Twenty years ago today, I was a seventh grader at the American Community School in Surrey, England.  My family had lived in the UK for two years (we’d stay for two more) because my father was the European sales manager for an American chemical company.

Even at such a young age, I liked to think that I was seeing the Cold War from the “front lines” — I was riveted the first time our family crossed into West Germany, and how proud I was when my middle school cross-country and baseball teams would compete on British-American military bases.  I was particularly fascinated at the Moscow Music Peace Festival, though I’m sure as much for the appearance by Motley Crue and Skid Row as for its rather striking implications about freedom, openness, and globalization.

In truth, I lead an obnoxiously comfortable life in a quite English town.  But the broader experience of living abroad during a time of such sweeping change  fueled my budding consciousness with an interest in geo-politics and foreign policy… and, of course, rock and roll.

Conservatives will crow today about Ronald Reagan’s role in the entire affair, drawing a straight line between the Gipper’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” and the crumbling of 70 years of Communism.  Of course, the Soviet Union’s demise was far more complex.  George Packer’s column in The New Yorker sums it up far better than I could ever hope to:

The wall came down not because Ronald Reagan stood up and demanded it but because on the evening of November 9th, at a televised press conference in East Berlin, a Party hack named Günter Schabowski flubbed a question about the regime’s new, liberalized travel regulations. Asked when they took effect, Schabowski shrugged, scratched his head, checked some papers, and said, “Immediately,” sending thousands of East Berliners to the wall in a human tide that the German Democratic Republic could not control. Soldiers and Stasi agents didn’t shoot into the crowd, but things could easily have gone otherwise.

The revolutions of 1989 were made possible by a multiplicity of conditions: the courage of East Bloc dissidents and the hundreds of thousands of fellow-citizens who finally joined them; American support for the dissident movements and containment of the Soviet Union; the disastrous economies of the Communist countries; the loss of confidence among ruling-party élites; the crucial forbearance of Mikhail Gorbachev. For Europe’s Communist regimes to disappear so suddenly and bloodlessly (Romania was a different story), everything had to fall into place, above and below, within and without. Such circumstances are improbably rare, and they can’t be mechanically replicated by the laws of history or by divine design or by universal human aspiration. A false lesson drawn from 1989 involves a kind of shallow eschatology of totalitarianism: this is how it always happens—the people rise up, the regime withers and dies, peace and democracy reign. The chaos that followed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was in part a consequence of this thinking. In planning the postwar period in Iraq, George W. Bush and some of his advisers had 1989 in mind—“like Eastern Europe with Arabs,” as one official put it.

It hasn’t been easy going of late for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s illegitimate president.

First came the summer repression - in the wake of a fraudulent election, Ahmadinejad spent most of his time repressing an internal revolution as hundreds of thousands took to the streets in mass protest.

Up next was this week’s speech to the general assembly of the United Nations, where Ahmadinejad carried on about alleged Jewish desires to start a new form of slavery, charges that prompted a mass walk-out by many of the world’s major powers.

It’s tough to mix such bombast with dented credibility under normal circumstances.  But the hits keep on coming for the regime in Tehran:  The U.S., Britain, and France have just revealed  knowledge of a secret Iranian underground nuclear facility near the holy city of Qom.

We call this getting caught with your pants down.

Iran tried to limit the damage by preemptively notifying the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency in advance of the tri-lateral announcement in Pittsburgh, but to no avail.  Iran was hiding a facility, and even if it proved to be of the benign civilian power variety, the burden of proof now falls squarely on the mullahs’ shoulders.  Perhaps this is why Ahmadinejad left the door cracked open at the end of his unsettling UN address with a pledge “to shake all those hands which are honestly extended to us.”

The Obama administration should be salivating:  Iran’s damaged legitimacy at home and abroad likely make it more willing to engage in meaningful dialogue about its nuclear program.  And with Russia recent indication of support for sanctions - a bonus, repeat bonus, outcome from chosing to strengthen American security by abandoning missile defense in Eastern Europe in favor of a sea-based system - there is a real chance of leveraging broad international pressure to move Iran.  (And indeed, Russia’s main task may be pressuring China to support sanctions.)

The trick is to ensure that the Iranians don’t get away with “window dressing” diplomacy - that is, giving the appearance that they’re meeting internationaldemands, while actuality not giving away much at all.

The first such test will come soon - Iran has promised to give the IAEA access to interview Iran’s nuclear scientists.  The international coalition must insist that the interviews take place on the IAEA’s terms:  likely outside of Iran, for as long as the IAEA requests, and covering whatever topics are deemed necessary.

Next, the international coalition should push for IAEA access to all Iranian nuclear sites, and couple refused access with broad sanctions on imports of refined gas.

