US-Russia relations began to weaken during the second term of the Barack Obama administration
As Russia stands on the edge of Ukraine’s military offensive and tensions between Moscow and the West are at an all-time high, it is clear that the seeds of deep suspicion between the US and Russia were sown during the second term. of the Barack Obama administration. As the US correspondent for this newspaper during 2010–15, it was clear to me that what could be described as ‘Cold War 2.0’ was gaining traction during those years, and during the Trump years. The interval did little to ease the bipartisan. ill feeling
Mr. Obama, with good intentions, as most idealistic leaders do, began to bring about a “reset” in relations with Russia. At the time, Vladimir Putin had stepped back from the Russian presidency to the role of prime minister, handing over the top post to Dmitry Medvedev. Yet within Washington’s Beltway politics, it was hardly a secret that Medvedev was considered the Robin to Mr Putin’s Batman. Still, Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev, it was clear, shared a good amount of personal chemistry and it allowed them to start in earnest by tackling some of the big bilateral policy issues of the day. In early 2010, he signed the new START treaty, which limited both countries to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear weapons, about two-thirds less than the original START treaty allowed. Russia entered the World Trade Organization in 2012. However, by that time, Mr. Putin had returned to the presidency and troubles began again.
The irony was that it was not bilateral issues such as these that generated the most tension. Instead, Russian involvement in third countries such as Libya and Syria – or lack thereof, had so far had a destabilizing effect on what had been carefully built up little ‘reset momentum’. In Libya, Russia along with China allowed a 2011 UN resolution establishing a no-fly zone, an action that did not win the support of the US, UK, France and others, which continued air operations in the country. . In Syria, while the civil war escalated around 2012, it was again Moscow and Beijing that blocked several UN resolutions criticizing Bashar al-Assad, even as the US and Western European powers The Syrian opposition chose to recognize the National Coalition. Petty squabbles over specific individuals further complicated bilateral waters, including the case of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died in prison in 2009 after accusing some Russian officials of corruption and was followed by the US Congress. named a sanctions law that was passed in 2012. , and Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who revealed the depth and breadth of US intelligence agencies’ surveillance of domestic and foreign targets, and then fled to Russia to evade Espionage Act charges in the US.
The last straw came in 2014, when Mr Putin annexed Crimea in Ukraine – yet the Obama administration’s response was timid. This included a bevy of sanctions and efforts to strengthen the European Assurance Initiative, the eastern side of NATO, in coordination with the European Union. In part Mr. Obama faced domestic political constraints because he was not able to adopt any military adventurism to control Russian territorial aggression. More pertinent, however, was the fact that Mr Obama believed that instead of fueling Cold War 2.0, Russian actions merely represented the weak ambition of a “regional power” – an assessment that would impair subsequent development. manner shown.
Thus, until intelligence reports of interference in US elections, including those linking Russian groups to hacking Democratic Party servers and undermining targeting of the Hillary Clinton campaign, began to surface in early 2016, there was a tumultuous tussle. It was too late for This legacy of a slow response will probably continue to shape US President Joe Biden’s decisions as he maneuvers to respond to Mr Putin’s challenge.
narayan@thehindu.co.in
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