Stephen Sestanovich
Interviewee:
Interviewer:
Russian President
A. It's the most interesting element of the latest Obama-Medvedev summit. On the one hand, you've got the usual bilateral agenda, everything from getting the new START treaty ratified to
On the other hand, you've got this interesting theme of remaking Russian society and its economy, symbolized by the trip to
Q. What has changed?
A. Well, presumably Medvedev's calculating that
Q. How was this trip set up? Was it a
A. There was an interesting trip a few months back, in which a number of high-tech American businessmen, particularly people in the social networking field --
In addition, Medvedev has been talking about creating a center of innovation outside
Q. Since the Russians obviously want Western help with their economy, how do they deal with the legal problems that have arisen like the imprisonment and apparent mistreatment of many foreigners?
A. That's actually an important point. One of the things that Russians hear from Americans when they say, "We want to have a modern economy, we need to encourage innovation," is that they've got to work, more than anything else, on the rule of law.
There was a delegation of American businessmen, venture capitalists, who met with Medvedev last month and that was a theme that the Americans hit hard. They didn't mention the specifics, but they could've. They could've talked about
The Russians need to understand that all the tax breaks they offer and the world-class scientists that they recruit will not make
Q. What about the other subjects you touched on at the beginning? The START treaty, I know the Russian Duma has started considering it, but they'll probably wait for the
A. The idea has been to try to coordinate ratification in the two legislatures. The presentations have started in the
Q. Is there anything really controversial in the treaty?
A. There're small issues that can be turned into big ones, as is often true in ratification debates. The critics have said that the language in the treaty preamble makes it harder for
It's hard for me to imagine that any one of those or even all three of them together will be the basis of a successful opposition to the treaty outright, but it could be the basis for some bargaining with the administration, (such as) assuring the nuclear weapons stockpile into the future. That's an issue that a number of members of
Q. I guess we're still talking about getting
A. It'll surely come up. It's been a subject of discussion with the Russians, at a high level, for several months. The Russians have said they want to nail this process down. They've said that they understand they've got some work to do in terms of their own restraints on American exports and in a number of other, sometimes technical, areas. As always, the Russians have managed to infuriate American pork and chicken exporters, and they'll have to do something to ease up on those restrictions.
Q. On world issues, where does the "reset" in relations stand today?
A. The administration's top three areas of achievement in talking about the success of the "reset "are the START treaty, the
Q. On the Central Asian bases, are Russians still unhappy that we're using the base at Manas in
A. Some people say that that the base issue was connected to the ouster of President (
Q. In the last months of the Bush administration, the Russian invasion of
A. The administration, in a very unfortunate choice of words, said that the issue of
Q. That didn't go over well in
A. In
They complain that they aren't able to purchase arms to restore their military; they say that's it's clear that the U.S. and other Western governments don't want to have much to do with them. And
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