President Clinton's Trip to Europe and Russia

Transcript

Ronald Nessen: Good afternoon. Welcome to Brookings. I am Ron Nessen with Brookings. And I want to welcome you to this press briefing providing information, background, on President Clinton's trip to Europe and to Russia, beginning right after Memorial Day.

He will visit Portugal, Germany, Russia and Ukraine. And of course, the centerpiece of the trip is a visit and stop in Moscow, where he will meet with the new Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The format today is that our panelists will each speak to you briefly on one aspect of the trip, and then the floor will be open for questions. We do have people here with wireless microphones so that everyone can hear and so that we'll have an accurate transcript of the event for the website.

Also on the website, you'll find additional background material on the trip and the individual stops. If you haven't already, you should get a packet outside, which contains "completer" biographies of the panel, as well as some of their writings on this topic.

The speakers today, going first will be Philip Gordon. He is a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies program here. He is director of the relatively new Center on the United States in France here at the Brookings Institution. He'll talk about the European stops on President Clinton's trip.

Next you'll hear from Fiona Hill. She is director of Strategic Planning at the Eurasia Foundation. She'll talk about internal Russian politics as well as relations between Russia and other of the former Soviet states. Next--she's also the author of a number of books on the topic of internal Russian politics.

Cliff Gaddy will talk to you next. He is an expert on the Russian economy. He's a fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies program here at Brookings and co-author of the forthcoming book "Russia's Virtual Economy", an expression that he originated, I believe, and which is now widely accepted as a description of the Russian economy. Cliff Gaddy.

And batting clean-up, as always, Richard Haass, the vice president and director of Foreign Policies Studies here at Brookings. He is going to talk about a number of topics that will come up during the trip, including arms control, U.S. politics as they affect the president's trip, and the summit from the American point of view.

So that's our briefing today. There'll be plenty of time for you to ask your questions. And I will then turn over the program first of all to Philip Gordon.

Philip Gordon: Thanks, Ron.

I'll be brief so that we can spend our time with questions. I just want to make two types of points about the European leg of this trip, one broad one about the transatlantic relationship and what I think the president will try to do on it, and secondly about the U.S.-EU summit in Portugal and the more specific issues that I think will be addressed there.

On the broad point of this trip, I think we should remember that this could well be, and indeed probably is, this president's last trip to Europe. Something else could come up that could bring him back to Europe, but I think they're looking at it as the final swing after a full presidency of European issues. And I think they'll--let me say what I think they--the way we want to portray this final trip and the way we should think about it.

It seems to me that the message from the president about this trip will be the culmination of a successful strategy in Europe. If you remember, after a lot of indecision in the administration's first year or so about what type of strategy to have in Europe in terms of what NATO's role would be, whether it would be involved in the Balkans, whether NATO would enlarge, indeed, whether NATO would be relevant, here we are some six years after they finally made these decisions. And I think they'll be pretty proud of the fact that, indeed, NATO kept its role, intervened in the Balkans, it enlarged and the process is underway.

So it seems to me the message and, as I think you all know, President Clinton is getting an award in Germany for his contributions to European unification. That's an award that has gone to so many of the most eminent statesmen in Europe and a few in the United States, and I think that will be a theme to sort of stand on, to say, "Look," you know, "we actually have a pretty successful strategy in Europe."

What do we think about that message that we'll hear from the White House about the president's success in Europe? I think it's largely right. I want to discuss two possible clouds on that horizon, but largely, I think one does have to give the administration credit for, after a very rocky start, putting together a coherent strategy of what they're trying to get done in Europe. And, again, if you look at this process of European integration, NATO enlargement, and then NATO's expanding roles in the Balkans, it's not a bad record, overall.

The clouds on that horizon seem to me to be two, and this will no doubt be an element of the discussions, both in Portugal with the EU and in Germany with German leaders. Two clouds seem to me to be there. One is--and I don't mean on specific issues, but on the broad relationship, one is European resentment or, I think, growing resentment of American domination and unilateralism; this feeling in America, driven largely by Congress but, therefore, reflected by the administration, that we need to have it our way and we need to do the things that we need to do and European views are only marginally taken into account.

I think--you know, a lot of Europeans come up with a long list of things, from the national missile defense program to the rejection of the CTBT, to Helms-Burton, ILSA, all sorts of examples of the United States--rejection of the international criminal court and so on--having to have it its way. And I think that cloud will be above this otherwise very positive theme of the very strong transatlantic relationship and the successful strategy in Europe.

The other one is the other side of the coin, which is U.S. constraints and resentment about the burdens of this European strategy. So, on one hand, you have the Europeans complaining a little bit about the American need to have it its own way. On this side, it's Americans--and again, I have to refer to Congress--being reluctant to really pay the price of this deep engagement. And maybe the best example of that recently--well, one example is the unilateralism that I gave examples of, but the other, of course, is, you know, the recent amendment that barely failed, about, you know, taking our troops out of the Balkans if the Europeans didn't pay their fair share and carry their fair share of the burden, the Byrd-Warner amendment, a sign of America not really being willing to bear these costs.

So these seem to me to be the broad clouds over an otherwise fairly successful strategy over this administration's entire time in Europe, and will be the basis, I think, for some of the discussions with the leaders.

That's my point about the broad message of this trip and the broad aspect of the relationship.

Let me just very briefly say something about the specifics, and that is to say the U.S.-EU summit, which is the first leg of the trip. An interesting thing about this U.S.-EU summit is that it raises the issue of who our partner in Europe is. Is it the European Union, or is it the countries and the leaders of the countries? Obviously, it's a bit of both.

This U.S.-EU summit is a step in the direction towards the EU itself being a partner. And I say that in the wake of increasing step towards to European unification and especially the evolving European Security Initiative, ESDP, European Security and Defense Policy. More than ever--and one should say that's not saying much, because the U.S.-EU summits in the past, in foreign policy terms, have not done particularly much. On economic things, it's a little bit different. But more than ever, with the qualification that "ever" isn't very much, this actually will be a somewhat strategic meeting, because they will talk about our collective engagement in the Balkans, and on that, the EU really does per se, as the EU, have a role.

They'll talk about Russia, setting up what we're going to do--and you'll hear from the others about the specific issues there. But it's an opportunity to engage with the Europeans on how to deal with Russia and the missile defense question.

And then, finally, they will deal for, as far as I know--and I think this is right--the very first time with the ESDP, where a U.S.-EU summit will engage on the European Security and Defense Initiative. As you know, in the past, the EU didn't do security, and that was left off of these agendas.

