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標題:U.S. Ties With Russia Being Reassessed, Bush Aides Say
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and THOM SHANKER
Published: August 14, 2008
WASHINGTON — Russia’s military offensive into Georgia has jolted the Bush
administration’s relationship with Moscow, senior officials said Thursday,
forcing a wholesale reassessment of American dealings with Russia and
jeopardizing talks on everything from halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions to
reducing strategic arsenals to cooperation on missiles defenses.
The conflict punctuated a stark turnabout in the administration’s view of
Vladimir V. Putin, the president turned prime minister whom President Bush
has repeatedly described as a trustworthy friend. Now Mr. Bush’s aides
complain that Russian officials have been misleading or at least evasive
about Russia’s intentions in Georgia.
Even as the conflict between Russia and Georgia appeared to ease on Thursday,
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said the Russian attack had forced a
fundamental rethinking of the administration’s effort to forge “an ongoing
and long-term strategic dialogue with Russia.”
“Russia’s behavior over the past week has called into question the entire
premise of that dialogue and has profound implications for our security
relationship going forward, both bilaterally and with NATO,” Mr. Gates said
at the Pentagon. “If Russia does not step back from its aggressive posture
and actions in Georgia, the U.S.-Russian relationship could be adversely
affected for years to come.”
The unspoken new danger is that a cooling relationship could cost the
administration any hope of working closely with Russia on some of its topmost
priorities, like controlling nuclear proliferation, countering terrorism or
resolving the problems of the Middle East.
If Russia and the United States rarely have acted as allies during Mr. Bush’
s presidency, they also have rarely allowed disagreements to undermine what
Mr. Bush considered one of his bedrock diplomatic relationships. After their
first meeting in 2001, Mr. Bush said famously that he had looked into the
eyes of Mr. Putin and “got a sense of his soul.”
Mr. Bush has pursued policies that Mr. Putin vigorously opposed, including
supporting the independence of Kosovo from Serbia, a Russian ally, expanding
NATO to include some former Soviet bloc nations and stationing elements of a
missile defense system in Eastern Europe.
But the two worked closely together to battle terrorism. Administration
officials said Mr. Putin generally cooperated in efforts to curtail nuclear
programs in Iran and North Korea.
Only four months ago, Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin met in Sochi, the Russian resort
only miles from Georgia, and signed a “framework agreement” that pledged
cooperation on a variety of diplomatic and security matters and declared that
“the era in which the United States and Russia considered one another an
enemy or strategic threat has ended.” Mr. Gates, along with Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice, traveled twice to Moscow in the past year for
discussions on that agreement, which has now been overshadowed by the war and
appears unlikely to progress any time soon, if ever.
One of the main goals of those talks — to assuage Russia’s concerns about a
network of missile defenses — appeared even less likely on Thursday after
Poland and the United States announced an agreement to deploy a battery of
American missile interceptors on Polish territory, a step Russia has
repeatedly denounced as provocative.
Mr. Bush has not directly addressed his relationship with Mr. Putin or his
successor, President Dmitri A. Medvedev, and his aides declined on Thursday
to discuss his personal views. But he has bluntly warned Russia that it
risked losing its international standing.
After postponing a trip to his ranch in Texas by a day, Mr. Bush went to the
headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va., for a
briefing on the situation in Georgia.
“Got a lot of folks, smart folks, analyzing the situation on the ground and,
of course, briefing us on different possibilities that could develop in the
area and the region,” he said, flanked by the agency’s director, Michael V.
Hayden, and his deputy, Stephen R. Kappes.
He reiterated his call “for the territorial integrity of Georgia to be
respected and the cease-fire agreement to be honored.”
Both Georgia and Russia took steps back from open conflict on Thursday, with
Russia largely ending air operations over Georgia and preparing to withdraw
at least some of the troops its had moved inside the country, Mr. Gates said.
But the issue of Georgia’s territorial integrity appeared increasingly
uncertain after Mr. Medvedev met with the leaders of two separatist regions,
South Ossetia and Abkhazia. His foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, declared
that Georgia “can forget about” reclaiming sovereignty over the regions.
Mr. Bush rescheduled his departure for Texas for Friday. Ms. Rice, he said,
would brief him after returning from a trip to France and Georgia intended to
show American support for Georgia’s shaken president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
For a second day, an American C-17 cargo plane arrived in Georgia bearing
relief supplies, encountering no interference from Russian forces. Mr. Bush
ordered the military-run operation on Wednesday, setting up what
administration officials described as a direct challenge to Russia to keep
its promise to allow humanitarian aid. A small team of Pentagon officials
arrived to assess how best to funnel relief supplies to those wounded or
displaced by the conflict.
Mr. Gates and Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, said at a Pentagon briefing that American forces had the right to
self-defense but that said he did not anticipate that they would have to
resort to force to distribute the medicine and shelters.
Mr. Gates stressed that he was not predicting a return to the cold war, and
he said that over all the United States response to the crisis had been
restrained.
“The United States spent 45 years working very hard to avoid a military
confrontation with Russia,” Mr. Gates said. “I see no reason to change that
approach today.”
Mr. Gates is one of the administration’s experts on Soviet and Russian
policies and previously served as the director of central intelligence while
spending his career studying the Kremlin and its efforts to exert influence
around the world.
“What happens in the days and months to come will determine the future
course of U.S.-Russian relations,” he said. “But by the same token, my
personal view is that there needs to be some consequences for the actions
that Russia has taken against a sovereign state.”
The United States has already canceled outright or withdrawn from several
military exercises that were to have included Russian forces in the coming
days, the first concrete, punitive steps taken by the administration. In
addition, Mr. Gates said, the Defense Department “will re-examine the entire
gamut of our military-to-military activities with Russia and will make
changes as necessary and appropriate, depending on Russian actions in the
days ahead.”
The Russian government unleashed its military into Georgia to accomplish two
goals, Mr. Gates said: to punish Georgia for trying to integrate with the
West and to warn other nations in the former Soviet sphere of influence
against closer ties with Washington and its NATO allies.
“My view is that the Russians — and I would say principally Prime Minister
Putin — is interested in reasserting Russia’s, not only Russia’s great
power or superpower status, but in reasserting Russia’s traditional spheres
of influence,” he said. “My guess is that everyone is going to be looking
at Russia through a different set of lenses as we look ahead.”
Mr. Gates’s remarks, while critical of Mr. Putin, also included an implicit
rebuke of any effort to base American policy solely on a perceived friendship
within the Kremlin. At the Pentagon, Mr. Gates was asked whether he trusted
Mr. Putin anymore, and he paused before responding.
“ ‘Anymore’ is an interesting add,” he said. “I have never believed that
one should make national security policy on the basis of trust. I think you
make national security policy based on interests and on realities.”
新聞來源: (需有正確連結)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/world/europe/
15policy.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
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