AMERICAN PHOBIAS OF RUSSIA AND THE REACTION FROM MOSCOW

The historically developed perception of Russia as fundamentally threatening to the United States’ values and interests strengthened domestic groups in American politics that worked to preserve the Russia-threat image after the end of the Cold War. The anti-Russian lobby in America emerged in the early 20th century and got consolidated during the Cold War. During that time powerful elites with mutually exclusive visions were formed on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States, the Lobby represented a loose coalition of several influential groups, but the most important group included advocates of American hegemony, who fought the Cold War not to contain the Soviet enemy, but to destroy it by all means available. At least some of them were fully aware that their real target was Russia, not the communist regime. The second group included organizations that had been created after World War II with an agenda of protecting freedom and human rights in the world. The third group consisted of Eastern European nationalists, or those who fled from the Soviet system and the Warsaw Pact and now dreamed of destroying the Soviet Union as the ultimate way to gain independence for their people.

The Lobby has viewed Russia’s foreign policy as reflecting the nation’s imperialist instincts, not a legitimate protection of national interests, and viewed NATO enlargement as the key tool for containing the Kremlin’s expansionism. Although post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s represented a sorry state of affairs – an impoverished population, an economy in shambles, and leaders desperate for Western advice and assistance – the Lobby was worried about Russia’s revival. As NATO was expanding to the East, it was Russia that was accused of “imperialist intentions” in the former Soviet region.

Despite the absence of public support for their anti-Russian agenda, the Lobby has managed to achieve some impressive results in influencing the foreign policy-making process in the United States. The Lobby has worked to feed the media the image of Russia as a country with an increasingly consolidated, dangerous regime. The Lobby has also achieved a greater level of ideological cohesion among diverse groups by pushing a tough stand against Russia in joint conferences and public letters . Russia is invariably presented by them as a leading threat. Finally, the Lobby has succeeded in persuading leading members of the American political class to advocate the Russia-threat approach. Some influential members of Congress and policy makers in the White House have been sympathetic to the Lobby’s agenda and prone to the use of the Russophobic rhetoric. When top officials were divided over important issues, the Lobby gained leverage and influenced key decisions, including the expansion of NATO.

The American anti-Russian groups worked directly with potential new NATO members in Eastern Europe and sought to mobilize support for the alliance’s expansion at home. From the Lobby’s perspective, it was a two-way street: the United States was providing Eastern European governments with security guarantees against Russia in exchange for obtaining their full political support of America’s foreign policy. Not infrequently, people who promoted NATO expansion were the same individuals who advocated the expansion of U.S. military hegemony across the world.

 The Reaction from Russia

Many in Russia saw the expansion as a most serious foreign policy challenge, and made their opposition to the process explicit. The expansion was incomprehensible in the light of Russia’s historical commitments, its new relationships with the Western countries, and the West’s own promises not to expand the alliance . Russians felt deceived, as the expansion followed Mikhail Gorbachev’s military withdrawals from Eastern Europe, Russia’s restriction of some profitable arms sales in order to comply with Western rules, and a general commitment to develop a strategic partnership with the West. Overwhelmingly, the Russian foreign policy community perceived the expansion as a violation of the norm of reciprocity and the very spirit of the post-Cold War transformation.  The general public, too, expressed concerns, and those concerns only increased over time.  

To narrow the gap of perception, Russia worked on establishing closer ties with the alliance and negotiated the “Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between Russia and NATO” signed in May 1997. The agreement gave Russia the opportunity to join NATO in establishing a special body, the Permanent Joint Council, to consult about decision-making and joint action. NATO reaffirmed in writing its commitment not to deploy nuclear weapons or substantial new forces on the territory of new member states. However, the Founding Act did not give Russia the veto power it sought, and the subsequent intervention in the Balkans demonstrated it all too painfully. As the alliance kept expanding, Russia’s position vis-à-vis the process was changing from defensive to openly assertive. In the early 2000s, Russia was eager to engage the United States, and president Vladimir Putin chose not to overplay his opposition to NATO expansion. Rather than insisting on the alliance not admitting new members, he moved to organize security relations with Western countries on the common basis of counter-terrorism. After initial support for Serbia, Putin opted to minimize involvement in the affairs of the post-Kosovo Balkans and even withdrew Russia’s peacekeeping mission from Bosnia and Kosovo in August 2003. However, in 2004 Russia’s foreign policy begun to shift away from the West – partly in response to continued expansion of the Western alliance. The Kremlin began to apply economic and political pressures to those in the former Soviet region, who wanted to gain membership in NATO. In June 2006, Russia's Foreign Minister said that Ukraine or Georgia joining NATO could lead to a colossal shift in global geopolitics . The Kremlin was determined to stop the alliance’s expansion, and subsequent developments provided ample reasons to view Russia as a power that is angry and frustrated by what it perceives as unfair treatment by the United States and NATO.

Following the summit of NATO in Bucharest, Russia, again, made its opposition to NATO expansion known, and this time the Kremlin succeeded in preventing the process from going forward. Russia reiterated that it would do everything in its power to prevent expansion of the alliance and the extension of its membership to Georgia . As the West had recognized the independence of Kosovo, the Kremlin planned to exploit the issue of secessionism. While NATO and U.S. officials did not conceal their support for Tbilisi and rarely criticized Georgia’s actions in public, Russia was increasing its economic and military assistance for the secessionist Abkhasia and South Ossetia. Russia also sent signals that it was prepared to work to develop separatist attitudes in Ukraine. The message for Georgia and Ukraine was that their membership in the alliance may come only at the expense of territorial integrity. Russia’s decision to go to war with Georgia over South Ossetia and the Kremlin’s subsequent recognition of Abkhasia and South Ossetia’s independence fulfilled Russia’s promises and ended the debate on the third wave of NATO expansion.