Argument: Economically compatible

There is a huge potential for economic cooperation between two of the biggest states in the world. Russia desperately needs investment and technology to modernize its economy. The USA can offer this and more. It has helped Russia to get into the World Trade Organization, [1] to integrate it into the global economy, put pressure on Russian companies to drop their corrupt ways and adopt modern modes of operation. Russia also has plenty of chips to bring to the table. Pumping seven million barrels a day, Russia is second only to the Saudis in oil production. The Bush team saw Russia as a source for crude oil should U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia deteriorate, this is why at the Moscow summit in May, 2002, Bush and Putin launched “an energy dialogue to strengthen the overall relationship between our countries, and to enhance global energy security, international strategic stability, and regional cooperation.” [2] The United States has invested whenever it could in Russian oil and gas despite the difficulties private companies like Yukos have faced with government tax demands. For example in October 2001, Exxon Mobil announced that the Sakhalin 1 project was profitable and outlined the company’s plans to invest $30 billion by 2030. [3]

[1] Kirk, ‘Full Statement by Ambassador Kirk Regarding the Invitation to Russia to Join the WTO’, Office of the United States Trade Representative, December 2011, http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2011/december/u...

[2] William Ratliff, ‘Russia’s Oil in America’s Future: Policy, Pipelines, and Prospects, Hoover Institution, 1/9/03, http://www.hoover.org/publications/monographs/27207 accessed 04/5/11

[3] Tamara Troyakova and Elizabeth Wishnick, ‘Integration or Disintegration: Challenges for the Russian Far East in the Asia-Pacific Region, p.18. http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/coe21/publish/no1/wishnick.pdf accessed 6/5/11

Candidate 1: "Although the United States would like to get its hands on Russia’s vast economic resources it is not a good place to do business. Russia was accused of being a ‘virtual mafia state’ by US diplomats in a wikileaked cable. [1] According to then US Ambassador to Russia Russia needs to “support the “sanctity” of commercial contracts and agreements; create a “transparent, stable and enforceable” tax and license regime; improve and enforce intellectual property rights protection; act decisively on “pervasive bureaucratic red tape and over-regulation”; bring corruption under control; reverse the “worrying trend” in Russia towards control over the mass media” [2] before it becomes a place that the US can really do lots of business with. The economy may therefore be more of a source of conflict than cooperation as The United States tries to push Russia into being more open and less corrupt against the wishes of the Russian elites.

[1] Luke Harding, WikiLeaks cables condemn Russia as ‘mafia state’, guardian.co.uk 1/12/10, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-cables-russia-mafia-kleptocracy accessed 28/4/11

[2] Alexander Vershbow, “Opportunities in U.S.-Russian Economic Relations,” United States Embassy Moscow, 22 May 2003. http://www.hoover.org/publications/monographs/27207#n32"
Candidate 2: "Russian and US economic interests conflict

Good economic relations are possible only as long as long as The USA believes that Russia is genuinely trying hard to bring its economy into line with the Western world. Both Putin and Medvedev have emphasised that the country’s economic interests will always determine Russian foreign policy. Most particularly foreign policy has been driven by oil and natural gas. This has involved a conflict with the United States over the construction of pipelines. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE) gas pipelines are specifically built to diversify European energy supplies away from dependence on Russia but were only built due to unequivocal US support. [1] Building these pipelines is directly against Russian interests. Russian economic interests include, amongst other things, close trade links with autocratic regimes, particularly in the former USSR, and exporting weapons and nuclear technology to China and Iran. In the example of Iran Russian economic interests have meant that Russia has blocked US efforts to get sanctions. [2] An area of particular conflict with the US is the Russian building of an $800million nuclear reactor at Bushehr. Similarly Russia sold Iran $1.7 billion of arms between 2002 and 2005 including anti-aircraft systems so making any potential attack on Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States much more dangerous. [3] Thus, close economic cooperation between two states whose economies are driven by very different goals is improbable.

