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Russia Threat Reps Good – Engagement Author Indict

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Russia Threat Reps Good – Engagement Author Indict Advocates of engagement are biased – they are coopted by the Russian system Nyquist, 10 – JR, President of the Strategic Crisis Center and Distinguished Senior Fellow in Political Science at the Inter-American Institute(“Will Russia Keep the Treaty?,” Financial Sense Online, 12/30/10, http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/jr-nyquist/will-russia-keep-the-treaty)RK There is another side of this blackmail which Kalashnikov didn't mention. When Western politicians and businessmen get tangled up with Russia's mafia elite, they enter into a partnership from which they cannot easily extricate themselves. Western bankers who have laundered Russian money are now part of the Russian mafia's scheme. They have purchased the infamous one-way ticket. They cannot go back. They cannot get out. It is too late. Now they must follow along, and the Russian criminal machine colonizes the unsuspecting Western capitalist. The ultimate exploitation of this process may not be far to find. As the criminal system advances, the leaders of the West must keep silent; for they were the first to advocate "engagement" with the Russians. How can they publicly admit that they have been drawn in, swindled, and tainted? Kalashnikov mentioned the diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks, where NATO documents outlined strong measures for protecting the Baltic States from Russia. He acknowledged that Russia's overall position was weakened by these leaks, and NATO's position was strengthened. "The leaks," he said, "make absolutely clear that NATO is NATO, with no second-rate membership [for the threatened Baltic countries]. The Estonian people, when I was there, expressed concern regarding the American position. Of course, officially, everything was okay. But what about the ultimate will-power of the Americans? Now the Estonian concerns will be mitigated. They reacted very positively to the WikiLeaks, thanks to Julian Assange." I asked Kalashnikov what he thought of Assange, the Australian-born publisher of WikiLeaks. "My feeling," he answered, "is that Assange is not fully aware of what he is doing. He is not aware of the substance and meaning of the information he is spreading. They represent him as a proponent of certain information, but if you are trying to make some revelations, you should yourself be aware of what you are doing, and what sort of facts you are bringing out. My impression is that Julian Assange and the people around him don't really know what it is about." According to Kalashnikov, many experts on Russia also don't "really know what it is about." Certainly, the subject is a labyrinth in which an explorer can easily become lost. However we characterize Russia, none of the familiar categories apply. This is because a confusion of terms and names took hold in Russia immediately following the Bolshevik Revolution. The Communist system initiated a corruption of language on a scale hitherto unknown, so that common meanings became confused. Basic words, used to describe commonly observed objects, were corrupted to the point that such words acquired a nonsensical association in the popular mind. It should be remembered that what used to be called the Communist system was always a criminal system, devoted to the overthrow of private property. The nomenklatura were the administrators of this process after 1917, and they continue administering this theft, as an ongoing project, up to the present day. Will such people keep an arms reduction agreement with America? Not a chance. Assertive Russia Policy Good Assertive policy towards Russia is key to effective relations Cohen, 11 – Ariel, Ph.D., Senior Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Policy in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation (“Reset Regret: U.S. Should Rethink Relations with Russian Leaders,” The Heritage Foundation, 6/15/11, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/reset-regret-us-should-rethink-relations-with-russian-leaders)RK For the past two years, the Obama Administration has touted its Russia “reset policy” as one of its great diplomatic achievements. The President spent an inordinate amount of time cultivating Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and making him his principal diplomatic interlocutor—despite the fact that Medvedev is Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s appointed protégé with no political base of his own. To uphold the “reset,” the Administration agreed to cut U.S. strategic nuclear forces under New START, abandoned missile defense deployment in Poland and the Czech Republic, engaged Russia in missile defense talks, pursued a policy of geopolitical neglect in the former Soviet Union, and toned down criticism of political freedom violations in Russia. However, Putin remains Russia’s “national leader” and the real power behind—and on—the throne. Top White House and State Department officials now privately recognize that they bet on the wrong horse, as it is unlikely that Medvedev will wield any real power beyond the spring of 2012. However, the Administration cannot publicly admit that this bet failed, as it would undermine the very notion of this over-personalized “reset.” Yet the reality that Medvedev has a limited capacity to deliver and is unlikely to continue in office means that the U.S. should rethink its strategy for engaging with Russia’s leadership. Putin: No Friend of America U.S.