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Subject: SNET: IMF funds now would reward Russia for anti-U.S. behavior
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04/07/99- Updated 01:21 AM ET
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IMF funds now would reward Russia for anti-U.S. behavior
By Ariel Cohen
Drug addiction is terrible. So is an addiction to
someone else's money. In both cases, the worst thing you
can do is hand over more to the addict.
That, however, is precisely what is about to happen in
Russia, where a delegation from the International
Monetary Fund is supposed to meet today with Moscow
officials to hash out details of a plan that would give
Russia billions of dollars in additional loans.
More IMF loans to Russia means more money for a country
that has become a financial junkie. IMF bailouts
amounting to $27 billion since 1992 have failed. Russia
has defaulted on most of its foreign loans since its
August ruble crisis, and it threatens further default on
its debt if the IMF does not provide the new credits.
Its promise to do better if only given more of what it
craves, coupled with a history of repeated failure, is
chillingly similar to the earnest vows of other addicts
desperately in need of a fix.
Amazingly, the Clinton administration supports this
handout despite Moscow's saber rattling over Kosovo and
the Russian Navy's menacing deployment in the
Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
The United States should not be fooled. Any new credits
or other largesse almost certainly will be wasted - or
worse. We already know that up to $50 billion of Russian
Central Bank reserves, including IMF loans, were
siphoned off to secret offshore accounts.
Additional funds now only would prolong Russia's
economic agony, postpone its day of financial reckoning
and perpetuate the poor conditions under which Russian
and foreign businessmen must work. New credits also
would effectively reward Russia for its anti-U.S.
positions on international security issues, most notably
its opposition to the ongoing NATO airstrikes.
Biting hands that feed
It's time for some tough love. Americans do not need to
turn their hard-earned tax dollars over to the IMF to be
disbursed to a corrupt Russian government.
Why, Washington should ask, should Russia's debt be
forgiven when it continues to support Slobodan Milosevic
and his marauding bands? Why aid Moscow as it continues
to send ballistic-missile and nuclear technology to
states such as China and Iran? Why reward it for going
against the will of the United Nations to support Saddam
Hussein's regime in Iraq with illicit weapons?
And why, Russia's leaders should be asked, are they
spending billions of dollars modernizing Russia's
strategic-weapons arsenal while millions of Russians are
impoverished and hungry?
The goal of U.S. policies, and of the IMF money, should
be to help Russia integrate into the global economy and
international community. But, like a drug addict, Russia
has to help itself, too.
Release ties to past
Russia must come to grips with the twin legacies of its
Soviet past: a superpower ambition, with its reflexive
hostility toward the United States, and a costly
military-industrial complex that still survives. Both
undermine economic reform and Russia's integration into
the global community.
Russia's attempts to be the Soviet Union's successor as
a superpower, and therefore a U.S. challenger, puts it
on a collision course with the West over such major
issues as Kosovo, Iran and Iraq. Playing geopolitical
games forces Russia's leaders to maintain a large
military at great expense to impoverished taxpayers.
Great power aspirations also entice Russia's leaders to
attempt alliances with China, India and Iran. These
don't ease Russia's dire economic straits, but do make
Western decision makers rightly suspicious.
Washington must tell Moscow that as long as it continues
to assist U.S. foes and remains recalcitrant in its
opposition to vital U.S. interests, it is unfair to the
American people for the United States to help Russia
continue its addiction to IMF loans.
Ariel Cohen is senior policy analyst at the Heritage
Foundation in Washington, D.C.
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