These will be the first important steps to learning if even a fault-ridden Iranian regime can be an honest partner.

My erstwhile co-author Josh Tucker penned a cogent piece for RealClearWorld today on the Russian missile shield.  Here’s his point:

So the bottom line is as follows: (1) it is unclear how these interceptors would have improved U.S. national security; (2) it is unclear how the interceptors would have improved the security of American allies in Eastern Europe; (3) they would have been expensive (note Obama’s mention of “cost-effectiveness” in his statement on the matter); (4) we don’t know if they would have worked (note Obama’s emphasis on the effectiveness of his proposed alternative); and (5) they would have continued to provide a serious impediment to improving U.S.-Russian relations. …

But let’s be clear: this is not a costless decision. Anytime we change our minds on military commitments to allies, there are costs down the road for doing so. Both Poland and the Czech Republic have born serious costs in order to move this plan along with their own populations — neither of which were uniformly enthusiastic about these proposals, especially in the Czech Republic. I would hope the administration would take damage control in this regard very seriously….

Finally, it is important not to overestimate the effect of this decision on U.S.-Russian relations. Yes, this will remove a thorn from that relationship, and an important thorn at that. And it is possible that we may even see some reciprocal move on Russia’s part in terms of ratcheting up pressure on Iran in the coming days; there have long been indications that such a deal might be possible.

… The Russians should take comfort in the fact that the current administration is willing to listen to arguments about the value of particular policy decisions, but they should in no way take away from this an overinflated sense of Russian influence over Washington’s foreign policy.

That’s about right by me.  I like his point of emphasis on damage control - we’ve made a decision whose effects within the Polish and Czech military establishments is potentially wide-ranging.  We should expend a decent amount of energy managing that relationship, trying to assuage those countries’ governments’ level of uncomfortableness.

For example, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout said he made two concrete proposals to U.S. officials on Thursday in hopes of keeping the U.S.-Czech alliance strong: for the U.S. to establish a branch of West Point for NATO members in Central Europe and to “send a Czech scientist on the U.S. space shuttle to the international space station.” Those requests should be taken seriously.

That Polish newspaper story on the missile shield getting whacked was pretty big, so I thought I’d dig around and see if there were any developments over the weekend.  There’s not much out there.  The NYT followed up on the original Polish story, and the gist of their efforts is below.  Otherwise, news reports base their stories off the NYT’s.

NYT:

The Obama administration has developed possible alternative plans for a missile defense shield that could drop hotly disputed sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, a move that would please Russia and Germany but sour relations with American allies in Eastern Europe.

Administration officials said they hoped to complete their months-long review of the planned antimissile system as early as next month, possibly in time for President Obama to present ideas to President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia at a meeting in New York during the annual opening at the General Assembly of the United Nations.

But they cautioned that no decisions had been made and that all options were still under discussion, including retaining the Polish and Czech sites first selected by President George W. Bush.

The Jerusalem Post apparently tried to, but ultimately could not, confirm the NYT’s report.

DefenseNews is says a Polish paper - Gazeta Wyborcza - to claim that the controversial Eastern European missile shield program is dead.

If true, it would seem to be a counter-intuitive way to make such a major announcement.  Though the Gazeta Wyvorcza cites “administration officials and lobbyists in Washington” as its sources, who knows those officials’ access to information, so take this news with dose of skepticism for now.  However, leaking the story to a Polish paper could be a creative way to get the story out there — this way, such a huge policy and financial decision won’t blindside the effected parties (defense contractors, the US military, not to mention the Poles, the Czechs, and the Russians - all of whom you’d think were consulted/informed from the get-go) before it’s confirmed in a few weeks or months.

The Obama administration has been long-uncomfortable with the missile shield, on grand strategy and tactical deployment grounds.  If it has been killed, a few questions come to mind:  Did we get something from the Russians for this?  If so, is it a quid-pro-quo with Russia in exchange for pressuring Iran to give up its nuclear capabilities? Was it a good-will gesture towards them?  Or, did we realize that the development costs and probability of successful deterence were too high and low, respectfully?

On the whole, there are plenty of good arguments to abandon a project that was potentially over budget, of questionable accuracy, and a major roadblock in improving relations with Russia.  But I just hope we got something for it.

I remember watching a documentary in the mid-90s about the former Soviet Union’s evolution to capitalism.  One segment focused on the fascinating price irregularities of every-day goods and services.  Cleaning fluid for the windowshield, for example, was so expensive that the locals just poured bottles of vodka over it.

