This comment was the type of statement that seems appallingly naive to foreign policy elites across the political spectrum, but seems like good common sense to many ordinary Americans also across the political spectrum. Perry’s argument was indeed somewhat naive. Foreign assistance cannot be determined annually; the foreign policy infrastructure is significantly more complex than Perry’s statement suggests; and foreign assistance flows through numerous government agencies requiring a lengthy and time consuming budgeting process. Nonetheless, Perry’s core point that the U.S. should only give money to countries that can make a compelling argument for that assistance seems like a reasonably straightforward framework for foreign assistance.

The problem with Perry’s approach is that it does not reflect the actual causal links underlying foreign policy. Intuitively, one would think that the logic of foreign policy is that countries that are either friendly, valuable strategically, or otherwise important to the U.S. should become allies and, if they need it, receive foreign assistance. In this model, foreign assistance is the result of an alliance. This would be a reasonable guideline for foreign assistance, and was probably originally how assistance decisions were made.

Today, however, this order is largely reversed. Instead of foreign countries receiving assistance because they are allies, in much of the world, including large parts of Africa, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East, foreign countries are U.S. allies because they receive foreign assistance. Thus, for non-wealthy countries, receiving U.S. assistance is what defines that country as an American ally. To a large extent, the alliance has become the result of the assistance, rather than the other way around.

This situation has emerged from decades of foreign assistance, the evolution of numerous governmental and semi-governmental organizations committed to delivering foreign assistance, and a view in Washington that it is almost axiomatically in the interest of the U.S. to be deeply involved in other countries. Foreign assistance is what secures this involvement, so for a foreign country, the act of refusing assistance, which does not occur too frequently, is a hostile gesture, while accepting foreign assistance is taken in Washington as a sign of friendship on the part of a foreign government.

This is obviously bad fiscal policy because it creates an incentive for the government to give foreign assistance to as many countries as possible. More significantly, it makes it very difficult for the U.S. to cut another country off from foreign assistance because that country is an ally, not because of what it does, but because it takes foreign assistance. Thus, the U.S. has backed itself into a rhetorical corner where we have to give money to a country because it is an ally; and the proof that it is an ally is that we give money to it.

The U.S. is a major donor country contributing money for different purposes in dozens of countries around the world. Given that, it would make sense for foreign assistance to be a tool which diplomats and policy makers can use to influence outcomes or send messages to other countries. However, in the current reality, in which allies are largely defined as such because they receive foreign assistance, it is increasingly difficult to use assistance as a tool of foreign policy.

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The details of these cases are significant because they are evidence that the Georgian government’s commitment to fair elections in October, when the country will choose a parliament and prime minister, cannot be taken for granted. The intimidation of Georgian Dream supporters is part of a pattern, going back for several elections in Georgia, where long before the election itself occurs, it is made clear to supporters of the opposition that there is a cost associated with visibly opposing the government. This, not surprisingly, is a very effective way to dissuade people from supporting the opposition and to facilitate a big victory by the ruling United National Movement (UNM) party.

The Ivanishvili citizenship case demonstrates the legal pyrotechnics which the UNM has been willing to employ to ensure that they would not have to face any strong opposition in elections. Ivanishvili is an extremely wealthy Georgian businessman and philanthropist. He received his citizenship from Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in 2004, which the Georgian government revoked late last year, shortly after Ivanishvili stated his intentions to become involved in politics. Although the Georgian government provided an obscure and tenuous legal rationale for this decision, and for the court decision upholding this decision, the real reason they stripped Ivanishvili, who was born and raised in Georgia and has lived there most of the last decade, of his citizenship was because he represented an electoral threat to the UNM.

The actions by the Chamber of Control and the Georgian legislature last week, at least at first glance, indicate that Georgia’s regime, which is semi-authoritarian in nature but rhetorically committed to democracy, was indeed seeking to align its actions more with rhetoric. This analysis, however, misses an important element, one which has direct and ongoing implications for western, particularly American, policy makers. In the last few week’s, beginning with their reaction to the Chamber of Control, the U.S. has begun to make public, and specific, statements urging Georgia’s government to take issues of democracy seriously.

