How Will Mitt Romney Demonstrate `Backbone` With Vladimir Putin?

There was at least one area of genuine disagreement, though, and luckily for me it was about Russia. This topic came up not because of any effort by the moderator, who seemed to be asleep for the 40 or so minutes that I was watching the debate on TV, but because an animated and combative Obama tried to zing Romney for describing Russia as the US’ "number one geopolitical foe.” According to the transcript, Romney responded with the following (emphasis added):

Excuse me. It’s a geopolitical foe. And I said in the same — in the same paragraph, I said, and Iran is the greatest national security threat we face. Russia does continue to battle us in the U.N. time and time again. I have clear eyes on this. I’m not going to wear rose-colored glasses when it comes to Russia or Mr. Putin, and I’m certainly not going to say to him, I’ll give you more flexibility after the election. After the election he’ll get more backbone.

Now because the debate was poorly run there wasn’t any follow-up on Romney’s proposed backbone-centric Russia policy. But it naturally raises a number of questions, the most obvious of which is "how would the Russians respond?” It’s worth trying to think through what a more combative Russia policy would achieve and what sorts of unintended consequences it might have because, at least as far as I can tell, it’s one of the only areas of genuine disagreement between the two candidates and one of the few foreign policy changes we could realistically expect from a Romney administration.

Obama has been accused of being "soft” on Russia largely because of things he hasn’t done: he hasn’t signed, and has worked to delay passage of, theSergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, he hasn’t aggressively responded to the recent expulsion of USAID, and he’s generally, though not entirely, refrained from criticizing Russian domestic policy. I think it’s fair to say that Romney would support passage of the Magnitsky bill, would aggressively respond to the closure of USAID (perhaps following David Satter’s advice of expelling a bunch of Russian diplomats), and would generally take a hawkish and unaccommodating line. Though Mitt Romney’s website is still pretty scant on the details of his proposed Russia policy, I don’t think it’s being uncharitable or unrealistic to say that Romney is contemptuous of and dismissive towards Russia’s current regime and that he would be much more aggressive in confronting Putin.

But the Russians aren’t automatons who have been programmed to behave in a specific way, they’re human actors who respond to external stimuli and changes in US policy. The fact that the Russians are more cooperative since the start of the "reset” isn’t some bizarre puzzle that needs to be explained, it’s exactly what we ought to expect. Russia’s limited cooperation with the United States over the past four years hasn’t been by default or because the Russians "had no other options,” it has occurred because the Russian political leadership calculated that Russian interests were best promoted via cooperation with the Obama administration. But this calculation could easily change, and it doesn’t take an active imagination to think of a scenario in which Russia responds to an aggressive Romney policy by doing something asinine like re-instating the S-300 sale to Iran.

I understand that Romney’s response during the debate wasn’t a detailed policy prescription and that it’s unrealistic to expect extreme levels of detail from off-the-cuff and unprepared statements delivered live on national television. But the "backbone” comment is perfectly in keeping with Romney’s past statements on the issue. Romney, and foreign policy hawks in general, take a strangely one-sided view of US-Russia relations, and tend to view it as an arena in which the US is the only party with any real agency. In this view the Russians cooperate on issues like Afghanistan and Iran "because they have to” and the US can afford to aggressively oppose other Russian policies without paying any cost. But that’s clearly not the case.

The Russian government has many interests but its first priority, like any government, is survival. If the Russian government concludes that its survival might be threatened by Romney’s policies (and since Romney openly declares his intention of replacing the current government they wouldn’t be unreasonable in reaching such a conclusion) they will oppose those policies with every means at their disposal. Such an observation is hardly novel, but I’ve never seen anyone offer a coherent explanation of why the Russian government will continue to support Iran sanctions or the Northern Distribution Network in the face of aggressive attempts to weaken and marginalize it.

It’s possible that the costs of showing Putin more "backbone” are easily affordable and worth paying. I’m personally skeptical that confrontation would pay dividends, but it would be arrogant in the extreme to dismiss it out of hand. But Romney and his advisers need to show their work: they can’t simply assume that Russia would passively acquiesce to a more hawkish and confrontational US policy.