Of course, when they’re not pouring it on their cars, they’re pouring it down their throats.  I was in Russia about three weeks ago.  Standing on a streetcorner near our rented apartment, my intrepid travel partners - Big Walsh and Vlad - and I were grabbing a caviar crepe (as you do) and stood aghast as we watched an otherwise reasonable-looking Russian wake up from his patch of public grass and straddle its 2-foot high fence for a painfully long period of time as he summoned all his mental fortitude to escape his prison’s grasp.

“Who put this fence here?” you could hear him gasp, holding on to it for dear life, “and how the hell am I supposed to get out?” which was of course an ironic sentiment as could be, given that one foot was already on the pavement.

This scene was pretty amusing, but in its own way, rather pathetic.  Especially because it was was 1pm on a Friday.

Alcohol in Russia is everywhere - if there are any laws against public consumption, they’re sure not enforced.  Time Magazine reports this week that President Medvedev is looking to change that.

Alcohol runs through Russia’s veins and is ingrained in its culture. The last time someone tried to change that — former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev — his popularity plummeted.

But now, 24 years after Russia’s last big push for sobriety, President Dmitri Medvedev has decided to give it another shot. He told a government meeting on Aug. 12 that alcoholism has become a “national calamity,” with every man, woman and child consuming the equivalent of 4.8 gallons (18 liters) of pure rubbing alcohol per year, according to the National Institute of Health. …

State statistics show that today 38% of Russians between the ages of 20 and 39 suffer from alcoholism — between the ages of 40 and 59, that number jumps to 55%. Alcohol poisoning kills an average of 30,000 people in Russia each year, twice the number of Soviets who died during the 10-year war with Afghanistan in the ’80s. …

Russian lawmakers, however, were quick to jump on the wagon with Medvedev. When the parliament reconvenes in the fall, they are expected to raise taxes on alcohol, toughen labeling laws and ban the sale of alcohol at kiosks and small stores, allowing only big retail outlets a safe distance from any schools, universities or leisure centers to sell booze.

But not everyone is so enthusiastic. “Politically, these plans are just a dumb idea,” says Alexei Makarkin, deputy head of the Center for Political Technologies in Moscow. “Every time they impose these restrictions, two things happen: people start brewing their own liquor, or they turn to cheaper substitutes. By that I mean cheap perfume, hair tonics, window cleaner, industrial alcohols. This is a deadly game.”

Medvedev may have his work cut out for him, but if he succeeds, I know one dude in a Russian park who’ll probably be thankful.

My erstwhile Russia co-author Joshua Tucker has a piece up on The New Republic’s site about the Obama administration’s strategy of bolstering Medvedev at Putin’s expense.  An excerpt:

Perhaps the single greatest fault line between the two [Mevedev and Putin] that has been suggested has been a belief that Medvedev may ultimately be more of a true believer in the rule of law than Putin, and therefore more receptive of the idea of restrained (e.g., liberal) state as a means to fostering prosperity in Russia.

Intriguingly, several of President Obama’s actions related to his current trip to Moscow suggest that he may share this view of Medvedev–and is conducting his Russia outreach accordingly. The most obvious example of this was his pointed comment in an Associated Press interview before the visit that “I think Putin has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new,” which explicitly drew a contrast between Putin and Medvedev. We can also see this approach in Obama’s speech today at the New Economic School. Not only did he mention the rule of law three times in the course of the speech, but the very first time he mentioned it, he immediately followed it by noting, “As President Medvedev has rightly said, a mature and effective legal system is a condition for sustained economic development.” Indeed, the very choice of the New Economic School–a private institution with an unquestionable reputation for academic freedom–as a venue for Obama’s major public speech can be interpreted as a subtle dig against Putin’s vision of a statist Russia….

But make no mistake, trying to exploit potential rifts between Medvedev and Putin is a bit of a gamble on Obama’s part. …  If Obama is wrong, and Putin really is calling the shots, the U.S. attempts to favor Medvedev at Putin’s expense may have negative reverberations on U.S.-Russian relations in the future. But if Obama is right, and Medvedev does indeed have independent power and preferences, then the President of the United States may very well have cleverly sent an important message to the President of Russia: We can indeed work together in a way that benefits both of us.

Josh’s analysis is spot-on, both in terms of what the administration thinks, and the risks it poses if Putin reacts negatively.  I was thinking that this situation is a bit of a parallel with how the Bush administration tried to deal with the Palestinian split - dealing only with Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority while ignoring Hamas.  Of course there are huge differences between the two situations, but if there’s a basic lesson to be drawn, it’s this:  this type of  strategy can’t be a zero-sum game.  The White House will have to deal with Putin regardless of how much it would prefer exclusive interaction deal with Medvedev.  Indeed, Obama can raise Mevedev’s profile - and probably significantly so - but should remain cognizant that Putin - like Hamas - retains an independent power base.