[1] ‘Pipeline politics? Russia and the EU’s battle for energy’, EurActive.com, 20/8/09, http://www.euractiv.com/en/energy/pipeline-politics-russia-eu-battle-energy/article-177579 accessed 6/5/11

[2] Tony Karon, ‘Iran Diplomacy: Why Russia and China Won’t Play Ball’, Time, 22/3/06, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1175573,00.html accessed 6/5/11

[3] Mark N. Katz, ‘Russian-Iranian Relations: Functional Dysfunction’, Mideast Monitor, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2009, http://www.mideastmonitor.org/issues/0907/0907_5.htm accessed 6/5/11"
Candidate 3: "Russian and US strategic interests conflict

Contradictions between Russian and U.S. interests will always exist. The United States is not Russia's ally, and it can be confidently predicted that it never will be. While politically the two countries sometimes temporarily need each other to face global challenges, as long as it does not harm them politically or economically, militarily they will remain positioned as strategic enemies. NATO is a good example of this. While the United States believes NATO brings peace and stability Russia feels directly threatened by NATO expansion into states that were once a part of the Soviet Union such as the Baltic states or the possibility of expansion to Ukraine or Georgia. [1] There have even been suggestions that Russia’s 2008 conflict with Georgia was to prevent Georgia proceeding down the path to NATO membership with US encouragement. A view partially substantiated by President Putin himself “it has become absolutely clear that the desire of Georgian authorities to join NATO is motivated not by their ambition to form part of a global security system and contribute to the strengthening of international peace. Tbilisi's NATO bid is determined by other considerations, namely an attempt to embroil other nations in its bloody undertakings… from a legal point of view, Russia's actions in South Ossetia are totally legitimate.” [2] As a result America's relations with Russia will never resemble its relations with France or Great Britain. U.S. strategic nuclear planning will always envisage a potential Russian nuclear attack on targets on American territory. Likewise, Russian planners will not rule out an American attack on Russian targets.

[1] Neuger, James G., and Alison, Sebastian, ‘Putin Says NATO Expansion Is Direct Threat to Russia (Update 2)’, Bloomberg, 4 April 2008, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&amp;sid=aq34xuTFCvx0&amp;refe...

[2] President Putting quoted in ‘South Ossetia – The Stakes’, globalsecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/south-ossetia-9.htm accessed 27/4/11"
Candidate 4: "Russia’s near abroad

Russia and the US have a fundamental divergence over the notion of spheres of interest. Russia only accepts any other country playing a role in its near abroad very grudgingly and will attempt to get other great powers out whenever possible. In the aftermath of 9/11 Russia could not prevent American intervention in Central Asia therefore it was sensible to make sure it was co-opted to serve Russia’s own interests, namely to be against international terrorism, rather than being directed against Russia herself. By doing so Russia could preserve her influence in the region. As America was willing to take on the costs of maintaining the security of the region Russia could retrench and cut costs. [1] Yet Russia began to force the US out as soon as was possible, for example forcing the closure of a U.S. airbase in Kyrgyzstan. [2]

Russia has sometimes seemed to purposefully take the opposite side to the US in Eastern Europe. An example of this occurring was over the possibility of independence for Kosovo almost a decade after the conflict that forced Serbian forces out of the country. According to Charles Kupchan “on the question of Kosovo, direct Russian interests are difficult to discern, and therefore it appears that Russia’s backing of Serbia is part of a more muscular Russian policy, and a desire to stand up to the United States and the EU across the board.” [3]

[1] Lena Jonson, Vladimir Putin and Central Asia The Shaping of Russian Foreign Policy, (I.B. Tauris, London, 2004), pp.172-174

[2] Schwirtz, Michael, ‘Kyrgyzstan Insists U.S. Base to Close’, The New York Times, 11 June 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/world/asia/12kyrgyz.html

