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PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN THE USA
SERGEI ROGOV,
Director of the Institute of the USA and Canada, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
The recent presidential election in the USA was a very interesting and extraordinary event. I would call it the end of the entire epoch in mordern times of U.S. history. The epoch, which has lasted many decades, during which the USA became a superpower and tried to consolidate and head the unipolar world, is coming to an end.
The USA and many countries have faced the unprecedented financial crisis. The world has not seen anything like it since the Great Depression of the 1920-30s. The financial system is falling into a stupor, the economic recession has become apparent. The economic performance in the third quarter of 2008 highlights the slack in real economy. The only question today is whether this recession will be ‘soft’ or ‘tough’.
This economic crisis has shocked the U.S. society. The recent public opinion polls show that 92% of the Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track. The most interesting thing is that no one of the leading economists, including those belonging to Barack Obama’s team, knows what must be done.
The second point is that the USA is tied down in the Afghan and Iraqi wars. The attempt to act as the ‘world policeman’ has exhausted the U.S. army.
The Americans have got accustomed to consumerism. The state lived on credit, and the budget deficit was 2-3% for many years. China, Japan, the EU, the Carribean countries and Russia were the major U.S. creditors.
After the second world currency, the Euro, had appeared, those countries thought about how to build the economic relations with the USA. Now the European leaders offer to urgently reform the world financial system, which will be discussed at the Washington summit on November 15. Of course, nobody is willing to discuss those issues with George Bush who is called “the lamest duck of all”, and Barack Obama will come to power only on January 20, 2009.
The USA is changing demographically. Thirty years ago 90% of the U.S. voters were white. In the recent elections the figure was 74%. This indicates that the U.S. population has changed very much. In 2050 the white people will make up less than 50% of the U.S. population, Latinos – up to 40%, Asians – 12% and Afro-Americans – 10%.
When in 1964 Lyndon Johnson became the U.S. President, passing the civil rights laws was followed by powerful racist reaction. The majority of the white people, above all in the South, began to constantly vote for the Republicans. That’s why over the past forty years only two democratic presidential candidates have won the elections.
In the recent election the majority of the white people voted for John McCain, but this was not overwhelming majority. Barack Obama has already managed to form a new voter coalition that was the majority.
Barack Obama is an outstanding policy-maker. He was considered to be a classical marginal politician, who had nothing to do with the U.S. political establishment and who was not taken seriously. But he felt that the U.S. voters expected changes. It was not clear what changes they expected, but they could not go on living like that.
Feeling those attitudes, Barack Obama decided to throw down the gauntlet to the political machine of the Clinton clan, which was considered to be the most powerful in the USA. He started as a left anti-war candidate, which made the young people support him. Then he gradually broadened the political coalition that supported him. The situation when marginal politicians rather than mainstream leaders come to power means a serious crisis of the U.S. political establishment.
Anyway, Barack Obama won by a landslide for the first time in the last forty-year history of the Democratic Party. The Democrats consolidated their majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives, so I can conclude that the U.S. political forces are being regrouped.
In the 20th century the similar things occurred twice in U.S. history. I am referring to the coalition formed by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1920-30s and the Republican coalition built by Ronald Reagan. The Democrats seemed to become the majority party again. This tendency will go on.
Barack Obama won the elections without proposing any clear program. The presidential candidates usually promise everything to everybody and hold back the uncomfortable truth. The USA lives beyond its means. There is a need either to increase taxes or to cut expenses dramatically or, most likely, both. Nobody is willing to do that.
So there is a question whether Barack Obama will reform the American domestic and foreign policy seriously. The first 100 days of his presidency are of great importance. When Franklin D. Roosevelt became the President in 1933, he had no idea about the New Deal. During the first 100 days he began experimenting. I think that Barack Obama will act in the same way and if he succeeds in doing that, he will work out the U.S. long-term strategy.
This is connected not only with the economic and domestic policy but also with the foreign policy. The USA should adapt itself to the multipolar world. In this respect Obama is more flexible than John McCain. The U.S. independent actions cannot be efficient any more and the country should come to terms with the EU, China and Russia.
In order to stabilize the financial situation, the USA should come to terms about what is called “Bretton Woods II”– new rules of the world financial market regulation. It is also necessary to address many other problems – global warming, energy issues, etc.
Barack Obama has a clear and predictable policy. He comes out for drastic nuclear arms reduction. It is possible that in the autumn 2009 the USA and Russia will sign a new treaty replacing Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty-1 that will expire in December 2009. Of course, it will occur only if the USA does not deploy the anti-missile defense system in Poland. Russia puts the question point-blank but it is ready to consider the U.S. requests.
Barack Obama is against solving the Iraqi and North Korean problems by using force – here he will have to come to terms with some countries including Russia.
But there are issues on which the U.S.-Russia relations may become even more strained. First and foremost, those are eastward enlargement of NATO and the situation in the post-Soviet space. There is no telling whether the CIS will be getting a ground of the USA-Russia competition. Barack Obama’s entourage includes advisers with different views on the issue.
But unlike John McCain, Barack Obama was a very young man when the Cold War finished and he thinks in a different way.
I believe that the consequences of the elections in the USA will be of great importance. The U.S. Administration will implement serious reforms, but now it is difficult to say whether they will be successful. The U.S.-Russia relations cannot be expected to be improved overnight. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in his message to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation said once more that the “Iskander” missile complexes might be deployed in Kalningrad. They have a range of 280 kilometers. So, the missiles cannot reach the U.S. bases in Poland or Czech Republic. The purport of the step is to show that Russia may withdraw from Medium and Short-Range Missiles Limitation Treaty. Its prospect is complete destruction of the entire arms control system and resumption of the multilateral arms race with the participation of China, India, etc. Ukraine and Georgia’s NATO membership may provoke such developments.
There is a fifty-fifty chance that Russia will come to an agreement with the new U.S. Administration.
The material is based on Sergei Rogov’s address during the press conference “Election in the USA: what is in store for Russia?” in the Russian Agency of International Information RIA Novosti on November 6.
11 November, 2008
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