allies, I think, are in sync with this position...This would be the absolute worst time to encourage Iran to participate in a project in Nabucco when we've received absolutely nothing in return.

Meanwhile, Nabucco Managing Director Reinhard Mitschek appears to be leaving the door open to Iran's participation. Here's what he said earlier this week

Nabucco has never, ever excluded any source. Nabucco is not excluding any source. Bottom line, we have to buy the gas. The national gas companies will evaluate the political aspect, the commercial aspect, the technical aspect and then they will decide to buy gas from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Iraq, Iran and Russia. For all these sources, we are open to transport the gas.

It will probably be years before we know whether Nabucco will buy Russian or Iranian gas - but all of this highlights the long-term energy competition looming between Russia and Iran and its implications for America's effort to secure Russian cooperation on the Iranian nuclear issue.

As Marcin Kaczmarski explains, Russia perceives Iran as both a tactical ally against the United States and as a strategic competitor as an energy supplier to Europe. Russia fears that a rapprochement between the United States and Iran would open Iran's energy markets and threaten Russia's dominant position as Europe's primary natural gas supplier.

A likely unintended consequence of Nabucco will be to heighten those fears in Moscow and make U.S-Russian cooperation on Iran's nuclear issue more difficult.

-- Ben Katcher

Guest Post by Ben Katcher: What Kind of Relationship is Possible Between Moscow and Washington?

Andrew Lebovich — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:06:00 -0400

Ben Katcher is a Policy Analyst with the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program. This post originally appeared at The Washington Note.

As President Obama prepares to visit Russia next week, Columbia University's Robert Legvold has a thought-provoking article on the state of U.S.-Russia relations in the current issue of Foreign Affairs.

Legvold helpfully identifies current U.S. policy as "selective engagement and selective containment," while advocating a new framework for the relationship that includes ambitious goals on nuclear non-proliferation, regional security, and energy security.

Legvold explicitly places himself alongside Anders Aslund, Andrew Kuchins, Thomas Graham, and Steven Pifer within what I would call the "realist" camp of Russia analysts, who believe that a new strategic relationship with Moscow based on mutual interests is possible. (I would include Dimitri Simes, Dmitri Trenin and Nikolas Gvosdev in this group as well.)

Legvold offers two reasons why the time is ripe for a renewed effort to improve relations: new leadership in Washington and the onset of the economic crisis, which he suggests is likely to lead to more restrained Russian behavior.

The idea that a sustained economic slowdown will limit Russia's foreign policy options certainly makes sense, but I would be curious to know what Legvold thinks of arguments made by Stephen Sestanovich and others that Moscow's aggressive posture toward Washington is such an essential part of the Putin-Medvedev-led oligarchy's legitimacy that it cannot be abandoned.

On the issues at the heart of the U.S.-Russia relationship, Legvold's argument in favor of collaboration is most persuasive when he addresses the issue of nuclear non-proliferation. This is an area in which both sides have a real and stated interest in working together both to reduce their own arsenals and to prevent proliferation.

On Iran's nuclear program, he suggests that Washington should seek a deal that either allows Tehran to have a nuclear-cycle capability under strict IAEA inspections or an arrangement by which Iran joins an international fuel-service center. Either way, Legvold makes a good point that Russian cooperation is vital and depends on Washington proposing a deal that Tehran can accept. Russia is not going to help Washington coerce Tehran, but may use its leverage as Iran's primary supplier of nuclear equipment to help Tehran get to "yes" on a broader deal.

His calls for a dialogue on the future of Afghanistan and cooperation on transnational threats such as terrorism, drug trafficking, and cyberattacks also make sense.

But while Legvold's argument is dispassionate and cautious in tone, I find his analysis a bit optimistic at times. For instance, he says that

There is no logical reason why the two countries with the lion's share of the world's nuclear weapons cannot create a tighter regime to shrink their own arsenals and pave the way toward arrangements that render safer the programs of other nuclear powers, why the world's largest energy producer and its largest energy consumer cannot fashion a genuine energy partnership, why they cannot work together to mitigate the instability in and around the vast territory of the former Soviet Union, or why they cannot collaborate to ease the integration of rising powers such as China and India into a revamped international order.

