Illuminating the Arts-Policy Nexus 

By David A. Andelman

Today’s “reset” in Russian-American relations is necessary largely because an historic opportunity to recalibrate relations between the two superpowers was lost years ago as the world was emerging from the Cold War and the Clinton administration was painting this as a victory for the United States. Indeed, it turned out to be a pyrrhic victory.

This was the conclusion of three individuals who participated in or chronicled this turning point in modern history—Stephen Cohen, professor of Russian Studies and History at New York University and author of Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War; Richard Reeves, author of President Reagan: The Triumph of Imagination; and Jack F. Matlock Jr., former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia and author of Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended. Lesley Stahl, veteran CBS News “60 Minutes” correspondent, served as moderator of the New York Historical Society forum Thursday evening at the New York Society for Ethical Culture.

Rather than a victory of one nation over the other, the end of communism was a crossroads—an enormous opportunity to be either seized or exploited. Seized by the two leaders who brought the world to that point; exploited, alas, by many who followed. And today, unless we somehow find a way to reverse this process, we will wind up paying a very high price indeed. “The Clinton administration held that America won the Cold War, and they treated Russia as though they did, so they triggered a new Cold War,” Professor Cohen observed. The result was a build-up of tension, hostility and suspicion that led to the August 2008 conflict between Georgia, the former Soviet republic, and Russia when “we came as close to a nuclear war with Russia as we ever had,” Cohen continued.

Reagan, while recognizing the reality of the victory he’d managed to achieve in ending the confrontation with the Soviet Union that had bedeviled every American president since Woodrow Wilson, was determined never to use that word in dealing with his Soviet counterpart—Mikhail Gorbachev, who is scheduled appear on the podium of the New York Historical Society in October. “As far as Reagan was concerned, he wrote a note before he met Gorbachev for the first time in Geneva,” recalled Matlock, who was present at that summit. “Whatever we achieve we must not call it victory, because that would make the next steps more difficult,” Matlock paraphrased.  (I, too, was present at the summit, and observed the extraordinary chemistry between the two world leaders—a personal relationship that played a crucial role in the revolution they were about to launch.)

“It was the victory of one system over another, not one nation over another,” Matlock continued. “[President George H.W.] Bush was the first to say we won the cold war. It was the Clinton administration that first started to behave as though we were the sole superpower, and we did not have to cultivate allies. The Clinton administration missed great opportunities.”

In the context of Russian history, as Professor Cohen pointed out, Gorbachev was an historic figure in his own right. “When he became head of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985, he had power unrivaled by any other leader in the world,” Cohen said. “And he began giving away this power. Yet he knew what he was doing, turning to his principal aide and saying, ‘you have no idea how far I am going to go.’”

In fact, Gorbachev recognized his actions were the only way of preserving the Russian state as a viable nation.  Today, as it turns out, Putin has sought, indeed quite likely succeeded, in taking back much of the power that historically has accrued to Russian leaders and that Gorbachev managed to give away.

Reagan, by contrast, understood completely the power that he held and understood profoundly how to use it. “He was a stubborn old man, who knew what he wanted to know and knew what he believed, and why he believed it,” observed Richard Reeves, the veteran biographer of Reagan. “Hardliners in his own party—the Richard Perles, Casper Weinbergers—thought Ronald Reagan was selling out the Untied States to a young, dynamic Russian leader. But all along he was very much in control.”

“We now know because Soviet archives are now partially open, that Gorbachev was receiving the same criticisms from his side at the same time,” said Cohen, who has followed attentively the opening of these archives with all the wealth of historical perspective they hold.

But it was not only the two leaders—Reagan and Gorbachev—who played central roles in this unfolding drama. Behind the scene, their wives, Nancy and Raisa, were playing their own roles, Lesley Stahl observed. “Their wives did not get along, but they did not get in the way of their husbands,” said Matlock, who had frequent opportunities to study their interactions. “Gorbachev had no close circles of friends in the Soviet Union. His only real confidant was his wife. He could not make decisions without her.”

Finally, Stahl turned the attention to today’s Russia—and especially to the fear that she observed must be causing some unease in the Kremlin, provoked by the revolutions in the form of popular uprisings against dictators in the Middle East. “Thoughtful people would say, [in Russia] it’s not a revolution, it’s changed leadership,” Cohen replied. “In the Middle East, those turbulent protests were driven by young people, often unemployed. There are enough jobs in Russia today for those who want them. Putin’s popularity continues at about 70 percent. Mubarak certainly didn’t have 70 percent approval.”

“Russia today is nothing like the Soviet Union,” Matlock added. “People have still a great majority of the freedoms that Gorbachev's reforms brought. They can travel freely, they can leave the country and come back. It was like a prison before. They couldn’t even travel freely within the country. Certainly many of the democratic procedures are very flawed. It is a very corrupt society, but is much better than what it was in the 1990s when it was not democracy, it was anarchy, though the rest of the world was calling it democracy.”

“The problems we have with Russia are not a replay of the Cold War problems,” Matlock concluded. “They are problems we brought on ourselves. Obviously they are very sensitive to big powerful countries doing military maneuvers on their borders. You just don’t play around that way without consequences. We would resent foreigners telling us what to do—‘you are not democratic enough, you are too democratic.’ That is not our role. As Steven Cohen pointed out, 70 percent will back Putin—because he brings a sense of predictability to their lives and a sense of respect, unlike the1990s when they were treated as a defeated power. The Cold War was based on a deep ideological divide. Communism as an ideology doesn’t work anywhere any more.”

Fundamentally, last night’s unspoken theme was that America has never really understood Russia, or Russians, very profoundly. Their needs and desires are not ours. The average Russian wants stability and certainty—a strong, confident leader and the continuity he or she can bring—not political uncertainty threatened by many Western-style democracies. But Russians must be accepted for who and what they are and be allowed to find their own way, if we are to avoid new and most destabilizing conflicts.

David A. Andelman is Editor of World Policy Journal. Throughout the 1980s, he made frequent reporting trips to the Soviet Union as a CBS News correspondent.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user roberthuffstutter.