McCain’s policy on Russia gets slightly less coherent (yes, that’s possible)

In March, in his first major address on foreign policy, John McCain stated his intention to kick Russia out of the G-8. In rather belligerent tones, reminiscent of the Cold War, McCain blasted Russia and suggested the country is no longer a democracy.

The policy always seemed like a very bad idea, and the foreign policy establishment couldn’t imagine what on earth McCain was talking about. What’s more, it wasn’t just an unscripted response at a town-hall meeting; this was McCain reading from a prepared text in a high-profile speech.

In June, the McCain campaign said the senator no longer believes what he said. A McCain adviser told McClatchy that the candidate’s policy on Russia and the G-8 as “a holdover from an earlier period,” adding, “It doesn’t reflect where he is right now.”

Yesterday, on “This Week,” George Stephanopoulos, to his credit, asked where McCain is on the subject today.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask you about your position to exclude Russia from the G-8. How are you going to get that done? Every other G-8 nation is against it. MCCAIN: Well, you have to take positions whether other nations agree or not, because you have to do what’s best for America…. In the last week or so, look at Russia’s actions. They cut back on their oil supplies to the Czechs, because the Czechs made an agreement with us. They have now thrown out the — or forced out — BP out of Russia. And by the way, I — a lot of us thought that might happen. They continue to put enormous pressures on Georgia in many ways. They’re putting pressure on Ukraine. They are blocking action in the United Nations Security Council on Iran. And so… STEPHANOPOULOS: But how is kicking out of the G-8 going to make that better? We need them … to help secure nuclear weapons. We need them to help contain Iran. To kick them out is going to make it harder, isn’t it? MCCAIN: We need to improve their behavior.

Asked specifically how McCain, as a practical matter, could exclude Russia from the G8 when every other country in the G8 is against the idea, McCain started spouting obvious nonsense.



MCCAIN: I will stand up for what I think is the best for the United States of America and the world, the way that Ronald Reagan went to Berlin and said, “Tear down this wall.” And they said, “Oh, he’s a cowboy. He’s going to make relations worse. He shouldn’t say that.” And yet, we wanted the Wall down. We want better Russian behavior internationally. And we have every right to expect it.

None of this makes any sense at all. McCain sounds like a college freshman, trying to b.s. his way through Foreign Policy 101 — and he’s failing.

This isn’t especially complicated. McCain was asked how, exactly, he’d kick Russia out of the G8. He pointed to Reagan’s “Tear down this wall” speech. What does the latter have to do with the prior? Nothing. It’s policy gibberish.

Given how the G8 works — through consensus — Russia would have to approve its own removal. A senior Bush administration official recently conceded, “It’s not even a theoretical discussion. It’s an impossible discussion.” The official described McCain’s idea as “just a dumb thing.”

But practicality aside, there’s the more important issue of what makes McCain think this is a good policy.

Aside from that, many wonder whether McCain’s suggestion would be wise policy. They fear that if McCain is elected and follows through on an attempt to toss Russia from the group, it could anger and isolate Russia, which has been increasingly assertive on the world stage, autocratic within its borders and is the second-largest producer of the hydrocarbons that feed the world’s energy needs. “In Europe, there’s very little support … for a policy like that,” said Stephen Larrabee, an expert on Europe and Russia at the RAND think tank. “It’s too late in the game to try and oust Russia.” The proposal also seemed at odds with the theme of McCain’s speech, which promised a less unilateral approach to world affairs than the Bush White House has pursued. That could reflect tension between two Republican foreign-policy camps vying for influence in McCain’s campaign: the pragmatic realists and the hard-line neo-conservatives — with the neo-cons ascendant for now in Russia policy. “There are a lot of important issues that we need Russia’s support on….What’s to be gained by tossing Russia out? We feel more self-righteous about ourselves?” said Andrew Kuchins, the director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, a center-right think tank.

Fareed Zakaria also explained recently why McCain seems to have Russian policy backwards.

What McCain has announced is momentous — that the United States should adopt a policy of active exclusion and hostility toward two major global powers. It would reverse a decades-old bipartisan American policy of integrating these two countries into the global order, a policy that began under Richard Nixon (with Beijing) and continued under Ronald Reagan (with Moscow). It is a policy that would alienate many countries in Europe and Asia who would see it as an attempt by Washington to begin a new cold war. […] The single most important security problem that the United States faces is securing loose nuclear materials. A terrorist group can pose an existential threat to the global order only by getting hold of such material. We also have an interest in stopping proliferation, particularly by rogue regimes like Iran and North Korea. To achieve both of these core objectives — which would make American safe and the world more secure — we need Russian cooperation. How fulsome is that likely to be if we gratuitously initiate hostilities with Moscow? Dissing dictators might make for a stirring speech, but ordinary Americans will have to live with the complications after the applause dies down.

Let’s all say it together: McCain has no idea what he’s talking about.