Dmitri Trenin, “The Obama Administration's Policy toward Russia: a Moscow Perspective,”Kokusai Mondai(International Affairs), No.630, April 2014

The Obama Administration’s Policy toward Russia:
a Moscow Perspective

Dmitri Trenin
Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center

From Resetting to a New StageThe Obama Administration came to the White House in January 2009 with a clear
interest in “resetting” the U.S.-Russian relations. This was deemed necessary not so muchbecause of the importance of Russia to the United States: most people in Washington probably
believed at the time that Russia was continuing on a declining path. Rather, Russia was seen as
instrumental in helping Barack Obama to deal with the two wars he intended to end, in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and to prevent another one that he was loath to launch: against Iran. Reviving
nuclear arms control with Russia should have also helped advancing Barack Obama’s long-termgoal of elimination of nuclear weapons. Moscow, which had been left out in the cold by the
George W. Bush Administration, and then irritated by U.S. support for NATO enlargement toinclude Ukraine and Georgia, was viewed by Obama’s people as a resource to be used toadvance of the new President’s agenda. (For a candid account of the Russia policies of the Bush
43 and Obama Administrations, see Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War,
N.Y.: Alfred Knopf, 2014, P. 153-171)
Five years later, Obama’s Russia policy looks very different. The “reset” of 2009-2011,
which was supported by the Russians, did produce some valuable results, such as the New
START Treaty, and Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization, but it stumbled on theissue of U.S. missile defense, which the Russians saw as undermining their security. The
simultaneous presidential election campaigns in both the United States and Russia led to a

Dmitri Trenin, “The Obama Administration's Policy toward Russia: a Moscow Perspective,”Kokusai Mondai(International Affairs), No.630, April 2014

technical pause from 2011, but, after the 2012 elections, the “reset” was never resumed.
Vladimir Putin’s formal return to the Kremlin as president after a four-year break was greetedwith profound skepticism by many in the U.S. policy community. After the wave of protests in
Russia against flawed parliamentary elections a hope was rekindled again in the United Statesof a democratic “post-Putin” Russia. These hopes, however, were soon dispelled. (Angela E.
Stent, The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century, Princeton
University Press, 2014)
In 2013, President Obama cancelled an already scheduled summit meeting in Moscow –the first time such a step was made after Nikita Khrushchev walking out on a 1960 Paris summit
with Dwight Eisenhower. In 2014, Obama also declined President Putin’s invitation to come tothe opening of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. The word “reset” itself has become
diplomatic history. While U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov collaborate on Syria and Iran, the general environment of U.S.-Russian relations
has changed. Commentaries on Russia’s state-run TV and in U.S. mainstream media liberally
use the language of the Cold War when referring to the other country, still officially called“partner”. Tellingly and sadly, Michael McFaul, the architect of the U.S. “reset” policy inBarack Obama’s first administration, has had a tough time as U.S. ambassador to Moscow(2011-2014). (Dmitri Trenin, “The Mcfaul Experience,” Eurasia Outlook, February 5, 2014,www.carnegie.ru).

Coexistence of Cooperation and Competition
U.S.-Russian relations have come to represent a mix of islands of targeted andproductive cooperation against the background of profound negativism in both countries’ media
and deep mistrust at government level. Successful cooperation and angry rhetoric exist side byDmitri Trenin, “The Obama Administration's Policy toward Russia: a Moscow Perspective,”Kokusai Mondai(International Affairs), No.630, April 2014

