Global Insight
January 2, 2012 5:08 pm
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End is nigh for Russia’s ‘reset’ with US
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Almost as soon as Russia and the US declared a “reset”in their relations in 2009, there were warnings that the thaw was already over. This time, however, it seems the end really is nigh.
With the almost assured return of Vladimir Putin to the Russian presidency in March elections, and the outbreak of street protests against election fraud in Moscow and other Russian cities in December, US politicians are distancing themselves from the soft line on Russia peddled by the White House for two and a half years.
The reset was based partly on good personal chemistry between Barack Obama, the US president, and Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president – a comparatively pro-western and liberal politician who took over from Mr Putin, his political mentor, in 2008. However, in September the two announced that they would switch jobs, and the hawkish Mr Putin would return to the presidency.
Putin has announced the creation of a “Eurasian Union” with Kazakhstan and Belarus by 2013 – an idea that has produced nervousness in Washington that he, despite firm denials, intends to create something akin to the Soviet Union in central Asia and eastern Europe.
Last week, Aleksei Pushkov, a senior foreign affairs commentator recently named chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the state Duma, said the reset had been “cancelled” in an interview with the Vedomosti newspaper. He said Mr Putin was the “embodiment of the idea of Russia as a global power centre and the centre of the Eurasian Union”. The US finds this unacceptable, Mr Pushkov said.
Publicly, at least, Washington insists that it seeks a constructive relationship with Russia, regardless of who the president is. The period of the reset has seen some breakthroughs in bilateral co-operation, such as the April 2010 signing of the New Start treaty on reducing nuclear armaments, and an agreement, reached in November 2010, for Nato to deliver supplies to Afghanistan across Russian territory. Russia became a member of the World Trade Organisation last month.
In practice, it is clear that the imminent return of Mr Putin has changed the tone and shortened fuses on both sides. This has become especially obvious following the eruption of street protests over December’s elections.
Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, took a tough line with Moscow on the blatantly rigged polls for the state Duma, or lower house or parliament.
“We’ve just witnessed a flawed Duma election in Russia,” said Mrs Clinton on a December trip to Lithuania, hitting back at Russian pressure on Golos – an independent election monitoring organisation, whose members were targeted in an apparently officially sanctioned harassment campaign.
That provoked a furious row, with Mr Putin accusing Mrs Clinton of “sending signals” to Russia’s opposition. He said political opponents were being “used” by unnamed foreign states in a televised phone-in show.
In Washington, the return of Mr Putin has put wind in the sails of the “Magnitsky act”, a proposal circulating through US Congress aimed at barring Russian officials linked to corruption and human rights abuses from entering the US.
Relations have soured on other fronts. The US pursuit of an anti-ballistic missile system in Europe, ostensibly aimed at Iran, has provoked a furious response from the Kremlin.
The original “reset” was based partly on the White House rejection of a previous ABM system sought by George W. Bush. Now the Kremlin has made clear that the new system is also unacceptable.
Cliff Kupchan, Russia expert at the Eurasia Group, the political risk consultancy, said the US and Russia had too much at stake to abandon detente. “Reset isn’t over but it is in danger”.
For the US, Russian help, or at least lack of obstruction, still matters on Iran and Afghanistan, he noted.
But with both countries entering presidential election cycles, there is little incentive for either side to take big steps toward reconciliation.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.
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