KISSINGER

DEPT:

PG:

and to neglect matters that can be shaped
in the present.

Yeltsin himself is hardly cast in a
Jeffersonian mold. Nearly his entire adult
life has been devoted to serving the
Communist Party—a career to which the
gentle-hearted have rarely gravitated. In
his rise through its ranks, Yeltsin surely
had little exposure to pluralistic princi-
ples. And while he was courageous in
concluding that the moribund and ineffi-
cient Communist Party was doomed,
Yeltsin has shown few signs since that
democratic values, including acceptance
of dissent, are a central part of his value
system.

In short, democracy in Russia is
an ongoing drama whose evolution has far
from played itself out. Yet American for-
eign policy has been conducted as if a
mature, Western-style democracy was
already nearly in place. Equating foreign
policy with Russian domestic politics has
gravely mortgaged long-term Russian-
American relations. It has unnecessarily
identified America in the minds of too
many Russians with the dislocations and

KISSINGER Page 4 of 14

KISSINGER

suffering inseparable from the transition
from state planning to market economics.
Russian nationalists and Communists can
thus claim that market economics is a
fraud perpetrated by the West to keep
Russia weak.

Our reliance on Yeltsin has lured
us into endorsing, if not actually encour-
aging, such high-handed actions as the
military assault on the Russian Parliament
and the dismissal of the Russian Supreme
Court— acts difficult to reconcile with
democratic pretensions, whatever the
provocation. The assumption that Yeltsin
must be coddled explains why American
high officials, including the President,
justified Russian pressures on the newly
independent states of the Caucasus as
being comparable to American actions in
the Caribbean. It is presumably also why
they felt it reasonable to compare the
Russian military campaign in Chechnya
to the American Civil War.

There is no foreign policy
requirement obliging the White House to
comment on every Russian internal crisis.
Indeed, the obsession with participating in

DEPT:

PG:

CVD

KISSINGER Page 5 of 14

KISSINGER

Russian domestic politics undermines our ability to conduct a foreign policy geared to the external conduct of the Russian state. Yet it is precisely the external actions of Russia that present the greatest challenge to international stability. And, paradoxically, the very domestic drama of which we have made ourselves too much a party provides some of the incentive for Russian adventurism.

Foreign policy has emerged as the deus ex machina for Russia's elite to escape present-day frustrations by evoking visions of a glorious past. Russia has always displayed a unique set of characteristics—especially when compared to

--- End of column ---

its European neighbors. Extending over nine time zones, Russia (even in its present, post-Soviet form) contains the largest land-mass of any contemporary state. St. Petersburg is closer to New York than it is to Vladivostok, which is in turn closer to Seattle than it is to Moscow. A country of that size ought not to suffer from claustrophobia. Yet creeping expansionism in the name of security has been

DEPT:

PG:

C17

KISSINGER Page 6 of 14

KISSINGER

DEPT:

PG:

the recurring theme of Russian history.
For four centuries, Russia has subordinat-
ed the well-being of its own population to
this relentless outward thrust and threat-
ened all its neighbors with it. In the
Russian mind, the centuries of sacrifice
have been transmuted into a mission, part-
ly on behalf of security, partly in the ser-
vice of an alleged Russian superior moral-
ity.

Russia and America have both
historically asserted a global vocation for
their societies. But while America's ideal-
ism derives from the concept of liberty,
Russia's sprang from shared suffering and
common submission to authority.
Everyone is eligible to share in America's
values; Russia's have been reserved for
the Russian nation, excluding even the
subject nationalities of the empire.
American idealism tempts isolationism;
Russia's has historically prompted adven-
turist domination.

In pursuit of security, Russia has
produced insecurity for all its neighbors.
In the West, Russia has historically come
up against the European balance of power.

KISSINGER Page 7 of 14

KISSINGER

But even when paying lip service to its
requirements, Russia has generally
excluded the Balkans, the Caucasus, and
Central Asia from its operation, insisting
on dealing with them unilaterally and
often by force: in the Treaty of Adrianople
in 1829, the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi in
1833, in the prelude to the Crimean War in
1853, in the Balkan crisis of 1885 and in
the prelude to the Russo-Japanese War in
1904. Even when it participated in
European alliances, Russia tended to
endow them with a missionary quality
that justified permanent military interven-
tion in the domestic affairs of other
states—from the Holy Alliance of the
early 19th century to the Brezhnev
Doctrine of the late 20th century.

