Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs

– Sergey Alexeyevich, do you agree with the opinion that the election of an African-American as President of the United States is evidence of a dramatic change in public consciousness in the United States, fraught with serious changes in foreign policy?

– By and large American society is rather conservative. If you look at the life of the so-called single-story America, then its routine in all respects (in the lifestyle, in the repetitiveness of some events on the everyday level) has changed little in many years. For all the mobility of American society and American citizens – manifested not only in traveling around the world, but also in repeatedly changing places of employment, study, and residence – for all this seeming inconstancy, there are clear immutable foundations in the lives of people in the U.S., at times stronger than in Old Europe.

At the same time, as society evolves, its perception of people with different skin color also changes. The country is now different in ethnic composition: the number of white people with a fundamentalist commitment to their forebears’ stereotypes regarding candidates for the state’s top government posts keeps decreasing. This is also due in part to the fact that the people see the success of members of other ethnic groups. They are united by a desire to work for the promotion of the so-called American model, the American dream. Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice have represented African-Americans in the administration of George Bush; they, in a certain sense, constitute the face of America in the world. The boundaries of what is possible in U.S. internal politics are also shifting. This is a gradual process and not a qualitative leap forward resulting from a spontaneous reassessment of recent experience. I would not try to forecast what is possible or impossible in American politics. Probably, the moment may come when at the top government posts in the U.S. there will be people who 10 to 15 years ago, let alone 50 years ago would never have forced their way to such heights for racial, gender, or other reasons.

– What can be expected from the new U.S. administration for Russian-American relations?

– I would hope that the coming of the new President and the new team will be marked by drawing a line after a period of difficulties in our relations, especially in recent times. Still, I have no particular expectations that this will happen without considerable effort on both sides. The American state machine is a well-oiled inertia mechanism that will not be redirected all of the sudden.

At each change of administration a “washing-out” of the upper layer of the American state apparatus occurs. Top leadership positions are completely replaced, and new appointees undergo a Senate confirmation process. A huge bureaucracy that occupies a lower position in the government remains ensuring the senior officials’ work and continuity. 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 continuity.

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

– Sure. We place emphasis upon this. The Sochi Declaration was conceived as a strategic framework for relations, not limited to George Bush’s tenure. It is important that Presidents Putin and Bush were able to formulate a positive legacy as a program for successors. The Russian side intends to continue the work precisely in the Sochi vein.

– Is the intention the same on the American side?

– I have not yet had an opportunity to address this issue directly with the people in Obama’s team. Of course, we shall raise this topic among our first issues when talking with the new team. Judging from the signals we hear and heard repeatedly from the Obama campaign staff during elections we believe that our differences can be reconciled.

 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, as well as in the fields of counterterrorism, WMD nonproliferation, new challenges in the global economy, and so on. This agenda contains no farfetched or artificial subjects.

– What can be expected from the Obama administration with respect to the START-1 Treaty set to expire in 2009?

– The President-elect and his people talked about a future strategic arms control regime during the election campaign. We hope very much that the controlled reduction in strategic offensive arms will be advanced – a reduction formalized through legally binding agreements, through a new treaty that must come to take the place of START-1. We do not abandon our efforts with the outgoing administration either. We are intensively studying the latest U.S. proposals encompassing reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms, as well as transparency at U.S. missile-defense facilities in Europe. The Bush administration still insists on setting up these installations.

– President Dmitry Medvedev’s Address to the Federal Assembly on November 5, 2008, has evoked a mixed reaction in the West along with talk about a toughening of Russia’s policy toward the United States…

– 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 behind his ideas are well-known to our U.S. partners and to the international community as well. The public exposition of this idea dates to President Putin’s Munich speech. 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.

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

–  If you take the specific issue of likely retaliatory measures to the deployment of facilities of a third U.S. GMD site in Europe, then both the content and tonality of President Medvedev’s remarks should leave no doubt that it is precisely about such measures. 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.”

– Can any changes in the U.S.-European policy be expected under Obama?

– We have heard of the disposition of Obama to solidify allied relations with Europe – “trans-Atlantic solidarity and unity.” As before, this is one of the foundations of Western states, and, hence, it would be naive to raise the question of NATO dissolution or of any serious tectonic shift that would move Europe and the America apart. Of course, decades pass, generations change and the Western Europeans no longer have such a poignant feeling of gratitude to the United States as they did in the 1940s and 1960s for its contribution to the victory over Hitlerite fascism. 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 place 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, whether in the form of NATO, the coordination of U.S.-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 an ad-hoc mode, were used to a greater extent. Under Obama, I think, there will be less of this and more of the traditional American diplomatic practice of promoting U.S. positions through existing bilateral and multilateral forums.

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

– This has not yet been discussed straightforwardly and thoroughly. We would like the reaction to be adequate in relation to the seriousness of the questions, which, strictly speaking, gave rise to the initiative of Dmitry Medvedev. The U.S. ought to realize that what is needed is a collective approach based on equality and consideration of mutual interests.

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

– Life compels everyone to join together in finding a solution to these economic problems. The outcomes of the Washington Summit on the 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 stabilizing the world’s economy. We presume that greater transparency is needed along with enhanced standards, primarily in the sphere of circulation of speculative capital. Instances where financial instruments are not backed by any tangible assets should not occur. This applies not only to the mortgage financing that eventually led to the collapse of the entire system in the U.S. and to the enormous losses of banks and lending institutions. Soap bubbles also began to appear in the industrial sector.

After all, oil futures hedging in 7-8 stages under a single real contract is merely trading in air. Taking into account the globalization of all financial markets and the possibilities to operate with financial flows on the scale of the entire world, we should not allow this to occur. It should not be so that a bank in Chita, Hangzhou, or Melbourne has to pay for the failure of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to do their job. A theme gaining importance is the diversification of reserve currencies and the creation of regional stabilization financial structures that could help keep the situation from being completely shaken loose in case of such financial upheavals. It is about redistributing risks between several reserve currencies, including our rouble and creating a resource enabling pumping the necessary liquidity into the system, bypassing one or two currently dominant currencies. I think this is an inevitable process with respect to which a consensus will form despite objections from those who have gotten 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 a sign of the times: otherwise the world economy will not hold out. The G20 Washington Summit on November 15 is not a one-off event. It is only the beginning of a new process.

– The complicated 2008 leap year for Russian-American relations has ended. What is your vision of 2009?

– 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 the 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. Substantial differences have to be overcome on key issues, on problems of substance. Serious difficulties can be associated with diverging 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-American cooperation.

Now the situation surrounding South Ossetia and Abkhazia has shown that the way of thinking among U.S. politicians and diplomats is not adapted to an adequate perception of approaches that in some respects break the system deeply entrenched in the American establishment. To live in a world of one’s own perceptions about everything is more comfortable for them. We will continue to convey the truth and explain where they are wrong. How far we’ll succeed is the question. It was not fortuitous that Dmitry Medvedev 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 these habbits, the healthier our relations with the U.S. will be.