ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...
ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...
ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...
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well through the Karabakh negotiations, why this was so. He answered “Well, you know,<br />
Putin can decide something but then by the time it works its way through the<br />
bureaucracy, it can come out looking very different.” It occurred to me then that part of<br />
the problem was that all of us who were trained as Sovietologists were in part still<br />
looking at Russia from that perspective. We assumed decision-making was centralized,<br />
coordinated <strong>and</strong> controlled, as in the days when all power was concentrated in the<br />
Kremlin. In fact, many things in Russia had turned 180 degrees. Russia was more chaotic,<br />
uncoordinated, <strong>and</strong> decentralized than we imagined. There were new factors such as<br />
bureaucratic resistance, political <strong>and</strong> economic rivalries, <strong>and</strong> corruption that were playing<br />
out in very different ways from how things had worked in the Soviet period. I think that<br />
was a big part of the challenge in underst<strong>and</strong>ing Russia at this time. Now I would say that<br />
since this period, the pendulum has again started to swing, <strong>and</strong> we do see more of a<br />
Soviet pattern emerging in Russia. Certainly, Putin has gotten much stronger than he was<br />
five years ago <strong>and</strong> stronger than many people expected. But Russia remains very different<br />
from the Soviet Union, <strong>and</strong> that has made its policies much more difficult to underst<strong>and</strong><br />
<strong>and</strong> predict.<br />
But let me make on last point here about Russian policy. Even though I believe the<br />
Russians are responsible <strong>for</strong> perpetuating three out of four of these conflicts that I worked<br />
on, I think it is still remarkable how relatively few conflicts emerged from the break-up<br />
of an enormous empire like the Soviet Union. Imagine if the Soviet Union had split apart<br />
in the same manner that Yugoslavia did—what a bloody scene that would have been. It<br />
could have happened but it did not. Overall, the Soviet break-up was remarkably peaceful<br />
<strong>and</strong> civilized, certainly when compared to the Yugoslav experience. I think the leaders of<br />
the time, Gorbachev <strong>and</strong> Yeltsin, <strong>and</strong> also the Russian people, deserve credit <strong>for</strong> this.<br />
There are not many empires in history that allow themselves peacefully to disintegrate.<br />
We are all lucky that by <strong>and</strong> large the Soviet Union did.<br />
Q: So what did you do in 2004?<br />
PERINA: In 2004 I went to my last assignment as Deputy Director of the Policy Planning<br />
Staff.<br />
Q: You were in Policy Planning from when to when?<br />
PERINA: I was there from May 2004 until February 2006.<br />
Q: What was your impression of the Policy Planning Staff when you joined in 2004?<br />
PERINA: When I joined I was not certain what to expect. The office had a reputation as a<br />
prestigious place to work. This came in good part from its history. It was established in<br />
the spring of 1947 by Secretary Marshall, <strong>and</strong> the first Director was George Kennan.<br />
Kennan describes in his memoirs how he was called to set up this small team of <strong>for</strong>eign<br />
policy experts but really had no idea what their job should be. He requested a meeting<br />
with Marshall <strong>and</strong> asked him what the staff should do. Marshall replied with two words:<br />
“Avoid trivia.” We had coffee cups in the office with those words on them. Kennan<br />
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