Aggression Is a Choice

Adam Rubenstein: How, in your view, are domestic and foreign policy connected? Of course, this varies from regime to regime—but specifically, how does the domestic relate to the foreign in Putin’s Russia? How had this relationship functioned before Putin? How much does honor play a role in Russian decision-making and politics?

Michael McFaul: President Vladimir Putin wants his citizens and the rest of the world to believe that there is something called “Russian national interests.” (By the way, so too, do some scholars of international relations in the West.) Putin propagates this idea—his defenders call it “realism”—as a way to defend his foreign policy actions. Putin is not making decisions, so the argument goes. Rather, Russia is acting in the world in accordance to some innate dynamics shaped by the balance of power in the international system. In invoking this explanation for Russian international behavior, there is no right and wrong, only interests. Putin and his surrogates also embrace this way of thinking about international relations in order to stress continuities in Russia behavior in the world over centuries. As a great power, Russia is supposed to behave in a certain way.

This theory, explanation, or rationalization of Russian behavior in the world tells only part of the story. Of course, power matters, and the balance of power in the international system constrains the choices that foreign policy decision-makers make. That’s true for all countries. But power does not tell the whole story, because different leaders make unique choices about how to use their country’s power. The strongest evidence for this claim about the domestic sources of foreign policy is variation in how Russia has behaved, both over the past several years but also over centuries. To take the most obvious recent examples, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev ruled the Soviet Union when that country had a lot more power in the international system than Russia does today. Yet, Gorbachev deliberately sought to reduced tensions with the United States and integrate his country into the West. Russian president Boris Yeltsin moved in that direction even more radically. Had Putin—or a person with Putin’s worldview—become general secretary of the Communist party in 1985—the Soviet foreign policy would have been different, maybe even radically different.

Even in tighter comparisons of presidents—say, Medvedev versus Putin—we saw differences in preferences and actions. President Medvedev was highly constrained regarding foreign policy. Putin—the former president for eight years—remained his prime minister. Many other members the Russian Security Council during President’s Medvedev’s presidency were leftovers from the Putin era. Putin’s Foreign Minister, Lavrov, although not a major decision-maker in the Russian system, stayed on for Medvedev. Even with all these constraints, President Medvedev made a few foreign policy decisions that Putin would not have made. For instance, in 2009, Putin wanted to shut down our Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan, and even provided a multi-billion economic assistance package to Kyrgyz President Bakiev to win his support for closure. But Medvedev pushed back to keep it open. In 2010, Medvedev cancelled the Russian $2 billion dollar contract, negotiated during the Putin presidency to provide Iran with the S-300 surface-to-air missile system as a gesture of goodwill to the United States, even though the UNSC resolution approving new sanctions in Tehran did not require Russia to do so. Most amazingly, Medvedev abstained on UNSCR 1970 and 1973 which authorized the use of force against Libya. In this dispute, Putin went public with this disagreement with Medvedev, chastising him on the record for signing up to a Western “crusade.” Power matters, but individuals matter too.

Upon returning as president in 2012, Putin then had made several foreign policy decisions that were not determined by some abstract notion of “Russian national interests” or guided by the balance of power in the international system. In 2014, Putin was not forced to annex Crimea and prop up separatist proxies in eastern Ukraine because of some red book sitting in a safe in the Kremlin labeled “Russian national interests.” He decided to do so. Similarly, he chose to intervene militarily in Syria in 2015 to save Assad. And he made the conscious decision to meddle in our presidential election in 2016. A different leader in the Kremlin could have chosen different actions in all three of these decision-making moments.

Putin is not the only decision-maker regarding Russian foreign policy. Internally, there are bureaucratic politics, interest groups, and even economic actors who lobby the Kremlin. After 15 years in the Kremlin, however, Putin has become increasingly isolated from other foreign policy advisors and more confident in his individual talents to conduct Russian foreign policy.

AR: In your 15^th chapter, you write: “Putin was particularly upset when Clinton criticized the parliamentary vote, claiming that she ‘set the tone for several of our actors inside our country, she gave the signal. They heard that signal and with the support of the State Department of the U.S. they began active work.’ (Five years later, Putin seizes his moment for revenge when he intervened in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Trump and hurt Clinton.)” Could you explain this further? Is there evidence to suggest that Russian intervention in the 2016 election was Putin’s revenge for something Clinton had said?

MM: Putin was definitely upset with that Clinton statement about the Russian parliamentary election in December 2011. By the way, I cleared that statement on behalf of the White House before it went out, so it was official Obama policy, but Putin blamed Clinton personally. Soon thereafter, President Medvedev called President Obama to complain about the statement. I was with Obama in the Oval office for the call and listened in. Medvedev was upset, and seemed to be channeling Putin. He wanted to know if Clinton was speaking on behalf of the Obama administration. Obama said yes.

As I write about in detail in From Cold War to Hot Peace, Putin genuinely believed that we were out to get him; that we were helping the opposition. And when I say we, I mean, American, Obama, and me personally. His state-controlled media claimed that I was sent by Obama to foment revolution! It sounds crazy, I know, but that’s what they were telling Russians. Initially, I thought this propaganda was just instrumental—a method to mobilize Putin’s electoral base during the Russian 2012 presidential election. Some of Putin’s asides told me as much. Over time, however, I changed my view, and came to see Putin as a much more paranoid, insecure leader than I originally had assumed. And remember, the giant demonstrations against Putin in 2011 were occurring in the same year that opposition movements were toppling dictators in the Middle East. And the last time that so many Russian took the streets of Moscow was 1991, the year that the Soviet Union collapsed. Today, Putin seems confident again. Propaganda works. Repression works. But back in 2011 and 2012, his grip on power looked a lot more precarious to him (not me) at least for a few months.

