THE ROBERT STRAUSZ-HUPE MEMORIAL CONFERENCE

On March 25, 2003 the international conference "The Role of Conflicts in International Relations Today" devoted to the centenary of an outstanding political scientist and diplomat Robert Strausz-Hupe and put on by the Heritage Foundation Moscow office took place in Moscow.

Dr. Yevgeny Volk, Chairman of the Conference Organizing Committee and Coordinator of the Heritage Foundation Moscow office, made the opening address. He underscored the importance and immediacy of Strausz-Hupe's creative legacy today. He read out the addresses to the conference sent by Strausz-Hupe's friends and colleagues - Edwin Feulner, President of the Heritage Foundation, Vahit Halefoglu, former Turkish Foreign Minister, W. Robert Pearson, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, and Harvey Sicherman, President of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Ambassador Boris Pyadyshev, Chief Editor of the International Affairs magazine and Russia's Foreign Ministry Board member, made a presentation about Robert Strausz-Hupe. He pointed out that Strausz-Hupe featured prominently in political science and the study of international relations. The Soviet foreign policy elite had studied his books: the Progress Publishers published them in limited print runs exclusively "for official use only." Knowledge of this scholar's works helped Soviet experts get a fairly accurate idea of the outlook embraced by the conservative flank in the American foreign policy school of thought and the way it affected Washington's policy shaping. It also helped elaborate counter-propaganda arguments. Pyadyshev conceded he had been personally involved in the polemic with Strausz-Hupe and criticized his position shared by such right-wing policy maker as Barry Goldwater.

In Pyadyshev's perspective, American conservative policy makers of that day played a negative part in Soviet-American relationship. Their stiff anti-Soviet stance helped consolidate the militarist tendencies within the Soviet establishment, solidify the Soviet military-industrial complex, and spurred the arms race. But for the implacable stand professed by Strausz-Hupe and other conservatives, liberalization in the Soviet Union could have kicked off 10-20 years earlier and advanced faster.

Strausz-Hupe's goal - the communist breakup - eventually has been achieved. Pyadyshev wound up by saying that had Strausz-Hupe lived today he would have been pleased. His forecasts and his school of thought reign uncontested.

Some of Pyadyshev's pronouncements resulted in a heated debate. Some conference participants, especially a Democratic Russia coordinating council member

Oleg Mustafin disagreed in regard to his assessment of how Strausz-Hupe's position affected processes in the Soviet Union. He maintained that in reality Strausz-Hupe's works had speeded up rather than slowed down Communism demise. Like President Ronald Reagan, he personally contributed to the system's collapse. Faced with the U.S. tough stance, the Soviet Union was forced to become increasingly involved in the military competition with the United States, exhausted its resources, and the military burden broke the back of its economy and society.

V. Atreschenkov, Associate Professor of the Chair of Diplomacy at the Moscow Foreign Relations Institute, shared his ideas about Strausz-Hupe's creative legacy. He believes every author has a book that reflects his views most fully and accurately. With Strausz-Hupe it is A Forward Strategy for America (1961) which he co-authored. Its ideas were fully corroborated by ensuing foreign practices.

Strausz-Hupe clearly articulated the American foreign policy objective - to create conditions for reversing Soviet policies and ability to threaten the United States. He maintained that a change of the Soviet system would factor decisively in overcoming a protracted conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Atreschenkov called attention to a paradoxical fact - the Soviet system changes Strausz-Hupe had suggested virtually in full agree with the ideas that at a later date laid the groundwork for Gorbachev's perestroika. They were the need for individual and civic freedoms, repudiating a one-party dominance system, de-centralizing Soviet economy and re-engaging market mechanisms, re-establishing the national rights of peoples right up to their secession from the Soviet Union, and bringing democracy into the ranks of the Communist Party itself. It is common knowledge that eventually these reforms have brought about the Soviet collapse.

Thus, noted Atreschenkov by way of a joke, the left and nationalist ideologues in today's Russia are surprisingly close to the truth when they argue that the perestroika plans have been conceived in the United States.

The discussion participants could not sidestep the topical issue of the Iraq war. They recalled that not long before Strausz-Hupe's death he had argued that the U.S.-Iraq confrontation was inevitable and that the United States and Russia could well cooperate toward averting and resolving international conflicts.

