American National Security

22. Russia

462 22 Russia Relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, and then later between the United States and post-Soviet Russia, have played an essential, central role in American national security. Marked by confrontation after World War II, these relations shifted to expectations of partnership with the new Russian state after the Soviet collapse. However, the first decade of the twenty-first century brought renewed friction over Russia’s behavior and its standing in the international political, economic, and strategic order. Across the different stages of its recent history, the changes in Russia’s international power and influence have been dramatic. The collapse of the Soviet Union eliminated what was arguably the single greatest external threat to the United States since its founding. The Soviet threat was not simply strategic in nature but encompassed a profoundly different set of values and institutions that formed an alternative political, economic, and cultural system. An appreciation for the history of this threat remains valuable for the perspective it provides on current U.S. national security challenges, including the problem of terrorism. As the primary heir of the Soviet Union, Russia is still shaped by this legacy. Moreover, it retains a nuclear arsenal that is still capable of destroying the United States. Russia’s failure to establish authentic democratic institutions and a market economy after the Soviet collapse means that cooperation between Washington and Moscow for the foreseeable future will rest less on common values than on perceptions of shared interests. Depending on how Moscow defines its interests, Russia can play the role of spoiler or supporter of U.S. foreign policy. Russia 463 The Cold War The central dynamics in the history of U.S. national security policy during the Cold War, reviewed in Chapter 3, were the tension and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Although hundreds of books have been written on the origins of the Cold War, two main causes are worthy of mention here.1 The first, frequently listed as the chief among all causes, was a set of beliefs arising from Marxist and Soviet ideology. This ideology assumed inherent con- flict between capitalism and communism and drastically skewed relations between the Soviet Union and the West. The brutal nature of Soviet domestic politics strengthened the ideological tendency of the Kremlin to see the world in zero-sum terms—any loss for one side was a gain for the other and vice versa. For example, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin accused his political rivals in the Communist Party of being “enemies of the people” who served foreign powers and were intent on destroying the new Soviet state from within. Soviet moderates who favored a less confrontational approach to the Western democracies, such as Nikolai Bukharin (communist theorist and leader during the 1917 Russian Revolution) were swept away. Yet careful observers understood that Soviet behavior was shaped not only by communist ideology and an authoritarian past but also by the tumultuous history of Russia, which had suffered numerous and devastating invasions from the Mongols to Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler. MAP. 22.1 Russia A second key origin of the Cold War arose from deep conflicts of interest. The first major area of friction was the fate of postwar Germany and Eastern Europe. Stalin wanted to establish a socialist “sphere of influence” in Eastern Europe and ultimately place Germany under Soviet domination. This policy was designed not only to increase the number of nations in the socialist camp (and thereby validate ideological predictions) but also to provide a friendly “buffer zone” for the territory of the Soviet Union. The United States was willing to see the establishment of governments friendly to the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe but objected to the forcible imposition of communist regimes. The survival of European noncommunist states, especially a free Germany, gradually became a key concern for American leaders, who believed that the addition of any significant portion of western Europe to the newly expanded Soviet bloc would eventually tip the global balance of power. The resolve of the United States and its allies was tested by the Soviet Union on numerous occasions: in 1946, over the prolonged Soviet occupation of Iran; in 1946–1947, over threats to Greece and Turkey; in 1948, by the Soviet sponsored coup that installed a communist government in Czechoslovakia; and in 1948–1949, by the blockade of West...