George H.W. Bush, Russia, and the Road not Taken
The country mourned the passing of President George H.W. Bush this week.
He passed away on Nov. 30. Much was written about his career as President (1989-1993), Vice-President (1981-1989), Central Intelligence Agency Director, Ambassador to the United Nations, Ambassador to China, and member of the United States House of Representatives. However, hardly anything has been written on his policy toward Russia (in its Soviet and Post-Soviet) forms and how an abandonment of that policy led to another Cold War and unnecessary arms races.
Bush served as President when Soviet Russia left Eastern Europe (1989) and Communist governments in those countries quickly collapsed. President Bush, and his Secretary of State James Baker, assured Soviet Leader Mikael Gorbachev at the time that the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance wouldn’t be extended to Russia’s borders. When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, Bush and Baker extended that assurance to then Russian Federation Leader Boris Yeltsin. Cooperating with other countries to achieve goals wasn’t out of character for President Bush, as he held an internationalist mindset. The former President was a supporter of the U.N. system – his resume included a stint as U.N. Ambassador under President Richard Nixon – and he expounded on a vision of international cooperation in a post-Cold War world where norms would be set and enforced by major powers. He called this idea “the new world order.” However, it must be noted that Bush did order military interventions into Iraq and Panama.
Bush’s promise to Russia would be broken and the world would pay. The administration of Bill Clinton extended the N.A.T.O. alliance into Eastern Europe and excluded Russia from membership in 1998. Former State Department employee George Kennan expressed dismay at the time
“I think this is the beginning of a new Cold War,” Kennan said in 1998 in an interview with journalist Thomas L. Friedman. “I think the Russians will act quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake.”
Kennan’s words became prophetic. As writer Michael Lind points out in his wonderful story “The New Cold War Wasn’t Inevitable,” the attempt of the U.S. and its allies to draw Georgia into its orbit in 2008 ignited the Russo-Georgia war. A similar attempt to bring Ukraine into the N.A.T.O. and the European Union in 2014 provoked Russia’s invasion of Crimea. Russia engaged in further military action in Syria.
Like the first Cold War, the second Cold War features alliances. The U.S. has maintained the N.A.T.O. alliance. In Asia, the U.S. has continued its alliance with Japan and South Korea in an attempt to contain China; a country that left the Russian orbit in the 1970’s for the American orbit but was forced out of the American orbit after the first Cold War when the U.S. continued to station troops in South Korea and Japan in the years after the fall of Soviet Russia’s empire. This action gave China the idea that the U.S. intended for their country to be contained, – just like in the early years of the first Cold War. To contain China’s military actions, the U.S. belongs to the Quadrilateral Security Dialog along with allies like Australia, Japan, and India.
The two Eurasian powers – China and Russia – belong to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The SCO includes Iran, India, Pakistan, and Turkey. China and Russia are building relationships with allies to project power away from their homelands. Current arms races are a further sign that we are in another Cold War, as Russia is building its nuclear arsenal and China has a deterrent arsenal. According to the U.S., Russia is violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear forces treaty. Instead of finding a way to work with our allies to bring them back in compliance, some in Washington feel that INF ties the hands of the military.
While arms races are breaking out and straining the budgets of the governments of all countries involved, the U.S. rots internally with crumbling infrastructure, millions who are indentured servants due to student loan debt, a lack basic healthcare for millions, and a workforce which is unable to climb up the ladder on their meager incomes. It would be wise if U.S. leaders would seek something like President Nixon’s detente with Soviet Russia with the world’s other power blocks – Russia and China.
If all of the power blocks of the world cooperated, we could ease the arms races, take on space militarization, and fight the greenhouse effect. The security of the whole planet would be enhanced in a new era of détente – an internationalist conception of security that George H.W. Bush would be proud of!
