How Clinton brought Russia to the table

On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump  said he would end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s clearly failed on that front, continually stymied by President Vladimir Putin’s wily and seasoned delaying tactics, and, for now, the war rages on. Recent US diplomatic history offers some instructive lessons for the Trump administration, showing how it could recalibrate its approach to the Kremlin and increase the likelihood of ending the conflict. In the early 1990s, President Clinton successfully negotiated with Moscow, leading to the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Baltic republics. The experience serves as a valuable reminder that American presidents can achieve positive outcomes with hard-nosed adversaries. How did Clinton do it?

Despite their recently regained independence, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania still hosted thousands of Red Army troops in the early 1990s. Moscow sought to preserve a military foothold in this part of Europe and was in no rush to vacate. Seeking to stall the process, a high-ranking Russian official had proclaimed: ‘When a family falls apart, it’s a private matter that cannot be solved in a day.’

The Baltics saw it differently, viewing the lingering presence of foreign soldiers not as a family matter but as an unwanted military imposition. Occupied for half a century, the territories of the Baltic nations had been firmly woven into the broader Soviet military-industrial complex. As a region of strategic significance to Moscow, it was heavily militarised, with an estimated 180,000 Soviet troops scattered across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Baltic had also been a site of nuclear weapons, though, according to NATO’s internal estimates, Moscow had quietly removed them by late 1991.

For locals, the Red Army troop presence was an infringement on national sovereignty and carried the risk of sparking a direct military confrontation between Russia and the Baltic states. Sweden’s then-Prime Minister Carl Bildt had called it an anomaly of the post-Cold War European landscape and insisted that the Russians be ‘heading for the door’. Influential figures in the Russian Duma, however, invoked different arguments to slow down or halt the withdrawal process altogether. Many of the Russian officers stationed in the Baltics were themselves unwilling to give up the comparatively better living standards they enjoyed there. The US ambassador to Latvia observed that, for the Russian military, the Baltics were like ‘Palm Beach’ compared to what potentially awaited them back home in Russia, which was in economic freefall. As newly independent states, the Baltics lacked leverage in negotiations with Russia. Progress thus depended on their ability to attract outside powers to their cause.

On the US side, the George H.W. Bush administration had spearheaded negotiations to solve this issue. In a meeting with the Baltic presidents in September 1991, President Bush expressed guarded optimism that they had a strong legal and moral case and pledged Washington’s backing. In 1992, Bush had even set aside the usual diplomatic sweet talk and told Baltic presidents that there were good reasons to get the Russian army ‘the hell out’ of Europe’s sovereign lands. Declassified US diplomatic materials further attest that President Bush raised the issue directly with Russian leader Boris Yeltsin in their one-on-one encounters.

At the same time, Bush explicitly made it clear that his administration would not bear the financial costs associated with this process. There were also other sceptics in his administration. Secretary of State James Baker didn’t want Washington to lead on the issue. ‘While we are prepared to be helpful when we can, the details ultimately must be resolved by these countries themselves,’ he argued in 1992. In his memoirs, he pointed out that his advice to the president at the time was not to ‘get in the middle of this’. The best America could offer, Baker wrote, was to remain on the ‘sidelines prodding each party to an agreement’.

The unexpected election of Clinton in 1992 upended the dynamics surrounding Russian troop withdrawals. From the outset of his presidency, Clinton was a strong proponent of expelling the remaining Russian forces from the region. A 1993 National Security Council memo summarised Washington’s objective: ‘Our policy is to use US influence with the Russian government to effect the earliest possible withdrawal of Russian military forces from the three Baltic states.’ In correspondence with Estonia’s President Lennart Meri in July 1993, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, a key policy figure in the administration, ensured that the topic was raised in virtually every diplomatic engagement with Moscow. To underscore the importance the administration attached to this issue, he had further conveyed to Estonian counterparts that President Clinton was ‘willing to invest his own personal prestige’ to ensure the expeditious resolution of this matter. In Talbott’s eyes, the US government was not a neutral party. ‘We are on your side,’ he had told Latvian state officials upon his visit to the country.

The Clinton administration used a deft mix of carrots and sticks. They offered carrots in the form of financing housing construction in Russia for returning soldiers. This approach was combined with coercive threats, namely cutting off funding if Russia failed to adhere to the troop withdrawal timetable. Clinton initially offered $6 million for this purpose. President Boris Yeltsin viewed this as a staggeringly small sum of aid. ‘That’s peanuts, Bill!’, he reacted to the offered figure. Subsequently, Clinton pledged to Yeltsin that he would explore ways to increase American financial support, eventually leading to an additional $160 million. Domestically, the White House framed it not as a charitable gesture toward Moscow but as a tactical step toward an ‘expeditious and complete’ withdrawal of Russian forces from the Baltics.

