Analysis Of US Foreign Policy With Russia — страница 4

U.S. intentions were to help the whole Russian economy, but things did not turn out the right way. The $11.2 billion IMF (International Monetary Fund) bailout in July 1998 had only exacerbated these abuses and failed to help the Russian financial crisis. The July 1998 IMP bailout which totaled $11.2 billion for 1998 was suppose to end the Russian financial crisis, but only few benefited leaving many workers who received no wages for months out of the deal. “All loans made to Russia go to speculative financial markets and have no effect whatsoever on the national economy,” as stated by Veniamin Sokolor, head of the Chamber of Accounts of the Russian Federation (Wedel). The IMF package was supposed to help Russia climb up. Although the U.S. is willing to help, the Russians must

still act on their own (Sestanovich). Because the Chubias Clan worked with the Harvard University’s Institute for International Development (HIID), they controlled a large sum of money in U.S. aid institutions that were suppose to help privatization and economic restructuring. These HIID principals were found to be corrupted, but nevertheless, western investors and U.S. officials believed that Chubias was the man who kept up the economic reform. As stated by Maxim Boycko, a Chubias Clan member, “aid helps reform not because it directly helps the economy-it is too small for that-but because it helps the reformers in their political battles.” (Wedel) What the U.S. had to do is to put the political and economic power in different or more hands to help the Russian

economic/financial crisis. In regards to the foreign economic policies with Russia, it is obvious that the U.S. should have emphasized Russian access to international trade. The promise of trade and competition in the international system would create those domestic societal and economic interests that would have a stake in looking outside the old Soviet system, or a stake in something more than internal rent-seeking and corruption. Concentrating on only the issue of debt, primarily on IMF programs that were designed to help Russia cope with its debt problems and its short-term financial problems was proven to be ineffective. Rather, the U.S. should try to open Western markets, and in particular European markets, to Russian trade. Instead of offering a handout to the Russian

government, the IMF and the World Bank ought to be providing policy advice to Russian leaders on decreasing tax rates to boost private enterprise and encouraging investment to make the Russian economy more attractive for domestic and foreign entrepreneurs. Only when investment, both foreign and domestic, is able to create prosperity for the Russian people will the tensions tearing the country apart be eased (Cohen). Clinton administration has also taken actions with out listening to Russia’s input, and they have accepted Russian’s inappropriate conduct. There has been too much support from the Clinton administration even though the authoritarian Yeltsin government has done too many bad things. The U.S. has to stop its policy of support-at-all-costs for Yeltsin and Chubias

Clan. Boris Yeltsin has tried to concentrate the power in the presidential position in a new constitution. In the 1996 presidential election, he has also tried to manipulate the media and used over $10 billion state funds to influence the electorate. The Clinton administration has forgiven too many mistakes made by Yeltsin when they should not have done that (Feffer). In truth, Washington had not involved Russia into important international organizations. The government included a package of very specific economic reforms that were not supported by a broad base of social and political actors in Russia itself. The government s aid packages, negotiations, and advice about what kinds of economic reforms needed to be at the forefront of Russian efforts were focused on a narrow elite

within the Russian government. This elite group did not enjoy broad societal support and used its access and support from the West and these narrow sets of policies to beat out political opponents whenever they could. This is one of the reasons U. S. policies are so implicated in the corruption that Russians have known about long before the Bank of New York scandal and in the inequities they see in the form of privatization and who has suffered from the implementation of IMF programs (Wallander). The government can solve these problems and formulate a policy based on integration. The incentives to the Russians are the promise of being integrated into the international trade system and systems for political cooperation among the major powers, rather than reverting to the kinds of