Thus Yeltsin's "reformist" for-
eign minister, Koyzerev (since dismissed
for being too liberal), put forward a
Russian right of military intervention in
all the countries containing Russian
minorities. At a minimum, that includes
14 states of the former Soviet Union
(including the Baltic states)—all of them
recognized by the United Nations. Two

DEPT:

PG:

KISSINGER Page 8 of 14

KISSINGER

DEPT:

PG:

Russian divisions are being maintained on the territory of Georgia, where Russian intervention in a civil war made that country ungovernable until Russian conditions were met. Russia's encouragement of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia has given Moscow a voice in both countries and blackmail potential over Azerbaijan's vast oil reserves.

--------- End of column ---------

Russian troops participate in the civil war in Tajkistan. Russia refuses to demarcate the borders with Ukraine, a country with a population close to 60 million whose independence Russians seem particularly loath to accept. And Russia is pressuring the oil producing nations in Central Asia to export their oil only through pipelines running through Russia—claiming for Moscow a stranglehold on one of the largest oil reserves in the world.

All this has happened under Yeltsin and at a moment of Russia's maximum weakness. To paraphrase what Churchill said about Soviet actions in the immediate postwar period: "If they act

KISSINGER Page 9 of 14

KISSINGER

DEPT:

PG:

like this in the green wood, what will they
do when the trees are fully grown?"

The long-term stakes are indeed
high. If Ukraine were to share the fate of
Belarus and return to Russian satellite sta-
tus, tremors would be felt all over Europe.
A militarization of diplomacy would be
nearly inevitable. A Russian stranglehold
on Central Asian oil would provide dan-
gerous blackmail potential during the pre-
dictable energy crises of the next century.
Beyond the geopolitical challenges,
Russia, in its attempt to regain what it per-
ceives as ancient glories, appears inclined
to challenge the U.S. position in the
Middle East and to conduct adventurous
policies in Asia for no other purpose than
to augment its prestige.

Yeltsin has seemed to feel a
necessity to balance every high level
American visit with a move in a more
nationalist direction. Within days of
Clinton's visit to Moscow in 1993, Yeltsin
dismissed Gaidar, the reformer on whom
many American hopes had been based.
The Chechnya war started shortly after a
visit by Vice President Gore. And Clinton

KISSINGER Page 10 of 14

KISSINGER

had barely left Moscow in April when
Yeltsin betook himself to Beijing and
Shanghai, where he signed what had all
the appearance of a strategic partnership
with China—a maneuver facilitated by
the lack of direction in Washington's
China policy.

The United States has been far
too slow to recognize these dangers. It is
only in the last year that Ukraine has
received attention commensurate with its
political and strategic importance. In
Central Asia, American policy seems
unable to balance human rights concerns
with a concept worthy of the geopolitical
importance of that region. In the
Caucasus, flagrant Soviet military or
near-military intervention has been met
with American silence or by American
statements seemingly legitimizing ancient
Russian imperial drives.

The most serious lack has been
of omission. During the Cold War,
America's Atlantic relations were built
from West to East, on the basis of a strong
Atlantic Alliance and an emerging
European Community. Clinton's post-

DEPT:

PG:

KISSINGER Page 11 of 14

KISSINGER

DEPT:

PG:

Cold War policy, influenced by the dogmas of the protest movement in which NATO was regarded as a cause of interna- tional tensions, seeks to build from East to West. Focused on Russia, it has failed to adapt the Atlantic Alliance to the post-Cold War circumstances. It has offered no vision of a political or economic partner- ship in the North Atlantic region, or else has consigned such prospects to bureau- cratic studies that never seem to have a terminal point. This is even more true of NATO expansion—a subject on which Administration ambivalence threatens to create a grey zone in Eastern Europe, potentially tempting historic Russian dri- ves to create vacuums around its periph- ery.

Despite mounting evidence in the daily conduct of Russian diplomacy, Washington treats Yeltsin as if he were some tender shoot incapable of withstand- ing the gusts of a realistic foreign policy. This only encourages Russian leaders to compensate for frustrations at home by relying on Russian nationalism to help

KISSINGER Page 12 of 14

KISSINGER

keep the society together. If we seek gen-
une reform in Russia, its leaders must be
brought to understand that a return to his-
toric drives will replicate the debacles of
the past. For the strategic domination of
its neighbors can be achieved only at the
cost of permanent tensions with the
United States and the West.

Such a policy requires a rededication to strengthening the Atlantic relationship. NATO expansion is imperative; its absence will tempt an even further thrust to expand Russia's strategic frontiers. (This is certainly the view of literally all the leaders of Eastern Europe.)