So I mention that. I think it's relevant in two senses, and I'll conclude with this point. It's relevant, first, in the sense that the U.S. is willing to see the EU as a partner in this regard. Again, in the past, it was never the EU; we wanted NATO to be the primary instrument. And also the Europeans--and, most notably, the French--are willing to have the European Union engage with the United States on security issues. So again, this seems to me a relevant evolution and the culmination of a lot of debates over the past 18 months about the European Security Initiative.

The last point I will make on that is that I think this administration could be close to being able to, so to speak, declare victory on this issue. You know that American and European views were not exactly alike over the past 18 months on how this should evolve. Americans had qualifications. They didn't want it to exclude countries like Turkey and Norway. They didn't want it to divide the alliance. They didn't want to see duplication of NATO assets. I think after a lot of struggle, that has actually come together quite well and this summit could mark an important step in sort of declaring peace on that issue and saying, well, this worked out pretty well after all.

Fiona Hill: I thought what I would do is just put the trip to Russia in a broader context for you. We all know that this is also an important trip for the United States. It's the first meeting of the U.S. president with the new Russian president, certainly since the election and his inauguration this month. It's also the first opportunity for the U.S. government to get the measure of the new cabinet appointees that Putin has made, and an attempt to start the process of establishing a new, productive working relationship with Putin.

One thing to bear in mind is also this is symbolically a very important trip for Russia. It's the first visit of the U.S. president in the new millennium. That's actually quite significant for the Russian perspective, especially as this comes at the end of a decade of reform that's been shaped exclusively by the Yeltsin presidency.

Putting this in the broad perspective, this has been very disappointing decade for Russia in many respects. It's been marked by catastrophic economic decline, inadequate reform programs, the relegation of Russia to a producer of raw materials, failure to link into transnational global developments, challenges to territorial integrity, separatism, the war in Chechnya, demographic crisis. The list, obviously, can go on. But internationally, with the collapse of the USSR back in 1991 and the demise of its superpower status, Russia has now lost its weight on the world stage. It's seen the U.S. and other Western countries move into its traditional spheres of influence, and movements that run counter to Russian interests, such as the expansion of NATO and intervention in the Balkans.

So at the beginning of the 21st century, for many of the people that Clinton is going to be meeting with in Moscow, many of them are feeling that the Russian state is barely capable right now of fulfilling the most basic state economic, political and social functions, and the feeling also that Russia is having problems in projecting its power and influence abroad.

So much store is being put right now in Russia on Putin and his new team. So you might call this the period of great expectations. There are great expectations in Russia that he'll bring stability and prosperity at home and respect abroad. And abroad, the single most important definitional relationship for Russia is the relationship with the United States. And Russia is trying to position itself vis-a-vis the United States right now, in terms of finding a new place for itself regionally and globally. So in Russia, this visit is going to be watched very closely. It's going to be seen to set the tone for how the new president, his new team and indeed Russia are going to be treated by the U.S. and, therefore, how Russia is going to have to react in response to this.

Some things to bear in mind about Putin as we are going into this visit. He is really a cipher for both the Russian elite and the Russian population. I mean, as we all have learned from the things that we have been reading about him recently, he is not a man with notably strong opinions of his own. He tends to read, synthesize, and articulate the views of those around him. And he is clearly trying to chart a policy right now that will make sure he doesn't run afoul of either the shoals of public opinion or of the opinion of the elite around him.

He was elected on a platform that gave a little bit of something to everybody but gave no indication precisely of what he planned to do. And so the general views of the Russian public and the Russian elite are very important to bear in mind, and the U.S. government is going to have to canvass opinion very broadly in Russia, beyond the Putin Cabinet, to really get a sense of the trends in the policy.

And in fact, Putin himself has been doing that. As we have seen over the last several weeks, he has been co-opting people, drawing them in, and trying to draw out their opinions, ideas and sentiments. One of the most significant developments over the last few months has been the establishment of the Center for Strategic Research, under the leadership of German Greff [ph]. This is a very clear demonstration of Putin's attempts to co-opt members of the Russian elite.

The center has been charged with coming up with the reform program for the next decade. It has brought in some of the best minds in Russia and tapped into many of the new elites, the members of the younger generations, who have been educated broad and have experience in the West. And the center's report was submitted to the government last week and is expected to be published shortly.

In what little we have seen about what this grand strategy might have in mind, many of the themes that have been discussed over the last several years among the Russian elite have been picked up on, including radical economic growth, cutting social spending, mobilizing resources into production, modernizing government programs, reining in the powers of the local government in the regions, improving the efficiency of Russia's political system, and also boosting the powers of law enforcement, the judicial system and the armed forces.

And also in public speeches, Putin has put a great deal of stress on the restoration of Russian culture, the Russian language, the primacy of the Russian nation, and the necessity of restoring Russia as a great power and a strong state.

Now, recent Russian domestic developments seem to fit in with all of these themes. They include the appointment of the economic technocrat as prime minister, Mikhail Kasyanov; the creation of seven super-regions within the Russian Federation, which will have direct presidential representatives taking charge of federal agencies there. There have recently in the last couple of weeks been decrees to bring the regional governors further into line, by making regional laws conform with the federal laws and by systematizing tax payments between the regions and the center.

And Putin's desire to continue to co-opt members of the elite and to also give a boost to the powers of the federal security agencies has been indicated further by the appointment of the former prime minister Sergei Kiriyenko as one of the representatives to one of these new superregions and the appointment of many members--former members from the Army and the security services and the police.

So all this being said, what might Russia's policy agenda items be for the Clinton visit to Moscow? Over the last few weeks you've had a host of Russian visitors passing through D.C., and many of them have shown a remarkable consensus on both the domestic and foreign policy priorities.

On the domestic front, promoting economic development and strengthening the state through modernization and Russianization of the federal structure and the centralized administration, all these points that are being laid out in the struts of the grand strategy have been stressed first and foremost. And these have also been stressed and foremost as the foreign policy priorities, even by the head of the Duma's Committee on International Affairs, Dmitri Rogozyn [sp], who was in town last week.

So this, then, means that if domestic issues are taking priority, difficulties abroad have to be minimized to the greatest degree possible, which will imply regularizing relations with the U.S., preventing the arms control agenda from running awry, and the U.S. discussions of National Missile Defense from derailing the strategy regime, emphasizing commercial and trade issues with Europe and with the U.S. and integration into European security, economic and political structures, and also focusing on protecting Russia's commercial and political interests in the Caspian and other key arenas. We also had Andrei Ornov [sp], the new Russian appointee as ambassador for the Caspian, through last week.

So although it may look on the surface that arms control is a very important agenda item, for Russia it really is the economy. To produce--in his presidency Putin has to produce on the economy.

