U.S. President Will Change. Russia Policy Will Not

The Russian daily Novosti has this commentary on the implications of the American choice of President on America’s policy toward Russia. The conclusion is that it will have almost no implication whatsoever!

”Any American president would not love Russia and would be active act against it, I am sure,” said Director of the USA and Canada Institute Viktor Kremenyuk. “The Anti-Russian policy of the United States will remain, in any case, irrespective of who came to power – the Democrats or the Republicans”

But perhaps even more interesting is that this particular Russian claims something about McCain that will be new to most:

Kremenyuk said that “only McCain, in contrast to other candidates, has clearly stated his position with regard to Russia – to kick it out of every possible organization, beginning with the Group of Eight, and to start something like a policy of containment for Russia.

But the writer isn’t too bothered by the prospect of a McCain victory: apparently, the U.S. is causing Russia much bigger problems in other ways:

“I will in no way be distressed by McCain coming to power. A much more serious problem is the crisis of American securities markets and how this will reverberate in our economy,” he said.

Another expert quoted in the article made a generalization regarding the impact on his country of whether the U.S. President is Democratic or Republican, and the comment is an interesting one:

“We always want democrat president because we think he will be more liberal. But never with the Democrats were results ever achieved,” said the head of the Institute of Strategic Assessments.

“Remember how we had the popular, particularly among women, John Kennedy, and that when he was in power we had the Caribbean Crisis (Translator’s note-Cuban Missile Crisis). Then came Richard Nixon, hawk of hawks, but with him began the process of limiting strategic weapons. After that was Jimmy Carter, definitely a Democrat, but with him the process of arms control totally collapsed. Later was a Republican, Ronald Reagan, with whom we signed the first agreement, the basis of arms control today, “- said the expert.

This is not the first translated article on Watching America to suggest that the difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is much more important to some foreign nations than it is to a large part of the American electorate.

Read the whole article here on WATCHING AMERICA.com