What he then went on to say was obviously intended to be conveyed to the Russian president: ‘I am a direct man. Putin is also a direct man. I think we will manage to cooperate.’ That was, of course, an important signal and I communicated it to the addressee. On 7 May, when I returned to Russia, I had a meeting with Vladimir Putin during which I passed on to him my impressions from the trip and, in detail, my conversations in the State Department and the White House.
I am absolutely certain there were opportunities at that time for a move to all-round, serious interaction between Russia and the United States and, more broadly, with the West. These increased after the events of 11 September 2001 and Vladimir Putin’s subsequent overtures towards the United States. They came to nothing. Despite all efforts, with many summit meetings, no real collaboration came about and there was no improvement in relations. Why? I think because, despite the assurances of a willingness for cooperation and partnership, US realpolitik was directed towards creating a unipolar world.
In February 2007, President Putin raised this in a speech at the Munich Conference on Security Policy. He spoke about the unilateral, non-legitimate use of military force in international affairs, about ignoring principles of international law, about the fact that the dominance afforded to military power was fuelling the urge in a number of countries to acquire weapons of mass destruction. He spoke of efforts to turn the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe into a tool for securing the interests of one country or a group of countries. He expressed Russia’s objection to the continuing enlargement of NATO and the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
In response, Putin was practically accused of restarting the Cold War. I did not agree with those accusations. ‘The president of Russia’, I said in an interview for Argumenty i Fakty, ‘was talking in Munich about something quite different: how to prevent the appearance in the world of new lines of division and a resumption of confrontation. The danger of that is real enough.’ I pointed to the fact that surveys in several countries had shown that people there shared our president’s concern about the situation in the world. In Germany more than 60 per cent of respondents agreed with his point of view.
There were some fairly blunt phrases in Putin’s Munich speech, but that was entirely understandable: in spite of all his overtures to the United States during the presidency of George W. Bush, the US administration has not compromised with Russia on a single one of the issues important for our country’s security. On the most important, the issues of enlargement of NATO and anti-ballistic missile defence, we have simply come up against a brick wall. I think this was just one manifestation of triumphalism after a supposed ‘winning’ of the Cold War and ‘superpower illusions’ (using the succinct wording of former Ambassador Jack Matlock), which reached their apogee during the Bush administration.
It was during this period that we began to hear talk to the effect that the United States was no longer just ‘the only remaining superpower’, but a ‘hyperpower’ capable of building a new kind of empire. Global politics very quickly supplied proof that this was not the case. In an article published in 2008 in the world’s leading media, I wrote:
[America] will have to decide whether she wants to be an empire or a democracy, whether she wants world domination or international cooperation. That is precisely how the issue stands: either – or, because the one cannot be combined with the other any more than you can combine oil with water.
The aspiration to dominate the world proved an unsustainable burden even for the United States with all its huge potential. The result, as Putin said in Munich (and I mentioned this in literally every speech I gave in the United States), was that the world has not become safer. On the contrary, the consequences of the policy have been disastrous for America itself. There has been an increase in anti-American sentiments in every region of the world, and acute financial and economic problems associated with astronomical spending on arms and military campaigns thousands of miles away from the American continent. Many social problems remain unresolved in the richest country in the world. Most importantly, as I wrote in an article published in the International Herald Tribune, ‘the rest of the world did not agree to play the role of “extras” in a film script written by Washington’.
Speaking in the United States, I never tired of reminding Americans of John F. Kennedy’s words in his 1963 speech in Washington to the American University:
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children – not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women.[7]
In other words, there will either be peace for all, or peace for none.
I would ask my audience a question, ‘Do you want an America that acts as a global policeman, imposing democracy on other peoples with tanks and missiles?’ Never once did I find anyone wanting to answer that question affirmatively. Probably some agreed with me and others, at least, thought it over. The unwisdom of the pursuit of ‘a monopoly of leadership’ and its dire consequences were becoming increasingly obvious to many Americans, both members of the political elite and, particularly, ordinary citizens. People were aware of the need for change.
Before the beginning of the 2008 presidential campaign, two young people in the audience asked me after a speech in St. Louis: ‘What advice would you give America today, when we all feel that something is not right in our country?’ I tried to dodge the question by saying this was something new – usually it was America that gave advice to other countries – but my questioners persisted. So I said: ‘I am not going to try to tell you what you should do or offer you a blueprint, but one thing I am sure about is that America needs its own, American, Perestroika.’ People rose from their seats and gave those words a standing ovation.
The election of Obama
It was no surprise that, during their campaigning, both presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, spoke of the need for change. Even the Republican McCain felt obliged to distance himself from his predecessor.
Obama’s victory in the 2008 presidential election was an important milestone. I remember a conversation I had with an old friend, an American who always voted Democrat. During the primaries he supported Hillary Clinton. ‘Obama appeals to me’, he said, ‘but I just do not believe a black candidate with a name like Barack Obama could be elected president in our country.’ And yet, a few months later, that is exactly what happened.
Obama’s election generated great expectations around the world. Awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize was a kind of advance payment, an expression of hope and support for someone who was promising to end wars and focus on ‘nation-building’, that is, finding solutions to urgent problems not on faraway continents but at home.
I paid attention to the advice some veteran US policymakers were giving Obama during the first days of his presidency. Zbigniew Brzezinski, for example, advised him to pay particular attention to relations with China. A speech by Brzezinski in Beijing could be seen as a call for the creation of a kind of ‘G2’ consisting of America and China. Reacting to that proposal, I wrote: ‘Of course, China’s global economic and political importance will keep growing, but I think those who would like to start a new geopolitical game will be in for a disappointment. China is unlikely to accept; more generally, such games belong to the past.’
7
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Commencement Address at the American University, 10 June 1963 (transcript); http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/BWC7I4C9QUmLG9J6I8oy8w.aspx. Accessed 16 July 2015.