Posts Tagged ‘national interest’
Gays Are the New Jews
How should the West respond to the Russian government’s homophobic crusade? It is a question that has bedeviled activists and legislators in Europe and America since the Duma passed a law forbidding so-called “propaganda” of same-sex relationships to minors last summer. While the law is criticized as an assault on gay citizens, it is actually something much more pernicious: by forbidding speech that portrays homosexuality in a positive, never mind neutral, light, it is a fundamental abridgement of the freedoms of speech and conscience of all Russian citizens, gay and straight alike. Worse, it has given a green light to vigilantes who have unleashed an unprecedented wave of violence against Russian gays.
In a recent paper co-authored with Ambassador Andras Simonyi of the Center for Transatlantic Relations, I argue that the United States ought to apply the Magnitsky Act against those Russians who have committed human rights violations under cover of this law.
The Magnitsky Act compels the US government to impose visa bans and asset freezes against Russians, whether they be private individuals or officials, implicated in human rights abuses. We name names, ranging from the Duma deputy who authored the law to the leader of a Russian vigilante group, as potential additions to the Magnitsky list. This tactic, we believe, would be far more effective at curbing the Russian government’s abysmal behavior than boycotting Stolichnaya vodka or the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympics, as some activists have proposed.
John Allen Gay takes issue with our proposal, arguing that gay rights should not be a central focus of American foreign policy vis a vis relations with Russia as, say, the reduction of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, and more practically, he believes that taking a harder line against Moscow’s anti-gay policies would do nothing to help Russia’s gays; in fact, he argues, it might hurt them.
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Latvia: the Next Cyprus?
Earlier this month, EU finance ministers gave their approval for Latvia to become the eighteenth member of the Euro in January 2014. It seems counterintuitive that the country of two million people would want to enter the perpetually distressed and recession-stricken economic zone. But for Latvia it has a variety of benefits, not the least of which would be to allow its impressive financial sector easy and unfiltered access to the rest of the continent. The hope is that by embracing the euro and committing itself to the necessary structural preconditions for acceptance, that Latvia will see economic growth and avoid events like the massive drop in GDP it experienced after the 2008 global economic crisis.
Latvia joining the euro, taken by itself, would seem at the very least uninteresting to most observers and politicians sitting in Brussels and Washington D.C. But there is a more worrisome aspect that troubles those very same politicians and portends an economic crisis on the scale of Cyprus if it is not carefully addressed. That nefarious aspect is the country being used as an entry point for illicit Russian money seeking to enter the EU.
The concern over Latvia entering the EU is in part due to the striking similarities between the Cyprus and Latvia. Like Cyprus, Latvia has an oversized financial sector compared to its population, which it has made the centerpiece of its economy. Both countries have strikingly low corporate tax rates, with Latvia at 15 percent and Cyprus at 12.5 percent (the Euro average is 23.5 percent). Additionally, a majority of the services in these nations cater to foreign clients, particularly Russian clients—or from former Soviet states in Central Asia—hoping to escape the capricious and unstable legal and economic situations inside of their country. (More often they are simply hoping to move their money from the watchful eye of Rosfinmonitoring—Putin’s personal financial-intelligence-collection unit). But making Latvia even more dependent on Russian money is the fact that nonresidents account for 48.9 percent of deposits, compared to 43 percent in Switzerland (the perennial tax-cheat haven) and 37 percent in Cyprus. Since 2010 nonresident deposits have increased 32 percent (According to the Latvian central bank, foreign direct investment from Russia has increased from 268.6 million euros in 2010 to 356 million euros today). These statistics are especially troubling considering that in 2008 one of Latvia’s largest banks, Parex, was forced to seek a government bailout due to worried investors withdrawing over $120 million in November alone. Situations like Parex forced Latvia to seek a bailout.
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Resetting the U.S.-Russian Reset
The following is a transcript of an interview with Dmitry Peskov, deputy chief of staff and press secretary for Russian President Vladimir Putin, conducted by Paul Saunders, associate publisher of The National Interest and executive director of the Center for the National Interest, Washington, D.C. The interview was conducted Wednesday morning, January 23, 2013.
Paul Saunders: Thank you very much for taking time to talk to us. The “reset” in the U.S.-Russia relationship was one of the first foreign policy initiatives during President Obama’s first term. We heard recently that senior State Department officials have said that the word “reset” should be retired because the relationship has moved in a new direction and it’s no longer necessary to have a reset. How do you see the future of the reset after President Obama’s reelection?