–Russian relations include issues such as human rights and Islamist extremism in Russia, the energy and sovereignty concerns of U.S. friends and allies, Iran, and nuclear nonproliferation. The Obama Administration cannot address these issues by pretending that Medvedev and his narrow circle of supporters wield the real power. In fact, it is the Putin group—which includes the key energy, military and security services officials, businessmen, and the leadership of the United Russia ruling party—that exercises the ultimate power. Now Putin, no great friend of America, is likely to move back from the Prime Minister’s office to the Kremlin in the spring of 2012, raising tough questions about Obama’s Russian policy. Putin publicly disagreed with Medvedev, his handpicked successor, on a number of key policy issues, many of them vital to U.S. interests. These included the role of freedom in the country, the legacy of Joseph Stalin (Putin called him “an effective manager”), and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The two also argued on modernization, Libya, and persecution of the former oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Putin also supports “friendship” with China and Venezuela and good relations with Iran. At various points Putin accused the U.S. of supporting Islamist terrorists in North Caucasus in order to dismantle Russia, illegally intervening in Iraq, being responsible for the global economic recession, and toppling regimes in the Middle East through promotion of social media. Putin views modernization as primarily boosting military technology, pays lip service to the fight against corruption, and directly intervenes in prominent court cases. Putin formed his worldview in the KGB and by reading Russian nationalist philosophers. He famously considers the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” He also does not like or trust the United States. Ideological Chasm Beyond the two men’s competition for power lies a deep ideological chasm, which reflects a 150-year confrontation between the “Westernizers” and the authoritarian “Slavophiles”/Eurasianists, who want to make Russia a linchpin of a global confrontation with the Euro-Atlantic world. Without recognizing this schism, it is practically impossible for Western decision makers to understand the two Russian leaders, their worldviews, and their ambitions. Pro-Putin elites include the top officers of security services and the armed forces, the military-industrial complex, state company bosses, and a part of the business class. They are a mix of statists, imperialists, and nationalists. They support a future for Russia that is rooted in the imperial past and Christian Orthodoxy. Last month, worried about his own and his party’s declining popularity and anxious to outmaneuver Medvedev, Putin launched Popular Front, a political contraption that would consist of United Russia, women’s and environmental organizations, sympathetic businessmen, and trade unions. Determined to control the next Duma, Putin may allow communists and possibly Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s ultra-nationalists in the next Parliament. This may spell the end of the feeble multi-party system in Russia. Too Late for Damage Control While the White House has yet to publicly realize its errors regarding policy toward Russia, any damage control may be too little, too late: This April, while on a trip to Moscow, Vice President Joseph Biden invited Putin to visit Washington. As of this writing, Putin has not committed to a visit. Furthermore, naming Michael McFaul—an openly pro-Medvedev Putin critic and architect of the “reset” policy—as the next U.S. Ambassador to Moscow may not improve the relations with the Putin circle. Even before Putin returns to his Kremlin office, Russia is likely to demand U.S. concessions: joint controls and technology transfer for European missile defenses, the withdrawal of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, refusing to abide by Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, and sabotaging sanctions on Syria and Iran. Its relentless pressure on Ukraine continues. In the near future, the clampdown on political expression and the media are likely to exacerbate, while corruption and trampling of the rule of law will continue unabated. Reset the “Reset” The Obama Administration and Congress need to recognize that the “reset” with Russia, which requires huge payoffs for small results, is in dire need of a reassessment. The U.S. should pursue its national interests in relations with Moscow instead of chasing a mirage. The U.S. and Russia have mutual interests in opposing Islamic radicalism and terrorism, nonproliferation, counter-narcotics, boosting trade and investment, and expanding tourism, business, and exchanges. Russia can benefit from access to U.S. science—especially health sciences, technology, and investment—if Moscow improves its foreign and domestic policies. However, Congress and the Administration should not tolerate Russian mischief, either domestic or geopolitical. The U.S. should not shy away from articulating its priorities and values to its Russian partners—and play hardball when necessary. Strong policy towards Russia is key to supporting human rights and democratization Cohen and Jensen, 11 – *Ariel, Ph.D., Senior Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Policy in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation and **Donald N., Ph.D., Senior Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations in the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University (“Reset Regret: Moral Leadership Needed to Fix U.S.