Rusia Foreign Policy - Klipping The Moscow Times
I am getting sick
of this. On May 29, Ian Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini, two
of the most famous commentators on the New Europe region, wrote
an absurd op-ed for the Financial Times entitled "Time to Blackball Russia's Autocratic State."
My problem with this is
typical of the blatantly irrational rant (if you spend half an hour
researching Russia on the Internet) and is typical of the op-eds
on this meme, dressed up as analysis.
Bremmer and Roubini
should be ashamed of themselves as they engage in the most blatant
fact-twisting and hyperbole that is designed to do nothing more than
reinforce the dogma that "Russia is evil." For two
otherwise well-respected political scientists, their column is all politics
and no science.
Charlie Roberson, chief
economist of Renaissance Capital and formerly chief economist
at ING, offered a nice concise rebuttal of some of the most
glaring fact-twisting: "[The article] ignored India's corruption, China's
political system, Brazil's worse score on the Ease of Doing Business,
the significant improvements in Russian life expectancy and rise
in its birth rate. No mention was made of GDP which has risen
ten-fold in just over a decade — Putin does have some reason 'to
brag,'" wrote Robinson, who obviously also has an ulterior motive
to promote Russia.
Robinson goes on to
point out that of all the BRIC countries, Russia was the only
one to put in accelerating growth in the first quarter
of this year and that Russia's macro fundamentals are amongst
the best in the world.
Jim O'Neill, CEO
of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, made the same point in an
interview with Business New Europe in May: according to Goldman's
research, India is the weakest of all the BRICs and Russia
is one of the strongest.
But let me run through
some of the points Bremmer and Roubini count against Russia.
Syria: most of the
hoopla surrounds Russia's prickliness over the UN's attitude
to Syria. This is a very complicated issue. Russia has been
obstructive, as it didn't act over the UN's actions against Libya with
a similar setup. However, Europe and the U.S. overstep the UN resolution's
authority to basically launch a military regime-changing operation.
Put aside the rights and wrongs of this — Russia's position
is that it holds as central the country's sovereignty and has watched
as time and time again in recent years the U.S. and its
allies in the UN have charged into other countries they don't like
to change the regime. Russia's position is a point
of principle — neither the U.S., Europe nor the UN have
the right to change a country's government, and Libya
showed that whatever the resolution says the end result of a
UN-led response is regime change.
The problem is
further complicated by the fact that the Soviet Union traditionally
had strong ties in the Arab world, and especially with Damascus.
Syria was one of the Soviet Union's main non-communist trading partners —
a relationship Russia has inherited. Who remembers now that former Prime
Minister Yevgeny Primakov was an Arabist and personal friends with
Saddam Hussein?
Would the U.S.
stand idly by if Russia started telling it who to be friends with?
What about U.S. bases in Uzbekistan, where the president boils people
alive? Isn't Washington embarrassed by its decade-long support
of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak? And what about the CIA's funding
of Osama Bin Laden when he was fighting the Soviets
in Afghanistan? The hypocrisy is rancid.
And all these
complicated issues are blithely ignored by Roubini and Bremmer
in their op-ed. There is not even a parenthetical aside to say
there is more here than meets the eye. Their message is a simplest of all
logical constructions, a syllogism that goes: Russia has made trouble
in the UN; the UN are the good guys; ergo, Russia is evil.
The next point they
make is that Russia can't become a member of the international
community unless it can "act like a mature free-market
democracy." I hope they are not referring to the U.S. here as
a role model after the travesty that was Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan,
etc. Or its shameful lack of action in Yugoslavia, where thousands
were killed and the most Bill Clinton would do is fly a few bombing
missions. To hold the U.S. up as some bastion of respectable
international action that Russia should aspire to emulate belies
the arrogance that comes with decades of following a unipolar
foreign policy.
The irony
of the situation is that because the U.S. is rapidly losing its power
as its economy withers away thanks to its own catastrophic mismanagement,
it finds itself in a position where it needs Russia's support in the
UN and on the ground to deal with a problem like Syria —
one of the countries where Russia really does have some sway
and could bring something positive to the party. But no — far
better to belittle Russia, say Roubini and Bremmer.
As for not showing
up to the G8 meeting and going to Beijing and Belarus
instead: Well, Russia has real business with these countries, unlike America,
which, if you exclude its consumption of oil and discount
the multinationals, doesn't play a very important role in the
Russian economy. Why should Russia be interested in "Western
clubs" when 70% of growth in the world is being generated
by the emerging markets (and 50% from the BRICs)?
The next bit
of the op-ed is especially galling, given the values that Russia has
just been judged on and found wanting.
"Can we classify
Russia as a dynamic emerging market? Not a chance,"
the authors write.
Except that Russia's GDP
has increased ten-fold in the last decade. And with a per capita
income of about $15,000 (on a Phoenix Capital basis), Russians are
already by far the richest people of any of the emerging
markets. Indeed, according to the last UN Human Development Report, Russia
is officially a "developed market" and middle-income
country, unlike any of the other BRICs.
