THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
official site

Question: Sergey Alexeyevich, do you agree with the opinion that the election of an Afro-American as US President is evidence of the cardinal change of public consciousness in the United States, fraught with serious changes in the foreign policy course of Washington?

Sergey Ryabkov: By and large American society is sufficiently conservative. If you look at the life of so-called single-storey America, which largely constitutes America after all, then its routine in all respects (in the lifestyle, in the repetitiveness of some events at the everyday level, at the level of habits) has changed little in many years. For all the mobility of American society and American citizens, not only traveling about the world, but also repeatedly changing their places of employment, study and residence, for all this seeming inconstancy there are in their existence some immutable foundations, at times stronger than in Old Europe.

At the same time as the society evolves, the perception of people with different skin color also changes. The country is now different in ethnic composition: the number of the indigenous white population, with a fundamentalist commitment to forebears’ stereotypes regarding candidates for the state’s top governing posts, keeps decreasing. This is also due, in part, to the fact that it sees the success of members of other ethnic groups, moreover united by the perception that is common to all American society, of the country, of its role in the world and of its potentialities and by a desire to work for the promotion of the so-called American model, the American dream. Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice have represented the Afro-Americans in the administration of George Bush; they in a certain sense constitute the face of America in the world. The boundaries of the possible and permissible in US internal politics are also moving apart. This is an objective, long process and not a qualitative leap forward resulting from an unexpected cardinal rethinking of the recent experience. I would not presume to forecast what and when is possible or impossible in American politics. Probably the moment may come when at the top governing posts in the US people will appear who 10-15, let alone 50 years ago would never have forced their way to such heights for racial, gender or other reasons.

Question: What can be expected from the new US administration in Russian-American relations?

Sergey Ryabkov: I would like to hope that the coming of the new President and the new team will be marked by drawing the line at the period of jolts and upheavals intrinsic to our relations, especially in the recent period. But I have no particular expectations that this will occur without considerable efforts on both sides. For, the American state machine is a well-oiled, inertia mechanism developing foreign policy material in a preset mode. At each change of administration a “washing-out” of the upper layer of the American state apparatus occurs. Top cadres are replaced totally, and new appointees undergo a Senate confirmation process. Based on affiliation to the party that has won the elections, the leaderships of all major power structures are formed, while at the same time leaving a huge cadre array in lower positions that ensures the senior officials’ work and, accordingly, the continuity so needed in this situation. Each new administration can’t start everything “from a clean slate,” after all. In the sphere of our bilateral relations, too, we are sure to encounter a significant continuity.

Question: This also concerns the Sochi Declaration, approved in April by Presidents George Bush and Vladimir Putin, and then also confirmed by President Dmitry Medvedev?

Sergey Ryabkov: Yes, sure. And we lay emphasis upon this. The Sochi Declaration was conceived as a strategic framework for relations, not limited to Bush’s tenure. It is important that Presidents Putin and Bush – one already a former president and the other will soon become such – were able to formulate their positive legacy as a program for successors. The Russian side intends to continue work precisely in the Sochi vein.

Question: Is such a wish discernible on the American side?

Sergey Ryabkov: I have not yet had an opportunity to directly test people from Obama’s entourage to this end. But, of course, in dialogue with the new team we shall raise this among the first issues. Judging from the signals we hear, and heard repeatedly from the Obama campaign staff during the election campaign, consonance exists with regard to themes and subjects. I think that the Democratic winner and his people are not alien to the idea of developing constructive interaction with Russia on strategic stability, on the settlement of crises in different parts of the world and in the fields of counterterrorism, WMD nonproliferation, new challenges in world finances and so on. This agenda contains no farfetched or artificial subjects. And that not on a single one of the issues listed do we feel a striving on the part of representatives of the President-elect to start with the negation of what has been achieved, is already not a bad sign.

Question: What can be expected from the Obama administration in respect of the START-1 Treaty, set to expire in 2009?

Sergey Ryabkov: The President-elect and his people talked about a future strategic arms control regime during the election campaign. And we very much hope for the materialization of the signals in favor of further advance towards reliably controlled reduction in strategic offensive arms – a reduction, moreover, formalized through legally binding agreements, through a new treaty that must come to take the place of START-1. But we do not abandon relevant dialogue efforts with the outgoing administration either. We are intensively studying the latest US proposals encompassing reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms as well as transparency at US missile defense facilities in Europe, on the setting up of which the outgoing administration still insists. Before the end of the year, evidently, another round of full-scale dialogue with the current administration will be held in the framework of the respective group led on the American side by Under Secretary of State John Rood, and on the Russian side by me.

Question: President Dmitry Medvedev’s Address to the Federal Assembly on November 5 has evoked a mixed reaction in the West along with talk about a toughening of Russia’s policy toward the United States…

Sergey Ryabkov: I do not share the opinion that a toughening has occurred. The issues touched on in the foreign policy section of President Medvedev’s Address, and the philosophy of this section are well known to our US partners, and then to the international community as well. The public exposition of this line dates from President Putin’s Munich speech. But even before that, we had expounded its main points to our partners behind closed doors for a long period of time. However, because the usual diplomatic and political process did not yield the sought-after results, we had to explain ourselves publicly on many issues.

Question: In the same foreign policy section President Medvedev set the task of strengthening our defense capability. The reaction came thick and fast, with accusations that Russia was trying to provoke an arms race…

Sergey Ryabkov: If you take the specific theme of likely retaliatory measures to the deployment of the facilities of a third US GMD site in Europe, then both the content and tonality of President Medvedev’s remarks should leave no doubt that it is about retaliatory measures precisely. Because the deployment of our systems is not predetermined as long as the third site facilities are not physically present in Poland and the Czech Republic. The measures will be adopted if these facilities are set up. The key word here is “if.”