[3] Bernard Gwertzmann, ‘Interview Kupchan: Russian Opposition to Kosovo Independence ‘Perplexing’, Foreign Affairs, Dec 2007, http://www.cfr.org/kosovo/kupchan-russian-opposition-kosovo-independence-perplexing/p15093 accessed 27/4/11"
Candidate 5: "Even if both agree that fighting terrorism is in both their interests this is not a reason for cooperation when views about how to tackle the problem divide. While both have used military force in their attempts to defeat terrorism both have criticised the other’s force as being excessive. The United States continued to be critical of the situation in Chechnya where 45000 civilians were killed and 200000 made refugees. [1] September 11th was a gift to Putin as it transformed perceptions of the situation in Chechnya. [2] Chechnya was effectively legitimised by September 11th as it was similar to what the United States would fight in Afghanistan. [3] However the western media continued to be sceptical about terrorism in Russia for example that Chechen militants were the bombers of the apartment blocks, rather than it being rogue elements of the Russian security services, or even originated from the Kremlin. [4] Moreover the two diverged over the need to invade Iraq to fight terrorism; Russia opposed the invasion in the Security Council. In short Russia and the United States cooperate in Afghanistan but this does not translate into wider cooperation against terrorism. Terrorism is also no longer the number one foreign policy priority of the United States which is ‘pivoting’ to Asia and away from the Middle East. [5]

[1] Kramer, Guerrilla, pp.210, 214.

[2] Claire Bigg, Five Years After 9/11: The Kremlin's War On Terror, Radio Free Europe, 2006, http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/news/2006/09/sec-060908-r...

[3] Oksana Antonenko, ‘Putin’s Gamble’, Survival, Vol.43, no.4, (Winter, 2001-02), pp.49-60, p.51

[4] World: Europe, Russia's bombs: Who is to blame? BBC News, September 30, 1999, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/449325.stm

[5] Clinton, Hillary, ‘America’s Pacific Century’, Foreign Policy, November 2011, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/americas_pacific_century"
Candidate 6: "A U.S. dovetailing of interests in Central Asia is unlikely to last. September 11th moved Central Asia from being an area of peripheral importance to being a central US interest. [1] There is nothing to say that it will not sink back to being peripheral in the future. The Taliban were both sheltering extremists such as al Qaeda and exporting disorder to surrounding states. [2] As George Bush put it “make no mistake about it, the new war is not only against the evildoers, themselves; the new war is against those who harbor them and finance them and feed them.” [3] But with al Qaeda diversifying, terrorism no longer so high up the agenda and the United States drawing down in Afghanistan US and Russian interests are set to diverge.

[1] Boris Rumer, The Powers in Central Asia, Survival, vol. 44, no.3, (Autumn, 2002), pp.57-68, pp.63-64.

[2] Rajan Menon, ‘The New Great Game in Central Asia’, Survival, vol.45, no.2, (Summer, 2003), pp.187-204, p.188.

[3] At O'Hare, President Says "Get On Board", Office of the Press Secretary, September 27, 2001, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010927-1.html"
Candidate 7: "Missile defence shows Russia is still suspicious of U.S. motives.

Russia has been suspicious of most US actions fearing they are directed against Russia. This suspicion is in part born out of the cold war, Russia is much weaker than the USSR was and is worried about any US expansionism. The expansion of NATO to include former Soviet states such as Lithuania has resulted in one Russian news organisation declaring "Generations of Russians feel betrayed by NATO's expansion." [1] The United States’ missile defence proposals have been a continuing sore in relations. In 2007 then President Putin compared the proposed siting of anti-ballistic missile systems in Eastern Europe with the Cuban Missile Crisis, “The situation is quite similar technologically for us. We have withdrawn the remains of bases from Vietnam and Cuba, but such threats are being created near our borders.” [2] It is clear from this that Russia will not be able to cooperate with many things that the United States considered to necessary. Things like NATO expansion and missile defense which the United States considers to be defensive Russia believes are aimed at Russia, either to encircle it or to negate Russia’s main strategic asset; its nuclear arsenal.