Even more important, the Atlantic Alliance must deepen its political dimension and extend to heretofore excluded subjects—Islamic fundamentalism, global energy supplies and other threats to world stability. Finally, the time has come to move the project of a North Atlantic Free Trade area from study committees to the action phase.

As part of such an architecture,
Russia could be given an important role in
the creation of the new international sys-

DEPT:

PG:

KISSINGER

Page 13 of 14

KISSINGER

DEPT:

PG:

tem. But this presupposes a major change
in Russia's attitudes. It must be prepared
to stay within its borders. The challenge
for America is whether it can assemble a
proper balance of incentives and penalties
conducive to maintaining such a world
order. And this challenge exists whoever
wins the Russian election, though it will
be more complex after a Zyuganov victo-
ry. That is the kind of reform America
can—and should—hope to contribute to
in the immediate future.

KISSINGER Page 14 of 14

1

3110 WORDS

KISSINGER NEWSWEEK ARTICLE

5/28/96

It is normal during elections for American attention to focus on the candidates. Not surprisingly, in the upcoming Russian election most attention focused on reporting has been directed at the competition between President Boris Yeltsin and Communist Party leader Gennadi Zyuganov. What is less normal is the degree to which American policy toward Russia has also been based on personality. Whatever the outcome of the Russian elections, this quirk of American policy is bound to end.

If Zyuganov wins, this is inevitable. What is less obvious is that a Yeltsin victory, too, would force a reappraisal. Even under Yeltsin, Russia will

2

continue to challenge America by pursuing an increasingly assertive foreign policy, which already shows signs of seeking status in part by resisting American notions of world order.

The Administration will then have no choice but to disenthrall itself from its preoccupation with personalities and the flawed premises of its Russia policy: the overemphasis on personalities and its conceptual misapprehension of the Cold War. Many of Clinton's generation in his Administration hold the view that the United States has its own heavy responsibility for the Cold War, which they believe could have been avoided had the United States pursued a policy of reassurance rather than of confrontation toward the Soviet Union. To the extent that they ascribe any responsibility to the Soviet Union, it is

3

to the combined effect of its Stalinist economy and
totalitarian domestic structure. As a result,
Clinton's Russia policy has emphasized domestic reform
and psychological engineering. It has concentrated on
promoting internal change and on reassuring the
Russian leadership rather than seeking to influence
Russia's actions outside its borders.

Because Yeltsin is viewed as the guarantor of
market economics, democracy, and hence of peaceful
international conduct, Clinton has attended more
summits with him than he has with any other foreign
leader and with a far greater show of personal warmth.
Though the President has never visited Beijing or
invited a Chinese leader to the White House, he has
been to Moscow three times and has met with Yeltsin
(in addition to his meetings at the annual
economic
summits)
on American soil twice. Yet these efforts have not

4

prevented the Communist Party from becoming the largest single party in Russia or from fielding a major challenge to Yeltsin's rule. To stave off this danger, or perhaps acting on the basis of his own convictions, Yeltsin has embarked on foreign policies which differ only in degree from those urged by Zyuganov.

This has happened because the relationship between market economics and democracy and between democracy and a peaceful foreign policy is not nearly so automatic as Washington has postulated. True, no alternative to market economics in promoting growth has been discovered. And advanced, pluralistic democracies enjoying a high standard of living are likely to conduct moderate foreign policies. But in Western Europe, the process of democratization took

5

Several generations and in the interval did not prevent a series of increasingly catastrophic wars. Indeed, the early stages of market economics and democratization have often provided incentives for leaders to mobilize domestic support by appeals to nationalism. Failure to recognize these historical experiences has caused the Administration to emphasize policies on matters that require a long period of time to evolve, and to neglect those aspects which can be shaped in the present.

The relationship between democracy and the so-called private sector is particularly ambiguous in erstwhile Communist countries - especially those which, like Russia, have a legacy of decades of central planning and no historical memory of private enterprise. In Russia, privatization has resulted in

6

the takeover of the vast majority of the former state
enterprises by members of the nomenklatura, who used
to run them under Stalinist planning. While they enjoy
the absence of state interference in the operation of
their enterprises, they are not eager for a genuinely
competitive economy; their preference is the
preservation of their monopolies. Nor have they
demonstrated any burning interest in political
democracy. Indeed, several leading representatives of
Russian industry and banking have, in the name of
economic stability, urged Yeltsin to avoid the turmoil
of an election altogether.