For most of the time since Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003, concerns about the increasingly less democratic nature of Georgia’s regime, which people in Washington began to notice sometime around 2008, were always raised privately. A trip to Tbilisi by a visiting U.S. official would include public congratulations to the Georgian government for its democratic credentials, while concerns about the lack of media freedom, recent electoral or legal shenanigans, or the growing centralization of political power were made privately and discreetly. Similarly, Georgian officials visiting Washington were publicly greeted with platitudes about the strength of Georgian democracy, while concerns were, again, raised privately These warnings were generally politely ignored by the Georgian government who continued doing as it pleased while seeking to persuade the Georgian people that Saakashvili was uniquely able to win financial and political support for Georgia.

In the last few weeks, however, this dynamic has begun to change. At a confirmation hearing for Richard Norland, the Ambassador-designate from the U.S. to Georgia, shortly after the Chamber of Control began calling in citizens for questioning, two U.S. Senators, Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) made it clear that the senate takes concerns about problems of democracy seriously. Norland’s responses to these questions indicated that he shared those concerns. A similar dynamic occurred last week after the Georgian court upheld the decision that Ivanishvili would not get his citizenship back. Immediate, firm and public statements by American officials, notably John Bass, the current U.S. Ambassador to Georgia, pushed the Georgian parliament to this clumsy, and even somewhat embarrassing solution, which is nonetheless a victory for democracy in Georgia.

This new tone in the U.S.-Georgia dialog suggests that it may still be possible for the U.S., which remains Georgia’s biggest and most valued patron, to influence democratic development in Georgia. It also demonstrates the difference between private words, which are easily ignored, and strong public statements which put real pressure on the Georgian government to live up to their publicly, and frequently, stated commitments regarding democracy. As the parliamentary election approaches, it is critical that the U.S. continue, and strengthen, this new posture towards Georgia’s democratic development.

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According to recent public opinion research 69% of the American people want the U.S. to end the war in Afghanistan. This number has probably been bolstered in recent weeks by the Koran burning incident and the killing of 17 Afghan civilians by Robert Bate which have both engendered backlashes against Americans serving in Afghanistan and drawn attention to what many perceive to be the futility of the the U.S. effort there. While these events have reduced support for the war among Americans, the war has not enjoyed the support of the majority of Americans for months.

It should not be axiomatic that if the American people, by a margin of greater than two to one disapprove of a war, than the U.S. should end that war. However, if public opinion runs that strongly against a war, or any foreign policy, the U.S. government should have a clear, compelling and realistic rationale for pursuing that policy. Unfortunately, no such rationale exists for the war in Afghanistan. After more than a decade of war, and despite some significant accomplishments, most notably the killing of Osama Bin Laden, victory in Afghanistan remains poorly defined and elusive.

Increasingly, it seems like the continuation of the war in Afghanistan is a triumph of inertia and bureaucratic logic over national interest, public opinion or a clear headed assessment of the war itself. For several years now the conflict in Afghanistan has been deadlocked with every month bringing a few steps forward and roughly the same number of steps back. During these years where the U.S. has not been gaining any clear advantage in Afghanistan the cost in life and treasure has kept piling up.

It is now clear that in addition to the financial and military reasons why winding down the war is a good idea, there are political incentives as well. Ending the war is now good politics; and the candidate or party that figures this out first will pick up an edge as the 2012 election approaches. It is unlikely, however, that either Romney or Obama will exploit this political opening. Obama is already very closely identified with the war; and Romney is seeking to demonstrate his conservative credentials by seeking to embrace a hawkish foreign policy.