–Russian Relations,”The Heritage Foundation, 6/30/11, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/reset-regret-moral-leadership-needed-to-fix-us-russian-relations)RK The discussion about democracy, human rights, and the rule of law has careened through at least three phases in U.S. relations with Russia, each one resulting in sometimes jarring shifts in Washington’s approach to Moscow. In order to reaffirm America’s interests, when dealing with Russia, the U.S. should concentrate on the values of freedom and justice. The Administration needs to stop its policy of “pleasing Moscow” and instead add pressure on Russia to start a “reset” of its own policies that currently disregard human rights, democracy, and good governance. The U.S. should deny visas to corrupt Russian businessmen, examine their banking practices and acquisitions, and target Russian police and prosecutors who fabricate evidence, and judges who rubber stamp convictions, which is what the bipartisan S. 1039 “Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act” aims to do. Three Phases of U.S.–Russian Relations When the Soviet Union fell in December 1991, Washington rushed to Boris Yeltsin’s assistance. The world expected that Russia would eventually grow to be more like the United States or Western Europe. By the late 1990s, however, Russia was rapidly regressing from Western political models. Beginning around 2000, the two sides returned to a relationship based on strategic security concerns resembling the old Cold War paradigm. Moscow and Washington quickly exhausted this security agenda for U.S.–Russian rapprochement, however, and the pendulum swung back. During the rest of the decade, while Russia rejected American efforts to promote democracy in Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, Washington grew alarmed at the increasing authoritarianism of Vladimir Putin. George W. Bush’s proclamation of America’s duty to press for democratic values around the globe further alienated the Kremlin. Obama’s “Reset” The “reset policy” toward Russia, announced by the Obama Administration in February 2009, saw yet another shift. This rebalancing was part of the White House’s broader “new realism” in U.S. foreign policy, a bizarre hybrid that combined a reluctance to defend human rights in Russia, China, and Iran with apologies for alleged “crimes” caused by American exceptionalism. This pseudo-realism has adulterated fundamental American interests and abhors the use of force to protect them. One could argue that that brand of “realism” had already shown its shortcomings in the 1980s, when it ignored the moral revolutions that ended the Cold War. The Obama Administration failed to realize that there is no escape from moral reasoning in politics, even in world politics. The Cold War proved that the prudent use of the entire toolbox of American power was not only necessary but also vital, since it aimed at securing the morally worthy goal of peace through strength. Underlying the Obama Administration’s “reset” of relations with Russia was its promotion of democracy and human rights even as it sought engagement on the two countries’ common interests. The state of democracy inside Russia is, in fact, being addressed by Washington and Moscow: Michael McFaul, the President’s Senior Director for Russia on the National Security Council, is the U.S. leader of a bilateral working group on civil society in partnership with Vladislav Surkov, Putin’s and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s political architect. The High Costs of the “Reset.” While the gains from the “reset” relationship have been exaggerated, the cost in terms of the U.S. moral authority has been high. The Obama Administration has explicitly disavowed linkages within its Russia policy components, such as punishing Russian misbehavior in one area by withholding concessions in another. There is good reason to believe, moreover, that Russian leaders do not take White House efforts at promoting human rights seriously. They know that the U.S. Administration is chained to the “reset” and will do little more than verbally object to the Kremlin’s abuses of human rights and the rule of law. The talk of democracy is “for domestic [U.S.] consumption,” said one official Russian visitor to Washington last fall. Such American softness is one reason why Medvedev told the Financial Times on June 18, “Let me tell you that no one wishes the re-election of Barack Obama as U.S. president as I do.” Free from concern about a serious U.S. response, corruption and abuse of power