The Russian aid mess.

• Author: Flickner, Charles

THE WELL-INTENTIONED effort to use United States tax dollars to influence significantly the course of events in Russia and Ukraine died a quiet death over the past few months. Born in 1991 as a $400 million bipartisan congressional initiative to reduce the threat from excess Soviet weapons of mass destruction, by 1993 aid to Russia and Ukraine had become a $3 billion hobby shop. When Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin met in September 1994, with few concrete results to show for the time and money invested in aid, the two frustrated leaders quietly agreed to focus on trade and investment. The Russians, badly cast as supplicants, were relieved.

This is not to say that the winding up of grant aid programs will end claims by the former Soviet Union on the United States Treasury. The disturbing Russian and Ukrainian habit of ignoring bills due could result in future claims against federal export credit and investment agencies that far exceed the $4 billion already disbursed in grant aid between 1991 and 1994. This year alone, $900 million in agricultural loans have been rescheduled. Moreover, massive disbursements from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank could lead to future losses by their largest shareholder, the United States. No doubt pundits will seek again to attribute setbacks in Moscow to a lack of support from Washington. It may therefore be useful to provide a brief draft history, before it is revised, of recent American aid to Russia and Ukraine.

In particular, during the hectic transition following the November 1994 mid-term elections, it may be useful to recall that Senators Bob Dole and Jesse Helms joined Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar in backing the original 1991 legislation to fund cooperative efforts with what was still the Soviet Union. The goal of the Nunn-Lugar law was to dismantle Soviet nuclear weapons and safeguard nuclear know-how, and especially to prevent Soviet nuclear scientists from seeking employment in rogue states. A month before the 1992 presidential election, another bipartisan coalition secured passage of the Freedom Support Act, authorizing $425 million in assistance to the former Soviet Union. The bill also created a precedent by largely exempting such aid from the restrictions applied to other aid programs. With all three major presidential candidates publicly backing them, these measures reflected wide support for helping the Russians. This broad-based, bilateral support continued, and even grew, after the election.

The desire to aid the Russians has overcome normal differences in Congress. In the Senate, for example, deficit-hawk Pete Domenici and long-time opponent of foreign aid Robert Byrd joined together in September 1993 to bend rigid budget rules, in order to enable President Clinton to meet his rash commitments to find more than $2.5 billion for Russia and Ukraine. And in the House, even as late as the spring of 1994, Minority Leader Newt Gingrich and Majority Leader Dick Gephardt agreed in a confidential report on their joint delegation to Russia that, despite problems, the aid effort should continue.

Following the Vancouver and Tokyo summit meetings in the spring of 1993, the aid effort reached its peak: $1.7 billion in civilian aid and $1.3 billion in defense funds were appropriated later that year. Though the amounts of aid have since fallen, they remain substantial. In the current fiscal year, President Clinton's overall request of $1.3 billion was finally funded at $1.25 billion. Increases up to $1.6 billion have been considered within the administration for next year, but the final appropriation may not reach half that amount. And much of what is eventually appropriated will be directed toward support for private American trade and investment in Russia and Ukraine.

Original Intent, Original Sins

WHAT WAS THE intent of those undertaking this short-lived effort? Although advocates of helping Russia and Ukraine have consistently maintained that external assistance could merely supplement internal changes, they also believed that supporting aid might secure them a small but favorable place in history. Most public officials could empathize with the new leaders of Russia and Ukraine as...