Now that Moscow has expelled USAID from Russia and announced it will not renew one of the pillars of U.S.-Russia post-Soviet cooperation–the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program–the Obama administration and other disappointed actors will be looking for a silver lining.
At least the Obama administration can take solace in the fact that while Putin is thoroughly dedicated to publicly and without consequence bullying Obama in the last month of the presidential election, he isn’t only isolating the U.S. As usual, Putin reserved some of his ire for NATO as well. Reuters reports:
Russia will stop cooperating with NATO over Afghanistan after 2014 unless the alliance gets U.N. Security Council authorization for its new training mission in Afghanistan, a senior Russian diplomat said on Wednesday.
A NATO official said only that it would be “helpful” to have a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the post-2014 training mission, but stopped short of saying it was essential.
Nikolay Korchunov, Russia’s acting ambassador to NATO, did not specify what any halt to Russian cooperation with NATO on Afghanistan after 2014 would mean, but Russia will be an important transit route for NATO as it ships out billions of dollars of equipment from Afghanistan in the next few years.
This morning, the New York Times also reported that Turkish authorities forced a Syrian plane en route from Moscow to land in Ankara, and the Russians–perhaps feeling they were caught red-handed–lashed out in response. “I think that tension will now develop in the relationship between Russia and Turkey,” a Russian Foreign Ministry official told the Times.
Turkey claims there were materials on the plane that violate international regulations, but there were also passengers on the plane, leading a Russian arms export official to offer a quote that is both amusingly arrogant and ominous: “If it had been necessary to ship any military hardware or weapons to Syria, this would have been done through the established procedure rather than in an illegal way.”
Of course Russia will help a dictator murder thousands of his own people in broad daylight–but they’d never do anything illegal.
The question lingers, however: What does Putin want from Obama? The answer is, the last concession remaining: the plans for a missile shield in Europe. Yet regardless of Obama’s decision on that front, Putin’s habit has been to simply pocket concessions and then renegotiate. Which means despite the administration’s attempts to placate Putin, the U.S.-Russia relationship, at a low point during the first Obama term and in many ways since the fall of the Soviet empire, will remain where it is. The new low will become the new normal.
I see a continuous line: Stalin,……, Putin. With absolutely no love for Obama, whatsoever, I was tired of the plaudits thrown to Ex-President Reagan in many respects, and particularly the credit for the downfall of the USSR. It didn't fall down. It has a new name. Russia. Just as dangerous.
I think it did fall down, but it got back up again after 2000 in the form of an [ex-]KGB agent. n nI suspect we missed some significant opportunities to 'reset' during the Clinton presidency, but I am wonder if we will ever know.
If you're Putin, wouldn't you be inclined to not rock Obama's foreign policy boat (more than it already is) until at least after the election? As a matter of fact, if you're Putin (or the Chavez, or the mullahs in Tehran, etc…), wouldn't you secretly funnel money to the Obama campaign (easy enough to do since the campaign illegally permits foreign donations)? Obama must be a dream US President for these people. Obama have given away to Putin everything Putin has wanted – and is ready to give away more (as indicated in the recorded comments to Medvedev). The mullahs must surely fear a President Romney more than Obama. In Obama, Chavez has what he likely thinks is something close to a kindred soul. The list of thugs can go on (Assas in Syria..). If I'm Putin, I keep my head low. Or even give Obama some minor concession – today – so that Obama can tout it as some historic foreign policy achievement and hopefully quell the foreign policy political storm that's brewing over Benghazi. Putin will never find another President so easy to roll over as Obama.
"Putin will never find another President so easy to roll over as Obama." n nAs with a lot of Europeans right now, today, Putin probably believes that Obama is a lock to win the presidency. Read the European press. They're scarcely aware of Romney as a credible threat to Obama. They drank more Kool-Aid than anybody in 2008 and still regularly imbibe, because pro-Obama is equivalent to anti-America, always a crowd pleaser in Europe.
Can anyone explain why we should have any relations with "Russia" which is not a legitimate political entity, not really a country but a territory, a patch-quilt of conquered enclaves, which never met the four conditions for recognition in the first place, and is ruled by thugocracy and prornocracy?
I'm with you in spirit Cyprus. However, not to have any relations with Russia probably isn't viable. The first thing that comes to mind is that we need Russia to a degree for the Afghanistan venture. n nI hope dearly that a President Romney opens up everything so we can exploit every ounce of coal/gas/oil we have in this country. The closer we get to energy independence (as well as being an exporter of such goods), the more likely we starve Russia out. Their economy is almost entirely dependent on their oil & gas industry. If the prices go down significantly, Russia is screwed. And I'll revel watching Putin once again have to witness the collapse of his beloved mother country. And this oil/gas revolution says nothing of the economic windfall for our economy. n n
Wrong, Ritchi, "Russia" needs us in Afghanistan, not the other way around. Obama is fighting the war on behalf of his Moscow masters. He and they know full well that once we pull out the vast area between Central Asia and Moscow will be traversed by hordes of fundamentalists, drugs, guns, and labor migrants, and Moscow will drown (to the relief of many nations on its periphery) in this flood and ultimately collapse.
I am with you there 100%. Tell me what Russia have to offer in goods and services other than oil and gas. NOTHING
anadessma, I try to avoid the European press. Europe baffles me. They are on a trajectory for a mathematically unavoidable economic collapse thanks to the social programs that are championed by the liberals, yet they are charging straight ahead (attempted austerity measures being met with great resistance) and root/vote for those same liberal politicians that want more of the same. Even to the point of rooting for Obama in the USA. Maybe they want the USA to be in the same boat as Europe so they don't feel so bad about themselves.
The goal of most leaders in USSR and Russia is to piss-off the West. Jealousy.