So how does this gel with U.S. priorities? The U.S. goals for the trip are to stress U.S. core messages, including democracy, free markets, integration into the world economy, human rights, addressing tough issues, where there are differences in the relationship--Chechnya, NATO and NMD are obviously going to be three of those--set priorities to the relationship in the coming year on issues like arms control, proliferation, economic and trade relations, and regional global issues, the Caucasus and the Balkans are also going to be there on the agenda, and also to demonstrate that the relationship isn't all about arms control or about the final attempts of the Clinton presidency to get some last-ditch concessions.

As always--I also mentioned at the beginning there's a very important side trip here to Ukraine and Kiev which is demonstrating that the U.S. is not completely Russo-centric in its policy in the region, but it is also important to demonstrate support for the reform agenda of the new prime minister there and to make a renewed push for economic reform in Ukraine.

So there's obviously some overlap in U.S. and Russian priorities here, but some considerable differences. The question is what's likely to happen?

Well, from Putin's point of view I think what we're likely to see is much--during the visit is what he's doing now: he's going to be listening and trying to draw out information. But certainly no firm decisions have been made yet on Russian policy, although they're certainly going to have to be made soon, and over the next few months we'll be, hopefully, seeing more clarity on what he--Putin--is planning to do. He'll certainly have to declare his intentions and make his platform clear before the Russian Duma reconvenes in September of this year.

But it's very important to bear in mind that, from the U.S. perspective, that Russian foreign policy has always been opportunistic, and certainly it will continue to be. Putin right now is looking for general trends or events that are moving in Russia's favor. He's trying to identify areas where advantage can be gained or where weaknesses can be exploited.

And Putin is going to base all of his foreign policy decisions, to a large extent, on what the U.S. says and does, so this is going to be a reactive, defensive policy toward the United States, but with very carefully considered moves. So Clinton would be well advised not to talk too much in Moscow and to do a little bit more about what Putin has been doing, which is trying to draw out what some of the ideas that people may have in mind there.

Now, in closing, I want to quickly draw your attention to Chechnya, because this is actually a more important issue for bilateral relations than it might seem just from the point of view of crude U.S. national interests, because it actually reveals a great deal about the likely duality of the policy we're going to send to Putin and some of the difficulties and dangers that Russia itself faces in implementing a new reform strategy.

The fact that you have a war raging at the same time as you're talking about liberal economic policies, and the fact that START II has also been ratified, suggest that the policies that Putin is going to implement are both going to be progressive and regressive, and that's going to be from the U.S. point of view. We may see economic relations and pragmatic relations with the West pursued at the same time that domestic dissent is going to be stifled.

The war in Chechnya is also a very important policy tool for Russia. Just bear in mind, it's not just a counterterrorism exercise or simply a national tragedy; it also reminds Russia's regions of the power that the center can still wield and it reminds neighbors to the south and to the west of the havoc that Russia can wreak if it wants to.

And this duality is going to make it very difficult in the future for the U.S. to reconcile the universal principles and values that it holds dear, which are on the agenda for the Clinton visit, with the strategic imperatives of the relations with Russia. There may be success on the arms control agenda, but what are we going to do if domestic repression is also in evidence, including a crackdown on civic organizations and the independent media--there have already been signs of this--or additional brutal reprisals against minority groups. And Clinton's stance on these in Moscow is going to set the tone for the next administration.

And finally, the war also raises troubling questions for Russia. Putin has talked about strengthening the national core and restoring the kind of primacy of the ethnic Russians, as a means of consolidating the state. But Chechnya is an ethnic war where a minority is being brutally repressed. Now, this is an explosive issue for a state where, in spite of the fact that you have 80 percent ethnic Russians, you have 27 million non-Russians within the borders of the Russian Federation. And it's going to be very difficult to consolidate these groups around this national core that Putin wants to create when many, or large numbers, of Russian citizens who are non-ethnic Russians are being killed on a daily basis by the national army.

And on the topic of the army, the war in Chechnya also indicates that there are some very troubling times ahead in terms of what Putin is going to do with the large conventional forces; that is, military reform is long overdue and the war is revealing all of the serious structural doctrinal problems that the army is facing. The excessive use of force and the repeated reversals show the low quality and poor training of the Russian military. And ultimately, this may become more of a problem for the United States in its relations with Russia than the threat of the nuclear arsenal.

Thanks.

Clifford Gaddy: Well, I want to focus on the economy, but first let me make a couple of remarks to put the issue of the Russian economy in perspective. And I think that what I intend, what I hope this will do is make clear that the future of economic policy in Russia will be determined much less by personalities, by programs, and by preferences, either Mr. Putin's preferences or those of his advisers, than by constraints. And so I'm thinking a little bit like an economist here.

I'd like to begin talking about this context and the constraints by repeating the thumbnail assessment that I made in January of what Mr. Putin meant for Russia, because I said at that time that his ascendancy was really statement on behalf of all Russians that "we henceforth"--the Russians--"will define our own political and economic course. We will give apologies to no one for doing so. No longer will we take lessons from the West, and especially no longer will we allow the United States to set the rules."

I believe Mr. Putin not only delivered that message; I think that he was that message. I agree, I think, in this sense with what Fiona says, as Mr. Putin as a cipher.

Another simplified way to say this is that Mr. Putin's accession was the end of an era of illusions in Russia. By no means all illusions have ended, but in a specific sense, this--the main illusion that was abandoned within Russia is that the country had no security problem. Sustaining that illusion that security was not a real issue for Russian policy, I think, had been key to dealing throughout the 1990s with what otherwise was a set of impossible, incompatible tasks.

Barry Ickes and I have called this--have used the term "Russia's impossible trinity" to describe this. We are arguing that post-communist Russia, on the threshold of the 1990s, faced an impossible burden as it simultaneously tried to fulfill three imperatives: number one, the establishment of a liberal democracy; number two, introduction of a free market system; and number three, maintenance of adequate national security.

Even though these tasks, taken under Russian conditions, simultaneously were incompatible, Russia did not reject them. Rather, it resorted to pretense. Part of that pretense was to downplay the security imperative. Another part was what Barry Ickes and I have termed the "virtual economy," which, for those of you who have some familiarity with the concept, is based very much on pretense.

However, by the end of the 1990s, Russia faced a true crisis, in part because the continued existence of this economic system, the virtual economy, itself threatened the survival of the nation. And I believe that Mr. Putin has essentially made national survival, security--national security, in its very broadest sense, the number-one priority. This means, however, that market economy and democracy are decidedly subordinate priorities.

If national survival, national security in a broad sense, is the end, what are the means? Well, I think there are two primary means, which themselves become new imperatives for Mr. Putin in Russia. The first of those is stability. The second is control.

Stability relates mainly to the social and political sphere. Control has also a very strong political element, but it relates importantly, for my further remarks, to what Mr. Putin understands as the economy, but what we, or at least I, would call the sphere of administration of the wealth and resources of the country--an important difference. So let me turn now to Mr. Putin's approach to economics and to the economy.

