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25 The Future
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25 THE FUTURE When it comes to the relationship between great peoples, that relationship is not finished, not complete when it only consists of the military relationship, the economic, and the political. There has to be, and particularly in the case of Russia, there has to be another supplementary dimension to these relations—and that is the dimension of the meeting of people—in the work of the intellect, in the respect for scholarship and history, in the understanding of art and music and in all the intuitive feelings that go to unite us even in the most difficult times to many people in Russia. — . , October , In the early years of the twenty-first century, Russia is in a new time of troubles— demographic, public health, environmental, crime and corruption, economic, and social—and there are some in the United States who believe that Russia no longer matters in world affairs. True, Russia has lost an empire; its political, economic, and social systems have been overturned; its military power has been much reduced; and all within the space of little more than a decade. Russia is indeed down but it is not out. It still has many attributes of a great power—nuclear weapons and their delivery systems , vast natural resources, rich oil and gas reserves, a strategic position athwart Europe and Asia, an educated and skilled workforce, world-class science, an active space exploration program, a culture that has enriched the world, and a history that Russians are proud of, and its neighbors very much aware of. Rather than neglected, Russia should be engaged, and it should be a long-term engagement that will lead, not necessarily to marriage, but to a better understanding by Russians of their own country and how it should relate to the rest of the world. Ronald Reagan, in , in what many observers thought was yet another example of his euphoric optimism, prophesied:“It may seem an impossible dream to think that there could be a time when Americans and Soviet citizens of all walks of life travel freely back and forth, visit each other’s homes, look up friends and professional colleagues, work together in all sorts of problems, and, if they feel like it, sit up all night talking about the meaning of life and the different ways to look at the world. . . . I don’t believe it’s an impossible dream.”1 Ronald Reagan’s . Ronald Reagan, in address to a conference in Washington on U.S.-Soviet exchanges, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), vol. , no. , . “impossible dream” has now been realized as Russians are free to interact with Americans and Europeans at home and abroad, and many thousands come to the United States every year under U.S. government and private programs. Gone are the quotas and strictures of the cultural agreement on who and how many can come and go between the two countries, and as a consequence, the number of persons exchanged each year has greatly increased. The number of Russians studying in the United States has reached new highs. Russian performing arts groups and individual artists have a presence on American stages far exceeding the s and s. Russian exhibitions are shown regularly across the United States, and in cities where they have never before been seen. And Russian hockey players skate for the National Hockey League. Optimists, in , were predicting a quick transition from communism to capitalism and a democratic Russia. A market, they said, would do it all. Pessimists were predicting a longer period for the anticipated transition—a decade or two. Realists, recalling Russia’s history and centuries-old traditions, thought it would take even longer. But however long it takes, there is much that the West can do to facilitate the process, and one of them is to encourage exchanges with Russia, particularly with young people. The most effective force for long-term change in Russia is its younger people, who are now moving into positions in business and government. They need to travel, break out of their country’s historic isolation, visit other countries, see how other people live, and how Russians are seen by other people. As George Kennan counseled, whatever relations exist between Russia and other countries, there also has to be a meeting of the people. Such a meeting of the people is being facilitated by Open World (formerly the Russian Leadership Program), created by an act of Congress in .2...