Tatyana Parkhalina, Head of the Information Center on European Security, took over. She focused on the traps Russia will likely encounter in the international cooperation to lift the Iraq crisis. The first is the danger of belligerent anti-Americanism. Some representatives of the Russian establishment are tempted to turn the clock back to traditional anti-American rhetoric and policies. It would be a fatal mistake. History teaches us that every time Russia confronted the West it suffered political defeat. The recent Kosovo crisis is the most vivid example.

Second, the Russian elite should overcome the temptation of trying to benefit from the U.S.-European contradictions, joining with the Europeans in a gamble against the United States. According to Parkhalina, the extent of their differences is grossly exaggerated. Eventually, the Atlantic allies will rally around the commonality of their interests. Russia will be left on the sideline.

Third, the Russian elite should not be taken hostage by the domestic considerations primarily linked to the upcoming elections and developments in Chechnya. The left, nationalists and even some center-right policy makers could well choose anti-Western rhetoric as a canvassing tool. It would have a negative effect on Moscow's foreign policy shaping. As for Chechnya, at present Western attention is diverted from it toward the Iraq war. Any aggravation there, however, could spark new protests from the West and hurt attitudes to Russia. Russian society would most obviously respond by increased anti-Western sentiments. It should realize that the referendum that has just taken place in Chechnya marks the early phase of the political settlement rather than its result.

Parkhalina holds that the Iraq war introduces the issue of a "new international order" that normally emerges following world wars. It could be characterized by numerous local conflicts hardly less bloody that world wars. There is a need to review the system of international security institutions, such as UN, NATO, OSCE. But to bury them would be premature. What may replace them is unclear, thus far.

Military and Political Analysis Institute Director Alexander Sharavin noted that Strausz-Hupe's activity could be instructive for our contemporaries. Strausz-Hupe had warned ahead of the Second World War how dangerous Nazism was, but nobody would listen. Similarly, the warnings of the Chinese threat are currently ignored in Russia. Conversely, this factor demands most serious attention and comprehension.

Sharavin also tried to debunk a myth that persists within the Russian establishment to the effect that partnership with France and Germany rather than with the United States would be more wholesome for Russia. He maintained that the Moscow-hatched multi-polarity concept does not meet Russian interests. Neither France, nor Germany can accord real assistance to Russia. Only cooperation with the United States could help lift current and avert future conflicts.

Parkhalina subscribed to Sharavin's position on the Chinese threat. From her perspective, in the 1990s the Russian elite, carried away by anti-Western attitudes and the useless fight against NATO enlargement dodged the analysis of the Chinese threat. But the threat is quite real largely in view of China's economic and demographic expansion in the Russian Far East. According to some data, the numbers of illegal Chinese immigrants in the region have topped 12 million. The demographic factor could well become political. Under the circumstances only the United States could help Russia ensure its military security in the region.

The conference participants also heard Minister-Counselor of the Turkish Embassy to Russia Burhan Levet-Murat whose early years as a diplomat coincided with those of Strausz-Hupe's service as the U.S. Ambassador to Ankara. The Turkish diplomat praised the role Strausz-Hupe played in promoting the U.S.-Turkish relationship and strengthening security and stability in the region. He thanked the Heritage Foundation for making this interesting conference a reality.

In the course of the discussion its participants made extensive use of the biographical essay "Robert Strausz-Hupe: His Life and Times", that its author, President of the Foreign Policy Research Institute Harvey Sicherman had graciously shared with the conference organizers. The Heritage Foundation Moscow office translated it into Russian and posted it on www.hayek.ru ahead of the conference. The complete text of the essay will appear in the Orbis spring issue.

The discussion showed that the conference participants differed in their assessment of the contribution Strausz-Hupe had made to political science and the study of international relations. Each had his own vision of Strausz-Hupe's ideas. But they were united in their understanding that his work "was as groundbreaking in political science as was the work of Hayek and Friedman in economics." (E.J. Feulner)

The Organizing Committee of the conference dedicated to Strausz-Hupe's centenary and the Heritage Foundation Moscow office extend their heartfelt gratitude to the Heritage Foundation President Dr. Edwin J. Feulner Jr., former Turkish Foreign Minister Vahit Halefoglu, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey W. Robert Pearson, and President of the Foreign Policy Research Institute Harvey Sicherman for their most significant and useful contribution to the conference work.



Yevgeny Volk
Director, Moscow Office, The Heritage Foundation,
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, The Hayek Foundation Moscow


Any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of Yevgeny Volk and do not necessarily represent those of the Heritage Foundation.