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The Dawn of the Next Cold War


In Munich, Putin sent a clear message: the new Russia hopes for friendship with America, but it has also learned to say no.


By Ian Bremmer
Newsweek International

Feb. 26, 2007 issue - The 32-minute blast Vladimir Putin delivered at a recent security conference in Munich will go down as a classic. America's "uncontained" militarism, the Russian president declared, has created a world where "no one feels safe anymore," and where other nations feel almost forced to develop nuclear weapons in their own defense. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates tried to laugh it off, joking that "as an old cold warrior" the speech had "almost filled me with nostalgia for a less complex time"—and went on to tout Washington's preference for partnership and good relations.

Make no mistake, though. Putin delivered a message, and the White House heard it loud and clear. It goes something like this: in the 1990s, America pushed us around. On NATO expansion, we asked you to consider our national interests. You answered with an advance into former Soviet territory in Eastern Europe. You spoke of energy partnership yet built new pipelines to bypass our territory. Western companies took advantage of our economic troubles to buy access to our natural resources at cut-rate prices.

We asked you to respect the antiballistic-missile treaty; you destroyed it. You expect us to sit quietly while you make trouble in Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus and Central Asia—lands that existed within the Russian sphere before America was a nation. You ask our help in the war on terror but condemn our fight against the Chechen terrorists. Now you want to deploy missile-defense systems in Central Europe. Yes, we hope for friendship with America. But ours is a new Russia. If you treat us without respect, you will discover that we can say no.


All this built-up resentment was clear in Putin's speech. A decade or so ago, the United States didn't really have to take Russia into account. The cash-strapped Kremlin was preoccupied with rebellious provincial governors, grasping oligarchs, embittered communists and Chechen separatists. The erratic and alcoholic Boris Yeltsin inspired little confidence, the Russian economy even less so. Today, all that has changed. Putin has cowed the oligarchs and tamed all political rivals, including the once independent Duma. Oil prices tripled between 2002 and 2006, filling Russia's coffers with cash and powering growth of 7 percent annually. Putin's approval ratings hover around 75 percent.



Russia's willingness to demonstrate its newfound strength has prompted some to speculate that we're looking at a new cold war. Certainly, U.S.-Russian relations have deteriorated. But a new cold war? The picture is more complicated. Yes, the Soviet Union and its nuclear arsenal occupy a special place in the dark corners of the American imagination. But this time around, Russia enjoys competitive advantages the Soviet Union lacked. It has shed its sclerotic Soviet political and economic system. It has no burdensome empire to manage. And Putin, unlike Soviet leaders, has a popular mandate, not just at home but, increasingly, abroad. The Russian leader is now welcomed warmly in many places where public attitudes toward America have soured, if not turned hostile.

During his speech in Germany, Putin offered this on the cold war: "It was a fragile peace, a scary peace, but it was fairly reliable. Today, it is less reliable." In a growing number of ways, he's right—and increasingly widely recognized as right. Putin didn't bang his shoe on the podium; he didn't seek to counter America's move to set up anti-missile defenses in Eastern Europe with empty threats to install missiles in Cuba. But if the Bush administration hopes, for example, to successfully pressure Iran to renounce its nuclear ambitions, it will need Russian help. And in this, Putin signaled, the Kremlin has probably gone as far as it's going to.

In Munich, Putin alluded to an "asymmetric" response to American hyperpower. Iran offers one clue to what that means. The logic is no longer chiefly commercial, as it once might have been. Nowadays, the Kremlin wants to carve off some of America's regional influence. It's also telling that Putin went from Munich to the gulf. To Saudi Arabia, he offered help with development of a civilian nuclear program; in Qatar he spoke about the formation of a natural-gas cartel. In Jordan he pressed for development of new political and economic ties. Days later, he dispatched Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to meet his Indian and Chinese counterparts to discuss ways of counterbalancing U.S. power in, as Putin sees it, a newly multipolar world.


Russia is entering an election cycle, and it's unclear who will replace Putin at the end of next year. But note: within the Kremlin, Putin counts among the most pro-Western Russian leaders. Others around him are viscerally anti-American.


No, this isn't a new cold war. It's far more complex—and that might be worse.


Bremmer is president of EurAsia Group and author of "The J-Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall."

© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

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