It has been suggested on these pages that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has developed a habit of raining on President Dmitry Medvedev’s foreign policy parade, depriving him of victories on accession to the World Trade Organization or swiftly negotiating a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama.
Indeed, the case could be made that Putin regularly intervenes at key junctures to slow down Medvedev’s foreign policy moves. But it would be hasty to conclude that depriving Medvedev of victories has become an objective for Putin. Nor should it be viewed as an indication of Putin’s continued interest in seeking another presidential term in 2012.
More likely, Putin’s readiness to throw a monkey wrench into Medvedev’s initiatives has more to do with the overall inefficiency of the Russian foreign policy process and poor interagency coordination.
It is clear that in terms of Russia’s raw national interests, creating a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan trumps the WTO accession, a proposition with uncertain long-term benefits and obvious short-term harm.
Seizing on the opportunity to clinch the customs union deal in 2008 was the only sensible thing to do, and Putin deserves credit for this. But he should have deferred to Medvedev to announce this major breakthrough and explain the consequences of the decision for the country’s WTO bid.
Instead, Putin drew up an awkward plan for the joint WTO accession for Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan — something that Medvedev later had to walk away from. Where is the coordination between the Kremlin and the government?
Putin has drawn a clear lesson from the Soviet Union’s weak foreign policy performance in the late 1980s: Rushing into arms control agreements with the United States by giving away the store can be very bad for your health. His more hardline position on the post-START agreement put the brakes on Medvedev’s desire to rush into an agreement — something that the military’s top brass was also uncomfortable with. Again, there was no viable interagency coordination to slow down those who wanted an agreement at any price as part of Medvedev’s courtship of Obama.
Putin is more of a steady, firm hand than a spoiler when it comes to Medvedev’s global forays. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, but it definitely serves Russia’s interests.
Vladimir Frolov is president of LEFF Group, a government-relations and PR company.