in Russia continue to rise. In June, the Russian Justice Ministry denied registration to the Party of People’s Freedom, a new party created by prominent opposition leaders, an early indication that December’s parliamentary elections will be neither free nor fair. In May, prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into anti-corruption whistleblower Aleksey Navalny for what he said was revenge for exposing alleged fraud at Russian state companies. In December 2010, former oligarchs Mikhail Khodorkhovsky and Platon Lebedev were sentenced, in their second trial, to additional lengthy terms in Siberian prisons on charges of embezzlement and money laundering. On May 31, the European Court of Justice ruled that officials had seriously violated Khodorkovsky’s rights during his arrest and trial detention. A Moral Black Hole. The roots of the Russian elite’s discontent lie in imperial nostalgia, phantom pains of autocracy, and questionable morality. The end of communism resulted in a moral black hole—a deep spiritual and identity crisis among the elites. Corruption, alcoholism, and blurred lines between organized crime and authority reflect general alienation, recklessness, and fatalism. Nations fail, St. Augustine argued, because peoples fail. A healthy society can correct a deficient state, but even the best-designed states will founder if they are based upon a deficient civil society. This degradation bears directly on Russia’s conduct of its foreign policy. Those who keep calling for an engagement that will eventually transform Russia cannot see that it is the West, not Russia, that is being transformed by this contact. What Is to Be Done? It is, thus, in the American national interest to attend to broader international concerns such as freedom and justice when dealing with Russia. The current regime stands squarely against these objectives and, therefore, against U.S. interests. In order for the U.S. to be in a stronger position than it is today, the White House needs to shift from seeking to “please the Russians” to a more vigorous promotion of its values that pressures Moscow to “reset” its policies concerning human rights, democratization, and good governance and to distance itself from rogue states. Key levers in this effort include denying visas to corrupt Russian businessmen and examining their banking practices and acquisitions. The U.S. should also target police and prosecutors who fabricate evidence and judges who rubber stamp convictions. This is what the bipartisan S. 1039 “Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act,” co-sponsored by Senators John McCain (R–AZ), Mark Kirk (R–IL), Joseph Lieberman (I–CT), and Ben Cardin (D–MD), aims to achieve. Initially, Russian reaction to such a shift in U.S. policy would cause heartburn. Nevertheless, America already has many allies within the country. As the Institute of Contemporary Development, a prominent Russian think tank chaired by Medvedev, stated earlier this year, “The challenge of our times is an overhaul of the system of values, the forging of new consciousness… The best investment [the state can make in man] is Liberty and the Rule of Law, and respect for man’s dignity.” If Washington persists and stays strong, the Kremlin is likely to relent and eventually acquiesce. Russia’s current rulers recognize and respect power and policies based on strength, not weakness. Holding the line on Russia policy is key to Russian democracy and relations Kagan, 04 – Robert, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (“Stand Up to Putin,” The Washington Post, 9/15/04, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21853-2004Sep14.html)RK In fact, it will hurt. Failure to take sides with democratic forces in Russia will cast doubt on Bush's commitment to worldwide democracy. A White House official commented to the New York Times that Putin's actions are "a domestic matter for the Russian people." Really? If so, then the same holds for all other peoples whose rights are taken away by tyrants. If the Bush administration holds to that line, then those hostile to democracy in the Middle East will point to the glaring U.S. double standard; those who favor democracy in the Middle East will be discredited. That will be a severe blow to what Bush regards as a central element of his war on terrorism. Nor should the president and his advisers doubt that vital U.S. interests are at stake in the Russian struggle. Fighting the war on terrorism should not and cannot mean relegating other elements of U.S. strategy and interests to the sidelines. A dictatorial Russia is at least as dangerous to U.S. interests as a dictatorial Iraq. If hopes for democratic reform in Russia are snuffed out, Russia's neighbors in Eastern and Central Europe will be rightly alarmed and will look to the United States for defense. And there is an even more fundamental reality that the president must face: A Russian dictatorship can never be a reliable ally of the United States. A Russian dictator will always regard the United States with suspicion, because America's very existence, its power, its global influence, its democratic example will threaten his hold on power. Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. 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