side: the United States and Russia, at last, have learned, in Bill Clinton’s memorable phrase, to“walk and chew gum at the same time”. In other words, they can agree on some issues even as
they continue to argue about others. This, however, is a suboptimal achievement. It is in theinterest of both Moscow and Washington to reclaim new areas of collaboration and to more
effectively navigate their differences. To do that, those Americans and Russians who believe,correctly, that their country’s national interests will be better served by closer interaction withthe other party need to put their heads together to aid their governments. (Dmitri Trenin and
Andrew S. Weiss, “Dealing with the New Normal in US-Russian Relations,” Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, December 2013, www.ceip.org).
For those used to the familiar Cold War pattern of peaks of tension separated by valleys
of détente, the current U.S.-Russian relationship is new.
There is a vast asymmetry in power and in the attention given by one country to theother. Russia prides itself in having become the world’s 5th largest economy, in PPP terms, but it
is a far cry from that of the United States. Russian labor productivity is a mere quarter of the US
level. Even as the United States has begun pulling itself out of the recession, Russia’s economy
has stagnated. Moscow is currently rebuilding its military, but its conventional forces are justbeginning to recover from two decades of neglect. The Kremlin has become much more active
internationally, including in the Middle East, but its influence is still small outside the former
Soviet Union. Russia’s soft power is admittedly weak. The Russians are wrong to see the UnitedStates behind many problems that they encounter, but the Americans are equally wrong tovirtually neglect or ignore Russia.
The relationship is both competitive and cooperative at the same time, with an emphasison competition. This competition spans the entire spectrum from the fundamentals of the global
order – see Syria - to social values, such as gay rights, and norms of domestic politics. In
February 2014, the long-festering internal crisis in Ukraine led to a revolution in Kiev,

Dmitri Trenin, “The Obama Administration's Policy toward Russia: a Moscow Perspective,”Kokusai Mondai(International Affairs), No.630, April 2014

supported by the West, ousting the government of President Viktor Yanukovych. Fearing thisregime change in a neighboring country and concerned about Ukrainian ultra-nationalists'
influence in the new Ukrainian government, President Putin sought, and received, powers fromthe Russian parliament to deploy Russian military forces to Ukraine. By early March 2014,
local pro-Russian forces, with Russian support, secured control of the Crimean peninsula. This
led to the most serious crisis in Russia's relations with the United States and the European
Union since the end of the Cold War. A return to the cold war, oft-predicted but unrealistic until
then, suddenly became possible, even likely.

Intrusion of Domestic Politics into Foreign Policy
Domestic politics in both countries are invading and occupying territory formerly
belonging only to foreign policy. The Kremlin is wary of the link that it sees between thedomestic liberal critics and those in the United States, in particular in U.S. Congress, who
openly sympathize with these critics. Vladimir Putin called some of the protestors who came out
in the streets of Moscow in 2011-2012 a fifth column in the pay of the U.S. Department of State.
After he won the 2012 presidential elections, Putin moved against foreign-financed NGOs who
meddled in politics, putting them on notice as “foreign agents”. This, of course, produced astrong backlash from the U.S. policy community and the media, accusing the Kremlin of aclampdown on Russia’s civil society.
On Capitol Hill in Washington, standing up against Russian authoritarianism and its
representatives has become good bipartisan politics which carries almost no penalty, incomparison with relations with China. The Magnitsky Act adopted in 2012, which sanctioned
several Russian officials for human rights abuses, became a symbol of direct action by
parliament impacting on foreign policy. In the run-up to the Sochi Olympics, the issue ofDmitri Trenin, “The Obama Administration's Policy toward Russia: a Moscow Perspective,”Kokusai Mondai(International Affairs), No.630, April 2014

banning “gay propaganda” to minors in Russia aroused the vocal LGBT community against
Russian “official homophobia”. Neither the Magnitsky Act nor the LGBT criticisms were
initiated by the U.S. Government, but the Obama Administration felt no need to challenge or
mitigate these actions.

