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Lost Opportunities in Russian-American Relations
Dr. Roger Kanet
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| Feb 10, 2010 Program with Dr. Roger Kanet
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Speaker's Remarks:
Dr. Kanet described the recent history of U.S.-Russia relations. He started with Russia's dramatic fall from power in the early 1990s, when it lost one third of its territory, much of its population. Russia now finds itself with hardly one quarter of its former economic power.
At one point, when the United States suffered the attack on the twin towers, Russia offered to help the U.S. with its invasion of Afghanistan, and our relations were good. However, the friendship soon cooled. NATO began extending its reach into the old Russian satellites and even tried to include Georgia so that it could escape Russia's grasp. NATO also intervened heavily in Serbia and Kosovo, two countries that Russia considered close allies. For its part, the U.S. planned to install missile defense systems close to Russia's border, and it arranged to route Caspian gas pipelines so that they would avoid Russian control.
Russia fears for its security.
At home, Vladimer Putin, Russia's President and later Prime Minister, is desperately trying to shore up the economy. He has recovered much of patrimony that former President Boris Yeltsin gave away to his friends. Putin has restored government control over Chechnya and the restive far-eastern provinces, and he is moving to restore Russia's influence over other states of the old USSR. He is fortunate that Russia has immense oil and gas reserves and that world prices have remained high. Russia now supplies 40 percent of Europe's gas needs.
Whilte Putin has had some success, he has failed to achieve what he wants most: for Russia to be respected and treated as an equal by the Western Powers. Instead, the U.S. and the European countries continue to consider Russia as a second rate power, and Dr. Kanet does not expect our relations to improve greatly in the future. Mr. Putin is paronoid about Russia's security.
As to the future, Dr. Kanet is not optimistic. Russia is faced by all the challenges of terrorism, global warming, the financial crisis, the rise of China, etc. Worst of all, it suffers from poor labor efficiency, a declining birthrate and a short life expectancy. The oil and gas reserves won't last forever. In short, the outlook is grim. The country may not even exist in another fifty years.
Speaker's Biography:
Dr. Roger E. Kanet is a professor in the Department of International Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, at the University of Miami. His major teaching and research interests focus on post-communist Europe, on questions of European and global security, democratization and nationalism, both in a comparative perspective, and on aspects of U.S. foreign and security policy.
He joined the faculty at the University of Miami in 1997. From 1997 to 2000, he served as dean of the School of International Studies. From 2002 to 2004, he was director of undergraduate studies in the Department of International Studies.
Prior to 1997, Kanet spent 24 years at the University of Illinois, at Urbana-Champaign. From 1989 until August of 1997, he served as associate vice chancellor for academic affairs and director of international programs and studies. A leading authority on the politics of Russia, the other Soviet successor states, and Eastern Europe, he continued to teach political science, though most of his university effort was in administering programs at Illinois.
Kanet also has taught at the University of Kansas, United Colleges of Central Kansas and the Army Command and Staff College, and was a joint fellow at the Research Institute on Communist Affairs and Russian Institute at Columbia University. He has made more than 300 presentations to universities and various professional and civic organizations in the United States and abroad.
His non-academic experience includes consultancies for United States Information Agency, the U.S. State Department and the Institute for Public Policy Development. Kanet also has served on advisory committees for the Hudson Institute’s Center for Central European and Eurasian Studies, the University of Maryland’s East – South Project, the Republican National Committee and Interaction Systems Inc., to name a few.
His professional memberships include the Council on Foreign Relations; International Political American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies; International Committee for Soviet and East European Studies; Association of International Education Administrators; and others.
Kanet earned a PhB at Berchmonskolleg in Pullach-bei-München, Germany; an AB from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio; an MA from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Penna.; and an AM and PhD from Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.
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World Affairs Council of the Florida Palm Beaches
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