This is an ambitious agenda indeed - and to be fair, Legvold cautions that "these goals may not be imminently attainable." Still, some level of cooperation in these areas is necessary if these issues are to form the basis of a strategic partnership, as Legvold proposes.

On the energy issue, it is true that both Russia and the United States benefit from a predictable flow of energy at stable prices, but Legvold fails to tell us what a bilateral strategic energy partnership could accomplish. Energy security is an issue that cuts across many of both Washington's and Moscow's strategic relationships and seems like an area where Moises Naim's concept of "minilateralism" applies.

And while both Washington and Moscow certainly have an interest in a stable post-Soviet space, I am curious whether Legvold would recognize (implicitly) a Russian sphere of influence in that space. If he would not, then it seems that competition rather than cooperation is likely to characterize this aspect of the relationship for the foreseeable future.

Similarly, the issue of how to incorporate China and India into the international system deserves to be addressed between Moscow and Washington at the highest levels, but this seems like an issue where the two sides' interests might diverge at least as much as they converge.

Finally, it would be interesting to know how Mr. Legvold views Russia's likely trajectory over the medium to long-term. Whether Russia's dysfunctional political and economic systems can evolve to meet the needs of the Russian people and provide the resources necessary for an active international security role remain questions to be answered - and surely the answers have profound implications for what Washington's policy toward Moscow should be.

(For a fascinating Russian perspective on Russia's medium-term outlook, reference "The World Around Russia: 2017.")

Overall, Legvold's analysis is refreshingly even-handed and his suggestion that dialogue on these difficult issues can lead to trust and incremental progress over time is persuasive - but he is most certainly correct when he says that achieving real substantive progress will be difficult.

-- Ben Katcher

Scrolling ThroughU.S.-Russia Relations

Andrew Lebovich — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:07:00 -0400

My colleague Ben Katcher has prepared an intricate and interactive timeline of the major events in US-Russia relations since September 11. He covers every major event, from Russian opposition to the Iraq War to the tensions from the August 2008 war in Georgia, all with great pictures and informative descriptions.

Understanding and reforming our relationships with Russia and other emerging powers, like China and Iran, will be crucial for American economic success, as well as our physical and natural security, in the coming decades. Check out the timeline to catch up on what's been going on these past eight years.

-- Andrew Lebovich

Guest Post by Steve Clemons: Obama taps Jon Huntsman: Excellent Choice for China

Andrew Lebovich — Sat, 16 May 2009 21:46:00 -0400

Steve Clemons directs the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program. This post originally appeared at The Washington Note.

Recently at a Congressional Quarterly breakfast, Political Wire blogger Taegan Goddard said that Barack Obama excels at keeping his political opposition wobbly and off balance.

Goddard is right - and Barack Obama has just pulled off another blow to the Republican party's steadiness.

Obama has just chosen Jon Huntsman Jr. -- heir to the powerful Huntsman chemical conglomerate, former Deputy US Trade Representative and Ambassador to Singapore, and incumbent Governor of Utah -- to serve as US Ambassador to China.

Years ago, former Senate Majority Leader and then US Ambassador to Japan Mike Mansfield said that "the US-Japan relationship is America's most important bilateral relationship - bar none."

That is no longer true.

America's relationship with China is the single most important bilateral relationship it has in its foreign policy and economic portfolios -- and Barack Obama just selected as his lead point person a rising star in Republican circles who co-chaired John McCain's presidential campaign.

I have had the privilege of knowing Jon Huntsman since 1994 and have always been impressed with his pragmatism and rejection of ideological fundamentalism.

Huntsman is a great choice for this key post. He's smart on Asia, understands business, and has a real understanding of the complexities of China's ascension on the global power ladder.

One of the potential personal downsides for Jon Huntsman is that I had always hoped that he might one day run for the presidency as a balanced, sensible Republican pragmatist. I think that his appointment as an Obama ambassador probably undermines that possibility.

Congrats to Jon -- and this simply is just a really terrific choice for which Barack Obama deserves applause.

-- Steve Clemons