The costs of ending the war in Afghanistan have been clear for a while and include the potential of a return of the Taliban there, the possibility that Afghanistan will reemerge as a hub of international terrorist activity and the dire human rights consequences, particularly for women, which could occur in Afghanistan if the U.S. were to leave. These consequences, while real, only tell half of the story. The other half of the story, which is increasingly important for ordinary Americans, is the near certainty of a rising cost, more American soldiers losing their lives, attacks on Americans working in Afghanistan and the seeming impossibility of the U.S. bringing any lasting peace, democracy or even stability to Afghanistan. Foreign policy, like all policy, should not be made on a simple basis of majority rule, but when the majority is so strongly against a war, and the arguments for that war are so shopworn and implausible, it is probably time to get out.

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The word election, for example, in democratic countries refers to the citizens of that country expressing choosing their leaders through a process of aggregating and counting preferences. Those leaders will then, more or less, reflect the ideals and visions of the people who elected them and seek to turn that into policy and law. This is an ideal which is rarely entirely met by elections in any country, but the goals of elections are broadly understood and agreed upon and the election itself usually seeks, after a fashion, to achieve those goals. In non-democratic systems, in contrast, elections are an opportunity for the state to demonstrate its ability to compel citizens to action, strengthen their patronage networks or even gauge the strength of the opposition, but have little to do with selection leaders or turning preferences into policies.

Similarly, in democratic countries campaigns are primarily concerned with candidates and parties communicating with voters, albeit frequently nonsensically or in ways that are petty, divisive or irrelevant to governance. Candidates are expected to, through media surrogates or in person, present their ideas and record to the people who will then make a choice based on these or other criteria. Even if the ideas are bad, and the candidates worse, this is still the basic structure of a campaign in a democratic system. In non-democratic countries campaigns are primarily about candidates and parties passing out money or goods in exchange for promises of support, or intimidating and making threats towards supporters of political opponents.

Sometimes the way these terms are used is inconsistent in other ways. The word corruption, when used by powerful western countries to describe activities in less powerful countries often takes on a different and sometimes broader meaning than it might have in western countries. For example, while some activities such as police officers shaking down or tax officials taking bribes instead of legitimately collecting taxes are viewed as corrupt by powerful western countries, other activities, such as the strong links between financial contributions to candidates and legislative outcomes are not seen as corrupt behavior by western, particularly American, policy makers. The Citizens United ruling, as we are seeing in the Republican primary this year, has made it possible for extremely wealthy individuals to sponsor candidates for congress and even the White House. If this existed without the protection of the American legal system, in another country, it would be clearly understood to be evidence of a troubling level of corruption.

Overall, using the same words to define very different activities makes it easier for undemocratic leaders, specifically those whose regimes are in the grey area between democracy and dictatorship, to overstate their democratic credentials. It is also easier for even well-meaning observers and analysts to underestimate the extent to which political words mean different things in semi-democratic or semi-authoritarian countries than they do in consolidated democracy. This often produces a situation where the presence of elections or of parties that seem to be campaigning, despite the often fundamentally undemocratic way those activities are conducted, can sometimes create a surprisingly persuasive appearance of greater democracy than actually exists. Observers who are looking for democracy can tell themselves they have found it, when they see its trappings, particularly when undemocratic leaders often make great efforts to create this illusion.

Thus, one of the major issues which needs to be addressed by democracy activists is that of language. An understanding that words like election means something different in Australia than it does in Russia; a campaign is a very different thing in France than it is in Cambodia; or that to be in opposition implies a very different level of tolerance and legal protection from the government in power in England than in Georgia, is the first step towards doing this. When this happens, it will be much easier to assess and understand political conditions more frankly and thus arrive at more clear-eyed approaches to democracy assistance.

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The political, legal and media environment in Russia, as in many other non-democratic countries makes it extremely difficult for opposition political forces to emerge and become strong enough to pose a serious challenge to the country’s leaders. Because of this, elections are less likely to lead to political change, although they can, as may be the case in Russia, initiate a process which changes the way politics occur or even meaningfully weakens a leader, despite his electoral victory.