Question: Can any changes in the US European policy be expected under Obama?

Sergey Ryabkov: We have heard of the disposition of Obama and his people to solidify allied relations with Europe, in their terminology – “trans-Atlantic solidarity and unity.” As before, this is one of the foundations of the western community and hence it would be naïve to raise the question of NATO dissolution or of any serious tectonic shift which would move Europe in the broad sense and America apart; would put them on different sides in approach to the problems of modern times. Of course, decades pass, generations change and the West Europeans no longer have such a poignant feeling of gratitude to the United States as they did in the 40 to 60s for its contribution to the victory over Hitlerite fascism and the mobilization by it of this part of the continent on a platform of upholding and advancing certain “common values,” primarily through NATO. But even so the value factor and the shared understanding that “there is no alternative” to their sociopolitical and economic model, persist for a considerable part of the western community. I think that this will lie at the base of “trans-Atlantic unity and solidarity” for many years to come.

In the spirit of the foreign policy traditions of the Democratic Party, the Obama administration will also lay greater emphasis on multilateral institutions, on the use of the toolbox that is available in the form of a structured dialogue of the United States with the European Union, in the form of the same NATO, in the form of the coordination of US-EU positions in the UN, OSCE, and so on. During Bush’s presidency different models of alternative interest coalitions, when groups of countries would tackle problems in ad-hoc mode, were tried to a greater extent. Whereas under Obama, I think, there will be less of this and more of the traditional American diplomatic practice of energetically pushing their assumptions through existing bilateral and multilateral formats.

Question: What reaction of the Obama administration is being predicted to President Medvedev’s initiative concerning a European Security Treaty?

Sergey Ryabkov: This has not yet been discussed straightforwardly and thoroughly. We would like the reaction to be adequate to the seriousness of the questions which, strictly speaking, gave rise to the initiative of Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev. The US ought to realize that it is collective approaches based on equality and consideration of mutual interests that are needed.

Question: At his first news conference, Obama already put lifting the US economy out of the crisis into the category of top priorities. Do you expect an expansion of the scope of Russian-American cooperation in the economic sphere?

Sergey Ryabkov: It cannot fail to expand. Life simply compels everyone to join the solution to these problems. The outcomes of the Washington Summit on Financial Crisis have revealed that the approaches of countries and groups of countries are not entirely consonant with regard to what is now optimal in terms of influence on the world economy and finances for the purpose of their stabilization. We presume that great transparency is needed along with enhanced standards, primarily in the sphere of circulation of speculative capital. The situation may not continue where financial instruments are not backed by a real economic base. And this applies not only to hypothecations and rehypothecations of mortgage debts that eventually led to the collapse of the entire system of mortgage lending in the US and to the enormous losses of banks and mortgage agencies. But soap bubbles also began to appear in the real sector. After all, oil futures hedging in 7-8 stages under a single real contract is merely trading in air and building pyramids before which the Mavrodi experiment pales. Taking into account the now actually complete globalization of all financial markets and the possibilities to operate with financial flows on the scale of the world, upheavals of this kind are inadmissible for the world system. It should not be so that a bank in Chita, Hangzhou or Melbourne has to pay for the failure of some outfits like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (US mortgage giants whose share tumble marked the beginning of the financial crisis – Ed.) to do their job. A theme gaining importance is the multiplication of reserve currencies and creation of regional stabilization financial structures which could help keep the situation from being completely shaken loose in case of such financial upheavals. It is about redistributing risks between several serious reserve currencies, including our ruble, and creating a resource enabling pumping necessary liquidity into the system, bypassing one or two currently dominant currencies. I think this is an inevitable process in respect of which a consensus will form despite objections from those who have got used to living under the old system and, as they say, clipping coupons in the process.

Returning to the philosophy of the foreign policy section in the Address of President Medvedev, recall that it argues exactly along the lines that multipolarity or polycentricity as a characteristic feature of the current world order is now beginning to show itself not only in classic spheres (foreign policy, military affairs), but is already knocking on the door of the economic and financial realm as well. It is becoming an imperative of the times: otherwise the world economy will not hold out. And the G20 Washington Summit on November 15 is not a one-off event, but only the beginning of the process.

Question: The complicated 2008 leap year for Russian-American relations is drawing to an end. What is your vision of 2009?

Sergey Ryabkov: Owing to the circumstances in which we have found ourselves, it is bound to be a difficult year. Of course, the economic situation will keep us down. I do not expect an easy beginning of the process on a European Security Treaty. We have made definite progress on SOA and MD: the sides have fairly deeply, substantively and professionally elaborated and stated their positions to each other. But substantial differences have to be overcome on key issues, on problems of substance. Serious difficulties with be associated with the divergent positions on many regional crises and conflicts. But there are also situations where cooperation is very effective. There is good interaction on Nagorno Karabakh. The Middle East is altogether one of the examples of effective Russian-US cooperation. But now the situation surrounding South Ossetia and Abkhazia has shown that the way of thinking among US politicians and diplomats is not adapted to an adequate perception of approaches that in some respects break the coordinate system deeply entrenched in the American establishment. To live in a world of one’s own perceptions about everything is more habitual and comfortable for them. We, however, will continue to convey the truth to them and to explain where they are wrong. It’s a question how far we’ll succeed. Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev not fortuitously told the Federal Assembly without any diplomatic evasions that the world is stuck in a quagmire of double standards. The sooner the international community starts to get rid of them, the healthier our relations with the US will be.