I was just on the phone with a Russian friend of mine who I was discussing some of these issues, and he related, or pointed out to me a story in the Russian press of the past couple of days. It appears that there was an interview with one of the economists working in the institute that Fiona referred to, the Greff [sp] Institute. This economist complained about decision-making problems there, but said that he didn't expect Mr. Putin to straighten things out. "Mr. Putin's knowledge of economics is pretty limited," he said. "As far as I can say, he knows three things about the economy. One, it does exist; two, it's a problem; and three, that's all I want to know about it."

Well, I would agree with the first two, and maybe I can offer a little correction of number three, because I think the key to understanding Mr. Putin's dilemma with the Russian economy is, of course, to understand what kind of an economy he has inherited. Is it an economy, as many people say, that is merely stalled on the road from plan to market, and what we need now is some sort of a jumpstart? There are economists, myself included, who think that it is something else.

I have described it as a mutation, an economy that reacted to the pressure of incomplete shock therapy by mutating, by adapting, not in order to join the market, but to protect itself against the market. This is the "virtual economy" idea. It's not, therefore, a halfway point between the plan and the market; it is a mutant economy with logic and rules of behavior all its own. And what's important about that is that it will react to traditional, conventional, normally correct policy measures in perverse ways. It will become, in fact, even more robust and resistant to the therapy.

And the message, therefore, of the virtual economy thesis is that no matter how appealing any individual measures are, they cannot work when pursued in isolation. Only a conscious, comprehensive reform effort has the potential to work. That is, at every step along the way, the policymakers, if they want to become true reformers, have to be aware in advance of how agents can be expected to preserve their situation, to survive, to neutralize the effects of the measure. And this is very, very complicated. Indeed, policymakers may not even be able to recognize what happened after the response occurs.

No partial success indicators can be trusted. If successive reform continues to be measured by what happens with the individual reforms, it will always be possible for people to claim success and for policymakers inside and outside Russia to claim success, the same way that it was done in 1996 and 1997. The image is--and I think this will be the image for the immediate future in Russia--is like squeezing a balloon; you improve in one area, but the improvement is at the expense of deterioration somewhere else.

In short, the Russian economy can only be reformed by a leadership that recognizes the true nature of the current system and has the will and the ability to end it completely by tackling it, in all its complexity and all its dimensions. Mr. Putin is not even close at this point to wanting to dismantle the virtual economy. He cannot afford to. Dismantling the current economic system in Russia, whatever you want to call it, would make Russia very unstable and, therefore, very weak and very vulnerable for years. His dilemma is to find ways to achieve economic growth at minimal cost to political and social stability.

Can he do that? For a certain period, the answer is yes. If he builds on the devaluation, as you recall from August 17th, 1998, and now on the political stability that is brought through his own accession and his own person, I think the economy is likely to show progress and growth for a while. That is, in the short run, stability and growth will be compatible.

In the long run, it's just the opposite. And this is my most important message because the imperative of social stability rules out radical reform. Completely dismantling the virtual economy is not an option for Mr. Putin. He, therefore, has to find, as best he can, ways to operate within it to achieve his goals.

He wants to make it more efficient. He has two ways to do this. First of all, he will try to stop some of the looting, especially the direct looting of government resources, the squandering of budgetary funds and so forth. Secondly, he will try to assert more central control over the distribution of value. He knows that most of it is produced in the oil and gas sectors, and he has to control this.

What he really objects to is the anarchic, uncontrolled way the virtual economy works. He wants more centralized direction, more direct top-down regulation. But he does not want to abolish this system; he wants to assert control over it. Abolishing the system would mean allowing only the real market, a transparent monetized open market, to dictate the allocation of resources in Russia. This is a brutal, unpredictable revolutionary process. He doesn't like the way the current system works; he would very much dislike the way the free economy would work.

Very quickly, out of that what are some foreign-policy implications? Fiona has summed them up as well as I could, and in fact it's very similar:

Number one, I think clearly his main desire is for a breathing space. He does not want confrontation with the U.S. He does not want to provoke the United States. He really wants to be left alone.

That brings my second point, that the message to the United States as regards aid and assistance, is largely just: "Just back off. We'll choose our own way. We'll define things like 'freedom' and 'democracy,' and perhaps even 'market economics,' in our own way. So just pretend we are worthy of respect at least, and leave us alone." There are some specific concrete problems that remain; the debt negotiations, the IMF program and so forth, but I think that he will basically be pursuing a policy of trying to stall for time.

By this--as far as the U.S. concern--this Russia ought not to be regarded necessarily as a threat to the U.S., it would seem. After all, it only wants to mind its business. But I do think that some Americans will clearly regard Mr. Putin's Russia as a threat, depending on how one defines "U.S. national interest." And in particular, if U.S. interests are defined as "focusing on ensuring human rights worldwide, establishing open liberal market economies worldwide," then perhaps Russia will represent a threat, as Fiona outlined, simply because it itself will be an exception in both cases, and not only an exception in fact, but under Mr. Putin perhaps in stated intent as well.

And let me stop it there.

Richard Haass: One of the many good aspects of my job is that I get to speak after other people speak, so there is not a lot to say. It makes it easier. Let me just say, though, a few things about the European part of the trip. And then I really want to talk about the U.S.-Russian Summit from the American point of view.

On Europe, just really three points:

When all else is said and done, the Europeans matter, whether it's national governments or as the EU. And I agree with Phil's analysis: When the chips are down, they are our principal partners in shaping the post-Cold War world. So despite the disagreements, despite the frustrations, the United States has a tremendous incentive to make the U.S.-European relationship work, because we really have very few other places to go for serious partners who have capacities and global interests.

Secondly, the United States has got to send a very clear message and end the ambiguity once and for all about what we think about Europeans becoming stronger militarily and more independent politically. The Europeans are, essentially, confused. For years, they sensed they got the message that they needed to do more and we favored European integration, and now that they are actually pledging to do more and becoming more integrated, they sense a degree of American ambivalence.

Perhaps the most important thing the administration can do on this trip is publicly and privately dispel this notion of ambivalence. Indeed, I would even go farther and to say we need to get over some of our hang-ups or insistence that NATO has to be the sole forum for security-related concerns. The most important thing ought to be a Europe that is stronger. As we saw in the Kosovo vote the other day, the greatest threat to transatlantic relations right now is not European strength; it's European weakness. And if we do not want to see the revival of Mansfieldism on this side of the ocean, the United States should do nothing that in any way would pose an obstacle to greater European integration and greater European military strength.