Dmitry Peskov: Well, as a matter of fact Russian Foreign Minister [Sergey] Lavrov would say that is a very popular idea here in Moscow [to retire the word “reset”] and that it is a process that cannot be endless. And if the reset lasts for too long, that means to make something different, a different operation to get the process going. So let’s hope together that this is not the case. Well, unfortunately the flow of our bilateral relationship, the flow of some steps from Washington, it shows a kind of an attitude that unfortunately cannot be treated in Moscow as a “reset” mood. So that’s why we are very sorry because we are looking forward to having a working relationship of close partnership with the United States, developing a mutual responsibility for global security, for global strategic security, for regional security and solving all the issues in that connection and originally by diplomatic and peaceful methods, taking into account each other’s relationship, but definitely it takes two to tango. I mean we cannot build a bilateral relationship of friendship and partnership on our own. Unfortunately we witnessed some steps that in no way can be treated as a “reset” attitude.
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Spinning the Realities of the Reset
The Washington Post’s editorial page is entitled to endorse Barack Obama for president—as it did in October 2008—but all too often the paper’s reporters appear to endorse the administration as well, through slanted reporting that fails to question administration policy and perspectives and in fact serves to defend them. Kathy Lally’s May 17 article “Anti-American rhetoric subsides in Russia” is the latest example of the Post’s weak and simplistic work.
Lally implies that Moscow’s rhetoric and policy toward Washington are softening after Vladimir Putin’s reelection as president—something administration officials doubtless hope is true, given the emphasis they have put on the “reset”—and then proceeds to make her case on the basis of a superficial reading of Putin’s May 7 instructions to the Russian Foreign Ministry, buttressed by quotes from two liberal Moscow intellectuals and a woman in the audience at a U.S. embassy-sponsored jazz concert.
Putin’s decree does call for “stable and predictable cooperation” aimed at “a truly strategic level” of cooperation—but then proceeds to explain that this should be on the basis of “non-interference in internal affairs” “respect for mutual interests,” and remaining “committed to Russia’s position” on missile defense. If Lally had read the decree carefully rather than selectively, it should have been apparent to someone with her experience in Russia that it does not signal any improvement in Russian policy—on the contrary, it pays lip service to cooperation while emphasizing Moscow’s grievances diplomatically but clearly. The contrast is especially apparent if one also reads the section on Europe, which is largely unqualified in its positive tone and also appears much earlier in the document in a not-too-subtle statement about Russian priorities. Putin’s decision to skip the G-8 summit at Camp David, and to attend the Beijing summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in early June, makes a similar point.
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Why the Magnitsky Act Makes Sense
Senator John Kerry recently postponed—once again—the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s consideration of the Sergey Magnitsky Act. This is wrong. Individual- and property-rights violations in Russia are undermining government legitimacy, destabilizing the country and preventing investment and business development—and the proposed Magnitsky Act can provide the tools to combat this sad state of affairs.
A weak rule of law and pervasive corruption—including the failing court and law-enforcement systems—are at the heart of these persistent rights violations, which reflect both the Soviet legacy and the older Russian tradition of the patrimonial state. Bad cops and courts are challenging everyday Russians, as well as Western and domestic investors. Top Russian leaders, including presidents Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev, have complained bitterly about the state of affairs but done little to improve things.
Now, Congress has a chance to press for trade reforms that are in the best interests of the United States while supporting the cause of human rights for all. The bipartisan bill was drafted in response to the death of Sergei Magnitsky. He died in detention following his whistle-blowing on massive fraud allegedly committed by Russian officials. It provides a practical and balanced way forward—something that can serve as a prerequisite for the lifting of the obsolete Jackson-Vanik Amendment, a 1974 restriction on trade with authoritarian regimes. The new Magnitsky Act would accommodate Russian membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) while signaling long-term American commitment to the rule of law beyond Jackson-Vanik.
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Russian “Justice”
The new, Republican-majority Congress is starting its work with a jaundiced eye on what’s going on in Russia. Just a week ago Moscow convicted Mikhail Khodorkovsky for crimes most legal experts believe he did not commit. Former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov is in jail, albeit only for two weeks, for demonstrating in support of freedom of assembly. But it is the fourteen-year sentence meted out against Khodorkovsky which is particularly telling. It reflects not guilt on the part of the ex-chairman of Russia’s Yukos oil company, but the animus against the man by Russia’s rulers. Even if American companies want to do business in Russia, the verdict and the arrests don’t help.
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