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Deputy Secretary Talbott Statement Before the House International Relations Committee, Washington, DC, September 17, 1998

As prepared for delivery

Mr. Chairman, I welcome the chance today to discuss Russia with you and your colleagues. The timing of this hearing could not be more appropriate, given the questions that recent events have posed, and I'm glad to be joined by my friend, colleague, and traveling companion, Larry Summers.

There is, I'm sure you agree, Mr. Chairman, no foreign policy and national security issue on which it is more important to have maximum consultation between the Legislative and the Executive branches of our government. Nor is there any issue on which it's more important to have bipartisan consensus.

Let me say a word or two in response to the bleak picture that you have painted in your own opening comments, Mr. Chairman. The drama of Russia's transformation from a dictatorship and an empire to a normal, modern, democratic state is not over. It will continue, and we must stay engaged, using every bit of influence and wisdom we have to increase the chances that, whatever the setbacks along the way, Russia eventually completes that transformation. As for where we -- and they -- are today, it would be at least premature and perhaps dead-wrong to say that Russian reform is dead, that it has failed, that it has collapsed -- and that we should therefore change our policy. If we brace for a crash, we may increase the chances of the crash occurring; if we adopt a posture of strategic pessimism, it could become self-fulfilling. Our posture should continue to be one of realism -- and that means recognizing everything that is going on in that country and taking advantage of everything we have at our disposal to advance our interests.

I have been in Moscow twice in the last 4 weeks, including with the President 2 weeks ago. I returned last night from Europe, where Larry and I consulted with our G-8 partners in London and I met with our Allies in Brussels. Deputy Secretary Summers will address the economic situation, which is critical. I will address, first, the internal political situation.

It's important to see both the positive and the more disturbing and problematic elements of the present situation. Russia today is a democracy -- a constitutional democracy -- which it wasn't for most of its long, troubled history. Moreover, Russia today has a government -- which it did not have as recently as a week ago. It has that government because the president and the parliament played by the rules of the constitution. That is not the way Russian politics worked in the past, to put it mildly. Political struggles were, over the decades, resolved in ways that meant blood in the streets, knocks on the door at midnight, executions in the dungeons of Lyublyanka, lives lost in the Gulag.

Also, Russia today has a prime minister who has a mandate from both the president and the parliament. This prime minister is well known to us. He's someone with whom we've worked closely, often well. He and Secretary Albright have developed a high degree of candor on issues like NATO enlargement, Iraq, and Kosovo. They have been able to identify areas where our interests converge as well as to manage issues on which we differ.

Now for the more somber side of the picture. Mr. Primakov's initial appointments are grounds for concern. That's not because of the personalities per se or even because of their party affiliation so much as because of their affiliation with policies in the past that, if harbingers of policies-to-come, augur badly for Russia's ability to pull itself out of its difficulties.

Further economic decline carries with it the danger of political turmoil and drift in wrong and perilous directions -- not just from our standpoint but from the standpoint of Russia's own hopes for a better future.

Let me be clear: I'm not predicting the worst outcome or even a bad outcome; that is not foreordained. But it's a possibility that we -- and they -- need to work against. In a moment, Larry will lay out the precepts and parameters of what we can and can't do in the economic sphere. Let me, Mr. Chairman, turn now to the foreign policy and national security side of the picture. Again, that picture is mixed and clouded but not unremittingly bleak. In terms of its international behavior, Russia today is a much different country than it was 10 years ago. There are no Russian troops in the Baltic States; there are no nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus (which is a credit to the statesmanship of the Government of Russia as well as the governments of those other three new independent states); Russian troops are serving side-by-side with U.S. soldiers and others to keep the peace in Bosnia; Russian officers are working with our Allies at NATO headquarters in Mons; a Russian diplomat met yesterday with Allied Permanent Representatives in Brussels for a discussion of CFE, Kosovo, and civil emergency planning under the rubric of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council. Meanwhile, other Russian diplomats are working with the U.S. and the Europeans to bring peace to the South Caucasus, while still others are working with the United States and the Europeans to stop the violence in Kosovo.

Now, for the clouds on the horizon: The Yeltsin-Primakov government is under pressure from the Duma to shift the emphasis in Russia's interaction with the U.S. and our Allies from cooperation and partnership to assertiveness, opposition, and defiance for its own sake. That pressure is likely to mount during a time when the Russian Executive branch feels it must make accommodations with the Legislative branch in the realm of economic and social policy.

If -- I stress if -- that happens, it will be a double disaster for Russia. First, it will be a disaster because our ability to help Russia help itself in the economy will go from being merely very, very difficult to being absolutely impossible. Second, it will be a disaster because a shift of the kind that some in the Duma are advocating in Russian foreign policy will be contrary to Russia's own interests; it will put out of reach cooperation on problems that Russia desperately needs to solve.

Some in the Duma depict the unresolved issues on our foreign-policy agenda as concessions the "West" is trying to extract from Russia, as favors we're asking Russia to do for us. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Russia needs an effective non-proliferation regime. Russia needs strategic arms reduction. Russia needs an adapted CFE treaty. Russia needs good relations with its neighbors. Russia needs a Europe without dividing lines. Russia needs peace in the Balkans. Russia needs a tamping down of ethnic conflicts, especially on its borders. And Russia needs a strong cooperative relationship with NATO.

Secretary Albright has asked me to stress today that the United States wants and needs those things too. And if -- and once again I stress if -- Russia's new leaders see those needs as clearly as we do, it should be possible to continue to develop the agenda we have pursued -- with some significant accomplishments -- over the past several years: strategic arms control; non-proliferation in general and, in particular, the cessation of the transfer of dangerous technologies to Iran; as well as common diplomatic efforts to strengthen European security and to settle regional conflicts.

A final word about the United States' overall posture at this critical moment. Especially when there is obvious uncertainty about the direction of Russia, there must be all the more clarity on our side -- clarity of purpose, clarity about our interests. Our message to the Russian leaders at the Moscow summit -- and since -- has been this: The United States has a continued stake in Russia's success in building democracy and developing a market economy and in its success in consolidating political and economic freedom. We are willing to keep working with Russia to advance common interests. But how much we can do together depends largely on the choices that the Russians make themselves.

[End of Document]

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