AR: You played a significant role in Obama’s “Reset” strategy with Russia; much of your book explains how it was devised and implemented. Its first pillar, as you say, was to: “support . . . democratic partners and uphold principles of sovereignty throughout Europe and Eurasia.” It leaves me wondering, what happened with Crimea? You favored a “strong and comprehensive reaction.” How would you evaluate the long-term success of the reset strategy, and U.S. efforts to counter Putin’s annexation campaign?

MM: For several years, the Reset produced tangible outcomes that advanced American national security and economic interests. In 2010, Obama and Medvedev signed and then our two parliaments ratified the New Start Treaty, which reduced by 30 percent the number of nuclear weapons allowed to be deployed in the United States and Russia. As a champion of “don’t trust, only verify,” I was particularly pleased with the set of comprehensive inspections that were allowed under this treaty.

The United States and Russia also worked together in 2010 to pass United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929, at the time the most comprehensive set of sanctions against Iran ever. Starting in 2009, we also worked together to expand the Northern Distribution Network (NDN)—supply routes through Russia and other countries in Central Asia and the Caucuses to support American and allied soldiers in Afghanistan and reduce U.S. military dependency on Pakistan. Expanding NDN was critical for creating the permissive condition to conduct military operations inside Pakistan, including most dramatically the mission to kill Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

There were also dogs that didn’t bark during the reset. When violent regime change occurred in Kyrgyzstan in 2010, Obama and Medvedev actually cooperated to diffuse tensions there (the opposite of what occurred between our two countries during a regime change in Ukraine in 2014). And as I already mentioned, Medvedev abstained on UN Security Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973, which authorized the use of force against the Libyan army marching towards Benghazi. At the time, we saw these votes as high watermark of cooperation; no Russian leaders had ever allowed a UN Security Council to legitimate the use of force against a sovereign country. During the reset, trade and investment between our two countries also increased and Russia joined the World Trade Organization, a goal of several previous American administrations. When we met Medvedev for the last time as president in Seoul in March 2012, he stated on the record that “[W]e probably enjoyed the best level of relations between the United States and Russia during those three years than ever during the previous decades.” And its easy now to forget, but during the heyday of the reset a majority of Russians had a positive view of America and vice versa.

We did not end of the reset. Putin did. As the title of a chapter in my book states, “It Takes Two to Tango.” And the reset ended in 2012, two years before Putin invaded Ukraine.

Did the Reset cause Putin to invade Ukraine in 2014, intervene in Syria in 2015, or violate American sovereignty in 2016? I discuss this argument in detail in my book, but my short answer here is no. During the Reset, we were not pursuing a policy of “better relations” with Russia. We were pursuing concrete outcomes that we believed were in America’s national interest. Did those policy achievements somehow signal American weakness? To be specific, did singing the New START Treaty in 2010 signal to Putin that he could annex Crimea and get away with it. I don’t see the causal connection. After all, Putin invaded Georgia in 2008 while Bush was president, and president Bush had invaded two countries before then. The tragic truth is that the United States has never been very successful in deterring Soviet/Russian aggression in eastern Europe, be it Ukraine 2014, Georgia 2008, Czechoslovakia in 1968, or Hungary in 1956. All of these military interventions occurred during times of tensions with the West, whereas periods of cooperation between Washington and Moscow—including most importantly in 1989—may have helped to dissuade the Kremlin from using military force to quell popular uprisings. Finally, Putin invaded Ukraine in reaction to fall of his ally, President Yanukovich. Had there been no popular uprising against Yanukovich, and had Yanukovich not fled Ukraine—Russian annexation and intervention would not have occurred.

One of my biggest lessons after five years in government is that the United States does not control events in other countries as much as some people want or others believe. Our Reset with Russia ended because of the return of Putin first and foremost but also because of Putin’s reactions to popular uprisings in the Arab world in 2011, Russia in 2011-2102, and Ukraine in 20123-2014. The United States did not organize any of those mass demonstrations. Nor were “small-d democrats” in Egypt, Russia, or Ukraine going to stop fighting for their causes to save the Reset!

AR: What should the president read? And why?

MM: Well of course he should read my book! And then he should tweet about it. But more seriously, if I could recommend one book, he should take a look at the Soviet chapters in George Shultz’s memoir, Turmoil and Triumph. George retraces how Reagan reengaged with the Soviets long before Gorbachev came along in way that advanced American interests, but did not undermine American values. And in parallel, Reagan also sought to contain Soviet power and even roll it back in places like Angola, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and Cambodia. The Reagan record as a mixed one. For instance, the application of the Reagan doctrine in Afghanistan helped to contribute to the presence of Al Qaeda there. But as a general strategy—containment, plus limited engagement, plus a commitment to democracy and human rights—I think there are some important lessons for today. President Trump also should read Kennan’s long telegram. Tragically, the lessons about containment outlined by Kennan several decades ago are now applicable again for dealing with Putin’s Russia.