sanctions are controlled by only four businessmen, the President’s close associates. Moreover, the United States also banned export of high-tech commodities to Russia that could help to increase Russia’s military strength. Simultaneously, Obama expressed his satisfaction with Europe’s willingness to exert pressure on Russia and declared that “Russia has never been more isolated”. It can be clearly seen that U.S.-Russia relations worsened significantly and the “reset” policy has run out if its potential. However, the deterioration of U.S.-Russia relations that could be observed since 2011, though this time bilateral relations were damaged even more seriously, is nothing new in relations between the two countries. Something similar could be observed in the end of the 1990s and in the 2000s after an attempt to improve bilateral relations in light of September 11 events. Hence, U.S.-Russia relations could be described as rather volatile, swinging from friendly dialogue and intensified cooperation to mutual accusations and even sanctions. However, one must not overlook the fact that even during periods of tensed relations the two countries continued to cooperate on a number of issues, including cooperation in the strategic area.
After the “reset” was launched, the two countries achieved goals that have been set before, for example, signed a new START treaty, completed WTO talks, imposed stricter sanctions against Iran etc. However, the two countries lacked common interests to turn the “reset” into genuine partnership, while controversial visions concerning Eastern Europe and the space led to serious frictions between the United States and Russia. In regard to the lack of mutual interests, one can recall Russia’s position on Syria, which was obviously in contrast with that of the United States and could be explained by Russia’s economic interests in the country, for example, arms sales or infrastructure projects. This also became the reason of Moscow’s grievance when the United States took unilateral actions against Iraq or adopted sanctions against Russia’s companies that had business ties with Iran. Therefore, U.S. dominance and attempts to promote its world order vision, especially in regard to the space, is unacceptable for Russia whose latest actions in Ukraine should be seen as an attempt to ensure its dominant role in these territories. Consequently, these competing policies that find their roots in security issues resulted in the failure of the “reset” policy.
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Appendix Appendix 1 Table 1 The Number of Presidential Meetings between the United States and Russia, 1992-2013 The Number of Presidential Meetings 1992 3 1993 3 1994 3 1995 3 1996 2 1997 3 1998 2 1999 2 2000 3 2001 4 2002 5 2003 2 2004 1 2005 3