Emergence of Co-equal Cooperation
Yet, despite this rather gloomy background, vibrant contacts exist and continue toexpand between the two countries at the societal level, with the Russian government relentlesslypressing for a relaxation of the visa regime even as political relations remain difficult. This isperhaps the most fundamental difference between the current situation in U.S.-Russian relations
and the times of the Cold War, when the governments were the only players, and therelationship was marked by severe ideological antagonism and massive military confrontation.
Government-to-government relations have also registered some progress. When in May
2013 Secretary of State Kerry came to Moscow and was received by President Putin, the UnitedStates hoped to induce Russia to help ease Bashar al-Assad from power in Damascus. The twocountries agreed to cooperate on bringing an end to the Syrian war. This agreement was
reaffirmed the following month during the brief encounter between Presidents Obama and Putinon the fringes of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland.
By the end of the summer of 2013, the U.S. had become so frustrated with Russia that it
used the Snowden affair as a pretext to cancel the formal summit. Instead, President Obama, in
response to the use of chemical weapons near Damascus, made it clear that he would strike
Syria. At that point, however, Vladimir Putin came up with an alternative proposal, in the formof Syrian chemical disarmament, with Damascus’s consent, jointly overseen by the U.S. andRussia. Obama cautiously took the offer, and Putin successfully delivered Assad. The

Dmitri Trenin, “The Obama Administration's Policy toward Russia: a Moscow Perspective,”Kokusai Mondai(International Affairs), No.630, April 2014

diplomatic and logistical operation of Syria’s chemical disarmament – in the midst of a civil war– became the first case of co-equal cooperation between Moscow and Washington since the endof the Cold War. By January 2014, Russia and the United States also succeeded in bringing theparties to the Syrian conflict to the negotiating table in Geneva, even though the end of
hostilities is still not in sight.
In 2013, Russia also supported the U.S. opening to Iran. Moscow had long encouraged
Washington to begin engaging the Iranians directly, outside of the formal mechanism of the P5+1 talks with Tehran. Contrary to the views of many observers who believed that bad relations
between the U.S. and Iran best served the Kremlin’s interests, the Russians evidently think thatneither a nuclear-armed Iran nor a U.S.-Israeli attack against it is a good thing for Russia. Hence,
Moscow’s support for the interim agreement with Iran and its efforts toward a final solution to
the Iranian nuclear issue.

Still Competitive Elements
There have been disappointments, too. Nuclear arms control, one of the Obama
Administration’s policy priorities, has been marking time since the conclusion in 2010 of the
New START treaty. The Russians made it clear that they would not agree to deeper cuts in theirstrategic nuclear forces in the absence of an agreement on missile defenses. Later, Moscow also
became concerned about the U.S. Conventional Prompt Global Strike concept which is seen as
another potential threat to the Russian nuclear deterrent. For their part, the Russians showed nointerest in the U.S. ideas about controlling tactical nuclear weapons and resuming theconventional arms control regime in Europe. Thus, arms control, for decades the backbone ofrelations between Washington and Moscow and the centerpiece of the “reset”, has become
stalled.

Dmitri Trenin, “The Obama Administration's Policy toward Russia: a Moscow Perspective,”Kokusai Mondai(International Affairs), No.630, April 2014

U.S.-Russian cooperation on counter-terrorism, thought in the aftermath of 9/11 to be
the new prime area of security ties between the two countries, has demonstrated its limitations.
When in 2013 two terrorists from the North Caucasus region of Russia carried out a bomb
attack at the Boston Marathon, it became known that practical cooperation between U.S. andRussian security services on the issue of terrorism is anything but close, with mutual mistrust
playing a major role. The United States offered its assistance to Russian before the 2014 Sochi
Olympics, but the presence of U.S. security officers in Russia for the games was smaller than atthe 2008 Beijing Olympics. The Russian security services not only believe they are not inferior
to their U.S. colleagues, but also suspect the U.S. of sympathies to separatists and militants in
the North Caucasus.
The Obama Administration played a positive role in the final stages of Russia’s longquest for WTO membership. The infamous Jackson-Vanik amendment which for four decades
had curtailed U.S.-Soviet and later U.S.-Russian trade, was finally repealed in 2012. Yet, theeconomic exchanges between the two countries have remained at a very low level. The Obama
Administration attributes this to the inhospitable business climate prevailing in Russia. The
Russians, for their part, look for major deals with U.S. companies, but find very few candidates.
The 2010 ExxonMobil-Rosneft deal is a rare exception. The U.S. recent recovery and Russia’s
stagnation complicate things still further.
The recent turn in U.S.-Russian relations has produced mixed results. Real and palpable
U.S.-Russian achievements on Syria’s civil war and Iran’s nuclear program contrast withquarrels about government-secret-leaker Edward Snowden, the Magnitsky Act, gay rights, andUkraine’s future. Russia’s views on the global order and its own foreign policy course are atodds with those of the United States, prompting political figures and opinion leaders in bothcountries to become more vocal in criticizing their former Cold War adversary, often in quite
familiar terms.

