Originally published on the CGS blog on July 11, 2011.
Last week, I attended a hearing by the House Foreign Affairs committee (HFAC) entitled “Time to Pause the Reset?: Defending U.S. Interests in the Face of Russian Aggression.” The hearing title alone makes it pretty obvious how many HFAC members feel about the state of human rights, or lack thereof, in present-day Russia and how successful they feel President Obama’s “reset” policy with Russia has been. But as I listened to the panel of witnesses, two very different stories of the reset emerged, which speak to a broader debate in U.S. foreign policy circles: is engagement is a helpful tool for reaching out to potential allies, or just another word for appeasement?
Katrina Lantos-Swett, Ph.D., President of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights, daughter of late House member and human rights champion Tom Lantos, and former CGS-endorsed candidate for the House of Representatives, was the first witness. Having recently returned from Russia, she condemned the poor human rights record of the Russian government in no uncertain terms, citing the recent Khodorkovsky show trial as evidence that the Russian government is backsliding in this area. The next witness, Ariel Cohen, Senior Research Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Policy at the Heritage Foundation, sounded a similar note. He criticized the Obama administration for giving up some nuclear weapons by signing and ratifying the New START treaty last year, abandoning missile shield plans in Central Europe, and for perceived failure to sufficiently criticize Russia’s human rights violations. He characterized the results of the reset as big sacrifices on America’s part with little payoff in return.
The final panelist, former Ambassador Stephen Sestanovich, presented a different picture of the situation. Currently Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and previously Ambassador-at-Large and special advisor to the Secretary of State on the New Independent States of the former USSR under President Clinton, Ambassador Sestanovich pointed out that the reset has seen some level of success. He cited the fact that sixty percent of Russians now have a positive view of the United States; and meaningful cooperation has occurred between the two countries on issues including terrorism and non-proliferation. However, he did agree that there are problems with the reset and that human rights violations in Russia remain of grave concern. He added that further steps in the reset will require more trust between the U.S. and Russia than has been developed so far. However, he said the reset should not be “paused,” as some have suggested, as twenty years of progress in bilateral relations between the two nations should not be undone.
Clearly, opinions on the success of the reset depend on which Russia expert you talk to. From the CGS perspective, Russia is important because of its status as a permanent (P-5) member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). As a P-5 country, Russia has the power to veto U.N. actions, including attempts by the U.N. to prevent genocide and mass atrocities from occurring in countries around the globe. CGS has long championed the idea of “Responsibility Not to Veto”, or RN2V, in which P-5 members refrain from using their veto power when the U.N. attempts to intervene in such situations. I hope that Russia, along with the other P-5 countries — China, the United Kingdom, France, and the U.S. — will abide by this principle whenever civilians are in danger.
I continue to hope for the best from the reset, and for the U.S. and Russia to work together to protect vulnerable civilians under the banner of the U.N. As for the future of Russia itself, it remains uncertain–the country’s 2012 election is less than a year away. Will President Medvedev stand for re-election? Or will former Russian President and current Prime Minister Putin—who many believe remains the de facto power behind the throne in Russia — return to the top job for another term? Stay tuned….
