U.S. Embrace of Russia as Close Partner Cooling

The Clinton Administration, sobered by the new, more nationalistic tone of Russia’s foreign policy, is reluctantly cooling its once-warm embrace of Moscow as a reliable strategic “partner” for the West.

In unannounced steps over the last few weeks, the Administration has shifted to a markedly tougher policy on international loans to Russia and has warned Moscow against military or political intervention in neighboring countries, senior officials said.

The actions reflect growing concern that Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, reacting to the unexpected strength of nationalists in Russia’s new Parliament, may be turning away from economic reform and acting more assertively abroad, officials said.

Reflecting those worries, President Clinton said Monday that he is concerned about events in Moscow.

“Is it possible that we will re-create the Cold War?” Clinton said in response to a reporter’s question. “In one respect, it is unlikely for sure, and that is the nuclear respect.” But “somewhat more likely,” he added, is that “the Russian people will turn to leaders who will say the best way to go for the future is . . . the reimposition of some sort of empire.”

“The United States has worked with and supported President Yeltsin because we believe that he followed policies supporting democracy, supporting reform and supporting respect for the territorial integrity of Russia’s neighbors--all three things,” Clinton said pointedly. “That is still our policy. We are interested in supporting those things.”

Aides said Clinton still considers aid for Russia one of his top foreign priorities and still hopes to work with Yeltsin as an ally rather than a rival in post-Cold War battle zones such as Georgia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Moreover, a senior official noted, “all the alternatives to Yeltsin are much worse.”

But after a yearlong honeymoon in which Clinton and his aides extolled Yeltsin as a peerless democratic reformer, they have begun refocusing their rhetoric--and actions--on the policies they wish Yeltsin would follow. And they are growing resigned to a warier, bumpier relationship in which the United States and Russia are partners on some days, rivals on others.

“There’s no question that . . . we have hit a more difficult patch,” a White House official said. “Some people had gotten a little romantic about the possibilities of this relationship. But it’s becoming more mature, and less romantic, on both sides.”

What has happened, U.S. and Russian officials said, is that Russia’s politicians have rediscovered the political power of nationalism--and have concluded that cooperating with America brought them relatively little in benefits. Russia’s parliamentary election in December, in which radical nationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky won far more votes than expected, pushed Yeltsin and his government abruptly toward tougher assertions of Russia’s status as a great power.

But even before the election, Yeltsin was moving in the same direction. He warned the West bluntly against admitting Poland and other East European countries into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, saying Russia would oppose any alliance unless it was also invited in.

Yeltsin asserted his right to intervene in neighboring countries that were part of the former Soviet Union, saying the fate of ethnic Russians there was a “domestic affair.” And Russia injected itself into efforts to stop the Bosnian war without consulting with the United States, raising fears that Moscow’s efforts could interfere with Western initiatives.

All that, plus the arrest last month of a CIA official accused of spying for Russia, prompted some Administration critics to declare the earlier policy bankrupt. “We cannot be thinking in terms of a partnership,” said Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We really have a very strenuous rivalry going on.”

Clinton rejected that conclusion, arguing that the United States should continue sending economic aid to Moscow because a stable Russia is in America’s interest. Further, senior officials added, Russia’s bark in foreign policy has been worse than her bite. On most major issues, the two countries are still cooperating nicely. Still, the Administration has quietly taken steps in response to Russian moves over the last three months:

* U.S. officials have toughened warnings against Russian military action in former Soviet areas, including a line in Clinton’s State of the Union address insisting that if Russian troops operate in neighboring states, they do so only when those states agree to their presence.

* Officials privately complained to the Russians about their diplomacy in Bosnia. Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev told Secretary of State Warren Christopher last week that he would try to consult more fully.

* Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk visited the White House last week and Georgian President Eduard A. Shevardnadze visited Monday--in part, some officials said, to signal to Moscow that the United States will support those countries’ independence against any Russian pressure.

* On the key issue of economic aid, America, once the leading proponent of large-scale loans to Russia from the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions, has joined European countries and Japan in demanding concrete reform in Moscow before more such money flows.

The United States will continue its program of direct aid to support new private enterprises and democratic institutions in Russia, officials said. But as for major aid to the Russian government, “we’re going to wait and see,” a senior official said. “If there are reforms, we will push. If not, I don’t think you’ll see us pushing.”

The direct U.S. aid program may not be as large as once projected. The Administration has sent Congress a request for $900 million for the next fiscal year, well below this year’s $2.5 billion. Earlier, officials said they might well ask for more aid if Russian reforms continued. But now, “we’re fairly comfortable with the $900 million,” said one.

But those changes are not enough for some critics; they assert the Administration is still too blindly attached to both Russia and Yeltsin.

“Our approach . . . has been characterized by sloganeering, wishful thinking and a romantic attachment to Russia,” complained Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to former President Jimmy Carter. “I think the Administration is beginning to realize that its policy is floundering, is unsound, but is very reluctant to face that fact.”