Page 51 - bne_Magazine_June_2017

bne June 2017
Opinion 51
Hence, in part, the strange ambiguity about Russian policy. President Vladimir Putin, for example, is notoriously prone to keeping guests waiting for meetings, not least as a power play. When US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Moscow the week after the cruise missile strike, the invitation to meet with Putin only came at the eleventh hour – but when it did come, Tillerson was subjected to no repetition of the three-hour wait that had faced his predecessor, John Kerry.
On the one hand, Moscow is, as usual, trying to identify the new administration’s red lines, its core interests, its knee-jerk responses, and its limits. Typically, it does this by a mix of cali- brated provocations – buzzing a warship here, some over-the- top rhetoric there – and an equally-calibrated charm offensive.
With dawning horror, though, the Russians have realised that all the old geopolitical tradecraft is only of limited utility in the era of Trump. Today’s red lines are not necessarily tomor- row’s: if one were being cynical, one would suggest that it all depends on the headlines on Fox News. The US’ interests are intensely personal, about Trump’s ego and his and his friends’ and families’ businesses. Its limits are, worryingly, unclear.
At the same time, though, Moscow and Washington cannot ignore each other. The irony is that both would probably love to make deals with the other. The tragedy is that neither can offer the other what they would want.
The White House casts a far, far longer shadow over the Kremlin than vice versa. For a Russian government desperate to be considered a “great power” – whatever that really means – then it clearly needs to ensure that America, the world’s only superpower at the moment, pays it attention. Part of the reason for its intervention into Syria in 2015 was precisely to force
the US to stop trying diplomatically to isolate Moscow. Russia, after all, can at least try and harness the power of irritation, to intrude into areas important to the West, to worsen situations, and then offer to fix them, or at least to back away, for a price.
What really matters to Putin is getting Russia acknowledged as “sovereign”, which to his mind means free of foreign interfer- ence, including international law, and also “great”, which incidentally includes a sphere of influence encompassing the post-Soviet states apart from the Baltic states.
Whether or not Washington could grant this, it is hard to
see any reason why it would. Dodgy Russian businessmen may have invested in Trump’s commercial empire – frankly, that’s where you go for investors, if you’re something of a serial chancer with an erratic record – but Russia itself is not a serious economic player. Moscow may have hoped that the appointment of an oilman as secretary of state might have led to a drive for hydrocarbon opportunities, but global prices are too low and options elsewhere too appealing for this to give the Russians any great leverage.
In Syria, the Americans don’t need Moscow’s permission to
bomb whom they will. The cruise missile strike, and the Rus- sians relatively mild response to it, is proof enough of that. The real prize is Bashar al-Assad, and although the Russians have little real affection for him, they cannot afford to surrender him without a major concession in return. The only suitable prize would be in Ukraine, whether an acknowledgement of the annexation of Crimea, or pressure on Kyiv to accept Mos- cow’s writ. Neither is conceivable at present.
“There is terrifyingly little Moscow can offer that Trump values”
What else could Moscow offer Washington? About the only thing would be to agree to stop interfering with European politics, but there is no evidence Trump really cares about that. Indeed, no friend of the European Union, he may even derive some small satisfaction from some of the fallout from Russia’s antics.
Trump is looking for some easy, flashy triumphs, and his will- ingness to talk to strongmen, from North Korea’s Kim Jong-un through to Philippine’s Rodrigo Duterte reflects not just his own predilections, but also an awareness that they can provide results more quickly and easily than democrats. This was also evident in his initial warm words about Putin, apart from being a way of trolling Clinton during the campaign.
Yet Russia is now a toxic topic for Trump, and more to the point the lack of opportunities for any meaningful deal has become clear. Trump wants to be seen as the global broker, and Putin wants to portray Russia and Washington in the same frame, hence their shared willingness to work on the optics
of some kind of rapprochement. Some on both sides still also hold unrealistic hopes of some scope for bargains, such as over Syria. A US diplomat with whom I spoke recently advanced the notion that “maybe Russia can help on North Korea” before even he had to admit “not that there is anything they can do, if the Chinese aren’t on board”.
Ultimately, though, it is hard to see any real mileage in this relationship. Moscow and Washington will continue to talk,
of course. There will be summits and démarches, visits and initiatives. That is better than a sullen refusal to communicate. But unless and until there is some substantive policy shift in either capital, it will be activity as an alternative to strategy or progress, simply work on the “axis of emptiness”.
Mark Galeotti is a senior researcher at UMV, the Institute of International Relations Prague, a visiting fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the director of Mayak Intelligence. He blogs at In Moscow’s Shadows and tweets as @MarkGaleotti.
www.bne.eu