Regimes like Putin’s and many others in the former Soviet Union do not leave election fraud to election day, doing the bulk of this work earlier in the process, but a key component of this is precluding strong opponents from emerging. This makes it easier to assert that the leader may have used some election fraud to bolster his numbers, but he and his party are still popular with the voters. It is no surprise, nor any real evidence of democracy, that a leader whose opponents do not include anybody who can seriously be viewed as a potential president or prime minister, will have substantial support among the voters. However, this support is rarely very deep as it is grounded only in the comparison between the leader and the other less than plausible candidates.

For leaders like Putin, the primary political task, is not to win reelection, fairly or unfairly, but to use whatever means are needed to make sure a strong opponent does not emerge. This generally consists of shaping the politics of the country so that only weaker, less electable leaders, without the means to wage a real campaign are part of political life. This is the core challenge of semi-authoritarian leaders, but in countries where the state controls access to resources and there is no independent private sector, it is usually not very difficult to achieve this.

The absence of a strong alternative to Putin meant that what happened in the election was of secondary import. That Putin was running against a field dominated by figures from the past, people with questionable opposition and political credibility, and candidates about whom very few people knew anything is, in of itself, evidence of the non-democratic nature of Russia’s political system.

Moreover, if there is no strong opponent, non-democratic leaders can make some concessions regarding fair elections, because the chances of losing are so slim anyway. Putin could, and probably should, have engaged in less election fraud in this recent election because the absence of a serious challenger all but guaranteed his election. This also means that efforts to ensure fair elections that do not take the broader electoral context into consideration, or that begin relatively late in the process are going to have very little impact on the overall state of democracy. It does not really matter how smoothly election day runs, or even if there is less intimidation in the months preceding an election if the president, for example, has manipulated the field so that there is no strong and genuine opposition.

Russia is unusual in its size, wealth and role in the world, but considerably less unusual in its domestic political arrangements, particularly in a post-Soviet context. The lack of competition in the Russian political system, and the efforts undertaken by the Russian leadership to prevent any potentially serious opposition from developing, reflect the broader political environment, and absence of democracy, throughout much of the region. Putin’s efforts to avoid having any other legitimate candidate in the political arena are also similar to efforts made by other leaders throughout much of the former Soviet Union. However, once these efforts fail, and a viable opponent emerges, the dynamic can change very quickly. The Russian people held Putin to 63% despite the absence of free media, fair elections or a legitimate opponent. If just one of those things had been different, Putin would have been in a much more difficult situation last weekend.

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The most perplexing thing about this incident is not Obama’s apology or Gingrich’s predictable, if destructive, response, but the question of how the decision to burn Korans in Afghanistan was made in the first place. How anybody thought this could be done without any Afghans learning about it, or how the reaction in Afghanistan could have been anything other than what it was is puzzling. Burning other people’s religious texts is never a good idea. Moreover, burning books is something that a country that claims to stand for liberty, freedom and democracy should never do. Regardless of the content of those, or any other books, if people want to read them, they should be allowed to. If the military wanted to get rid of the Korans, they should have sought to donate the books, not to burn them. Right wing posturing aside, true American patriots should be much more upset that our government is burning books than that our President had the decency to apologize when we had made such a mistake and offended so many.

It is appalling that ten years into this war, the U.S. is still making mistakes of this kind, and suffering the entirely predictable consequences. Almost from its inception the military and civilian effort in Afghanistan has been as much an effort to win hearts and minds as an effort to defeat an opponent on the battlefield. Burning Korans sets this effort back quite a bit and suggests that winning in Afghanistan is a Sisyphisian task not least because of Americans’ own lapses of judgment which are as devastating as they are predictable.

The reaction in Afghanistan to this incident, while also predictable, underscores the difficulty facing the U.S. project in Afghanistan. After a decade trying to demonstrate, through words and actions, that the U.S. can play a constructive role in building the post-Taliban Afghan state, it is clear that the reservoir of anger towards the American presence is deep and easily tapped. In other words, the U.S. is still seen as an occupier first and foremost and faces all of the resistance and distrust that accompanies that position anywhere.

