De la “vieille pensée” à la “nouvelle pensée” et retour

Il n’est pas assuré que le brillant Obama se soit montré particulièrement habile, c’est-à-dire brillant, dans ses appréciations sur Poutine, d’ailleurs contrastant avec celles qu’il a portées sur Medvedev. Est-ce un avis sincère, lui qui n’a jamais rencontré Poutine, et que vaut-il dans ce cas, – ou une fine tactique suggérée par ses conseillers en psychologie pour séparer les deux dirigeants russe? Ou encore, une simple expression d'une pensée courante à Washington?

Le Times de Londres rapporte ces déclarations de BHO, le 3 juillet 2009…

«Mr Obama was asked why he would meet Mr Putin at all on his three-day visit, in which he and Mr Medvedev will issue a joint pledge to cut their nuclear arsenals in half. Mr Obama said that the former President “still has a lot of sway” and needed to hear what he had to say — an acknowledgement of his continued influence, while simultaneously sending Mr Putin a message that he regards him as yesterday’s man. “It’s important that even as we move forward with President Medvedev, Putin understands that the old Cold War approach to US-Russian relations is outdated; that it’s time to move forward in a different direction,” he said.

»“I think Medvedev understands that. I think Putin has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new, and to the extent that we can provide him and the Russian people a clear sense that the US is not seeking an antagonistic relationship but wants co-operation on nuclear non-proliferation, fighting terrorism, energy issues, that we’ll end up having a stronger partner overall.” […]

»In Moscow, Mr Putin’s office had a different take on his meeting with Mr Obama, which will take place over breakfast on the second day of his visit. Mr Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Moscow radio that his boss “will want to share his views on the current state of Russian-US relations, drawing on his experience of dynamic interaction at the highest level as the head of state.” He added: “He has huge experience in dealing with the President of the United States: his mastery of the subject is brilliant. He will find it interesting to get a sense of the new US head of state, so he can also make his small contribution to possible prospects for development.”»

D’une façon qui nous semblerait bien révélatrice, voici une référence extrêmement intéressante, par rapport à cette déclaration d'Obama et par rapport au sommet de Moscou. Elle nous vient d’une interview du professeur Stephen F. Cohen, des études russes à l’université de New York, auteur (avec Katrina vanden Heuvel) de Voices of Glasnost: Conversations With Gorbachev's Reformers et, plus récemment, de Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia. Cohen est un des meilleurs spécialistes US de la Russie, attaché notamment aux aspects culturels et psychologiques. Il est interviewé dans le numéro d’avril 2009 de Washington Profile. Nous reproduisons deux questions et les longues réponses de Cohen. L’intérêt de ses jugements est double.

• Cohen retourne par avance le compliment de BHO à Poutine, mais non à lui-même (au président US) mais à son entourage, à l’establishment washingtonien dans son entièreté, etc. Pour Cohen, l’establishment washingtonien est inextricablement ancré dans une vision absolument stéréotypée des Russes, absolument liée à la Guerre froide, ce qu'il nomme une “vieille pensée”. A la différence de Poutine, il semble que les deux pieds soient en arrière, et même les deux mains s’il le faut.

• Cohen situe la seule chance d’un déblocage des relations USA-Russie dans le seul Obama, en l'appréciant comme un éventuel “hérétique” du système et en le comparant, bien entendu, à Gorbatchev. D’une façon très significative, et délibérée certes, il en appelle à une “nouvelle pensée” à Washington vis-à-vis de la Russie, en une référence évidente à l’expression employée par Gorbatchev durant la période des réformes en URSS (glasnost et perestroïka). C’est évidemment rencontrer l’avis de Gorbatchev lui-même, tel que nous nous en faisions l’écho le 9 juin 2009. Cette hypothèse du professeur Cohen, que nous avons nous-mêmes souvent évoquée, d’un BHO se glissant dans la peaux d’un “American Gorbatchev”, semble malheureusement de plus en plus compromise, notamment pour le cas précis de la rencontre de Moscou. Notamment, ce qu’Obama exprime de pensée sur les dirigeants russes (sur Poutine) ne semble pas précisément exprimer une “nouvelle pensée” par rapport aux normes washingtoniennes, – ou alors une demi-“nouvelle pensée” (un pied et pas l'autre), ce qui paraît un peu insuffisant pour éclaircir tous les malentendus.

Question: «There is hope that the Obama administration will get U.S.-Russian relations back on track. What are the major stumbling blocks to improving the U.S.-Russian relationship and how can both sides overcome them?»

Cohen: «The single most important stumbling block, as I said, is NATO expansion. It directly relates to missile defense and to the promise that President Medvedev and President Obama made when they met, to reinitiate nuclear arms reduction talks. As long as NATO keeps encroaching towards Russia, Moscow is going to be reluctant to reduce its nuclear weapons because its conventional weapons are not in good shape. If the Kremlin is certain that NATO expansion is over, it will be far more willing to make deep cuts in its nuclear arsenals, so in terms of American policy, that’s the major issue. I think that missile defense is secondary. In the Kremlin’s mind, it’s linked to the expansion of NATO and the military encirclement of Russia.