The population's experience with what passes for
market economics in Russia has not exactly evoked
widespread devotion to democratic institutions or
principles. The weird Russian hybrid of state

7

capitalism, black market, wild speculation, and
outright criminal activity has generated a demand for
law and order which, as interpreted in Moscow, is
frequently inimical to democracy. The Communist system
produced a low standard of living but distributed it
fairly uniformly (except for the privileges reserved
for the ruling class). However chafing the experience
under the Stalinist system, in retrospect the security
it afforded is viewed with nostalgia in many formerly
Communist countries - as evidenced by the explosive
growth of the Russian Communists under Zyuganov (and
for that matter, by the victories of the Communist
Parties in Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria).

Even without these obstacles, the development of
democracy in Russia was always likely to be painful
and slow. For Russia lacks the cultural and historical

8

background that produced pluralistic democracy in the West - a process which extended over centuries. In the West, religion established the principle that the moral and religious realms were beyond the reach of the state even when the churches were run in an authoritarian manner. In Russia, the church has been an instrument of the state and a passionate supporter of militant nationalism. Russia experienced neither the Reformation, with its emphasis on the individual conscience, nor the Enlightenment, with its belief in the power of reason. Russia did not participate in the Age of Discovery and what capitalism there was concerned trading rather than production.

Of course, pockets of all these tendencies did exist in Russia - some of them of extraordinary moral and intellectual quality - but they never permeated

9

the entire society and their few vestiges were
bloodily eradicated by Stalin. Not surprisingly,
adherents to pluralistic democracy in today's Russia
are largely confined to the intellectual circles of
Moscow and St. Petersburg; its representatives have
been eliminated from Yeltsin's inner circle and have
of course never existed in Zyuganov's.

Yeltsin himself was hardly cast in a Jeffersonian
mold. Nearly his entire adult life has been devoted to
serving the Communist Party - a career to which the
gentle-hearted have rarely gravitated. In his rise
through its ranks into the Politburo, Yeltsin surely
had little exposure to pluralistic principles. And
while he was courageous in concluding that the
Communist Party, moribund and inefficient, was doomed,
Yeltsin has shown few signs since that democratic

10

In short, democracy in Russia is an ongoing drama
whose evolution has far from played itself out. Yet
American foreign policy has been conducted as if a
mature, Western-style democracy was already nearly in
place. Equating foreign policy with Russian domestic
politics has gravely mortgaged long-term Russian-
American relations. It has unnecessarily identified
America in the minds of too many Russians with the
dislocations and suffering inseparable from the
transition from state planning to market economics.
Russian nationalists and Communists can thus claim
that market economics is a fraud perpetrated by the
West to keep Russia weak - at least one reason for
America's unpopularity, on which all observers agree.

11

Our reliance on Yeltsin has lured us into endorsing, if not actually encouraging, such high handed actions as the military assault on the Russian Parliament and the dismissal of the Russian Supreme Court - acts difficult to reconcile with democratic pretensions, whatever the provocation. The assumption that Yeltsin must be coddled explains why American high officials, including the President, justified Russian pressures on the newly independent states of the Caucasus as being comparable to American actions in the Caribbean; or why they felt it reasonable to compare the Russian military campaign in Chechnya to the American Civil War.

There is no foreign policy requirement obliging the White House to comment on every Russian internal crisis; indeed, the obsession with participating in

12

Russian domestic politics undermines our ability to conduct a foreign policy geared to the external conduct of the Russian state. Yet it is precisely the external actions of Russia that present the greatest challenge to international stability. And, paradoxically, the very domestic drama of which we have made ourselves too much a party provides some of the incentive.

Foreign policy has emerged as the deus ex machina for Russia's elite to escape present-day frustrations by evoking visions of a past that seems glorious, at least in retrospect. Russia has always displayed a unique set of characteristics - especially when compared to its European neighbors. Extending over nine time zones, Russia - even in its present, post-Soviet extent - contains the largest land-mass of any

13

contemporary state. St. Petersburg is closer to New
York than it is to Vladivostok, which is in turn
closer to Seattle than it is to Moscow. A country of
that size ought not to suffer from claustrophobia. Yet
creeping expansionism in the name of security has been
the recurring theme of Russian history. Developing the
enormous resources of its vast territory has never,
under Tsar or commissar, been a Russian priority. For
four centuries, Russia has subordinated the well-
being of its own population to this relentless outward
thrust and threatened all its neighbors with it. In
the Russian mind, the centuries of sacrifice have been
transmuted into a mission, partly on behalf of
security, importantly in the service of an alleged
Russian superior morality.