The most interesting thing about Gingrich’s remark is not this criticism of President Obama, but what he said later in his statement, “and candidly, if Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, doesn’t feel like apologizing, then I think we should say, ‘Good bye and good luck, we don’t need to be here risking our lives and wasting our money on somebody who doesn’t care’”. Although Gingrich’s reasoning and tone do not accurately reflect the complexity of the conflict in Afghanistan it suggests a frustration with the U.S. failure in Afghanistan, although Gingrich would probably not use the word failure, that is widespread among the American people and, if Gingrich’s remark is indicative, increasingly widespread among the foreign policy elite as well. Obama has stated that the war will end in Afghanistan, but this incident where the U.S. has another lapse of judgment which is met by another round of violence setting back the goals of the mission even more makes it clear that ending the war cannot happen soon enough.

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In Syria, as in Libya in early 2011, an oppressive regime is teetering on the edge of collapse as rebels, about whom the west knows relatively little, are posing an increasingly serious military challenge to the regime. Assad, like Moammar Gaddafi before him, is showing little signs of compassion or willingness to change and is instead using widespread violence to try to put down the rebellion.

One of the most intriguing differences between the two cases is that a year ago, many in the American foreign policy community were calling loudly and aggressively for some kind of U.S. intervention. Much of that came from Republican critics of President Obama. This year, despite it being an election year with the Republican Party anxious to attack President Obama, there has been substantially less of this kind of call for action across much of the American political spectrum.

There are several possible reasons for this. One is that Obama’s Republican opponents are focusing on more important, at least for them, issues such as limiting access to contraception and putting colonies on the moon. Moreover, growing tensions between the U.S. and Iran have been the foreign policy issue which has thus far dominated the Republican primary and been the source of most of the recent foreign policy criticism of Obama. Another reason why Syria has not yet become a major issue in the presidential campaign could be that the Obama administration seems less vulnerable on this kind of thing given the intervention the U.S. led in 2011 in Libya, as well as the high profile debates in the UN Security Council where the U.S. actively pushed for a resolution calling for Assad to step down.

Additionally, the policy environment is different now than it was twenty years ago, when the idea of humanitarian intervention began to be developed; and is also different than a year ago when it was last applied. The predictable, and widely predicted, difficulties which most of the post-Arab Spring countries, most notably Egypt, have encountered in genuinely shaking off authoritarianism in one form or another, the reminders from Iraq and Afghanistan that ending wars is often agonizingly difficult and increasing concerns about the financial consequences of this kind of foreign policy have all made the climate for intervention even more difficult in 2012 than had been the case in 2011.

The argument for U.S. intervention in Syria is clear especially as the violence and repression continue unabated. However, the absence of a broader plan for resolving the conflict and phasing out the U.S. role is also clear, and increasingly salient in the minds of policy makers and Americans generally. The possibility that U.S. troops could be deployed in Iran and Syria in the near future, while still lingering on in Afghanistan and Iraq is a daunting one even for some of the more extreme hawkish critics of President Obama.

Regardless of the course of action the U.S. chooses in Syria, the U.S. needs to approach this decision recognizing that it could be faced with a similar decision in a year, and again in two years. The need to balance effective and ethical humanitarian intervention with the possibility of a string of interventions leaving the U.S. overextended, broke and ineffective is real and cannot be achieved without a more comprehensive approach to this problem which recognizes the perils, as well as the value, of humanitarian intervention.

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The air of invulnerability which surrounded the Putin regime during most of its first decade in power has been replaced by uncertainty. Putin may, indeed, remain in power after the election, but he will have to use means other than personal popularity and a growing economy to buttress his repressive regime. Without these assets, it would seem that Putin is faced with several options: liberalize and allow the opposition to win something, do nothing and hope for the best, or crackdown more to ensure that the regime stays in place for the short term.

A closer look at the situation faced by Putin, as well as by other leaders in similar situations, indicates that the only remaining card he can really play is to crackdown more. Taking a harder line is, in some respects, a high risk strategy. It has worked in some cases, most notably in China in 1989 where the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown has helped the Chinese Communist Party to remain in power for more than two decades following the that incident. However, in other countries, including the recent case of Libya, a harder line by an embattled authoritarian has only hastened his decline. Russia is not yet in a comparable situation to Libya under Gaddafi, but the central lesson is still relevant.

