Over the past month, the world has sought collective relief from its myriad crises in the Tokyo Olympics, a celebration of friendly competition among young athletes from virtually all nations. With the Games behind us, we return to the real world of limited engagement — a world in which global athletes and others, especially those from the Russian Federation, cannot obtain visas to study in the United States, to visit even in life-or-death situations, who find business opportunities obstructed or closed completely, and who cannot enjoy cultural exchanges.
How did this come to pass? For the two major nuclear powers to be in what some have termed a “second Cold War”, bringing a closure of dialogue unparalleled even in the darkest days of the first, serves absolutely no useful purpose; to the contrary, the freezing of contact only heightens tensions and sends the most negative possible signal to the young leaders of tomorrow, a “next generation” essential to the forging of more positive bilateral relations.
The downward diplomatic spiral has brought reciprocal closing of consulates, in such key places as St. Petersburg and San Francisco; tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats; and a freeze on hiring of local nationals. US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan recently said in an interview in St. Petersburg that the support staffing at the Moscow embassy is now one-tenth of five years ago [1200 in 2051, 120 today]. Hence the embassy cannot provide visa assistance, and seekers must try to obtain US visas outside Russia–an arduous process itself.
Simply put, the time for reopening consulates and and relieving the visa logjam is NOW. Remember that the United States established diplomatic relations with Stalin’s USSR in 1933. It is precisely when the political relationship is most fraught, the threat even of military confrontation acute–through misunderstanding or the ratcheting up of military exercises on both sides–that diplomatic engagement should be enhanced, not curtailed.
As far as broader engagement is concerned, as ACURA board member and former US Ambassador to the USSR Jack Matlock recently observed, “…the United States and Russia (and China, too) face many challenges in common, from the coronavirus pandemic to climate change and migration flows, and so on. We need to jointly solve these issues instead of quarreling over much less significant ones. By artificially limiting the diplomats’ ability to do the job, we undermine the chances that we successfully join up to overcome global challenges, I am absolutely convinced that we actually have many more common interests, including in the field of security, than divergent ones.”
Following the June Geneva summit meeting with President Putin, President Bidden sagely observed that “now the hard work begins”. The good news is that some government-to-government dialogue has begun, on cyber security and strategic stability. But this is only a start, given a climate in which other critical exchanges have ceased. One of us is a former chair of the program on International Peace and Security at Carnegie Corporation of New York, which some thirty years ago co-founded along with the Aspen Institute the Aspen Congressional Program on Russia, bringing together US and Russia legislators and experts in an intensive discussion of developments in Russia and US-Russia relations. Well into the 2000s, the conference routinely included 8-10 members of the US Senate, Republican and Democrat. At each of the last two conferences, in 2018 and 2019, just one senator attended. Carnegie also supported an executive program for members of the Russian General Staff at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, a month-long series of meetings and presentations with their US counterparts from all four military branches; this has not taken place since the Crimea annexation.
At other levels, there are still some Track Two activities conducted by think tanks on both sides; most promising and timely of these is a project of “Next Generation ” engagement spearheaded by the Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. There are likewise a few foundation-funded programs for universities that continue to have Russian area studies programs, but how robust the Russian participation will be in the current environment is questionable. The most silver of linings is provided in a small number of programs that with admirable doggedness promote citizen-to citizen exchange. Cynthia Lazaroff, our board member, has taught and facilitated U.S.-Russian “Track Two” Citizen Diplomacy and Track 1.5 efforts (Track 1.5 refers to dialogues that include both citizens and government officials). Through the network, she has had an ongoing dialogue with senior Russian experts and officials on what steps the U.S. and Russia can take to improve relations and maintain a constant dialogue on nuclear risk-reduction. And ACURA board member and President of the Center for Citizen Initiatives, Sharon Tennison —along with a growing group of business and professional Americans–has since the early 1980s fearlessly worked to reduce tension between the US and Russia
The bottom line is that the current state of engagement and exchange between the United States and the Russian Federation is as imperiled as it is essential, at all levels, official and private. We recall Winston Churchill’s famous adage about “jaw-jaw” being invariably preferable to “war-war”. The problem is that we are in a severe jaw-jaw drought, one that does not well serve the next generation of citizens on both sides and the challenges most effectively served together–nuclear, climate, health, economic.
Krishen Mehta, a former PricewaterhouseCoopers partner, is now Senior Global Justice Fellow at Yale University. David C. Speedie was formerly Senior Fellow and Director of the Program on U.S. Global Engagement at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York. Both serve on the ACURA board.