James Goldgeier on present-day Russia
Yesterday I posed several questions to James Goldgeier, a Russia - U.S. relations expert and professor of political science and international politics at George Washington University. James is also Whitney Shepardson Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Relations at the Council on Foreign Relations.
He’s written extensively on international relations and has co-authored several books, including Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy Toward Russia After the Cold War and America Between the Wars: from 11/9 to 9/11.
Click below for audio.
James Goldgeier audio
Interview Transcript:
Jim Goldgeier is professor of political science and international politics at George Washington University and he’s also Whitney Shepardson Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Relations at the Council on Foreign Relations. I asked Jim how Russia has managed to make itself an international presence again, and just how much of that has to do, in large part, with the posturing of the Putin administration.
Well I think President Putin was very successful in recasting the situation, making a claim for Russia’s position in world affairs. Now he was certainly helped dramatically by the huge rise in energy prices. That has made a huge difference, you know, when Boris Yeltsin was president of Russia the price of oil was $11 a barrel.
Unfortunately for Russia, there’s still huge potential question marks: this is not the Soviet Union again, it doesn’t have an ideology that people worldwide are interested in, it doesn’t have a military that can project very far, it has severe demographic problems. So there are lots of reasons why Russia isn’t as much of a major power as it might look given the optics that have been created by President Putin.
Is it safe to say that perhaps the most volatile situation for Russia at the moment is the conflict with Georgia?
Yeah, the Russia-Georgia situation is very dangerous, and you have two regions within Georgia that are part of what are called, in that part of the world, frozen conflicts, that is conflicts that aren’t resolved, two secessionist regions that Georgia does not want to see become independent. It’s not clear what Russia really wants other than to maintain conflict there as a way of undermining the Georgian government, and it’s all caught up now in the question of whether or not Georgia can move on the path of an increasingly Westward orientation at least with respect, for example, to joining NATO.
What do you expect US-Russia relations to look like under new administrations in both countries?
You know a lot I think depends on who the new president of the U.S. is. Certainly John McCain’s rhetoric about Russia is quite dramatic. John McCain really has been talking about his antipathy for the authoritarianism that has developed in Russia. John McCain, for example, has suggested that Russia should be kicked out of the G8 group of eight advanced countries. We don’t really know too much about President Obama’s strategies regarding Russia, you know, if he were president. I think, probably as a democratic president, he would have to take some stance on the questions of human rights and democracy in Russia so at the end of the day, perhaps a McCain or an Obama wouldn’t be that far apart as president.
Do you expect the new president, Medvedev, will have any real autonomy with Putin as prime minister? To what extent is he likely to defer to Putin?
Well we don’t know yet. It’s a very bizarre setup; having these two at the top. It doesn’t seem like it would be very stable for very long. You really do need one leader. I think we have to go on the assumption that Putin is still the leader. I mean he created Medvedev and put Medvedev in this presidency, and I think until we see otherwise we have to assume Putin is still calling the shots in Russia.
And finally, the very restrictive law passed in 2006 to regulate NGOs in the country, what effect has that had?
Well the big fear within Russia, especially after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine back in 2004, was you know could something like that happen in Russia, could you have people, sort of civil society out on the streets protesting the rigging of an election and the Russian government since the Orange Revolution has tried to do everything it can to make sure that you wouldn’t have that kind of scenario within Russia.
You know, one of the arguments Russia made was that it was external involvement in Ukraine that had helped promote the development of Ukrainian civil society and I think that you know, it has had a chilling effect. There are still outside western organizations that operate within Russia and I think we’ll continue to see that but everybody knows that the political space is much more constricted and contracted than it was certainly in the 1990s under Boris Yeltsin when Western groups were welcomed within Russia.
Thanks so much for taking these questions, you’ve been really helpful.
Good, great to talk with you.