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July 10, 2009
U.S. Interests Seem Set Back by Summit
We know the Obama administration blew the translation of the Russian word “reset” when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met her counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in March, instead using the Russian word for “overcharge.”
But you have to wonder if they can accurately translate the phrase “not much” into Russian because that’s about what we got during President Barack Obama’s first trip to Moscow.
We did agree in principle to reduce strategic nuclear arms. But there are already concerns being voiced by experts that such an agreement is premature and even misguided. The administration agreed to new lower ceilings on the numbers of nuclear weapons and delivery systems even before it completed its own review.
In fact, some are saying Washington made all the concessions since Moscow is actually eager to reduce its nukes as well as retire aging strategic delivery systems.
More worrisome, there was no movement on tactical nukes. Russia probably has a 10-to-1 advantage in these weapons over the United States. And this smaller weapon is exactly the sort a terrorist organization would love to obtain.
In addition, Obama was unable to get any traction on NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine or ease Russian opposition to missile defense in Eastern Europe for defending us against Iran.
On the positive side, we did get Moscow to agree for a year to allow us to fly troops and supplies over Russia en route to Afghanistan to diversify routes now through hostile areas of Pakistan.
But it’s no real surprise, considering the threat Moscow feels from extremism and the Afghan poppy. It also gives Moscow leverage since it can also close these air corridors at will.
But perhaps the most telling part of the summit, the Russians didn’t seem all that taken with Obama.
Indeed, from multiple accounts, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin spent much of the summit schooling the young American president on Cold War history from a uniquely Soviet perspective.
Unfortunately, Putin’s Khrushchevesque approach doesn’t bode well for the future. So much for any “reset” in U.S.-Russian relations - even if you translate it correctly - at least for now.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Peter Brookes is a Senior Fellow for National Security Affairs at the Heritage Foundation and is a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Feedback: editorialdirector@familysecuritymatters.org.
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