Russia and the US Dump the Reset and Prepare for New Confrontation

Toward the end of this year, it became clear that after a few years of showing friendship, Moscow and Washington returned to a more habitual relationship of distrust. They had a falling-out over plans to deploy the American Missile Defense System in Europe, which the U.S. and NATO flatly refuse to establish together with Russia. The two sides still hope to avoid confrontation, but are doing practically nothing to accomplish this.

The failure of the Russian-American reset, which President Dmitri Medvedev and President Barack Obama so proudly launched, is the main outcome of this year regarding the relationship between the two countries. During the time of demonstrated friendship, which both leaders emphasized at any convenient opportunity, Russia and the U.S. probably approached the level of a true partnership for the first time ever in their relationship. They agreed to the New START treaty and ratified it, albeit with difficulty. Moscow and Washington acted with surprising cooperation in relation to other countries: they supported UN Security Council sanctions against Iran, and together they denounced the Gadhafi regime in Libya. Moreover, by abstaining from the UN Security Council vote on Resolution 1973, which authorized the use of any methods of action in Tripoli other than ground intervention, Moscow in fact freed the hands of the West, which then began operations in Libya.

However, during the course of the year, the reset, as well as the friendship of Mr. Medvedev and Mr. Obama, did not pass the test of durability. They fell out over the long-planned U.S. deployment of the Missile Defense System in Europe, the establishment of which Washington has already advocated. First, the West rejected Moscow’s initiative to create the system jointly; Dmitri Medvedev proposed this idea a year ago at the Russia-NATO Summit in Lisbon. Then, the U.S. was long silent in answer to the Russian proposal to sign a legally binding guarantee that the Missile Defense System would not be directed against Russia’s strategic nuclear forces.

A real chance to bring the two positions on Missile Defense closer together was lost at the G8 Summit in Deauville in May. There was an agreed declaration stating that the two parties must develop guarantees that “missile defense in Europe will not negatively affect the capabilities of the strategic deterrent forces to contribute to strategic stability.”* But at the last moment, the Americans thought better of signing even that harmless document. Russia, in turn, responded by refusing the American proposal to visit the headquarters of the Missile Defense Agency or to take part in the testing of the American Missile Defense System in the spring of 2012.

As a result, this year ended with relations between the two countries at a particularly low level. On Nov. 23, Dmitri Medvedev made a televised address in which he sharply criticized the U.S. for its intransigence in the Missile Defense talks and threatened retaliatory measures, including military measures. Among them were the deployment of weapons systems in Russia’s south and west, capable of defeating the European component of the Missile Defense System, and the equipment of ballistic missiles with the means to overcome that system. Finally, the Russian leader threatened to pull out of the START treaty.

After such a rebuke, there is no reason to speak of the continuation of the cloudless period of the reset in Russian-American relations. High-ranking Russian officials recognize this.

“Roughly speaking, we have entered a zone of conflict, in which the lack of progress on the Missile Defense talks is overlapping the elections in both countries. In this situation, it is practically impossible to agree on anything. However, the lack of progress in talks and all sorts of impositions do not explain the main thing: the continuation of work on deployment of the known phases of the Missile Defense System. For Russia, this is unacceptable,” Vice-Premier Dmitri Rogozin told Kommersant, while still involved in talks on the Missile Defense System as Russia’s Permanent Representative to NATO.

According to him, on Nov. 23, Moscow clearly indicated that there will be no leniency. “We have driven everything into a corner. We have come to a red line which must not be crossed. What we need is, first, documentary evidence that the system that they establish will be modified or formulated in such a way that it really cannot threaten us; second, a stable, long-term legal guarantee that the U.S. Missile Defense System will not be directed against us and rejection of military plans for use of this system against Russian strategic nuclear forces, including real confidence-building measures. Right now there is neither the one, nor the other,” concluded Dmitri Rogozin.

In the case that Moscow demands guarantees and Washington flatly refuses to be bound by any obligations regarding the Missile Defense System, it is impossible to predict what could develop from the verbal confrontation between these two nuclear powers. Now the two parties are taking a time-out from the talks until Jan. 15 so that after the holidays, they can try to come to an agreement. If there is no progress after that date, Moscow intends to skip the Russia-NATO Summit scheduled for this spring in Chicago.

*Editor’s Note: This quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.