Blair Ruble, the Director of the Kennan Institute, covering Russia and the surrounding states, at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International scholars and the Chair of the Comparative Urban Studies Project: “Ideology is a lens through which we all act; I don’t think there is any doubt about that. We can say that ideology might not matter, but certainly in terms of Russia and the United States we face very critical and practical issues right now. We don’t have the luxury of putting on ideological blinders and having them lead us through.”

Question: After eight years of Bush and Putin, the Obama administration is talking about resetting the relationship with Russia. Can you comment on the U.S.-Russian relationship over the last eight years?

Ruble:  It’s a very contradictory situation because clearly the mood became increasingly sour. There was a lot of frustration which had been building up and then exploded following the events in Georgia. It’s easy to see a deterioration of a relationship, but there were many areas where the relationship between the two countries, not the two governments, actually improved. In business, arts and culture there was much more interaction between the two countries, so there is a real contradiction between the tone which is harshly negative and became increasingly negative in both countries and the reality, which is underneath all of that, there was a real sense of pragmatic engagement where it was advantageous to both sides. So it’s a very complicated legacy, much more complicated than the caricature we have of it.

Question: How will the change in leadership in both Russia and the United States effect the future of Russia-U.S. relations?

Ruble: First, if the problem in the relationship was one of leadership at the end of the Putin and Bush years, the new leaders can set a new tone. Second, the financial crisis has changed everything. In different ways both economies are in trouble and both governments are under a lot of pressure to deal with problems that are bigger than they can handle. So that creates an environment in which both sides are much more prone to cooperation than was the case in August.

The situation may have changed but it doesn’t necessarily mean the relationship will change unless the leaders intervene, so one has to capitalize on this opportunity. Having said that, if my original assessment was right and the relationship isn’t as bad as it seems, then it’s a much easier task for the leaders on both sides to make it work. Arms control is clearly in both sides’ interest and that’s why they are starting there. So leadership matters, and I think both leaders have more cards than Bush and Putin had by the end of their time in office.

Question: Does the United States need Russia more than Russia needs the United States, or is it the opposite?

Ruble: I think we both need each other. There is not enough financial capital, not just money but in the broad sense, for the United States to get out of this hole on its own. Russia on the other hand desperately needs outsiders in part because it needs somebody to buy their raw materials on which prices are falling. There were a couple of dirty secrets about the Russian and American views of the world at the beginning of last year. The dirty secret about Russia is that it needed costumers, investment and viable economic relations with the outside world. The dirty secret about the United States is that we don’t have the resources to dominate the world the way in which the Bush strategy assumed. So we actually needed one another a year ago but we couldn’t see it. So I think the reality of the economic complications in both countries really forced people to see what was actually there before.

Question: It appears that cooperation on arms control is going to be the first step in U.S.-Russian re-engagement. In what other spheres can the United States and Russia work together?

Ruble: There are a number of important global issues. A new global financial order is probably at the top of the list right now; climate change, a number of health issues, environmental challenges and migration. Both Russia and the United States are at the very top of the list of countries with foreign-born residents. How do we deal with that? On one hand, the United States has a long track record that Russia doesn’t have, on the other hand there are rising anti-immigrant feelings everywhere. Another area is the international narcotics trade. I suspect that there probably will be grounds for cooperation on Afghanistan and even Iran. So I think that there is a very long list of potential areas for cooperation.

Nevertheless, there are two major stumbling blocks. First, there are different views on Russia’s neighbors between Washington and Moscow, as well as human rights. On both of these questions we are just in very different places and it’s hard to know how there can be a constructive dialogue about either of these issues. On the global issues, however, I think that there is a lot of room for cooperation.

There are 3 billion people in the world who live on 2 dollars a day or less. The world is now primarily urban. Somewhere around 1 billion to 2 billion people live in urban slums. None of those problems are going to be solved by anybody acting on their own. So that’s another area where we can cooperate that people don’t really think about.        

Question: Are the stumbling blocks in U.S.-Russian relations the legacy of the Cold War?

Ruble: I think it’s not a legacy of the Cold War in a sense that I don’t see Russia as a revolutionary power. The Soviet Union had a revolutionary ideology, you can argue about how revolutionary it actually was but they were involved in Cuba, Central America, so it was more about global competition with the United States and the ideological agenda. Both of which no longer exist. I think what is going on is that there has been great frustration in Moscow with the United States, and there is an emotional desire to do the opposite of whatever the United States says is in our interest, just to show that they can do it. What are the benefits to military operations in Venezuela? The reality is that it’s not going to change anything in Ukraine, Georgia or in the United States. The only thing the flights over the North Pole have done is antagonize the Canadians. It got the Canadians to actually begin to think that maybe they need to build-up their military. It’s the kind of primitive and brutish behavior that doesn’t help make friends in an international economic environment when Russia needs them. I don’t think it brings the world closer to the brink of a serious confrontation, but what it does is undermine Russia’s capacity to find a respected place in an international order.

