Former Secretary of State Larry Eagleburger has a shocking confession about Russia – he apologizes to inform us that he thinks U.S. policies are partly to blame for the deterioration in relations with Russia:
“From my perspective, and I know everyone will be horrified now, particularly my conservative friends – but I do think we bear some responsibility for the less friendly relationship we now have with them,” said Former Secretary of State [1992] Lawrence Eagleburger. “If you are going to bring about alliances along Russia’s border and you end up putting anti-ballistic missile launchers and so forth, it seems to me what the Russians have to take away from that is that we intend to isolate them. And our eastern European friends and allies, which used to be puppets to the Soviet Union – they are happy to go along with this as well because they see this as protection from the monster that governed them for so long. But the Russians have to, I think, look at that as an attempt at isolation.”
I wonder when the whole who-did-what narrative about this dysfunctional relationship will subside and people will actually begin to debate what should be done… Of course U.S. policy has played a role – it’s not as though these developments happen in a vacuum – but really if we are going to look back, it should be to the early Putin years, and the handling of the relationship after 9/11. Even then, one could not be certain that different policies would’ve produced different outcomes in Russia.