In the 19th century, the Russian nationalist

14

writer Michael Katkov defined the difference between
Western and Russian values as follows: "...everything
there is based on contractual relations and everything
here on faith.... A basic dual authority exists there;
a single authority here." Similarly, Zyuganov
describes Russia as a "special type of civilization"
based on "collectivism, unity, statehood and the
aspiration to achieve the highest ideal of good and
justice" - as compared to the West, infected with
"extreme individualism, militant soullessness,
religious indifference, adherence to mass culture."

In 1864, Chancellor Aleksandr Gorchakov wrote with
respect to Central Asia that: "...the interests of
border security and trade relations always require the
more civilized state to have a certain authority over
its neighbors.... where the greatest difficulty is in

15

being able to stop." In our time, Zyuganov writes
admiringly about Tsar Aleksandr III, who reigned while
Russia's "southern border went one thousand kilometers
towards Afghanistan." And what Zyuganov preaches,
Yeltsin practices - in Tajkistan, Azerbaijan and
Chechnya.

These convictions enable Russian leaders to wrest
a sense of pride from economic decline and social
disintegration. The restoration of the strategic
frontiers of the old Soviet Union (never clearly
defining whether they include the old satellite orbit)
is a recurrent theme under Yeltsin and even more
sharply with Zyuganov.

Russia and America have both historically
asserted a global vocation for their societies. But
while America's idealism derives from the concept of

16

liberty, Russia's sprang from shared suffering and common submission to authority. Everyone is eligible to share in America's values; Russia's have been reserved for the Russian nation even vis-a-vis the subject nationalities of the empire. American idealism tempts isolationism; Russia's has historically prompted adventurist domination.

Russia, abutting Asia, the Middle East and Europe, faces in three directions at once and, in pursuit of security, has produced insecurity for all its neighbors. In the West, Russia has historically come up against the necessities of the European balance of power. But even when paying lip service to its requirements, Russia has generally excluded the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia from its operation, insisting on dealing with them unilaterally

17

and often by force: in the Treaty of Adrianople in
1829, the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi in 1833, in the
prelude to the Crimean War in 1853, in the Balkan
crisis of 1885 and in the prelude to the Russo-
Japanese War in 1904. Even when it participated in
European alliances, Russia tended to endow them with
a missionary quality that justified permanent military
intervention in the domestic affairs of other states -
from the Holy Alliance of the early 19th century to
the Brezhnev Doctrine of the late 20th century.

Thus Yeltsin's "reformist" foreign minister,
Koyzerev (since dismissed for being too liberal), put
forward a Russian right of military intervention in
all the countries containing Russian minorities. At a
minimum, that includes 14 successor states of the
Soviet Union including the Baltic states - all of them

18

recognized by the United Nations. Two Russian
divisions are being maintained on the territory of
Georgia where Russian intervention in a civil war made
that country ungovernable until Russian conditions had
been met. Russia's encouragement of the conflict
between Azerbaijan and Armenia has given Moscow a
voice in both countries and blackmail potential vis-
a-vis Azerbaijan's vast oil reserves. Russian troops
participate in the civil war in Tajkistan. Russia
refuses to demarcate the borders with Ukraine, a
country with a population close to 60 million whose
independence Russians seem particularly loth to
accept. And Russia is pressuring the oil producing
nations in Central Asia to export their oil only
through pipelines running through Russia - claiming
for Moscow a stranglehold on one of the largest oil

19

reserves in the world.

All this has happened under Yeltsin and at a moment of Russia's maximum weakness. To paraphrase Churchill with respect to Soviet actions in the immediate postwar period: "If they act like this in the green wood, what will they do when the trees are fully grown?"

Russia's simultaneous thrust in all directions runs the risk of repeating the underlying tragedy of its history: no people has sacrificed more for its vision of security and its sense of mission; none has received fewer tangible benefits from it, or has so often turned its fears into self-fulfilling prophecies. Both the tsarist and Communist empires collapsed, materially and spiritually exhausted by their overextension. The almost paranoid sense of

20

insecurity is all the less appropriate in the present
world, where Russia possesses 20,000 nuclear weapons,
making a land attack on it almost inconceivable.

