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DECEMBER 2016
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THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL
with other willful and sometimes illegal
acts, such as the invasion of Iraq with-
out United Nations sanction, convinced
most attentive Russians that the United
States was determined to treat their
country as a defeated enemy.
“We won the Cold War!” triumpha-
lism particularly rankles Gorbachev.
The fact is that every agreement he
made with the United States and its
NATO allies was in the interest of the
USSR, which needed nothing so much
as an end to the arms race. Even more
distorted is the widespread convic-
tion that the Cold War ended with the
demise of the Soviet Union. It was over
ideologically by the end of 1988, and in
most other respects by the end of 1989,
the annus mirabilis of East European
liberation.
The Soviet Union disintegrated
despite the end of the Cold War, not
because of it. It was not a “Western”
victory, though it did demonstrate that
the communist rule of the USSR was
not viable in a world without external
enemies.
Eight years ago, after war broke out
between Russia and Georgia, Gor-
bachev commented, “The reality is
that, in recent years, Russia has been
confronted with one fait accompli after
another: this is what we are doing about
Kosovo; now we are withdrawing from
the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and
deploying anti-missile systems in your
neighboring countries; now we are
continuing to endlessly expand NATO.
Live with it! …There are calls now for a
review of relations with Russia. I think
the first thing in need of review is this
way of talking down to Russia, ignoring
her views and interests.”
Well, after a brief respite when the
new Barack Obama administration
initiated a “reset”—mistranslated by the
Secretary of State’s advisers with the Rus-
sian word (in Latin characters yet!) for
“overload,” the mistranslation proved to
be a Freudian slip. The policy combined
incompatible elements: efforts to coop-
erate when it was in the U.S. interest and
policies designed to influence domestic
politics in Russia itself.
Equally threatening from the Rus-
sian standpoint was what seemed to
Russians a calculated effort to alienate
their most important neighbor, Ukraine,
which had been part of the same coun-
try for more than two centuries. While
the reset had important positive results,
the New START treaty in particular,
President Obama’s policy was doomed
in other respects even before civil war
broke out in Ukraine.
As Gorbachev points out, Russians
have been reacting to what they per-
ceive as a persistent American effort to
put them down, isolate them and domi-
nate the world by exercising a global
hegemony. That reaction has been
damaging to Russia’s own interests and
future; but, Russian patriots will argue,
what proud nation, when pressed, will
not push back?
Gorbachev’s comment highlights a
crucial psychological point. A diplomat
should understand that nothing is to be
gained by publicly humiliating another
country or its leaders, even if their
policies are problematic. Deal with the
policy with at least public respect for
the politician. President Ronald Reagan
condemned communism, but never
made slighting personal remarks about
the specific Soviet leaders he dealt with.
When he met a Soviet leader, his first
words were usually, “We hold the peace
of the world in our hands.”
They did, and he and Gorbachev
achieved a world-transforming feat in
reversing the upward spiral of the arms
race. Their joint declaration that “a
nuclear war cannot be won, and must
never be fought, which means there can
be no war between us” is as valid today as
it was in November 1985, when Reagan
and Gorbachev met for the first time.
Unfortunately, that important truism
seems to be ignored now by the leaders
and “policy elite” in both our countries.
As we await the inauguration of a
new president, our diplomats would
be well advised to read Mikhail Gor-
bachev’s testimony. They may not
agree with everything he writes, but his
account will give them insight into the
sort of advice they should
not
be giving
our next president.
In all of the global challenges we
face, Russia is going to be either part
of the solution or part of the problem.
Mikhail Gorbachev has called atten-
tion to those actions and policies by the
United States and its allies that have
encouraged Russia to be a problem.
Gorbachev has also written nostalgi-
cally about his relationship with Presi-
dents Ronald Reagan and George H.W.
Bush.
A study of the interaction of those
two American presidents with the presi-
dent of the Soviet Union would provide
important lessons for a diplomacy
designed to transcend differences and
concentrate on those issues that are
vital to the future of both countries.
Jack Matlock Jr., FSO-CM, retired, was am-
bassador to the USSR from 1987 to 1991,
and is now Rubenstein Fellow and Visiting
Scholar at Duke University. He first served
in Moscow from 1961 to 1963, again from
1974 to 1978, and once more in 1981 as
chargé d’affaires before his appointment
as ambassador to Czechoslovakia (1981-
1983). During his 35-year career in the
Foreign Service, he also served in Vienna,