I don't think we ought to be looking for complicated explanations of things like this. Politicians doing badly, or afraid they might be doing badly someday, tell audiences what they want to hear. To anyone in a place like Vilnius, every one of Cheney's sentences would be a cheer line. The ideas he expressed had the added virtue of being mostly true.

Having said that, I doubt whether Cheney's speech was coordinated with the rest of Bush's administration; in my world, "coordinated with the rest of the administration" means a Vice President says only what he has cleared with the Secretary of State (for content and tone) and the Security Adviser (for consistency with the President's past statements). We already know the Bush administration does not work that way. It is very likely that Russian government officials complaining privately to their American interlocutors about Cheney's remarks will get in response heavily qualified, partial disclaimers from people who mostly agree with what the Vice President said but are not sure they would have said it in the same way and who were as surprised when he did say it as the Russians were. Making the already confusing American system of government even more confusing for foreign governments is not a good thing.

The question of coordination raises the further question of what consequences we should expect to flow from Cheney's speech. If I am right, this is a question that will be answered later, as Cheney (with the backing of the Pentagon and possibly other administration officials) try to promote ideas consistent with what he said in Vilnius, and Sec. Rice and other officials who have to deal with the Russians strive to avoid confrontation with them. This also is not a good thing, and is a very old story with this administration. The problem, as I have said here before, is that in this administration the President is extraordinarily weak. In past administrations, even those with Presidents thought to be struggling politically (Nixon), reluctant to choose between people advocating mutually inconsistent policies (Reagan) or personally indecisive (Clinton), binding the President's hands with statements before national or important foreign audiences was something subordinate officials attempted with caution, and not often successfully. It would have been unthinkable for a Vice President to try this. But the head of this administration is a man without many strong or detailed ideas of his own about foreign and national security policy; he does not respond to the appearance of disorder in his administration unless he is being criticized personally for it, and has demonstrated that he will let his Vice President in particular get away with just about anything. The details of policy will get sorted out later, after the usual intra-administration battle.

The last thing I want to say about Cheney's speech concerns the way it was delivered. I don't in principle object to the venue or to the major points Cheney made. But the diversion of Russian domestic and foreign policies away from directions we think wise is not a momentary phenomenon; there is no reason to think that the Russian government is doing the things it is doing for trivial reasons or that it will undertake a fundamental reevaluation of its policies in response to a little American pressure. There are issues raised by Russian conduct with respect to Georgia and Ukraine that are of immediate, pressing concern to the United States -- those ought to be have addressed directly and specifically. Other issues of secondary importance to us, for example Russia's domestic policies, should be discussed indirectly and in their historical context, and by that I do not mean references to all the progress made when Boris Yeltsin was President.

Yes, we would certainly like it if Russia became a genuine liberal democracy, respecting all its neighbors and generally not being a nuisance. But in the real world, a) this is not going to happen, b) in our dealings with Russia some issues are more important, or at least more urgent, than others and c) a competent foreign policy would leave the Russians in no doubt as to which issues those are.

Posted by: Zathras at May 7, 2006 10:40 PM | Permalink to this comment

What is more striking than the substance of VP's speech (which is hard to argue with) or the venue (obviously designed to be provoke), is that the U.S. Administration and commentators, generally, are surprised that Russia is playing "blackmail" with its energy supplies. Is this not the real world? Does Russia not have, what is believes (rightly or wrongly) to be its national interests to protect? It is asserting these interests with a very useful tool. In the old days (Budapest 1956 or Prague 1968, for example) tanks were the preferred method for asserting its national interest, now at least there is far less loss of life and damage to the buildings.

Until the U.S. and the EU start developing alternative sources of energy, is it not in the Russians' interest to exploit their position. Now maybe they will "overplay" their hand (I think this entirely possible(as the U.S. seems to have done in protecting its national interest in Iraq)), but it is hard to imagine why Russia should behave as if their oil and gas are common resources for the whole world. It sucks, but they have the stuff in spades and we don't. BTW, the U.S. will not permit certain "military sensitive" technology to be sold to Russia (correctly) and the EU would never admit Russia to its club (also correctly), but then we should not expect them to sell their "crown jewels" without first extracting a very high price.

Posted by: nick at May 8, 2006 05:46 PM | Permalink to this comment

Hey, at least Cheney didn't deliver them in Russia itself! That would have been another "kitchen debate" moment!

Shades of the Cold War in the Russians' response. They would not be so obnoxious if oil was still $20/bbl. Looks like we'll have to endure another thirty years until all the Soviet-era bureaucrats have died off before Russians have a real chance for more freedom, just as we had to wait for the entire Politburo of those who had committed crimes under Stalin to die off before Russians could have perestroika.

Posted by: Solomon2 at May 9, 2006 02:58 AM | Permalink to this comment