Dear CCI Friends,
America’s Ambassador to Russia is leaving his post. His outgoing message questions America’s foreign policy toward Russia. This comes as a spate of American and European VIP’s have begun speaking out about the U.S.’s demonization of Putin and Russia, and our refusal to use diplomacy and negotiation. At the same time, the U.S. is resorting to sanctions that not only don’t work, but have made Russia more resilient and have taken a toll on our European allies (and their relationships with us). This has strained the relationship between the U.S. and the EU. Thankfully Ambassador Huntsman wasted no time letting his points of view be known.
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
America Needs Dialogue With Moscow
Sanctions have their place, but some are undermining trust without serving their purpose.
By Jon Huntsman
October 7, 2019
Mr. Huntsman served as Ambassador to Singapore (1992-93), Governor of Utah (2005-09), Ambassador to China (2009-11) and Ambassador to Russia (2017-19).
When I served as U.S. ambassador to Russia, the embassy in Moscow held a regular safety exercise called the “duck and cover drill.” The drill is designed to save lives in the event of an attack, and our team practiced it so often that even embassy children could recite the announcement by heart. Through repetition, our reaction to the jarring siren became an ordinary part of the job.
Having now completed my tenure in Moscow, it strikes me that the “duck and cover drill” is a fitting metaphor for the defensive posture we as a country have taken in the U.S.-Russia relationship. We have practiced the same approach toward Russia so long that it has now become reflexive and detrimental to our long-term interests.
For starters, let’s dispel any lingering illusions about President Vladimir Putin and the layers of sanctions Russia is now under. The U.S., acting alone, won’t succeed in changing his behavior or that of the Russian government. Only the Russian people are capable of this. In fact, demonizing the U.S. and the West with conspiratorial claims of Russophobia-inspired sanctions is good politics for Mr. Putin. His real concerns lie elsewhere. Those concerns are China (yes, China), internal and external threats from radical Islam, and Russia’s own citizens, who are increasingly expressing their frustration through well-organized and large street protests.
It’s true that Mr. Putin runs the country with unrivaled strength. But his time will pass. We need to do less obsessing about Mr. Putin and more thinking about the institutions and generations that will outlast him. Rather than cutting ourselves off from Russia, which is the inescapable effect of all these sanctions, we need to cultivate constructive relationships with those who will shape Russia’s post-Putin period. The U.S. was caught off guard by Mr. Putin’s unexpected rise to power after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We can’t afford to let that happen again.
We need more, not less, dialogue with Russia. But first, we need to allow space for discussion about Russia among ourselves. On both sides of the aisle, a reflexive fear of being seen as Putin apologists has calcified our ability to think creatively about our relations with Russia. As security experts know, fear often has a paralyzing effect. If we allow fear to dictate our approach, we may never find or even consider policies that more effectively advance our national interests, improve the bilateral relationship and make the world safer.
In the U.S., sanctions have become our go-to foreign policy tool to admonish misbehavior. We have placed sanctions on Russia for a host of actions––its bad behavior toward its neighbors, its meddling in our elections, its role in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England, and so on. It’s easy to initiate sanctions, but it has become politically perilous to discuss removing them. By last count, there are almost 850 Russian individuals and entities that have been designated under various sanctions authorities with little or no analysis measuring their efficacy.
Many of those sanctions may be having the desired effect and should be maintained. But not all. It’s time for an honest discussion about whether sanctions are achieving their aims. Are they raising the cost of doing business for certain Kremlin insiders? Absolutely. But are they also effectively influencing the Kremlin’s policies at home and abroad? Let’s find out.
Blithely implementing sanctions without making sure they fit into a larger strategy of engagement costs us the ability to shape outcomes. Russians have accepted that U.S. sanctions will probably remain in place for the long term, inevitably distorting the market as Russians create alternative supply chains that aren’t always conducive to American interests. My embassy colleagues and I heard the same refrain over and over––that in some cases U.S. sanctions are having the opposite of their intended effect, forcing capital back to Russia, buoying Russian domestic sectors and disadvantaging U.S. businesses seeking to gain a strategic market foothold.
It’s time to stop ducking and covering when it comes to the U.S.-Russian relationship. Targeted sanctions smartly applied serve a purpose, but ultimately it is in our national interest to want more than to see some Russian officials squirm. Our goal should be a Russia that is both a better partner and a more responsible global citizen. The U.S.-Russia relationship will continue to be what it has always been-by turns collaborative, competitive and adversarial. Smart diplomacy thus far has managed to keep us from war, but I worry the current estrangement will limit our options for strategic engagement in the years ahead.
Trust doesn’t come easily in this relationship and must be earned over time. But we have to start somewhere.