Lastly, there is a big agenda with the Europeans, and the one thing I would simply add to the issues that have been suggested here--Russia, missile defense, the Balkans--is trade. This administration began with an ambitious trade policy with NAFTA and the WTO, and then it ran out of gas. It's very important that we have a transatlantic trade policy. Second of all, it's very important that the United States and Europe begin to consider closely if there is ever going to be a new global trade round. There can only be a positive sequel to Seattle if Americans and Europeans are essentially singing from the same sheet of music. This, again, is one of--I believe ought to be one of the objectives of this trip.

Let me turn now for the next few minutes to Russia before we turn to your questions. As Fiona and others have said, Putin is essentially an opportunist. He's a nationalist and he's a question mark. There is good news and bad news in that. He could turn out to be someone who, as many people are predicting, we can work with, but I wouldn't assume it. He could also turn out to be someone who is extremely difficult. Again, the fact that he is a nationalist suggests that he could be willing to play to the galleries rather than lead them.

Russia has been and will remain an extremely difficult foreign policy challenge for the United States. They have been humiliated by their loss of status. To put it bluntly, if the U.N. Security Council were being created today, it's unlikely that Russia would be one of the five permanent members. It's preoccupied by a war in Chechnya, and in many ways it has become a half-dimensional superpower. We used to call it a one-dimensional superpower, the military dimension, but now the conventional side has been shown to be essentially bankrupt and Russia is essentially down to being a half-dimensional superpower, which is not to say it does not have the capacity in many ways to cause problems. Indeed, its power right now is more negative than positive. It's less a shaper of the post-Cold War than a potential obstacle to order.

What sort of ground rules would I suggest for our approach to Russia at this summit and beyond? One is, I'd avoid linkage. I would avoid the idea of holding progress in one area of the relationship hostage to the other; or, to put it bluntly, if we have disagreements over Chechnya, I do not think that, therefore, we should refuse to cooperate in an economic realm or on nuclear weapons or anything else. We ought to basically take each area as it comes. So if we are going to criticize the Russians for their methods in Chechnya, that's fine, but I do not think, for example, we ought to introduce economic sanctions. Rather, on the economic side, we ought to follow a principle, if you will, of germaneness; that so long as they meet what we believe are intelligent economic conditions and principles, we ought to support economic aid going there. If they do not, we shouldn't, but we ought not to politicize it, as we have in the past. We ought not to link, for example, exchanges that are in our interest, Nunn-Lugar nuclear cooperation that is in our interest, to our frustrations over Russian behavior in Chechnya or anywhere else.

We ought to--and I think you've heard this from several--from people who spoke before me, from both Fiona and Cliff Gaddy--we ought to temper our zeal about our ability to go to Russia and essentially engineer their domestic politics and economics. I think we have to accept the fact that Russia's going to be mixed in both--mixed politically somewhere between a democracy and an authoritarian system; it's going to have elements of both. It's going to be mixed economically. It's going to be somewhere between a market and a state dirigiste system. There's going to be some positive things and negative, what Fiona, I think it was, described as progressive and regressive. That is the case now. I would bet a lot of money that that will continue to be the case in another five, 10, 15, or 20 years.

Yes, the details will change. The balances will change. But I think that reality will stay there, and we'd better learn to accept that. But if we are looking for perfection on either of those fronts, or clarity on either of those fronts, we are going to have a very frustrating time indeed.

Some of the foreign policy concerns, though, I would talk about are proliferation. It's one of the areas where Russian behavior in a negative sense could cause real problems. I would talk in particular about Iraq, where U.S. and Russian policies have diverged considerably.

I would talk about the future of the Balkans, where the Russians are involved in both Kosovo and Bosnia.

I think we've got to talk about NATO enlargement. This summit comes right on the heels of the Vilnius statement by the so-called Group of Nine NATO wanna-bes, and this doesn't need to be resolved. On this trip, it couldn't be resolved. But I think it's a useful time to give some indication of what our thinking is and to take the temperature of the new Russian government, but over the next decade, if indeed we are going to continue with the process of NATO enlargement, working out the Russian dimension. This is obviously central, and that process might as well continue in Moscow next week.

Last, let me turn to the nuclear question. I think the president would be wise to discuss the range of thinking in this country. He has said certain things, the governor of Texas the other day said some things, but clearly certain ideas are in the air here. They're in the wind--about deep cuts, beyond current and contemplated levels, on the offensive side; about so-called de-alerting, about reductions in the alert status of existing forces; about greater defense, missile defense, than is allowed or permissible under the 1972 ABM Treaty.

That said, the purpose of this summit ought not to be to negotiate. Mr. Clinton has a problem right now where the current administration's thinking on all these issues is probably too much for the Russians and not enough for the Republicans, and this might be one of those--as a result, one of those positions where they find themselves, rather than being the perfect compromise, it may be just the opposite. It may be acceptable to no one.

More generally, I would say that a president at this stage in his tenure is unwise to try to get ambitious abroad without even the beginnings of a consensus here at home on these issues. This debate has barely begun in this country. I think who's ever elected, whether it's Mr. Gore or Mr. Bush, early on in his administration, out of choice or necessity, is going to have to launch a serious nuclear policy review, to essentially look at the--what are the options for new relationships between offensive and defensive forces. Essentially, we are beginning the process of coming to a post-1972, post-Cold War nuclear regime, but we are too early on in the process to even know what we think, much less what we want to negotiate. So this meeting in Russia ought not to be approached or conceived of as a negotiation, but rather simply as a consultation or a discussion. These are still early days. And just as I would argue these issues ought to be deferred domestically for the next U.S. administration, so any negotiation, I would think, needs to be deferred as well.

Let me just stop, then, with a few last points.

More generally, then, I think this trip, in many ways, a consultation or a set of discussions. Unlike Cold War summits, the United States and Russia do not somehow stand at the center of international relations. Most of the issues of the post-cold war world of this age of globalization Russia is essentially marginal to. It's essentially irrelevant to. There's fear, like the nuclear area, where the residue of the cold war is still relevant. For sure. But even there we're not ready for negotiations.

Indeed, even the word "summit" is in some ways, I think, a bad anachronism. Again, it implies a degree of drama, a degree of centrality, and an ability to somehow solve problems. That simply isn't the case any more. Most of the problems of the post-cold war Russia will not be particularly in a position to help solve.