Dmitri Trenin, “The Obama Administration's Policy toward Russia: a Moscow Perspective,”Kokusai Mondai(International Affairs), No.630, April 2014

Cultivating Cooperation—conditions for cooperation
Yet, the recent record of cooperation suggests that the relationship retains great
potential. Actors in Moscow and Washington would benefit from tapping into that potential
under the right set of circumstances and conditions.
Based on the relationship’s track record, cooperation between Russia and the UnitedStates can only ensue where the two countries’ interests meet and at an opportune moment.
Take the issue of Syria’s chemical weapons.
Continued to use chemical weapons in Syria’s ongoing civil war, the U.S. government’s
credibility would have been called into question because of Washington’s vocal stance against
the weapons. And it would have made a mockery of the international regimes governing theweapons of mass destruction.
But if the U.S. military had launched a strike against Syria in retaliation for the use ofchemical weapons in a Damascus suburb, the action would have reversed the trends of U.S.
military disengagement from the Muslim world and of Washington’s restraint in the use of
military force—both seen as positive by the Kremlin.
In this case, the needs of the White House and the Kremlin happened to coincide andallowed cooperation. The Obama Administration wanted to stay out of the Syrian conflict, but it
could not ignore the violation of its own “red line” regarding the use of chemical weapons in
Syria. The Kremlin wanted to keep the U.S. out of the Syrian war, and was both able and readyto press Damascus for chemical disarmament. The Assad government was willing to give up its
chemical weapons arsenal in exchange for cancellation of U.S. military strikes and a measure ofinternational recognition in the process of chemical disarmament. So, the interests of the parties,
otherwise very far part, intersected on the point of non-use of chemical weapons and nonintervention.

Dmitri Trenin, “The Obama Administration's Policy toward Russia: a Moscow Perspective,”Kokusai Mondai(International Affairs), No.630, April 2014

Similarly, collaboration between Washington and Moscow in preparing a conference on
Syria’s domestic political settlement, which started in Switzerland in January 2014, was basedon both capitals’ concern about the rise of jihadist elements in the ranks of Syrian rebels.
Would-be terrorists who see both the United States and Russia as their enemies and thus targets
of future attacks are already finding their feet in Syria. The fact that the Boston Marathon
bombers hailed from Russia’s North Caucasus illustrates the connections between the two
powers and the fluid nature of present-day terrorism.
U.S.-Russian differences on approach should not preclude cooperation where the livesof their own citizens are at stake.
It is also clear that U.S.-Russian cooperation can only be effective if it is co-equal in
substance as well as in form.
In Syria, initially, the United States essentially wanted Russia to help it with its agenda
for Syria in exchange for some kind of a commission fee, such as keeping the rather modest
naval facility in Syria’s Tartus. In practice, this meant that Washington wanted Moscow to stop
supporting Bashar al-Assad politically and militarily and to help to ease him out of power inDamascus.
This approach did not work because Moscow saw its engagement with Washington
differently—it saw two leading powers bringing Syrian factions together, in the style of the
Dayton accords that in 1995 ended the war in Bosnia, without prejudging an outcome to theintra-Syrian dialogue. (Dmitri Trenin, “The Mythical Alliance: Russia’s Syria Policy,” Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, February 2013). A few months later, such cooperation
became possible, for virtually the first time both because the situation on the ground in Syriachanged and because of Russia’s new willingness and capacity to step up to a more active
international role.

