"Putin
Turns the G-7 Into a Group of Pushovers,"
by Dimitri K. Simes, from Newsday,
August 2, 2000.
Nearly two weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin's surprise announcement at the Group of Seven summit in Okinawa that North Korea would consider scrapping its missile program in return for assistance in launching satellites, the Pyongyang leadership has yet to confirm the proposal.
When pressed by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to provide details of the offer, in a meeting Friday in Malaysia, North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun declined to say whether it had in fact been made. The episode makes Putin's enthusiastic reception at the summit -amid promises to turn the G-7 into a G-8 to accommodate full Russian participation -seem increasingly inappropriate.
It was a mistake to bring Russia into the G-7 at all. The group includes the United States, Japan, Canada, Britain, Germany, France and Italy. While precise figures are unavailable -considerable Russian revenue is hidden from tax authorities -it is clear that Russia is not among the 10 most developed countries in terms of economic output. In fact, Russia's gross national product is below that of medium-sized states such as Spain and Korea. And its shrinking population trails not only China and India, but also Indonesia and Brazil.
Putin's economic reforms and anticorruption efforts hold some promise. But each is in its early stages; it is impossible to have even minimal certainty about their outcomes. Moreover, one need not exaggerate the Kremlin's attacks on independent media or its brutalities in Chechnya to state the obvious: Russia's progress in its troubled transition to democracy hardly justifies its inclusion in the most exclusive club of free nations. What then is the rationale for giving Russia an even greater role in the G-7? In his debut as Boris Yeltsin's successor, Putin received a nearly triumphal reception in Okinawa, with which he is entitled to be very pleased.
Without yielding on any issue important to him, he stole the show from United States and its allies.
In contrast to leaders of the G-7, the Russian president had a clear game plan and implemented it quite successfully. His strategy was to arrive at Okinawa in a position of strength, to derail American efforts at winning allied support for a national missile defense program and to present Russia as an equal player rather than a chronic supplicant begging for yet another handout.
Putin began by going to Beijing, where he skillfully added fuel to Chinese fears regarding the missile defense system, promised more sales of sophisticated weapons and signed a declaration on "strategic partnership" whose target is easily guessed.
The next stop was Pyongyang, where the Russian president received a hero's welcome. In return, he described North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-Il as "an absolutely modern man, objectively assessing the world situation" and claimed that American concerns about North Korea's missile program were "groundless." Putin argues that his optimism was justified by a North Korean pledge not to launch any more missiles provided that the West supplies technology for "peaceful space research." Faced later with skeptical U.S. reaction, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov offered assurances that the deal would not involve transferring foreign missile technology to Pyongyang, and explained that North Korean satellites could be launched "from the territory of other countries." Still, neither Kim Jong-Il nor his lieutenants have acknowledged their understanding with Putin and there was no reference to it in the joint Russian-North Korean communiqué. Taking into account Pyongyang's traditional obsession with secrecy and the enormous compensation it demanded to allow foreign inspectors to visit facilities suspected of producing nuclear materials, it is much too early to celebrate Putin's "breakthrough" with Kim Jong-Il.
The Russian press had few doubts about what Putin was really up to at the summit. The respected commentator Tatiana Malkina called it "the long planned anti-American blitzkrieg" in Vremya Novostei. In the view of the Moscow Times, the Russian president's missile diplomacy in Pyongyang was designed primarily "to score some cheap points in the 'debate' with the Americans over the national missile defense the U.S. White House is proposing." European leaders in Okinawa were not so naïve that they were unable to see through Putin's fairly transparent peace offensive. But they were eager to pretend to take his assurances at face value, in hope of derailing America's missile system.
Some, particularly German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, were also relieved Putin did not insist on rescheduling his country's debts - something he knew the G-7 countries were unprepared to do. So as compensation, Putin was allowed to play the part of an objective reporter of North Korean intentions and was promised (by Schroeder) Russia's full integration into the group.
Because the G-7 is quickly turning into a fairly irrelevant "talk but no action" club, as the Okinawa summit demonstrated, no great harm would probably come from full membership for Russia. Much more troubling is the idea that Putin, still learning his way in the world arena, could conclude that his western counterparts are not serious people, that he can exploit their differences with minimal effort and that, as long as he looks and acts tough, they will be inclined to support Russian pretenses to avoid trouble with a newly assertive Moscow.
Allowing Putin to learn these lessons at precisely the time he is formulating his most critical choices may cost both the United States and Russia dearly.
(Dimitri Simes is President of The Nixon Center)
