The Case for Talking With Russia

At The Globe and Mail in an op-ed stating the case for why Canada should be negotiating with Russia over the Arctic, Michael Byers summarizes the drastically different perspective that the Russians have about their actions and ours:

Russia is isolated and agitated. As its economy implodes, President Vladimir Putin protects his position by stirring up nationalist sentiments – mostly against the United States.

Russians worry about the deployment of U.S. missile defence in Eastern Europe. They believe that the North Atlamtic Treaty Organization is encircling them as it expands eastward. The annexation of Crimea is, from this perspective, just the latest effort to hold off an aggressive, intentionally destabilizing West.

Russians see the war in Syria as a necessary defence of sovereignty against outside intervention, of stability against Western-induced regime change and chaos. They believe they are acting legally in Syria, because they were invited by the government of Bashar al-Assad.

Russians recoil against the language being used against them. Last month, Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, told the Security Council that “what Russia is sponsoring and doing [in Syria] is not counter-terrorism, it is barbarism.”

Russians see the world differently than we do. They might be wrong. They might even be paranoid. But a bear that feels threatened will often charge. And just as a grizzly will stand on its hind legs to make itself more intimidating; last week, Russia conducted three ballistic missiles tests.

Today, the world is closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis. The smallest incident could spiral out of control. Imagine what might happen if a U.S. fighter jet were mistakenly shot down by a Russian anti-aircraft missile, or Russian troops were struck by a U.S. bomb.

It’s not just the Canadians that should be “talking to the bear”, as Mr. Byers puts it.

The only two countries in the world with the present capability of destroying the world are Russia and the United States. There is no more important bilateral relationship in the world than that between the United States and Russia and that relationship is now in the worst shape in which it has been since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The stakes are very high. Talking to the bear rather than poking it is in our interests as well. Considering our serial foreign policy miscalculations of the last 25 years, a little more humility might be called for on our part.