[1] Russia Today "Generations of Russians feel betrayed by NATO's expansion" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBbq7O9w4mw&amp;feature=player_embedded

[2] President Putting quoted in Philip Coyle and Victoria Samson, ‘Missile Defence Malfunction: Why the Proposed U.S. Missile Defences in Europe Will Not Work, Ethics &amp; International Affairs, Vol.22, No.1, (Spring 2008), http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/resources/journal/22_1/special_report/001.html#_ftnref7 accessed 6/5/11"
Candidate 8: "Even assuming that US-Russian there are many areas where the US and Russia could cooperate this does not mean that it will happen. Cooperation between the United States and Russia would have been even more vital to the world at the end of World War two when both were superpowers and both had common interests in keeping Germany and Japan down yet this did not lay the ground for cooperation between the two. Instead there was a forty year cold war. Now whole Burns may consider the challenges in Europe, Asia and the Middle East to be common interests Russia may instead choose to cooperate with others such as China and consider US interests to be counter to its own"
Candidate 9: "Russian and US economic interests conflict

Good economic relations are possible only as long as long as The USA believes that Russia is genuinely trying hard to bring its economy into line with the Western world. Both Putin and Medvedev have emphasised that the country’s economic interests will always determine Russian foreign policy. Most particularly foreign policy has been driven by oil and natural gas. This has involved a conflict with the United States over the construction of pipelines. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE) gas pipelines are specifically built to diversify European energy supplies away from dependence on Russia but were only built due to unequivocal US support. [1] Building these pipelines is directly against Russian interests. Russian economic interests include, amongst other things, close trade links with autocratic regimes, particularly in the former USSR, and exporting weapons and nuclear technology to China and Iran. In the example of Iran Russian economic interests have meant that Russia has blocked US efforts to get sanctions. [2] An area of particular conflict with the US is the Russian building of an $800million nuclear reactor at Bushehr. Similarly Russia sold Iran $1.7 billion of arms between 2002 and 2005 including anti-aircraft systems so making any potential attack on Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States much more dangerous. [3] Thus, close economic cooperation between two states whose economies are driven by very different goals is improbable.

[1] ‘Pipeline politics? Russia and the EU’s battle for energy’, EurActive.com, 20/8/09, http://www.euractiv.com/en/energy/pipeline-politics-russia-eu-battle-energy/article-177579 accessed 6/5/11

[2] Tony Karon, ‘Iran Diplomacy: Why Russia and China Won’t Play Ball’, Time, 22/3/06, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1175573,00.html accessed 6/5/11

[3] Mark N. Katz, ‘Russian-Iranian Relations: Functional Dysfunction’, Mideast Monitor, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2009, http://www.mideastmonitor.org/issues/0907/0907_5.htm accessed 6/5/11"

Although the United States would like to get its hands on Russia’s vast economic resources it is not a good place to do business. Russia was accused of being a ‘virtual mafia state’ by US diplomats in a wikileaked cable. [1] According to then US Ambassador to Russia Russia needs to “support the “sanctity” of commercial contracts and agreements; create a “transparent, stable and enforceable” tax and license regime; improve and enforce intellectual property rights protection; act decisively on “pervasive bureaucratic red tape and over-regulation”; bring corruption under control; reverse the “worrying trend” in Russia towards control over the mass media” [2] before it becomes a place that the US can really do lots of business with. The economy may therefore be more of a source of conflict than cooperation as The United States tries to push Russia into being more open and less corrupt against the wishes of the Russian elites.

[1] Luke Harding, WikiLeaks cables condemn Russia as ‘mafia state’, guardian.co.uk 1/12/10, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-cables-russia-mafia-kleptocracy accessed 28/4/11

[2] Alexander Vershbow, “Opportunities in U.S.-Russian Economic Relations,” United States Embassy Moscow, 22 May 2003. http://www.hoover.org/publications/monographs/27207#n32