Dmitri Trenin, “The Obama Administration's Policy toward Russia: a Moscow Perspective,”Kokusai Mondai(International Affairs), No.630, April 2014

This more equal approach was fruitful. Moscow delivered Damascus’s agreement on
Syria’s chemical disarmament and saw to it that the process of disarmament went forward
without undue obstacles. Russian diplomats and experts worked closely with their U.S.
counterparts on developing procedures for disarmament. Russia provided special trucks fortransporting chemical agents to ships as well as a naval escort for their journey to the liquidation
facility. As a co-convener of the conference on the political future of Syria, Moscow had toengage with all Syrian parties, minus the extremist groups, and present itself as a peace broker.

Co-equality and Common GroundCo-equality is a very demanding thing for those seeking that status, but once it becomesa reality, it can satisfy all parties involved. Russia should be encouraged to produce more andbetter-quality international public goods.
Common ground does exist between U.S. and Russian national interests in a number ofareas. The two powers should seek out these overlapping areas of interest and build theircooperation on this basis.
For instance, as Moscow is becoming more focused on the Korean Peninsula, it can playat least as useful a role on the North Korean nuclear issue as it is playing on Iran, where Russia
has been acting as a supporter and facilitator of diplomatic contacts between Tehran andWashington.
Historically, Washington has relied on Beijing, a North Korean ally, to help deal with
Pyongyang. Moscow can be another partner in stabilizing the Korean situation. Economically, it
can make a contribution to stability in Korea through energy and infrastructure projects linking
the South and the North. A transit pipeline and a rail road running through North Korea would
give the DPRK a chance to legally earn some money, even though both projects would beDmitri Trenin, “The Obama Administration's Policy toward Russia: a Moscow Perspective,”Kokusai Mondai(International Affairs), No.630, April 2014

politically risky and vulnerable to blackmail. And also, Moscow is formally responsible forpromoting security cooperation in the framework of the Six-Power Talks. As Russia develops
its Korea policy further, it can emerge as an independent player with a modicum of credibility inSeoul, Pyongyang, Beijing, and Tokyo. As such, it can be a useful partner for Washington too.
The functional areas where there is sufficient overlap of U.S.-Russian interests range
from cybersecurity to counterterrorism to climate change and beyond. They include such key
economic areas as energy and global finance. Of particular importance is cooperation in
education, science, and technology, areas crucial for development in the twenty-first century.
One megaproject that brings together many of these strands is cooperation in the North
Pacific—the part of the world where the U.S. and Russian territory is separated by just three
miles of water.
Russian-American cooperation in these areas will not eliminate their competition, butboth parties need to manage their competitive tendencies better.
The legacy of the Cold War is only slowly fading away. Russian authoritarianism,
conservatism, strategic independence, corruption, and human rights abuses will continue toirritate U.S. politicians, various vested interests, and the general public. By the same token, U.S.
omnipresence, a penchant for interventionism, promotion of democracy and various special
causes, and “American exceptionalism” will provide ammunition for Russian anti-Americanism.
In addition to these specific areas of friction, there will always be the reality of geopoliticalcompetition, substantial differences on the issues of the world order and global governance, anda partial clash of values.
To more effectively manage these differences, they should be put in perspective.
Washington and Moscow should seek to strike a better balance between competition andcooperation, not allowing the former to dominate the relationship completely.

Dmitri Trenin, “The Obama Administration's Policy toward Russia: a Moscow Perspective,”Kokusai Mondai(International Affairs), No.630, April 2014

Restoring a measure of mutual respect and basic civility in the relationship would be auseful first step, particularly for both countries’ politicians and media figures. At present, they
are no longer restrained by the threat of a nuclear conflict, and they feel there is nothing
particularly valuable to lose if the relationship sours. Thriving on the bad relationship is lessadvantageous than exploiting a vibrant relationship.

