Article 1: We hoped for Russian-American partnership.

It is hard to believe now how promising were the initial contacts between United States and Russian federation that emerged upon the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991. A declaration signed only a month after the birth of the new state by presidents George Bush and Boris Yeltsin stated "Russia and the United States do not regard each other as potential adversaries." Thus the document intended to signal official end of the Cold War. And went further "From now on, the relationship will be characterized by friendship and partnership founded on mutual trust and respect and a common commitment to democracy and economic freedom."

It was the common commitment to democracy and economic freedom that made the difference. Countries that share this commitment have never fought with each other. More over they entered into alliances in order to protect themselves against potentially aggressive undemocratic regimes. Of the latter the former Soviet Union was the most powerful and not surprisingly in Cold War with the West. In contrast the leader of new Russia vowed to switch to western style democracy and free market.

For us in Russia it looked like a lifetime opportunity. Trying to seize it we counted on a number of fundamental factors.

The Russian nation is based on European culture and perceives itself in interaction with the West. Even in the USSR the obligatory high school program included Leo Tolstoy’s "War and Peace" with opening pages written by the author in French and digest of European and American literature. The main problem of the nation for centuries has been desire to be a member of the European family and inability to match the level of economic and social development.

The stumbling block was tyrannical political system lagging behind the western mainstream by 100-150 years. Russian tsars till 1917 cherished medieval absolutism. Stalin largely returned to the model and bequeathed the politburo to perform a collective monarch in the USSR. His ruthless mobilization produced some industrial wonders including nuclear and space technology, but failed to build a sustainable economy that finally had to be crutched by oil exports.

The Soviet Union collapsed when in 1980s the oil price went down. Now Yeltsin was popularly elected with the support of mass movement whose name spoke for itself: "Democratic Russia". The first attempt of establishing a western style political system had been undertaken in 1917 after the collapse of the Tsar rule, but it failed in 6 months mostly because the Provisional Government inherited the backbreaking burden of the WWI. This time it was radically different. No country was in war or even in political conflict with Russia. Moreover we counted on support from the West, particularly from the US. This bet was neither unprecedented nor unrealistic. Less than 50 years ago Winston Churchill called to stand up to the challenge of the downing "iron curtain" of Stalin’s domination, and America generously helped fragile democracies in Europe to survive and grow. Why couldn’t similar effort been done as Russia tried to get rid of the "iron curtain" once and for all? It would have been not only in best interest of America and its allies, but existentially important for them. Behind the curtain sat a nuclear-missile force able to destroy America that also could’ve been got rid of had democracy taken hold in Russia.

Apparently George Bush realized that. Seasoned in the Cold war and the former director of the CIA, he saw both historical scope of the opportunity and monumental difficulty of the transformation we tried to achieve. He said that was "totally convinced" of Russia's commitment to democracy and hoped to assist "in any way possible." And he appeared to have a bipartisan support. Representative

Richard A. Gephardt, Democrat of Missouri, the House majority leader, said Mr. Yeltsin "delivered a loud, clear message that if there's going to be help, it needs to come now." Senator Bob Dole, Republican of Kansas, the minority leader, said of Mr. Yeltsin: "He may be the last hope. That's the message he gave us. This may be the last chance." In his turn Yeltsin was straightforward too. He said that his country needed far more than money if it was to make the transition to democracy, and that the cost of failure would be great.

"I didn't come here just to stretch out my hand and ask for help," the Russian President said. "No, we're calling for cooperation, cooperation for the whole world, because if the reform in Russia goes under, that means there will be a cold war. The cold war is going to turn into a hot war. This is, again, going to be an arms race."* Unfortunately that warning became an omen few years later.

Today it’s the reality.

In 1992 tangible results were achieved exactly in the area of reducing the nuclear threat and curbing the arms race. We proposed cutting strategic and tactical nuclear warheads to 2,500 for each nation. That figure was roughly half the number that Mr. Bush suggested retaining in a proposal he made in his State of the Union address only few days earlier. US Secretary of State Jim Baker and I as Russian foreign minister were put in charge of finding a compromise. It was tough, but rewarding job due to professionalism, dedication and integrity of my counterpart. By the time President Yeltsin made a state visit to Washington for the next summit meeting held June 16-17 it was agreed to set a goal of reducing each countries' strategic nuclear arsenals by 3,000-3,500 warheads. Not only were the numbers 2-3 times lower than allowed by the previous START agreement negotiated for 18 year, but also first time ever a qualitative component was included and it was groundbreaking. Russia would cut her superiority in ICBMs, supposedly the most destabilizing first strike force, and the US does the same in SLBMs and strategic bombers. Upon return to Moscow a journalist asked what my hope was for the future. I said it was getting rid of disarmament agenda by reducing the arsenals to minimal levels and concentrating on building wide framework for cooperation and alliance with the US.

To be sure now there are no negotiations on cuts of strategic nuclear missiles, and Russia spends dearly on their modernization along with being suspected of violating an agreement on eliminations of the medium range rockets that had been signed by Gorbachev.

No wonder. Strategic relations could not develop unless Russian transformed to democracy and free market economy. Yet, in that crucial area American contribution was much less impressive. While assessments and preparations for the cooperation with democrats in Russia were in progress, Bush was losing to Democrats in America. In summer of 1992 reassignment of Jim Backer from running the State Department to managing the reelection campaign epitomized that foreign policy with Russia being "not a potential adversary" was not priority any more. The new president Clinton was elected under purely domestic motto: "it’s economy, stupid!" He had little exposure to foreign policy and apparently took absence of Russian threat for granted. His administration promised to help, but mostly by money contributions to IMF programs. These happened to be rather narrow and conditioned to implementation exactly of the policies that the government in Moscow swore to, but needed help to set up in practical manner.

Following the American leadership Europe too with irritating loudness talked the talk of supporting Russian democrats but barely walked the walk. Simply put the social cost and complexity of the reforms were too heavy a lift for the government in Moscow without commensurate western assistance. Soon a pattern of mutual financial and economic promises predictably unrealistic and thus damaging both for reformers and for partnership was established. Something of the kind followed also in foreign policy field after initial success in defining the framework of the new relationship.

In the 1990s there was no Churchill. Neither in the West, nor, I have to admit, in Russia.

Part II and III To be continued

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