Second of all, timing counts in life. And Woody Allen is famous for having said 90 percent of life is showing up. Not in this case. Showing up in this case is not 90 percent of it because timing might actually count for a lot more. The fact that this is coming up very early on in Mr. Putin's tenure where he is still defining himself, still asserting himself, and clearly comes at a time when he has bigger fish to fry: much more concerned about economic policy, much more concerned about Chechnya, about a new domestic political order. That means he's got bigger things to worry about. And for Mr. Clinton, this comes, if my math is right, approximately 15/16ths of the way into his presidency, which is another way of saying he's got roughly eight months or so left, it's only about half a year until the election, he simply is not in a place right now, the time is not right for major undertakings. The only areas where I would say that could be an exception is if he had used the previous seven-plus years to invest and to nurture and to push along issues so now they were sufficiently ripe to be harvested. But when I look at the U.S.-Russian relationship, I simply cannot find issues that he has essentially invested in for seven years that are now ready to be harvested. So again, the idea that this is the time to bring major issues to closure I simply don't see.

So, bottom line is this is not a time for great legacy-building, this is not a summit that's worthy of the name of summit, it's not a moment for great accomplishments, but rather it's part of a continuing dialogue with a country that is still trying to terms with the fact that in reality it is no longer a great power except in the very important but still limited area of nuclear weapons.

With that, why don't we open it up to questions. What I ask you to do is you wait for the microphone, and you identify yourself. And if you want to address it to one of us, great, or we'll just pick and choose among ourselves.

Q: George Condon with Copley News Service. I have two questions I'd like to--first off, in the West they're often saying--asking whether or not we can do business with the Russian leader. In Russia, do they think they can do business with a president at the end of his term and with Jesse Helms looking over his shoulder? And secondly, so many of these meetings have been dictated by the personal relationship between the president and Yeltsin. How is Clinton going to find it different dealing with Putin as opposed to Yeltsin?

R. Haass: Fiona, you want to take a shot at that?

F. Hill: Sure. I think there's a--I mean, just exactly as you've posed the question, I think there's a lot of skepticism in Russia as to whether they can do any business with Clinton right now. I mean, that's certainly the turn in the Russian press. But as I said at the beginning of my remarks, symbolically this is a very important visit for them because it's the first visit of a U.S. head of state with the new Russian president. So there's a lot of symbolism in there, but not a great deal of expectation that anything will come out of it, very much--very much in line with what Rich had said here. So it's more of a kind of just getting a feel for kind of the current state of thinking in the U.S. and what might likely happen in the future. But, I mean, everyone in Russia is looking ahead to November and January just as we are here. And, I mean, that is really, then, going to be a big kind of question, just what I just said about what can come out of this.

R. Haass: Go ahead.

C. Gaddy: My only reply would be I don't think they're really looking, Mr. Putin is looking to do business. I think we all seem to agree that expectations on the Russian side are not to come out with any grand bargains or deals. I also think that the Russians are fairly relaxed about U.S. policy and realize this country is able to run itself no matter who's in charge. They pay, I think, less attention to our leaders than we seem to to theirs. Maybe for good reason.

Q: And the second question, the difference between dealing with Yeltsin and Putin.

F. Hill: Well, I think, actually--I mean, that has certainly sunk home with the U.S. administration. I mean, one of the goals of the trip is to actually kind of meet with Duma members and kind of look more broadly. There's certainly been a movement within the administration over the last several years to start putting more stress on kind of grass roots initiatives, meeting with other societal groups. That was a feature of the last several visits.

I mean, the Clinton visit is just coming on the tail end also of a number of high-level visits from the U.S. to Russia where broader groups of the population have been met with. So, I mean, I think that that message has got home that the relationship cannot be personalized and that there are many other constituencies they have to reach out to.

R. Haass: Barry?

Q: Thank you. Richard, ... you talked about an exception in the nuclear field. Could you develop that a little bit? What business do you think can be conducted, especially with Jesse Helms' DOA threat: anything you send up is dead on arrival? But, of course, there are ways to get things through without Senator Helms.

And Ms. Hill, it was a great sound bite, that Clinton should keep his mouth shut, he'll be exploited if he talks too much; but is it just a sound bite? What do you mean by that? What could Putin possibly--how could Putin, as you all describe him as a guy just feeling his way--I think you call him a cipher and all sorts of other derogatory things--what could he get out of Clinton--how could he profit from Mr. Clinton's visit to Moscow? Thanks.

R. Haass: I'll give Fiona a chance to think about your second question. I'll respond to the first, on the nuclear side.

I am quite modest in what Mr. Clinton can do, in large part because he doesn't have domestic consensus. But even despite that, I just think it's too early on for the United States to begin establishing a new plateau that would establish a new relationship between strategic offense and defense to take the place of the '72 plateau, simply because we're only beginning to do our homework on offensive cuts. I think they're long overdue, but we're only beginning to do the homework on that.

More important, I am unpersuaded myself that this initial architecture for strategic defense, an Alaska site with 100 interceptors, is the way we want to go. I'm prepared to be proven wrong, but I'm not there yet. I don't think we've begun to think hard enough about other land-based sites or, more important, sea and air-based.

So the idea that we would pay the enormous--we'd go through the enormous negotiating process and deal with the Europeans and Russians and Chinese and others to establish a new plateau, only to regret it, that it turns out to still preclude things we may want to do and perhaps give us allowance for things we're not particularly interested to do, seems to me bizarre.

Q: --Intrinsic to the issue is not the fact that he's a lame duck, and it's not the fact that Jesse Helms is--

R. Haass: Right. The timing is wrong. It's just too soon. The fact that he is a lame duck and he's got political problems adds to it, but the real issue is that this debate has been late in coming. It's quite interesting. If you look at the literature, you look at the journals, you look at where the foreign policy establishment is--Democrats and Republicans, it's like most issues now, it doesn't divide up neatly between the parties or within the parties--I just don't think we're ready. And given the magnitude, given the dollars, the strategic stakes here, the idea that we would really start playing around with one of the real foundations of international relations, do it before we're ready to do it, I think we're just not there yet.

So I actually am very comfortable with those who say we ought to defer this issue for the new administration. I have my own instincts about where we want to go, which is significantly less offense and appreciably more defense, but that still begs some of the questions of detail and architecture.

Q: Could I just follow that? Did you feel that way about Ronald Reagan's arms reductions in 1988? He was a lame duck, too.

Q: George Bush in '92-'93, signing the START treaty.

R. Haass: Again, I am arguing on this not based on the fact that Mr. Clinton is a lame duck and that lame ducks or people in the last year of a presidency ought not to be able to do things. But there's a difference between pursuing policies for which there has been debate, and a degree, or a considerable degree, of domestic consensus exists. The fact that we are now in a world which is fundamentally different. Unlike Bush, unlike Reagan, Mr. Clinton is not operating within a familiar architecture. He is not operating within givens of a Cold-War world.

You had SALT agreements, you have START agreements, you had the A-72 Treaty. So arms-control reductions that were undertaken by previous presidents were essentially refinements of the status quo. Or to use social-science talk, they took place within the existing paradigm.