»In the United States, one might ask, what are the major stumbling blocks to changing American policy? I would argue that the major stumbling block is what I would call the “old thinking” that has formed since the end of the Soviet Union. The notion that Russia is a defeated power, it’s not a legitimate great power with equal rights to the Untied States, that Russia should make concessions while the Untied States doesn’t have to, that the United States can go back on its promises because Russia is imperialistic and evil. That is old thinking: only Moscow is to blame. We need new thinking, which at a minimum would say that both sides are to blame.

»Where is this new thinking going to come from? Probably not from the people President Obama has appointed to his foreign policy team. Every one of them is either a founder of old thinking, or a defender of it. Hillary Clinton and people like Vice President Biden and Michael McFaul who is now on the National Security Council, or General Jones who is the National Security Advisor and was the commander of NATO when NATO expanded. There are only a few people in the United States who share my point of view, but there are some, including people with some influence. The point is to keep talking, try to persuade people.

»So there are no new thinkers in Obama’s foreign policy okruzhenie. There is enormous support in the United States for the old thinking. It’s the majority view. The American media, the political class, the American bureaucracy – they all support it. Therefore, all hope rides with Obama himself, who is not tied to these old policies. He has to become a heretic and break with orthodoxy. Now you and I might say that it’s impossible, but there is a precedent. Just over twenty years ago, out of the Soviet orthodoxy, the much more rigid Communist Party nomenklatura, came a heretic, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. It’s not a question of whether we like Gorbachev’s leadership or we don’t. The point is that he came forward with something he called “new thinking,” breaking with the old Soviet thinking, and the result was that he and President Reagan ended the Cold War, or came very close to doing so. So the question is whether Obama can break with the old thinking.»

Question: «Who benefits more from an improved relationship, Russia or the U.S.?»

Cohen: «I have a book coming out in June. It’s called Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War. The second part of the book is about all of the things we have discussed today, the history of American-Soviet and American-Russian relations since Gorbachev and Reagan to Obama and Medvedev. In that book I argue that if you had to make this equation, the United States probably needs Russia somewhat more than Russia needs the United States. But it doesn’t matter, because they both need each other a lot. There is an expression in Russia: oba huzhe. In this case, oba luchshe. America and Russia each need each other for the better and there is no point asking who needs who more, or who would benefit more.

»The trouble is that people who make policy don’t understand that: they think that what’s bad for Russia is good for the United States and vice versa. But it isn’t true: what’s good for Russia in the relationship is good for the United States and what’s good for the United States is good for Russia. There was a moment when we had leaders who understood this – Gorbachev and Reagan and the first President Bush. The leaders who came after them, at least in the United States, didn’t understand this, and I am not sure they understand today. We will see. Posmortim.

»In the end, it’s political. In Russia, the people and the Russian elite have to struggle for a wise policy towards America. In the Untied States, we have to struggle for a wise policy towards Russia. The problem is that what one side does influences the struggle on the other side, as often happened during the Cold War. When the hardliners in Moscow say or do something, they strengthen the hardliners in Washington, and when the hardliners in Washington do or say something, it strengthens the hardliners in Moscow. It’s an unholy axis, and those of us who are the opponents of this dangerous axis have to resist, have fight it. It’s difficult, but people have to fight in Russia and my colleagues and I have to fight in the Untied States. The problem is that in the United States we are very much in a minority, and anti-Americanism has been growing in the Russian political class, and that is far more important than anti-American attitudes among Russian young people because the political class has the power.

»We need Obama to provide new leadership and Russia needs President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin together to be responsive to this leadership in a very significant way. It’s very important that if Obama makes a departure from the old thinking or some other major concession, that Moscow respond big time in a positive way, because that will help Obama in this country. Obama will then be able to say to the American opposition: look, I am getting positive results. That’s exactly what happened to Gorbachev. When Gorbachev came to power, the enemies of Gorbachev’s foreign policy said that the Untied States will take advantage of the Soviet Union, but when Reagan extended his hand to Gorbachev, met with Gorbachev and they began to do major anti-Cold War policy together, Gorbachev was able to say to his political class: you are wrong; the Untied States is responding to my anti-Cold War policies.

»In effect, we are in a new Cold War today and we need anti-Cold War presidents. When Medvedev and Obama met in London they gave a joint statement that said, “We no longer live in an era when we view each other as enemies.” That is how they began their joint statement, but it is factually untrue. I wish it was true, but there is no doubt that the American political class, and I am excluding President Obama, views Russia as an enemy. Also, there is no doubt that the Russian political class, and I am not talking about Putin or Medvedev but policy elites, view the United States as an enemy mainly because of NATO expansion. So we are back where we were during the Cold War. The two sides view each other as enemies. What we have to hope for is that the leadership on both sides has the wisdom, the vision and the power to change that, because in foreign policy, more than in domestic policy, leaders matters most. If they don’t, we are in deep trouble.»

Mis en ligne le 4 juillet 2009 à 11H36