And to go
a step further: according to the annual Global Wealth report released
by America's own beloved and highly respected Boston Consulting
Group, Russians are enjoying the fastest-growing personal wealth
of any country in the world, having increased by 21.4 percent
last year. On this score, not only is Russia one of the most dynamic
emerging markets in the world, it is one of the most dynamic
of any market in the world and is clearly a lot more
dynamic than America, where the standard of living of the
average American family actually fell between 1990 and 2000, according
to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Guys, you can look all
this stuff up on the Internet. It is not hard to find. It's called
"research."
I'm not sure if I should
go on with this. Maybe a little.
"In China,
the Communist Party has engineered a complex, high-powered economic
engine that has lifted the country from abject poverty to become
the world's second-largest economy," they write.
Yeah — based
on artificially holding the currency down. And you do realize
that China is not a democracy in any shape or form, and still
has — and uses — the death penalty? What about treatment
of Uighurs? Tibetans? Women's rights?
"India has produced
some of the world's more innovative private-sector companies," they
write.
And it is
the weakest of all the BRICs, a country where over 500
million people live on less than $1.25 a day, according to the
UN. That's about half the population. Poverty in Russia is currently
12.5 percent, which is less than the level in the U.S.
"Brazil is now
an increasingly self-confident democracy with a well-diversified
economy and a growing international profile," they write. Aha!
A fair point! Brazil is really cool and has done very well.
"Russia,
by contrast, has become an authoritarian state built on Mr
Putin's reputation as a tough guy and the export of oil, gas,
other natural resources and little else..."
This is just not true.
Oil and gas account for between 14-17% of GDP (depending
on the price of oil), while consumption and retail trade made up
52% of GDP in the first quarter. Incomes have gone from $50 a month
under Yeltsin to about $800 now — that's a 16-fold increase.
There is a complicated discussion about the problems with
the structure of the Russian economy. But hey, why bother? Russia is
evilandit has oil.
"Corruption is
endemic. Transparency International's global corruption index ranks Turkey at 61st,
Brazil at 73rd and China at 75th. Russia ranks far worse
at 143rd." True. But actually it is the "global corruptionperceptionindex"
and doesn't actually measure corruption per se, but what business people
believe.
Moreover, Bremmer
and Noubini have forgotten to mention that Russia's ranking has
fallen from a peak of 154 to the current 143 since Prime
MinisterDmitry Medvedevlaunched his anti-corruption drive. Sure, the fact that
corruption is falling in Russia is pertinent to the argument —
or am I making the mistake that we are attempting to rationally
assess what is wrong with Russia?
"In addition, much
of Russia's commercial elite still views the country as a wealth
generator but not a long-term investment bet."
Who are they talking
about exactly? Sure there companies like this (everyone can name them), but
the fast-growing companies are those like supermarket chainMagnit, which actually increased its investments
in the midst of the 2008-09 crisis, and the thousands
of other firms catering to the consumer. Not to mention
the arrival of the likes of PepsiCo that "invested"
$3.8 billion in buying the leading Russian dairy producer, or Burger
King, which just this week entered a venture to open several hundred
restaurants in Russia. Surely America's own famous international brands
are not in it for the short-term?
"Capital flight,
a chronic problem, has reportedly accelerated since Mr. Putin's
re-election in March," Bremmer and Roubini wrote.
Wrong and wrong. It
was a chronic problem in the 90s, but proportionately
the current capital flight is not a macroeconomic problem. Moreover,
the implication here is that Russians are taking their money out, when
over half the money leaving is actually from foreign banks with
branches in Russia bailing out their parents in the West because
the crisis that America and Europe caused has gotten them
into trouble.
"The country's
population is falling — because healthcare is poor, socially driven
diseases such as alcoholism rampant and because well-educated Russians are
leaving in search of better opportunities elsewhere."
Again, this is simply
a lie — or more like a wanton lack of any sort
of research at all. Russia's birthrate started rising again
in 2008 (thanks to the prosperity!) and is close
to stabilizing. The UN number Bremmer and Roubini cite is now
in dispute, as the demographic trends have been changing
dramatically. Goldman's O'Neill told BNE that he now expects a "big
surprise on the upside" when it comes to Russia's demographics.
I am going to stop
here. This has taken up far too much space. But it is shocking that respectable
and presumably intelligent men like Bremmer and Roubini can write
such obviously flawed polemical drivel as this.
There are serious issues
involved here on most of the points they raise. But this mindless
hate-mongering is not only pointless, it is dangerous. The world is
a fragile state both politically and economically. We need as
a global community to pull together if we are to put
a floor under the economic fears and sooth countries undergoing
a democratic awakening to keep the violence and killing
down to the minimum.
But with this op-ed
Bremmer and Roubini personify the arrogance and sloppy thinking
that got us into this mess in the first place and is
an abuse of their positions as leading commentators that people
actually listen to.
I am sick
of writing these rebuttals, as it is waste of time and energy.
Look around you. Look what is happening in the world today. Can we afford
to waste timed
on these pointless debates? Well, we are. And the situation is
continuing to deteriorate