Putin will nonetheless be inclined to crackdown because the other options, while perhaps more appealing and more likely to lead to a peaceful outcome in which Putin might preserve some role for himself, are not as viable as they initially seem. The reason for this is that while Russia is not close to being a democracy, it is also not run entirely by one man. While Putin may have centralized a great deal of political power, there are others who have loyally supported him, and dramatically enriched themselves through business, corruption and exploiting their relationship with Putin. These people have more to lose than Putin if there is a peaceful transition. Many of them will face possible jail time, find that there are not many places to which they can flee, and may lose much of their wealth.

If Putin moves towards taking a more moderate stand, it is this core of supporters, many of whom are very important to the regime, who will oppose it. If his closest circle of supporters will not support any option than a crackdown, Putin will have very little choice but to pursue that policy. Thus, Putin may find himself in the strange position of being the moderate in the ruling party. He is the one who has to think, at least a little bit, about his legacy, and who will have the greatest likelihood of patching together a decent life if there is a smooth transition to a post-Putin Russia, but the people around him will have much fewer opportunities of that kind. Ultimately, Putin’s hands are tied not by his opponents, but by his closest supporters.

It is possible that Putin will find another way out of this situation. He might create or exacerbate an external crisis to try to rebuild his support; the opposition could make several missteps or become hopelessly divided; or Putin might stand up to his supporters and do the right thing for himself and his country. However, barring a radical shift in events or approach that would be needed for any of these outcomes, the next few months in Russia could become ugly, before they get better.

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There are, however, some common themes across these issues which frame the broader U.S. role in the the Middle East. All three of these cases demonstrate the inability of the U.S to get what it wants from other countries in the region. Iran and the U.S. have not had a good relationship for decades so it is no surprise that the U.S. has proven unsuccessful in its efforts to dissuade Iran from pursuing its nuclear weapons plan.

The other two cases are, at least in this regard, more significant. Despite an an aversion, until recently, to being frank about the violence and brutality of the Assad regime, the U.S. has been completely unable to influence Assad’s behavior as he has taken increasingly violent measures against his own people. Of equal import is the inability of the U.S. to persuade permanent members of the UN Security Council, China and Russia to support the resolution asking Assad to resign.

Egypt is, in some respects, the most intriguing of the three cases. The decision of the Egyptian authorities to detain people working with major American democracy assistance organizations is very unusual, particularly for a country that, like Egypt, enjoys a good relationship with, and receives ample assistance from, the U.S. In this context the failure of Egypt to release those prisoners in the face of mounting pressure from the U.S. is even more puzzling.

The U.S. is asking, without success, for the Iranian, Syrian, Russian and Chinese governments to do things that, from their perspective, are not in their interests. It is not really a big surprise that Iran is not giving up their weapons because the U.S. wants them to or that Moscow and Beijing are less anxious than the U.S. to call for a leader to resign because he has used excessive force on the citizens of his own country. The U.S., on the other hand, is asking Egypt to do something that is neither against their interests nor a very big request.

The new government of Egypt probably does not share the American view that the involvement of U.S. based organizations working to help make Egypt become more democratic is essential for Egypt’s development. Moreover, Egyptians may see the U.S. as having supported Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian government rather than as having played a role in political breakthroughs in Egypt. However, the Egyptian government, which still seems happy to receive assistance from the U.S. and to have relatively strong ties with the U.S. in other areas, notably the military, has behaved clumsily and excessively on this issue. It is unclear why the presence of U.S. democracy organizations which most governments in similar situations view as a minor, but necessary, inconvenience has drawn such an overblown and hostile response from the Egyptian government.

The failure of the U.S. to stop Egypt from detaining, and now possibly trying, these nineteen Americans is yet another case of the U.S. not being able to persuade a recipient of U.S. assistance to cooperate with the U.S. Recipients of U.S. assistance, particularly when they are large and powerful countries like Egypt cannot be expected to support the U.S. on everything, but this is a relatively minor, although highly symbolic, incident where Egyptian cooperation does not seem like it should be beyond the expectations of the U.S.

