Two years of “da” to a new partnership
From the establishment of the Soviet Union until the last decade of the twentieth century, world politics pivoted on a complex bilateral rivalry that effectively dominated international relations. With the fall of the Soviet Union, however, the extent to which the U.S.-Russia relationship had to remain a top priority of American foreign policy became more of an open question. Indeed, for the past two decades, the United States has largely answered entreaties for engagement with Russia with a resounding nyet.
Over the past two years, however, the Obama administration has begun to reverse this trend. While most famous for offering Russia a “reset” in relations, President Obama has engaged Russia in more subtle and dynamic ways. In particular, Obama has reaffirmed the importance of Russian partnership for U.S. efforts in counterterrorism and nuclear disarmament. While these efforts have been subject to political drawbacks, this renewed focus constitutes an important shift in American foreign policy and moves towards cooperation between the two powerful nations.
The past decade has seen many conflicts between American and Russian interests, most frequently on Russia’s periphery. Despite close collaboration with President Vladimir Putin, President George W. Bush’s administration colored the tone of the relationship with an overriding concern for the protection of Western-style democratic systems in Eastern Europe.
In the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, for example, American policymakers in 2004 backed Victor Yuschenko, the pro-E.U. financial manager, against Russia’s preferred candidate for the disputed presidency, Victor Yanukovych. More disconcerting to Russia, the Bush administration attempted to persuade NATO to allow the construction of missile defense shields, ostensibly for protection against Iranian attack, in Poland and the Czech Republic. From Russia’s perspective, however, the logic behind these American interventions was familiar. As Marshall Goldman, a senior scholar at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, told the HPR, there “still is a lingering feeling in the United States that we don’t really want to let our guard down with Russia.”
President Obama has reversed these policies since taking office, offering Russia a “reset” in exchange for Russia’s partnership on issues more critical to the two powers’ mutual interests. In late 2009, the United States withdrew its plans for a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, moving the locations instead to Mediterranean countries within the range of Iranian missiles. Goldman explained, “It’s not that we’ve forgotten about missile concerns, but it’s been overridden by other concerns.”
Similarly, U.S. policymakers have stopped taking sides in the tangled fracas of Ukrainian politics, and have dropped proposals for Ukrainian and Georgian membership in NATO. The result of these policies has been increased cooperation with Russia. Goldman argued that the current era is “a much more cooperative atmosphere… in ways that bring back memories of World War II.”
Zero-Sum to Win-Win
The revival of the U.S.-Russian strategic partnership is based on a larger paradigm shift in how U.S.-Russian relations are viewed. For the better part of the twentieth century, the countries saw most diplomatic issues as a zero-sum game. Yet Sam Charap, associate director for Russia and Eurasia at the Center for American Progress, told the HPR that this paradigm is “not one that is shared by the current administration.” Charap continued, “We’re not there in the region to balance Russia. That’s just not a U.S. policy goal.” Indeed, in an international system defined by social and economic integration, a zero-sum model seems increasingly anachronistic.
Present-day U.S.-Russian relations are based more on the possibility of collaboration that could produce win-win scenarios, such as checking the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, maintaining political stability in Central Asia, and promoting nuclear nonproliferation. “These are the issues that the current administration is focusing on,” noted Simon Saradzhyan, a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. “This combination has produced tangible results. The reset has worked,” Saradzhyan concluded.
Moreover, as Clifford Gaddy, an economist with the Brookings Institution, pointed out, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev “wants to see… more U.S. investment in Russia, especially in projects linked to the “modernization of the Russian economy.” Russia’s eagerness to seek economic cooperation with the United States illustrates the degree to which the win-win paradigm has permeated relations between the two countries.
The New Strategic Partner
Critics often object to the Obama administration’s “reset” policy by arguing that Russian interests are no longer particularly important to American strategic interests. Indeed, Russia’s population is on the verge of shrinking, and China has expanded its influence in old Soviet stomping grounds like Central Asia, the Koreas, and Indochina. Goldman said that “credentials that deal with China and the Islamic world make you a better candidate to rise within the State Department [than in] the past.” The new order, Goldman argued, is illustrated by the rise of Arabic and Chinese vis-à-vis Russian as languages taught in American universities. The Far East and the Middle East are the current foreign policy hot spots.
Nevertheless, Russian cooperation has important implications for America’s national security interests. Russia is home to more petroleum, nuclear weapons, and square mileage than any other country in the world. It shares critical borders with Europe, the Islamic world, and China, and can provide common diplomatic ground that eludes the United States in its relations with China, India, and other emergent powers. It is also more invested in the problems of nuclear deterrence and containing Islamic terror than any other ally of the United States.
In Saradzhyan’s view, as regional power politics have waned in importance, “the most critical issue remains the nuclear issue,” and after that, counterterrorism. Charap, too, remains certain that new demands on the U.S.-Russia relationship mean that “we’ve changed the calculus: progress must be shared.” Each country will have to rely on the other to advance goals that were once advanced by “going it alone.”
Resetting the Reset
As Russia regains its prominence in the U.S. foreign policy agenda, many wonder whether Obama’s policy of accommodating Russia’s interests for the sake of mutual cooperation will be politically sustainable. Despite heavy Congressional opposition to the new START nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia, Saradzhyan emphasized that the United States is “a rational actor” and that “the level of attention paid to Russia will remain sufficient.” With the balance of power and the American position in the world changing rapidly, the definition of “sufficient” might well be subject to debate. What remains certain, however, is that the “reset” policy has effected a paradigm shift; now it is up to American policymakers to take advantage and accelerate Russia’s transition from uneasy counterpart to strategic partner.
Joshua Lipson ’14 is a Staff Writer.
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