Toward Cooperation through Economic Interdependence
To help stabilize the relationship, Washington and Moscow should develop an
economic “cushion.” The task is primarily Russia’s responsibility.
In many other instances in which the United States successfully manages relations witha country very different from itself, such as China, major economic interests guarantee a degreeof respect and basic civility. The very low level of U.S.-Russian economic interaction is rightly
named as the reason why the bilateral political relationship lacks a stabilizing force.
There have been attempts to correct that, as exemplified by the recent deal between the
U.S. energy firm ExxonMobil and Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft. Yet, there are
only so many opportunities for economic cooperation on that scale.
Russia and the United States should promote investments in the other country, but doing
so requires more than just favorable attitudes on the part of the two federal governments.
For Russia to become attractive for U.S. investors, it needs to improve its businessclimate, which it has begun doing. The responsibility of the Russian government here isparamount.

Dmitri Trenin, “The Obama Administration's Policy toward Russia: a Moscow Perspective,”Kokusai Mondai(International Affairs), No.630, April 2014

First and foremost the administrative and bureaucratic red tape that accompanies
operating in Russia needs to be reduced. The government also needs to upgrade the role andquality of its courts system, upholding and expanding the elements of the rule of law.
Meanwhile, Russian investors seeking entry to the U.S. market need technical assistance andguidance from the U.S. side as they consider their moves.
At the regional level, Russian plans of relaunching development of the Far Eastern andSiberian territories open an opportunity for large-scale economic, technological, and scientificcollaboration with the states along the U.S. Pacific seaboard.

Conclusion
To make the U.S.-Russian relationship more productive, Russian and U.S. decision
makers need to be persuaded that each country’s national interests are better served by U.S.Russian collaboration.
Russia’s overriding national goal of modernization requires stable relations with theUnited States. This is particularly true of the country’s two vast and strategically importantregions, the Arctic and the Far East and Siberia. It also relates to Russia’s plans to develop its
knowledge industry, from education to scientific research and development, where the UnitedStates is the global leader.
By the same token, U.S. foreign policy, as recent developments have demonstrated, canbe more effective if Moscow is an active and co-equal partner rather than a spoiler.
The Russian and U.S. governments are less focused on each other’s country than at any
time in the last seventy-five years. In part, this is because the Cold War has ended. However, itDmitri Trenin, “The Obama Administration's Policy toward Russia: a Moscow Perspective,”Kokusai Mondai(International Affairs), No.630, April 2014is also the result of the failure to balance inevitable U.S.-Russian competition with productive
cooperation.
Well-connected Russians and Americans who believe that their own countries’ wider
national interests can be better served by reaching out to the other partner should join forces andbring their informed ideas and specific proposals to the attention of the two governments. These
actors can also serve as an informal public committee to oversee progress in the U.S.-Russian
relationship.
Despite their ups and downs since the end of the Cold War, Russian-American relations
have demonstrated remarkable resilience. The government-to-government dialogue isoccasionally frosty, but always serious. Behind the colorful public rhetoric, there is often athinly-veiled hope that the other party will eventually see the light and change its ways. This
hope is probably futile. However, draining the lingering mistrust and reclaiming more common
ground makes sense and is worth an effort on both sides.
The Obama Administration is almost three-quarters through its total lifetime. Its policy
toward Russia is no longer the outstanding achievement it looked after the signature of the New
START Treaty and the WTO agreement. Russia is not coming closer to the United States; ifanything, the relationship is becoming more competitive. However, the administration has
managed to deal with Moscow pragmatically and achieve useful results. Syria and, to someextent, Iran are two examples. In U.S. domestic political terms, the administration has also
managed to protect itself from the accusations of “being soft” on Mr. Putin. This pattern of alargely transactional and progressively more distant relationship is likely to continue through2016 – unless there is some crisis which will put Washington and Moscow closer together or,
more likely, set them farther apart. For anyone interested in getting more out of the troubled
relationship, however, some of the ideas expressed in this article may be of some use.