With regard to American involvement with Ukraine, Georgia and the neighboring states, my own view on this is that these are independent sovereign countries that have the right to decide where they want to be. That is the problem I have with the Russian position, because I don’t think psychologically Russia has accepted that. In my mind, the United States has made a few foolish policy choices in relation to both Georgia and Ukraine. I think we have backed political leaders who haven’t demonstrated a sustained capacity to live up to the ideals we thought they could live up to. Ultimately, all of these decisions are decisions of the Ukrainian and Georgian people. If the Ukrainian people decide that they want to be in the EU and NATO, and do all of the things that they have to do for membership, then they should have the right to apply. I believe that we are a long way from the Ukrainian people deciding that’s what they want to do, let alone being able to do it and in the case of Georgia probably even further. So these are independent sovereign states and Moscow has to come to terms with it. We probably have not helped anybody in some of our behavior, more so in Georgia than in Ukraine. The bottom line is that we should be supporting institutions instead of individual politicians. 

Question: What is your opinion about today’s ideological landscape in Russia?

Ruble: Ideology is a lens through which we all act; I don’t think there is any doubt about that. We can say that ideology might not matter, but certainly in terms of Russia and the United States we face very critical and practical issues right now. We don’t have the luxury of putting on ideological blinders and having them lead us through. What one sees with both Medvedev and Obama is recognition of that, they both talk in very pragmatic terms. Now, there are other political leaders in both countries that don’t, but I think the tone is set at the top. There is more emphasis on resolving the problems in the relationship, much more than we saw under Putin and Bush.

Question: Will there be any major changes following this economic crisis and if so, what kind of changes?

Ruble: I don’t want to sound naïve about this, because there are many obstacles between where we are today and what I think could happen. I think the fact that Obama has stressed responsibility both internally and externally and he has come back time and time again to how we have to help one another. I think what that represents is a dismantling of a free market consensus that many global elites bought in to. In that sense, we could create an environment in which there is more cooperation. On the surface that sounds as if it’s more in line with Russian view of the world. However, I have to say that if you actually look at Russian behavior, that is the behavior of Russian economic and political leaders, the behavior has been every bit as selfish as people anywhere else. So it requires a change in Russian behavior too, but I think that the economic crisis is forcing people to think about themselves within the context of others in the world. So perhaps that will open a door to an era in which there will be much more cooperation.

Basically, the Cheney and Bush view of the world was that we are the biggest dog on the block, we can eat out of the dog bowl all we want, if you don’t like it, we will push you away. That’s not an option for the United States anymore; it’s not an option for anybody. So in that sense, depending of course on how it all ends, it could create a very different international environment. The negative side of this is, if things continue to get worse, then you get people scrambling to protect what they have, and you get protectionism and nasty forms of nationalism, and we could all end up in a pretty horrible place, but hopefully that will not happen.

Question: In recent years there have been numerous forecasts about the end of American hegemony, the end to the unipolar world and America as a great power. What is your opinion on this?  

Ruble: I think those are two different things, and when I hear Russians talk about this I think they are conflating a number of different things. If you go back to what I said about the Bush administration and its view of the world, clearly that’s not the case. We don’t have the resources to do everything we want to do in the world on our own without cooperating with anyone else, we have now proven that. That doesn’t mean, however, that the U.S. is over as a great power. It means that the U.S. has to mobilize the resources we have in our interests in a different way that is much more cooperative with others in the international system. I think if you turn back the clock to last summer, there were many Russians who were saying, well we will just forget about the dollar. That turned out to be just a myth, the dollar in some ways is in a stronger position now that it was six month ago. The United States is still the largest economy in the world. It has by far and away a military edge over everyone else, sometimes we may not be smart enough to use the military force effectively, but that is a different question. There is no one anywhere near where the American military is in just sheer technological superiority. Yes, the age of American hegemony is over, but that doesn’t mean that the United States is in the dustbin of history, and I think there are far too many people in Moscow who have made that extra leap and I think it’s dangerous.

Question: What is your opinion on the rise of Asia?

Ruble: I think that we are living in a truly historical moment. A millennium of European domination has almost come to an end. The Pacific is where the action is, we see it in this economic crisis. If the Great Depression revealed that the power of capital had moved from London to New York, this economic crisis is revealing that the future of the global economy and the greatest concentration of wealth are in Asia, or certainly the Pacific basin. This is a profound historical moment and I think we all need to adjust to it. For the United States quite frankly it is a little easier than it is for Russia. Our economy is already tied to China and India. That doesn’t mean there won’t be competition, but looking at the current economic crisis, essentially the American economy has been saved in part by the Chinese. I think when Russians talk about playing the China card they actually need to take a look at what is happening in the global economy. Russia is far less integrated into the Asian economy and the Russian elites sitting in Moscow don’t have a complete grasp on what is really happening. The world has changed and this financial crisis is really showing us how much. All of us, the United States, Europeans and Russia have to come to terms with this new reality. 

There are still serious security challenges in Asia that we all should be thinking about. The elephant in the room is how does the international system accommodate this new China that is emerging? I don’t think any of us, including the Chinese really know. If the Chinese were to have a standard of living like we have in the United States, it wouldn’t leave any resources for anyone else in the world. So these are some of the issues we should be thinking about.

Question: Are you a pessimist or an optimist?

Ruble: I am by nature an optimist. The Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore, and I think it’s a good thing for Russia, although most Russians may not agree with me. I grew up in New York, I lived in North Carolina for a long time in my 20s, and I would never believe that a state of North Carolina would vote for a black man for president. Barack Obama is president, and for most Americans his race didn’t matter. That’s a profound change. So yeah, I am an optimist, but I think the impulse for changes will probably come from places we can’t imagine at this point.