We are now talking about changing the paradigm. No puns please. All I am saying is if you are going to start doing that, you have got to do it carefully and intelligently. I would simply suggest that we have not done the homework and we have not created the political support yet to establish a new paradigm.

Q: Can I follow up?

R. Haass: Actually, let me get my colleagues here to--we'll come back to it. There were some questions though, that Barry asked more on the political side.

F. Hill: Yeah. I should explain what I mean by a "cipher," obviously. This wasn't exactly meant to be derogatory, although I suppose it could be taken that way, because --

What I mean by this is that he is extraordinarily good at reading people. He is very good at listening and kind of transmitting and synthesizing other people's opinions and then kind of formulating the statements and policies based on this. So he is not a person who ever shows you what his hand is but then does show you the kind of broader underlying themes and views of others.

And we have seen that repeatedly since when he was prime minister, and then as acting president, that he has been very good at bringing in an incredibly broad spectrum of people, you know, people who would not necessarily be natural bedfellows, and then being able to bring something together, out of all this difference of opinion, to basically let--hear--people see a little of themselves in each.

I have spoken to a remarkable number of Russian politicians--over the last several months, who have said: "You know, my goodness, look. He pointed out something that I said in this speech"; and, "He has been cutting on this theme that I have been pushing for the last several years." And he is very clever at doing that.

And that's why I think he can profit, from the point of view of the visits from Clinton. He can both kind of--we have seen this happen on several occasions where the administration, the U.S. government, has made certain points, that--I think Madeleine Albright on one of the trips, has said something, and then the Russians then spin it for domestic purposes. So that's what I am really thinking about. We have to be very careful about what we say because it can be used, both to kind of strengthen Putin's position internally, but also the fact that Putin himself never like really lets anything slip about what he really thinks.

It can also be very intimidating; I mean, I have heard from both descriptions from the visit to London in which Tony Blair and many other people were thrown off guard totally by Putin because he never says anything about what he thinks. So he lets them run on and on, you know, and kind of being friendly and trying to fill in the silences; and then, you know, kind of twists what they have said, when he goes back to report back to the public. So I mean, he has got a very disconcerting style for a Westerner, who is much more used to talking.

Q: Mr. Haass?

R. Haass: Actually, let me get Mr. Schorr first, and then we'll do it. I promise.

Q: What's going on between Russia and Afghanistan, but specifically the Taliban?

F. Hill: This is actually--I think in many respects, this is a little bit of saber rattling, but it also has a very important purpose. It's saber rattling on two fronts, both domestically and then within the kind of the Russian near-abroad--for the points of view of the--you could say it's in the Caucasus and Central Asia--but also vis-a-vis the United States. I mean, it's taking again a leaf out of the United States' book; that, if there is a proven kind of hot-bed of international terrorism that is a threat to Russian interests, just like for U.S. interests, Russia can take the same kind of approach that the U.S. did: "The U.S. bombed Afghanistan; therefore, Russia can do the same thing."

But it's very important domestically, to increase the perception of domestic threat from the Chechens. I mean, the war in Chechnya is not going particularly well now for Russia. There are also a lot of questions now starting to surface within the Russian press, particularly--I mean, we saw that with NTV and Media Most.

Q: I suspect it's "surmisal"; but isn't it likely that Putin says to Clinton, when Clinton complains about what's going in Chechnya, that, "Well, this is all being done by the Taliban. The terrorists were your enemy, as well as our enemy. You bombed Afghanistan; we'll bomb Afghanistan"? That's not giving him an opportunity to look for a way of seeking unity on the subject?

F. Hill: I think you are absolutely right. I think it's a very important basis on which Putin can seek common cause with the United States.

In fact, this has been brewing for some time. After Madeleine Albright's visit to Central Asia, the Central Asian governments were saying the same point, positing a link between the Chechens and the Afghans. It's a way of, again, spinning the Chechen war to show that this is part of a transnational, global threat, not just a domestic problem for Russia, and to give them more weight for the Russian campaign.

Q: --I'd like to return to the question of timing on arms control, because the administration's argument to the Russians and, at least implicitly, to its domestic audience is to take your argument and essentially turn it on its head and say, "Look, you have a very short period of time while we're still in office when we can conclude an agreement that fulfills our objectives by allowing us to forward with a limited national missile defense and at the same time preserve an important part of the legacy of arms control--preserve the ABM treaty by modifying it, not blow a hole in this whole architecture." What's wrong with that argument?

R. Haass: It's possible there will be those in the administration who think that. It seems to me though, they've got two major problems with it. One is, and in a sense I alluded to it before--one is, I'm not sure the Russians are buying that. The Russians are clearly concerned, simply by the novelty of it, but also by what you might call the "thin end of the wedge" argument. They are clearly concerned that even modest defenses, one site or with 100 interceptors, possibly leading to two sites with 200 to 250 interceptors in all, is the beginning of a process that, if it does work, could ultimately lead to a rather unlimited defense, fairly large-scale defense. So there are strong voices on their side who simply don't want to go down that path. So they--I don't think they are yet prepared, in a sense, to buy into your argument.

Second of all, I do think that Mr. Clinton has to take the domestic situation here carefully, and I don't mean it in a politicized sense. I think it's fine for presidents to do things and challenge political opponents. I think that's one of the things presidents get paid for, and indeed, I with this president would do it more often. But that's something qualitatively different than making an enormous policy decision with long-term consequences before there's the beginnings of political consensus at home.

One of the things leaders have to do on big ideas is, I think, have national debates and create some sense of support, because one of the things that makes us an effective power in the world is that there is some predictability and continuity. We've had massive debates about health care, we're having one about Social Security, we had one about welfare reform, we're having one about guns. I would argue that this is, conceivably, of similar magnitude, maybe, and the idea that the president would somehow ram this through in the absence of such a national debate, I just don't think is good governing.

And it risks getting repudiated, not simply by this Republican Senate or Mr. Helms. I think it's almost certain to be repudiated by whoever succeeds him, because we simply don't know what the technology can do. We don't know enough yet what we think. We haven't figured out where we're willing to go on offense, so how do we know what we want to do on defense? We've got a big negotiation--we've got a summit going on with North Korea. Are we really sure we want to field an architecture whose principal rationale is a counter-North Korea rationale, as opposed to, possibly, an Iran or Iraq or unauthorized or accidental Russian launch rationale? Are we sure we want to do land-based systems as opposed to sea-based?

All I'm saying is--I'm not arguing against presidential leadership, but I am against rushing through decisions before the debate has essentially even begun.

