America's Favorite Boogeyman (Moscow Times, RUSSIA)

The fact that Russia is supposedly bad doesn't make the United States better -- or better off -- at the end of George W. Bush's presidency, when it is mistrusted by the world and is bogged down by two wars and a severe economic crisis. In this environment, is Russia a threat to the United States? Unlikely, but branding it as a dictatorship revives the old fears and diverts attention from the immense problems Washington faces today.

Barack Obama's presidency promises to usher his country into a new era of post-unilateral decision-making, international diplomacy and coherent foreign policy making. This new era should also, perhaps, end senseless public animosity toward Russia that has continued since 1991, when the Soviet Union lost the Cold War and disappeared.

Becoming the world's only superpower proved very damaging to the United States. It is no surprise that U.S. overconfidence bred hubris. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton's administration tirelessly reminded the former Soviets that they, the losers, should unwaveringly follow the lead of the all-powerful United States. President Boris Yeltsin's privatization program was not speedy enough, at least as judged in a Washington anxious to spend as little as possible helping Russia. Any thoughts of a Marshall Plan to ease Russia's path were dismissed in Washington as welfare for the communists.

Russia is certainly far from perfect, and its current return to authoritarianism is not all, or even mostly, Washington's fault. But the economic arrogance from the Clinton era, coupled with the political egotism of the Bush years, was not a sound strategy, at least in terms of impact on Russia. Wagging the dog of Putinism can serve only one purpose -- to appeal to the familiarity of the communist threat in order to cover up the United States' own imperfections.

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