Results of Russian-American summit in Moscow generate moderate optimism

Gennady Chufrin Deputy Director Institute of Global Economy and International Relations Russian Academy of Sciences RIA Novosti Moscow

The Russian-American summit meeting in Moscow became an important event in the international life and a benchmark in the development of bilateral relations. Certainly, there were a lot of expectations and not all of them were realized but even what was achieved was quite enough to consider the meeting of the two Presidents, Vladimir Putin and George Bush to be a success.

First of all it relates to the signing of the treaty on reduction of offensive strategic potentials (START III) in accordance with which the parties undertake by the end of 2012 to reduce nuclear warheads to 1,700-2,200 pieces. Frankly speaking, the treaty still has to be approved by the parliaments of the two countries and problems might occur with its ratification by the American Senate, but it appears that it will eventually happen.

By all means the treaty is the result of a compromise. Eventually the Russian side managed to insist on the document being of a legally binding character and Washington which initially proposed the form of an agreement in the long run had to agree with Moscow. Nevertheless, in the other matter Americans turned out to be less tractable.

Though Moscow demanded to eliminate the reduced warheads, Americans managed to have their proposal adopted which provided for storage of the warheads. The arguments of the American side were that the situation in the world was changing quickly, the list of countries-owners of nuclear weapons was growing and one did not exclude the possible emergence of the threat to the U.S. national security which presently was difficult to predict.

That was why Washington affirmed that it was impossible to consent with elimination of the warheads, they should be stored, just in case. These arguments deserved some merit though it was difficult to imagine a state daring to aim its nuclear weapons against the United States.

And even such a compromise treaty is extremely important and provides the possibility to look with optimism into the future. One might say that the disarmament process finally received a powerful boost after a rather prolonged period of stagnation.

Economic results of the Moscow summit meeting generate significantly lesser optimism. One might say that major hopes of the Russian side did not come true. It went almost without saying that the U.S. Congress on the eve of the summit would finally abolish the Jackson-Vanik amendment which was discriminating against Russia and Bush himself would announce in Moscow about the acknowledgement of the market status of the Russian economy.

Neither thing took place. The Congress left the amendment in force and Bush during the meeting with Putin only promised to again raise the amendment issue the abolishment of which he favored and rather vaguely spoke about the market status acknowledgement problem.

Despite all Bush's assurances, the impression is that the notorious amendment will not be abolished quickly and for a long time it will become an instrument for the American administration to put pressure on Russia. It seems so that presently not strategic but economic components of the Russian-American contradictions are coming out to the forefront.

This conclusion is supported by the increase of duties on Russian steel imported into the U.S., and the scandal regarding the American poultry delivered to Russia. Here one might talk about general American policy to establish the most favorable conditions for its goods manufacturers, and any protectionist measures are being used to this end including measures of an international character. It is clear that while protecting its economic interests Washington does not pay any attention to Russian ones.

And what Washington is really interested in are deliveries of Russian energy resources. The power engineering theme occupied a significant place during the Moscow negotiations and it was reflected in the joint statement on the new Russian-American power engineering dialogue.

Recently U.S. oil interests appeared to be threatened by the aggravation of the Middle East conflict, the internal political situation in the Saudi Arabia unfavorable for the U.S., poor relations with Iran and Iraq. In this situation cooperation with Russia triggers particular U.S. interest because Russia's enormous power engineering resources might permit Washington to get rid of the petroleum dependence of OPEC countries.

Certainly for Russia the prospect to obtain access to the American power engineering market is very attractive. But one should not be in a hurry to get there. First Russia has to change the structure of its energy export, to bring it to the higher than the present level of oil processing. In other words, it is more preferable to trade in petroleum products than in crude oil. In that case the export of energy resources to the U.S. will become much more lucrative for Russia.

The area where cooperation is vitally important not only in there interests of the two countries but of the whole world is the struggle against terrorism. It poses a real threat to Russia and the U.S. and that is why the joint statement on the anti- terrorist cooperation adopted in Moscow is quite logical.

To sum everything up, it is fair to ask ourselves the question, whether presently Russia and the U.S. became real friends as was repeatedly stated by Bush and can one consider the "cold war Era" terminated? Undoubtedly the Moscow summit drew a line under the "cold war" and one might talk about final farewell to its heritage. But it is premature to call Moscow and Washington friends.

Rather, we are slowly and carefully entering the partnership situation which at the moment is not yet equal. Because one of the partners is a superpower and the other is the former USSR state weakened by its disintegration and subsequent negative processes and which only in the last 2-3 years was beginning to stand up. But Russia's potential is huge and it is the guarantee that today's "misalliance" will tomorrow become partnership or union of equals.