Russia Realities
by Donald Devine
Issue 115 - September 10, 2008

Only one country in the world can annihilate the United States: Russia.

Russia has 5,669 active nuclear warheads and 9,300 in reserve or 15,000 total. Of these, 3,339 are strategic nuclear weapons that can do enormous damage to widespread areas of the American homeland and kill millions of people. Of these, 1,800 nuclear bombs are mounted on Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles against which there is no defense. Russia can destroy the United States of America and much of its population.

Why does this basic fact elude most discussions of U.S./Russia relations? Should this not be a major, even the first consideration?

Of course, the U.S. has 5,163 active nuclear warheads and 4,775 in reserve and can strike back. This basic fact of mutual assured destruction had much to do with keeping the Cold War from becoming hot. But we now know there were some close calls. When tempers run hot, people do foolish things. No one really wanted World War I either but it ended up decimating a whole generation of Europeans anyway and provided the grievances for a repeat in World War II. The U.S. has the missiles to threaten but it cannot do anything to stop Russian ones once launched.

There is simply no comparison to the potential damage from a ragtag army of terrorists and what Russia could do to the U.S. The former can blow up a few buildings and kill a few thousand. Russia could kill tens or hundreds of millions of Americans. The relative dangers are very different and demand different policies.

With so many Americans now living in the sanitary suburbs, simple lessons of life are lost. Growing up in 1950’s Brooklyn, one quickly learned that poking big guys in the eye was not a smart idea even if you were a bit larger. Even if you won, the cost could be very high. It was smart to give some toughs wide passage and to avoid some neighborhoods.

Russia’s invasion of Georgia provides many examples. The White House first criticized Russia – but immediately conceded it would not respond militarily. Is there a better way to encourage a bully? Well, we could go to the UN. But Russia has a veto. We could throw them out of the NATO-Russia Council. But after NATO merely canceled its next meeting, Russia ended its cooperation with NATO. Remove Russia from the G-8 alliance of democracies? But the U.S.’s closest ally Great Britain says no. Sanctions? The just-concluded European Union meeting declined to do so. Deny World Trade Organization membership. But Russia trades plenty now without it and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin responded he sees “no advantages” to joining WTO. Boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi? That would really intimidate them!

That is the full range of responses suggested even by the most aggressive neocons. All agree the U.S. is not going to war with Russia over Georgia. Even the official U.S. Assistant Secretary of State in charge, Daniel Fried, concedes that Georgia initiated the hostilities on August 7th. Yes, Russia provided provocations. But, having misread America's mixed signals, including a state visit by President Bush, it was President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia who acted to restore the breakaway enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to Georgian control. Russia certainly wanted to reassert itself in the region, but Saakashvili gave it the opportunity. Moreover, South Ossetia and Abkhazia clearly do not want to be part of Georgia.

In fact, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza made multiple trips to the Georgian capital to warn that the U.S. would not intervene if Georgia acted. Saakashvili did anyway, hoping to force U.S. hands. Well, Georgia is a democracy so must be supported by the U.S.? It is a one party state. Secretary Fried is clear on this:

Georgia is a flawed democracy, a democracy in construction. You don’t help them by whitewashing their problems or defending a bad decision. But you don’t want it crushed.

The Russians will not withdraw totally? They still say they will. But did those complaining about this not read the cease-fire agreement? There is a reason the Georgians did not want to sign. It is all there in Article V. Russia is granted the right to “implement additional security measures” within Georgia. And the U.S. encouraged Saakashvili to sign it. Russia has now recognized the two breakaway regions? They have been autonomous since Georgia itself became independent anyway. It is a distinction without a difference.

For years, the U.S. has insisted that existing international boundaries were inviolate, indeed citing this again to dissuade Russia from dismembering Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia. But Makhail Margelov, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of Russia’s upper house, responded that the desire of South Ossetia and Abkhazia for independence is “historically and actually much more legitimate than Kosovo’s.” Yes, the U.S. did make an exception for Kosovo, in fact was the leading proponent. Is Russia totally paranoid when it sees we make exceptions against the interests of what it sees in Serbia as a fellow Slav people?

OK but the Russians are paranoid? For months, the U.S. has belittled Russia’s fear of the interceptor system it wants to install in Poland and the Czech Republic to protect Europe from an Iranian missile attack. It is not arraigned against a Russian attack we insisted. Yet, immediately following Russia’s Georgia invasion, Poland said it was ready to agree to U.S. inceptors on its soil. If anyone missed the connection, the Secretary of State herself immediately flew to Poland to ink the deal. If you were in Moscow, would you think the missile system had nothing to do with Russia?

Russia’s real beef is that the U.S. supported Georgia’s admission into NATO, the military alliance created to block the Soviet Union. Russia sees itself surrounded by former satellites that still fear and dislike it for its former regime’s abuses, many of whom are now members of a military alliance aimed at its homeland. Its fear may border on paranoia, although as they say “even paranoids may have enemies.” In any event, Russia may have achieved its goal. NATO member Italy’s foreign minister Franco Frattini responded, “Today Georgia’s entry [into NATO] is more complicated. It doesn’t behoove us to pit ourselves against Russia. Russia is a strategic partner.”

Former Italian ambassador to NATO Sergio Romano was blunt. “In the minds of the Western European countries, Georgia has been rash. This will harden attitudes” in Italy, France and Germany.

Can tough words from the U.S. alone win the day? When Senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham announced a series of actions to “blunt” Russia and support Georgia’s “tiny democracy,” they had the temerity to add “We must above all reaffirm our conviction that Russia need not be a competitor or adversary.” Above all, after poking them in the eye? The White House did put aside a pending U.S./Russia civilian nuclear deal but only temporarily. Even if the U.S. wanted, it does not have enough troops to invade Georgia given the demands of Iraq and Afghanistan. What else can be done? Certainly, America does not want Russian invasions of Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the rest, to say nothing of NATO members Poland, Latvia and the other former satellites.

There is a way. It is bold but if it had been adopted when Edward Lozansky, President of the American University in Moscow and the old Soviet Parliamentarian, Arkady Murachev, among others, suggested it in the early post Cold War years, there would not have been a Georgia invasion today. But it was rejected by the first Bush Administration. Lozansky’s solution was to admit all of the former Soviet states in Europe – and Russia too! Members of NATO must not only agree to come to the aid of attacked fellow members, they must agree not to invade fellow members. A NATO Russia would be a more secure Russia. A non-NATO Russia is fearful and a threat to world peace – and to itself.

Donald Devine, the editor of Conservative Battleline Online, was the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management from 1981 to 1985 and is the director of the Federalist Leadership Center at Bellevue University.