The return of Mr Nyet 

July 17, 2008
The Economist
Original Source: http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11751311

An abrasive Russian veto is prompting fears at the UN of a new diplomatic logjam that recalls the bad old days

IN THE corridors of the blue-tinted building on the East River, the shock is still palpable. Despite the recent insistence of Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, that human rights and security are intertwined, Russia and China have blocked an effort to isolate and punish the despots of Zimbabwe, in a move that seems to bode ill for action by the Security Council in other places.
Especially disappointing for many Westerners was the abrupt way in which Russia vetoed sanctions against President Robert Mugabe—only a day after Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s new head of state, had joined his partners in the Group of Eight, a rich-country club, in deploring Zimbabwe’s rigged and violent elections. The G8 statement had included a warning of “financial and other measures against those individuals responsible for violence”.
As many UN-watchers noted, Western governments were calculating that China—despite its substantial economic interests in Africa—would not want to exercise a sole veto. But Russia’s apparent U-turn spared China the awkwardness of standing alone. “I have never seen so much frustration,” said Warren Hoge of the International Peace Institute, a think-tank. “The Americans and British… thought the [Zimbabwe] resolution would at the most get abstentions from the Russians and Chinese.” By the time the vote took place on July 11th, Western governments had realised (at least for a few hours) that a Sino-Russian block was unavoidable; but they let the vote proceed, if only to test the nay-sayers’ resolve.
For Western governments that now face the prospect of working with Mr Medvedev over global hot spots from Iran to North Korea, the Zimbabwe veto raised several hard questions. Was there a failure of judgment by the new Russian leader? Was he overruled by other people, such as his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, who is now prime minister and was given formal responsibility this week for implementing foreign policy? Did Russia’s sour mood reflect other gripes, say over America’s vocal support for Georgia, or its missile-defence deal with the Czech Republic?
Other questions: was Russia boosting its own interests in southern Africa, or just acting up? And is the UN heading for a rerun of the cold war, when Soviet leaders like Nikita Khrushchev and his envoy Andrei Gromyko (pictured above) sparred with the West over almost everything?
The Kremlin, for its part, reacted peevishly to the West’s dismay. Russian officials said there had been no change in their policy, and that the West was once again distorting their position maliciously. The G8 statement had indeed carried Russia’s signature, but it made no mention of UN sanctions. The main point, they added, was that Zimbabwe’s travails posed no threat to regional or global stability; they were outside the Security Council’s remit.
Such talk is consistent with a foreign-policy style that has altered little since Mr Medvedev took power. He may avoid Mr Putin’s belligerent tone, but there is no sign of the Kremlin becoming friendlier to the West. Just to quash any doubts, Mr Putin has stressed that Mr Medvedev is “just as much a Russian nationalist, in a positive sense, as I am.” Mr Medvedev has done his best to prove that point, repeating Mr Putin’s warnings about American unilateralism. And even if Mr Medvedev wants to repair Russia’s relations with the West, it seems unlikely that he has carved out any real power to make independent decisions, at least so far. This week, he told diplomats to be “more aggressive”.
But none of this quite explains why Russia picked a fight with the West for the sake of a country in which it has no obvious interest. One reason, say Russia-watchers, is that punishing Mr Mugabe for stealing the elections and suppressing human rights sounded a bit close to the bone.
Indeed Russia’s foreign ministry hinted at this when it said that punishing Mr Mugabe would “set a dangerous precedent, opening a way to the Security Council interfering in countries’ internal affairs over various political events, including elections.” Given the dictatorial nature of many of Russia’s friends—like Belarus—and its own spotty record on human rights and elections, it is hardly surprising that Russia was unhappy about punitive sanctions against Zimbabwe.
In this climate, Western illusions that Russia might side with America against the regime in Zimbabwe betray a basic lack of understanding of what makes Russia tick, says Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, a think-tank. These days, Russian thinking divides the world into America and its docile friends on one hand, and “sovereign” countries, like China, India and South Africa on the other. Given Russia’s aim to speak for the second camp, its veto was logical—and as Russian officials stressed, it reflected the African Union line. 
But Russia’s move doesn’t indicate that it has any constructive aim in southern Africa—other than exploiting whatever vestigial ties may linger from the era when Soviet arms (like the Kalashnikov, a national symbol in Mozambique) helped to overthrow white rule.

Ties that don’t bind
Igor Sechin, one of Mr Putin’s toughest aides, was once a Soviet “interpreter” in Mozambique, when it was in the grip of Marxist fervour. But even in those days, the Soviet attitude to Africa was ambivalent; as they dished out the rifles, its envoys used to mutter racist predictions about the likely effects of black rule. 
And at the height of its involvement in southern Africa, the Soviet Union was often frustrated that its largesse did not translate into influence, says Georgi Derluguian, a professor at America’s Northwestern University who worked as a Soviet adviser in Mozambique. But much more recently, a semi-official Russian foreign-policy report said Africa was still a zone of competition with the West. Western countries wanted “control over natural resources, dominance in consumer markets and decisive influence in [the region’s] economic and political evolution,” it thundered.
Compared with China, Russia’s efforts to counter the West in Africa have so far been feeble; China’s trade with Zimbabwe is ten times that of Russia. Although (or possibly, because) it has more interests at stake, China has seemed somewhat more amenable than Russia to arguments about the need to behave responsibly in Africa. 
To many observers, it seems that the Kremlin’s determination to play geopolitical games on every front could end up benefiting China, which is happy to let Russia take the blame for coddling dictators. But if Russia overplays the role of spoiler-in-chief, that could easily backfire. Mainly because of their veto rights, Russians are deeply attached to the UN as the only legitimate forum for solving geopolitical problems. Anatoly Gromyko (son of Andrei and a former head of the Soviet Union’s Africa Institute) still speaks of the Security Council as the world’s “greatest organ for maintaining stability”.
But if Russia makes a habit of saying nyet to everything, in the churlish way that was a hallmark of the older Mr Gromyko, then the Security Council itself will lose effectiveness and prestige. And all its permanent members (especially the weaker ones) would then lose out too.