The long-term stakes are indeed high. If Ukraine
were to share the fate of Belarus and return to
Russian satellite status, tremors would be felt all
over Europe and a militarization of diplomacy would
be nearly inevitable. A Russian stranglehold on
Central Asian oil would provide dangerous blackmail
potential during the predictable energy crises of the
next century. Beyond the geopolitical challenges,
Russia, in its attempt to regain what it perceives as
ancient glories, appears inclined to challenge the
United States' position in the Middle East and to
conduct adventurous policies in Asia for no other
purpose than to augment its prestige.

21

Yeltsin has seemed to feel a necessity to balance every high level American visit with a move in a more nationalist direction. Within days of Clinton's visit to Moscow in 1993, Yeltsin dismissed Gaidar, the reformer on whom many American hopes had been based. The Chechnya war started shortly after a visit by Vice President Gore. And Clinton had barely left Moscow in April when Yeltsin betook himself to Beijing and Shanghai where he signed what had all the appearance of a strategic partnership with China - a maneuver facilitated by the lack of direction in our China policy.

22

The most serious lack has been of omission. Cold
War American foreign policy built Atlantic relations
from West to East on the basis of a strong Atlantic
Alliance and an emerging European Community. Clinton's
post-Cold War policy, influenced by the dogmas of the
protest movement in which NATO was regarded as a cause
of international tensions, seeks to build from East to
West. Focussed on Russia, it has failed to adapt the
Atlantic Alliance to the post-Cold War circumstances.

23

It has offered no vision of a political or economic partnership in the North Atlantic region, or else has consigned such prospects to bureaucratic studies that never seem to have a terminal point. This is even more true of NATO expansion, with respect to which Administration ambivalence threatens to create a grey zone in Eastern Europe, potentially tempting historic Russian drives to create vacuums around its periphery.

Despite mounting evidence in the daily conduct of Russian diplomacy, Washington treats Yeltsin as if he were some tender shoot incapable of withstanding the gusts of a realistic foreign policy. This only encourages Russian leaders to compensate for frustrations at home by relying on Russian nationalism as the cohesive element of society. If we seek genuine reform in Russia, its leaders must be brought to

24

understand that a return to historic drives will
replicate the debacles of the past. For the strategic
domination of its neighbors can be achieved only at
the cost of permanent tensions with the United States
and the West.

Such a policy requires a rededication to
strengthening the Atlantic relationship. This has two
components: the Atlantic Alliance in effect no longer
has a mission; the frontiers that it guarantees are
not threatened and the threatened frontiers are not
guaranteed. Thus NATO expansion is imperative; its
absence will tempt an even further thrust to expand
Russia's strategic frontiers. (This is certainly the
view of literally all the leaders of Eastern Europe.)
Even more importantly, the Atlantic Alliance must
deepen its political aspect and extend it to subjects

25

heretofore excluded as being out of area - Islamic fundamentalism, global energy supplies, and other threats to world stability. Finally, the time has come to move the project of a North Atlantic Free Trade area from study committees to the action level.

As part of such an architecture, Russia should be given an important role in the creation of the new international system, the birthpangs of which mark the crisis of our age. But this presupposes a major change in Russia's attitudes. It must be prepared to stay within its borders. Over time, such a Russia could indeed become a strategic partner of the United States and of the Western democracies. The challenge to America is whether it can assemble a proper balance of Russian incentives and penalties conducive to world order. And this challenge exists whoever wins the

1

3110 WORDS

KISSINGER NEWSWEEK ARTICLE

5/28/96

It is normal during elections for American attention to focus on the candidates. Not surprisingly, in the upcoming Russian election most reporting has been directed at the competition between President Boris Yeltsin and Communist Party leader Gennadi Zyuganov. What is less normal is the degree to which American policy toward Russia has also been based on personality. Whatever the outcome of the Russian elections, this quirk of American policy is bound to end.

2

3

Because Yeltsin is viewed as the guarantor of
market economics, democracy, and hence of peaceful
international conduct, Clinton has attended more
summits with him than he has with any other foreign
leader and with a far greater show of personal warmth.
Though the President has never visited Beijing or
invited a Chinese leader to the White House, he has
been to Moscow three times and has met with Yeltsin
on American soil twice. Yet these efforts have not

4

5

several generations and in the interval did not prevent a series of increasingly catastrophic wars. Indeed, the early stages of market economics and democratization have often provided incentives for leaders to mobilize domestic support by appeals to nationalism. Failure to recognize these historical experiences has caused the Administration to emphasize policies on matters that require a long period of time to evolve, and to neglect those aspects which can be shaped in the present.

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

15

16

17

18

19

reserves in the world.

20

21

22

23

24

25