Still, some in Congress bristled at the optics of using American taxpayers’ money to build housing for its not-too-long-ago arch-rival. Ultimately, the financial assistance programme survived, albeit with a built-in Congressional compromise. Russia would receive only half the proposed assistance unless Clinton certified that Moscow had made ‘substantial progress’ in withdrawing its remaining troops.

Out of the three Baltic countries, Russian troops left Lithuania first, on 31 August 1993. The withdrawal from Latvia and Estonia was significantly more complicated. Moscow had packaged the prospect of troop withdrawal with the issue of Russian minorities and military pensioners in these countries. At the G7 gathering in July 1994, Yeltsin, when questioned about withdrawing the remaining troops, responded wryly, ‘Nyet!’

To move towards a resolution, American officials had conveyed to Moscow that, if Russian forces remained in Estonia and Latvia beyond the summer of 1994, this would ‘inflict severe damage on US-Russian relations’. Clinton wrote numerous personal letters to Yeltsin, nudging him to iron out the remaining details of the withdrawal. But he also delivered a warning: ‘Boris, don’t screw this up. You’ve got to get out of Estonia. Everyone is watching. You either confirm the worst that a lot of people think about Russia, or you’ll confirm the best that I’ve been saying about you.’

The pressure campaign worked. After Latvia had successfully formalised the troop withdrawal agreement with Russia, a presidential-level meeting was also hastily arranged between Estonian and Russian leaders in Moscow.

In preparation for that, the Americans passed on to the Estonian delegation a classified manual on how best to negotiate with the Russians. The document detailed lessons from the Reagan administration’s experience during the disarmament talks with the Kremlin. Its main advice was to remain stern and outright rude when dealing with Russians. Equipped with this knowledge, the Estonian delegation bargained directly with senior Russian officials, while the Estonian President, Lennart Meri, engaged in vodka-fuelled diplomatic talks with Yeltsin. At the end of the day, a historic deal was sealed. Upon returning to Tallinn, jubilant Meri had told the US Ambassador: ‘Tell Mr. Clinton that Estonia will never forget what he has done for us. Never.’ For the three Baltic countries, the complete exodus of the Russian army was an outstanding accomplishment as it removed a significant barrier to their initial movement towards the European Union and NATO.

This forgotten historical material offers a playbook for diplomatic success when negotiating with stubborn major powers. Washington’s creative pressure campaign and the president’s consistent personal attention were instrumental in achieving the end goal. Yet additional key elements were also at work. This case study serves as a reminder that regional expertise matters. While Clinton himself built a close personal rapport with Yeltsin and constantly prodded him to withdraw remaining troops from the Baltics, he also drew upon the insights of his closest advisors. People like Strobe Talbott, for example, had helped to edit and translate Nikita Khrushchev’s memoirs and knew Russia and its history intimately. Talbott had also cultivated personal relationships with Baltic leaders, in particular the Estonian president Lennart Meri. Having well-versed individuals who understood the regional complexities greatly increased the Clinton administration’s capacity to advance and solve this issue.

Moreover, while Washington took the lead in bilateral negotiations with Moscow, it also actively enlisted the support of regional actors. To bolster the prospects for resolution, the Clinton administration regularly turned to the Nordic countries, especially Sweden, encouraging them to play their part in persuading all sides that a diplomatic settlement was possible. Working in tandem with the United States, Stockholm assumed the role of a valued regional promoter of the Baltic-related agenda. Its involvement added a ‘diplomatic pressure weight to that of Washington’s’.

There are many structural differences between the early 1990s and today. Perhaps the most consequential was that Clinton’s hand was greatly strengthened by Washington being at the height of its power, while Russia under Yeltsin was a fast-crumbling former superpower. But Russia still had plenty of ways to play spoiler. While the broader geopolitical context may have since changed considerably, the United States is still a superpower, with a fair amount of unused leverage that it could bring to bear on Putin. This includes ramping back up large-scale military assistance, lifting remaining restrictions on provided weapons, tightening sanctions and sending large numbers of US advisors directly to Kyiv. Trump should also use the considerable Russia expertise available to him at the State Department and in the intelligence community, instead of relying almost exclusively on less experienced hands.

Securing the complete withdrawal of Russian forces in the 1990s required Clinton’s personal engagement and the President didn’t hesitate to use American diplomatic and financial power to put pressure on the Kremlin. Moreover, he drew heavily on advisors who understood the Russian state well and actively courted regional allies to help resolve the diplomatic impasse. To move the needle on ending the Russia-Ukraine war, Trump should take these lessons to heart and finally do the same.