Unfinished Business in Russia

Stratfor.com
Wednesday, August 10, 2005

By Peter Zeihan

It should come as no surprise that the most dynamic part of U.S. foreign
policy relates to Russia. Condoleezza Rice, appointed as Secretary of
State at the beginning of the year, began her government work during the
end of the Cold War, when she served as former President George H. W.
Bush’s Soviet expert at the National Security Council. Now that she is
in the big chair at Foggy Bottom, she has surrounded herself with
members of the same team from her previous stint in government service.
Of particular note are former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick,
former U.S. ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns, and Robert Joseph, former
special assistant to the president and senior director for proliferation
strategy, counterproliferation and homeland defense with the National
Security Council (NSC) — a wordy way of saying that he was really
important. The three now serve essentially as Rice’s No. 2, 3 and 4 at
State.

As we stated when Rice was appointed in January, the State Department is
now “staffed by a team that helped knock the Soviet Union off its
superpower perch. Russia can look forward to four years of a State
Department with the resources and the will to ratchet back Moscow’s
influence throughout the Baltics, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central
Asia and even its western Slavic flank. The confrontation over Ukraine
was just the beginning.”

Personnel changes have not been limited to the top tier. Vershbow’s
replacement as ambassador — William Burns — fits the mold set by Rice
and her top team. He served at the U.S. embassy in Moscow as
minister-counselor for political affairs during the 1980s, a position
and time that would tend to shape one’s political views. He is now
coming back to Moscow after several years of knocking Israeli and
Palestinian heads together.

In the case of Russia, however, the transformation is much deeper than
“just” a fresh ambassador, secretary of state and top management team.
The rank and file of the entire Russia desk at the State Department is
being overhauled. Considering that most State Department personnel swap
out positions every two to three years to avoid the dangers of going
native, a certain amount of turnover is expected, but the top-to-bottom
housecleaning in the case of the Russia team appears to be far more
thorough than any scheduled rotation.

The big shift began — and the direction of U.S. policy was set — at
the V-E Day celebrations in Moscow in May. During that trip, the Bush
team bracketed a whirlwind tour past a parade stand in Moscow between
deep, long and extremely friendly visits to Latvia and Georgia. The
message was clear: the United States is now more concerned with the
comings, goings and concerns of Vaira Vike-Freiberga and Mikhail
Saakashvili — the Latvian and Georgian presidents — than it is with
the Russians, and this message was sent on the Russians’ national day.

In the Russian mind, it is all snapping into place: color “revolutions”
in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine; NATO and EU expansion right up to
the Russian border; the commencement of pumping on the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline; and now a thorough personnel shift in
the State Department that is stocking the top ranks with people who were
present at — and played a role in — the Soviet defeat. The Kremlin’s
belief is that the West, led by the United States, is committing to a
full-court press into Russia’s geopolitical space in an attempt to
permanently remove Russia as a threat.