The inability of the U.S. to get what it wants in the Middle East on issues both relatively large and relatively minor is further evidence of the failure of American policy of continuing to behave like a lone superpower in an increasingly multi-polar world. China and Russia are almost certainly going to continue charting their own courses in the Middle East and elsewhere and so will continue to be able to block U.S. action on the security council and to offer regimes, including those as dreadful as the ones in Teheran and Damascus, alternatives to cooperating with the U.S. This is probably unavoidable in a multi-polar world, but events like those in Egypt raise a different set of concerns and limits on American influence and power.

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The lack of freedoms of media, association and speech in Russia means that the March election cannot be truly free, fair and competitive. These enormous problems notwithstanding, Putin may in fact be the most popular candidate on the ballot. However, it is still possible that Putin and his organization will seek to inflate his margin of victory to make him seem stronger and that election fraud will spill over into election day and the post-election counting rather than simply pre-election intimidation and similar behaviors. If the parliamentary elections can be viewed as a precedent, a reasonable proposition, than it is likely that there will be election fraud before, during and after March 4th, and that there will also be large demonstrations in Moscow and possibly elsewhere in Russia following the presidential election.

It is still difficult to know where these demonstrations will lead, but they will raise some challenges for the Obama administration and the U.S. The U.S. was behind he curve in recognizing the seriousness of the citizen uprisings in North Africa last year, but Russia is a different country where a different set of issues and concerns confront the administration.

The dilemma itself is not very complicated. While the U.S. would like to see liberalization and political change in Russia, it cannot be seen as being too strong in its opposition to the Putin regime. This would damage U.S.-Russia relations and possibly push Russia towards a more anti-U.S. foreign policy. It would also undermine the Russian opposition by making Putin’s inevitable attack on them on the grounds of being American proxies or stooges more resonant. However, if the U.S. does not support the demonstrators, their is a risk that the U.S. will miss an opportunity to help make change in Russia and will demonstrate that the U.S. commitment to democracy and human rights is inconsistent.

The Obama administration will need to strike a balance, at first offering rhetorical support for the principles of fair elections, free media and the right to demonstrate and rallying international support for more democracy in Russia, while avoiding a confrontation with the Russian government or offering sufficient support to the demonstrators that the movement is tarred as being an American creation and thus fatally weakened. As the post-election scenario evolves, the U.S. will need to be flexible enough to adjust their tactics as needed. This approach probably cannot be executed perfectly, but it may be the best the U.S. can do.

The U.S. response to events in Russia in March will be complicated by another presidential election, the one in the U.S. While President Obama will have to respond to events in Russia in a thoughtful way taking into consideration a range of issues, Republicans will use these events as an opportunity to portray Obama as soft on Russia. Talking tough on Russia will be a good way for likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney to strengthen his support in at least one part of the Republican base.

Unlike Obama, Romney and the Republicans do not have to govern, or worry about the consequences of what they say. Therefore, they will be able to take strong, and politically popular anti-Russia positions with little regard for the potential impact of their statements and positions. The Republicans have spent most of the last three years seeking to portray Obama as weak. Tough posturing on Russia will be another way for Romney to make this argument. Republicans in congress will only be too happy to join in as well.

This may in the short term make opponents of Putin, both in Russia and the U.S. feel good, but it will accomplish little. The Republican rhetoric, despite not coming from the administration itself will make it easier for the Russian regime to scapegoat American intervention, will raise expectations of the Russian opposition that cannot be met by any American administration and, by further damaging U.S.-Russia relations will reduce whatever remaining influence the U.S. has on Russia’s leadership. The Obama administration has, differentiated itself from its predecessor by prioritizing results over bluster. This is the administration, after all that talked about the war on terror less, but killed Osama Bin Laden. Going back to prioritizing tough talk may make some feel better, and even give Romney a temporary bump in the polls, but it will accomplish little.

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