31 December 2000 Condoleezza Rice Op-Ed on "Exercising Power Without Arrogance" (The following op-ed by Condoleezza Rice, who has been named by President-elect George W. Bush to be his national security adviser, first appeared in The Chicago Tribune December 31, 2000. Permission has been granted covering republication/translation/internet use of article by Agency and local press outside the U.S. On title page, credit author and carry: Copyright (c) 2000 Condoleezza Rice. Originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune.) Exercising Power Without Arrogance by Condoleezza Rice The United States has found it exceedingly difficult to define its "national interest" in the absence of Soviet power. That we do not know how to think about what follows the U.S.-Soviet confrontation is clear from the continued references to the "post-Cold War period." Yet such periods of transition are very important because they offer strategic opportunities. During these fluid times, one can affect the shape of the world to come. The enormity of the moment is obvious. The Soviet Union was more than just a traditional global competitor. It strove to lead a universal socialist alternative to markets and democracy. The Soviet Union quarantined itself and many of its often unwitting captives and clients from the rigors of international capitalism. In the end, it sowed the seeds of its own destruction, becoming in isolation an economic and technological dinosaur. America has emerged as both the principal benefactor of this revolution and the beneficiary. American values are universal. Their triumph is most assuredly easier when the international balance of power favors those who believe in them. But sometimes that favorable balance of power takes time to achieve, both internationally and within a country, and in the meantime, it is simply not possible to ignore and isolate other powerful states. The Cold War is a good example. Few would deny that the collapse of the Soviet Union profoundly transformed the picture of democracy and human rights in eastern and central Europe and the former Soviet territories. Nothing improved human rights as much as the collapse of Soviet power. Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. pursued a policy that promoted political liberty, using every instrument from the Voice of America to direct presidential intervention on behalf of dissidents. But it lost sight neither of the importance of the geopolitical relationship with Moscow nor of the absolute necessity of retaining robust American military power to deter an all-out military confrontation. In the 1980s, President Reagan's challenge to Soviet power was both resolute and well timed. It included intense, substantive engagements with Moscow across the entire range of issues captured in a classic "four-part agenda"--arms control, human rights, economic issues and regional conflicts. The Bush administration then focused greater attention on rolling back Soviet power in central and eastern Europe. As the Soviet Union's might waned, it could no longer defend its interests and gave up peacefully (thankfully) to the West--a tremendous victory for Western power and also for human liberty. Although the U.S. is fortunate to count among its friends several great powers, it is important not to take them for granted--so that there is a firm foundation when it comes time to rely on them. Today Russia presents a different challenge. It still has many of the attributes of a great power: a large population, vast territory and military potential. But its economic weakness and problems of national identity threaten to overwhelm it. Moscow is determined to assert itself in the world and often does so in ways that are at once haphazard and threatening to American interests. The picture is complicated by Russia's own internal transition--one that the United States wants to see succeed. The old Soviet system has broken down, and some of the basic elements of democratic development are in place. People are free to say what they think, vote for whom they please, and (for the most part) worship freely. But the democratic fragments are not institutionalized--and with the exception of the Communist Party, political parties are weak. Of course, in his last months as president, few paid attention to Boris Yeltsin's decrees. Arguably, the Russian government has been mired in inaction and stagnation for at least three years. Russia's economic troubles and its high-level corruption have been widely discussed. Its economy is not becoming a market but is mutating into something else. Widespread barter, banks that are not banks, billions of rubles stashed abroad and in mattresses at home, and bizarre privatization schemes that have enriched the so-called reformers give Moscow's economy a medieval tinge. The problem for U.S. policy is that the Clinton administration's ongoing embrace of Yeltsin and those who were thought to be reformers around him q uite simply failed. Clearly the United States was obliged to deal with the head of state, and Yeltsin was Russia's president. But U.S. support for democracy and economic reform became support for Yeltsin. His agenda became the American agenda. America certified that reform was taking place in Russia where it was not, continuing to disburse money from the International Monetary Fund in the absence of any evidence of serious change. Thus, some curious privatization methods were hailed as economic liberalization; the looting of the country's assets by powerful people either went unnoticed or was ignored. The realities in Russia simply did not accord with the administration's script about Russian economic reform. The United States should not be faulted for trying to help. But, as the Russian reformer Grigori Yavlinsky has said, the United States should have "told the truth" about what was happening. Now we have a dual credibility problem--with Russians and with Americans. There are signs of life in the Russian economy. The financial crash of August 1998 forced import substitution, and domestic production has increased as the resilient Russian people have taken matters into their own hands. Rising oil prices have helped as well. But these are short-term fixes. There is no longer a consensus in America or Europe on what to do next with Russia. Frustrated expectations and "Russia fatigue" are direct consequences of the "happy talk" in which the Clinton administration engaged. Russia's economic future is now in the hands of the Russians. The country is not without assets, including its natural resources and an educated population. It is up to Russia to make structural reforms, particularly concerning the rule of law and the tax codes, so that investors--foreign and domestic--will provide the capital needed for economic growth. But the cultural changes ultimately needed to sustain a functioning civil society and a market-based economy may take a generation. Western openness to Russia's people, particularly its youth, in exchange programs and contact with the private sector and educational opportunities can help that process. It is also important to engage the leadership of Russia's diverse regions, where economic and social policies are increasingly pursued independently of Moscow. In the meantime, U.S. policy must concentrate on the important security agenda with Russia. First, it must recognize that American security is threatened less by Russia's strength than by its weakness and incoherence. This suggests immediate attention to the safety and security of Moscow's nuclear forces and stockpile. Second, Washington must begin a comprehensive discussion with Moscow on the changing nuclear threat. Much has been made by Russian military officials about their increased reliance on nuclear weapons in the face of their declining conventional readiness. The Russian deterrent is more than adequate against the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and vice versa. But that fact need no longer be enshrined in a treaty that is almost 30 years old and is a relic of a profoundly adversarial relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was intended to prevent the development of national missile defenses in the Cold War security environment. Today, the principal concerns are nuclear threats from the Iraq s and North Koreas of the world and the possibility of unauthorized releases as nuclear weapons spread. Moscow, in fact, lives closer to those threats than Washington does. It ought to be possible to engage the Russians in a discussion of the changed threat environment, their possible responses, and the relationship of strategic offensive-force reductions to the deployment of defenses. In addition, Moscow should understand that any possibilities for sharing technology or information in these areas would depend heavily on its record--problematic to date--on the proliferation of ballistic-missile and other technologies related to weapons of mass destruction. It would be foolish in the extreme to share defenses with Moscow if it either leaks or deliberately transfers weapons technologies to the very states against which America is defending. Finally, the United States needs to recognize that Russia is a great power, and that we will always have interests that conflict as well as coincide. As prime minister, Vladimir Putin used the Chechnya war to stir nationalism at home while fueling his own political fortunes. The Russian military has been uncharacteristically blunt and vocal in asserting its duty to defend the integrity of the Russian Federation--an unwelcome development in civil-military relations. The long-term effect of the war on Russia's political culture should not be underestimated. This war has affected relations between Russia and its neighbors in the Caucasus, as the Kremlin has been hurling charges of harboring and abetting Chechen terrorists against states as diverse as Saudi Arabia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. The war is a reminder of the vulnerability of the small, new states around Russia and of America's interest in their independence. If they can become stronger, they will be less tempting to Russia. But much depends on the ability of these states to reform their economies and political systems--a process, to date, whose success is mixed at best. Meanwhile America can exercise power without arrogance and pursue its interests without hectoring and bluster. That has been America's special role in the past, and it should be again as we enter the new century. (Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov) Return to the Washington File