Once firmly in power, Putin began backtracking on the democratization of the Yeltsin era and on cooperative ventures with Washington. “We would have avoided a lot of problems if the Soviets had not made such a hasty exit from Eastern Europe,” he said. In his view, Moscow should have dug in, both within the union and abroad, instead of standing aside while former Soviet bloc states jumped ship to join the West. Instead of sharing Russia’s launch protocols, Putin skillfully played up his perceived need for a harder Kremlin line by describing the grim consequences of reduced Russian power: in former Soviet regions, he said, terrorists now played soccer with decapitated heads of hostages.Īs Putin later remarked, “By launching the sovereignty parade”-his term for the independence movements of Soviet republics in 1990–91-“Russia itself aided in the collapse of the Soviet Union,” the outcome that had opened the door to such gruesome lawlessness. Vladimir Putin, Yeltsin’s handpicked successor, divulged little in grudging 1999 conversations with Clinton and Talbott.
Understanding the decay in U.S.-Russian relations can help the United States manage long-term strategic competition.īy the end of the 1990s, however, that trust had largely vanished. During a 1997 summit, Yeltsin even asked Clinton whether they could cease having nuclear triggers continually at hand: “What if we were to give up having to have our finger next to the button all the time?” Clinton responded, “Well, if we do the right thing in the next four years, maybe we won’t have to think as much about this problem.” Secretaries of Defense Les Aspin and William Perry, and Strobe Talbott, Clinton’s top Russia adviser, among others, to ensure that former Soviet atomic weapons in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and above all Ukraine were either destroyed or relocated to Russian soil. Yeltsin continued the effort with President Bill Clinton, U.S. This collaboration survived Bush’s 1992 election loss. Yeltsin and Baker soon began working in tandem to ensure that only one nuclear successor state-Russia-would ultimately emerge from the Soviet collapse. But it was also a sign that he wanted a fresh start in Moscow’s relations with the West, one characterized by openness and trust. help in his struggle with Gorbachev and partly an attempt to secure financial aid. Yeltsin’s openness to Baker was partly a gambit to win U.S. Soon after arriving, he cut to the chase: Would Yeltsin tell him? Bush, a disintegrating empire with “30,000 nuclear weapons presents an incredible danger to the American people-and they know it and will hold us accountable if we don’t respond.”īaker’s goal for his December 1991 journey was thus to ascertain who, after the Soviet Union’s dissolution, would retain the power to authorize a nuclear launch and how that fateful order might be delivered. What would happen to the vast Soviet nuclear arsenal after the collapse of centralized command and control? As he counseled his boss, President George H. Now, with Yeltsin upping the ante by calling for the Soviet Union’s complete destruction, Baker had a new fear. Yakovlev was skeptical and responded that there were 12 million Russians in Ukraine, with “many in mixed marriages,” so “what sort of war could it be?” Baker answered simply: “A normal war.” On November 19, 1991, he had asked one of Gorbachev’s advisers, Alexander Yakovlev, if Ukraine’s breaking away would prompt violent Russian resistance. The long-term consequences, however, were harder to grasp.Įven before Yeltsin’s gambit, Baker had begun worrying about whether the desire of some Soviet republics to become independent might yield bloodshed. Gorbachev resigned, and the Soviet Union collapsed. In the short run, it was a brilliant move, and within ten days, it had succeeded completely.
Their motive was to render Gorbachev impotent by transforming him from the head of a massive country into the president of nothing. Yeltsin had recently made a shocking announcement that he and the leaders of Belarus and Ukraine were dismantling the Soviet Union. Secretary of State James Baker arrived in Moscow amid political chaos to meet with Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, who was at the time busy wresting power from his nemesis, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
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