P. Gordon: Richard, can I have a word on that?

R. Haass: Of course.

P. Gordon: Because I think the timing is--one thing it's important to remember is how much this has changed over even the past few months. When the decision was first taken to, A, pursue this architecture and, B, try to get a deal with the Russians this summer, the political climate was very different. You had Republicans pushing very hard to deploy something as soon as possible, in the wake of the Rumsfeld Report and North Korean tests. And so politically, it was almost impossible to do what Richard is, I think, rightly saying should be done now, which is to say, "We've got a little bit of time; we can wait." Politically, you're being pushed toward doing that. We've had one test of this architecture, and it seemed to work. And so you couldn't go backwards, and you almost had to move forward. And there was a not unreasonable proposition that this would persuade the Russians, because you could arrive and say, "Look, you can cut this deal with me. I know you don't like it, but if you don't cut it with me, you know, look who you might get in a couple of months."

That whole spiel made sense then, but I don't think it does anymore, like Richard doesn't think it does anymore. Now we've had a failed test. We have the Republicans--instead of saying, "You have to deploy as soon as possible," they're saying, "You can't take a decision now, because you're lame duck, and we haven't looked at this carefully, and you might want a different system." And you have the Korean summit coming up, which takes away the urgency of the Rumsfeld and the tests.

So what--when the decision was initially taken, I think that there was something to it, and it wasn't as crazy as it seems now. But now we're on this hook of, you know, it's already taken, and they seem to be going ahead with the strategy.

R. Haass: Fair enough. Yes, ma'am?

Q: Yvonne Esterhazy from the Financial Times Deutschland. I would like to ask Mr. Gordon about the German leg of Mr. Clinton's trip. Both sides always stress the fact that the relationship is fundamentally good. However, there's been quite a little dark clouds recently. The controversy about the new head of the IMF is one, and the slave labor talks dragging on is another, and then there's been a very critical report from Charlene Barshefsky's office, saying that U.S. companies are being discriminated against in Germany.

I will stop here, but I would just like to ask you for your assessment, please.

P. Gordon: It's definitely worth venturing, and I think that that's--clearly one of the purposes of this trip is going to be for President Clinton to reconnect with Schroeder in the wake of some of these issues, especially the IMF thing, which I think really was damaging to this relationship. The way that played out--and it's--you know, it's a complicated story, and there other countries involved in Europe that gave the--that, you know, I think it's fair, to sum up, almost hung the U.S. out to dry on this issue and led the U.S. to play the bad cop, which strained the relationship with Germany.

And that, the issues you mention, and plus, you know, the defense issues--you've heard Secretary of Defense Cohen talk about how the Germans aren't pulling their weight, and the European defense can't be credible unless Germany participates more--these are all issues that have, I agree with you, strained relations over the past months. And the--one of the purposes of this visit, I think, will be to try to reconnect at that level and try to find ways to move forward together.

But you know, there's--the issues are there. And you know, other than the broader things we've talked about in reconnecting with the Europeans, it's not clear what a meeting like this can do about them.

R. Haass: We have time for about two more. Yes, ma'am?

Q: What's the purpose of the president's stop in Ukraine? Fiona pointed to that, but maybe she could be more specific.

R. Haass: The question, in case people couldn't hear it, was about the rationale behind the stop in Ukraine.

F. Hill: I mean, Ukraine continues to be a very important relationship for the U.S. And although this may seem like a kind of an adjunct, it actually--this--the trip to Russia comes at a very important time for Ukraine. So I think that it's really a timing issue as to why there is a trip to attached to Kiev at this point, because we just had a new appointment of a prime minister in Ukraine, who is seen at this point as kind of like the last great hope for economic reform. So the real purpose of this is to give him a boost, to show kind of that the U.S. is still committed to Ukraine, and also to meet with a broader spectrum of the Ukrainian political--the Rada and other groups there, to show that the U.S. is still committed. But I mean, it's really to try to kind of save something out of the policy towards Ukraine after so many failed attempts at economic reform. This is a very symbolic, but we're hoping that this will give a kind of a push to the current Ukrainian government.

P. Gordon: Let me just, again, add one sentence. In the way I cast the broad European trip of capping off a successful strategy, I think the Ukraine is also meant to suggest the unfinished business. Look what we've done in the western part of Europe by--and the central part of Europe by expanding our institutions--NATO, EU and so on. Ukraine is meant to say We can do it there as well.

R. Haass: Last question.

Q: Leo Rennert with McClatchy Newspapers. I'd like to ask Richard Haass how confident you are that the president will actually take your advice and not proceed with arms control. We've seen in the last few days and weeks really an intensive journey of top White House officials and State Department officials to Moscow to prepare apparently an agenda for arms control. We've sent Sandy Berger, Strobe Talbott I think is still in Moscow. We've also seen on Putin's part some activism in terms of ramming through CTBT and START II ratification. This morning Sandy Berger was saying he doesn't expect a break-through or an agreement at this summit, but quickly pointed out that Clinton's going to see Putin three more times this year and made the point that presidents are elected for four-year terms, not three-year terms. Doesn't that signal that there's a kind of an itch there to accomplish something, if not at this summit, before the president leaves?

R. Haass: Well, the record of the last seven-plus years, Leo, would suggest that the president will sign a major arms control agreement on this trip, given the relationship between my advice and his behavior. So, you know--

There's been mixed signals coming out of the administration. They're right to essentially say they're not lame ducks and in a sense to not allow people to take away their remaining opportunities. I would be doing the same thing. Indeed, if my memory serves me right, I once did. On the other hand, you've also had stories in the media suggesting a lowering of expectations, and in a meeting I was recently at with--well, are we allowed to say who, Dan?--with a senior official of the Department of State I came away with the distinct impression that they had lowered their sights.

I also got the sense, though, that it was more because of what they were hearing in Moscow rather than what they were hearing in Washington, which suggests that if they were to hear something different in Moscow, it's quite possible that they would once again ratchet up their ambition. It's--I'm not in the prediction business; I am in the advice business. And my advice would be, like most temptations, resist it.

I just don't think that it would be smart foreign policy. I'll leave the politics to others. I just don't think it would be smart foreign policy for any two-term president at this stage to be promoting an ambitious new approach in this area given the state or the lack of maturity, if you will, of this foreign policy debate. I just think it's bad for our national security because we're not yet prepared to make commitments. Even if the Russians were to agree, I would not be prepared to lock us in to any particular architecture yet. And I think there's also the chance that you really do risk domestic repudiation, and I don't like that. Whatever you thought, for example, about the pros and cons of the CTBT, I worry about the United States developing a reputation for inconstancy and unpredictability. I just don't think it's good for us as a great power. So the idea that we would now have some new Vladivostok-style framework agreement between the United States and Russia that couldn't stand the test of time and be implemented I don't think would be good for the United States, for U.S.-Russian relations, or for strategic stability.

And on that note, I want to thank you all for coming to Brookings this afternoon and thank my colleagues here.

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