Cancellation of Obama-Putin Meeting: Telltale Sign of Loss of Diplomatic Influence for the US?

Barack Obama will not meet with Vladimir Putin for one-on-one talks in Moscow next month. The White House’s decision, linked to the Snowden affair, sparked a flood of reactions that led to reports, more or less accurate, that the Cold War had returned. The U.S. president himself contributed to the exaggerated take on the current disagreements between Washington and Moscow by confirming on two different occasions that Russian leaders, and President Putin in particular, appear locked in a way of thinking worthy of the rivalry that prevailed between the United States and the USSR from the end of WWII until the start of the 1990s. Relations between the U.S. and Russia have clearly cooled over the last few months. Furthermore, recent events highlight a worrying lack of diplomatic leadership skills on the part of the Obama administration.

The “Reset” of Relations with Washington: Moscow Has Been Cast Aside

The U.S. and Russian presidents were scheduled to meet in Moscow before the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg on Sept. 5 and 6. The fact that the Russian government granted temporary asylum to Edward Snowden, who had revealed the extent of the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance programs, is the direct reason for the cancellation of this meeting. Obama’s administration had to react to such an affront. Consequently, the cancellation of the face-to-face meeting between Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin is the appropriate diplomatic response, moderate if not timorous. Obama could even have cancelled his participation in the G-20 summit or — even better — made a public declaration in Russia expressing his concern over the Russian government’s authoritarian tendencies.

The disagreements between Washington and Moscow, however, are not limited to the Snowden affair. It actually seems that Barack Obama’s attempt to “reset” relations with Russia, which he has publically committed to doing since the 2008 presidential campaign, is currently at an impasse. Yet the initial results, after talks between Washington and Moscow resumed, were promising. In April 2009, Obama and Medvedev signed the New START Treaty, a nuclear arms reduction pact that was implemented on Feb. 5, 2011. According to the treaty, the two countries agree to establish a plan to supply U.S. forces in Afghanistan with provisions, as well as implement sanctions against Iran. The United States would also back Russia’s membership in the WTO.

Relations between Washington and Moscow degraded with Vladimir Putin’s return to the Kremlin in May 2012. In fact, the relationship between Obama and Putin did not start off on the best of terms. In July 2009, when Putin, then prime minister, invited Obama to Russia, the U.S. president made it very clear that he preferred to do business with Putin’s counterpart, President Medvedev. Putin, who apparently did not hold a grudge against Obama for his initial rejection, did his part by agreeing to work closely with Barack Obama when he returned as president in 2012. This favorable relationship seemed to be genuine in April 2013 in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, carried out by two brothers of Chechen origin. Americans and Russians then saluted their unity and close cooperation against terrorism.

Nowadays, the disagreements and the differences of opinion and viewpoint are numerous between the two countries and grow progressively more obvious every day. This is ever more apparent in the following two examples: political freedom in Russia and Syria. In the first case, Americans wish to counter what they perceive as authoritarian tendencies on the part of the Russian government. In December 2012, Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, which imposed sanctions on Russia in response to human rights violations. In April 2013, the State Department published a list of 18 Russian officials forbidden from visiting the United States — a reaction to the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison in 2009. Russia responded by publishing their own list of Americans forbidden from visiting Russia and passing a law prohibiting American families from adopting Russian orphans. More recently, during his press conference on Aug. 9, Barack Obama denounced a law criminalizing “homosexual propaganda” in Russia — without, however, supporting the idea of boycotting the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi.

Syria is the other major issue the two countries disagree on. Moscow supports Bashar al-Assad’s regime and is opposed to any resolution on the part of the United Nations Security Council that would open the way to military intervention. Washington has been asking for Assad’s resignation for the past two years, but is nevertheless hesitant to offer unconditional support to the rebels. Regarding Syria, the Americans and Russians have only managed to agree on the idea of organizing an international conference that would take place in Geneva. Discussions over the organization of this conference are now stalled.

Obama, an Unskilled “Diplomatic Leader”

If the hostility between Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin is not the sole reason behind the strained relations that prevail at the moment between the United States and Russia, it highlights the factors that contribute to the Obama administration’s diplomatic failures. The diplomatic skills of the White House’s current leader are indeed suffering from two important problems.

Firstly, Barack Obama does not appear particularly skilled in building favorable relations with his counterparts abroad. This element of diplomatic activity could not alone guarantee extraordinary results. Nevertheless, it cannot be neglected. Since [his assumption of the presidency in] 2009, it doesn’t seem that Obama has developed particularly cordial relations with foreign leaders. This is the case not only with leaders of rival countries such as Russia and China, but also with partners such as Israel and some European countries, and even with leaders of countries that the United States has put a lot of time, effort and money into, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Secondly, even though Theodore Roosevelt suggested that a leader should “speak softly and carry a big stick,” the United States (and most Western countries) resort more and more often to grandiose and absolutist rhetoric far removed from the subtlety and modesty of classical diplomatic language. This rhetoric presents serious risks. On the one hand, it creates an atmosphere of immature behavior that has harmful effects on international relations, and which may lead to unfortunate consequences. On the other hand, if [rhetoric] is not followed by action, the credibility of a player on the international scene is undermined.

Concerning the last point, the Obama administration’s track record is worrying, to say the least. Obama’s June 2009 speech in Cairo was — surprisingly — hailed by a number of observers. The Obama administration’s inability to stop Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, as well as the Middle East’s disapproval of the United States’ reaction to various political movements there (following the military coup against President Morsi in Egypt, particularly), will not help boost the Middle East’s tarnished view of the United States. Yet this was the major goal set out in Obama’s speech in Cairo. In addition, the lack of action following abusive words such as “unacceptable” and “intolerable” to describe the situation in Syria, the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, and the blockades of the United Nations Security Council reinforces the perception that the United States is a paper tiger.

Consequently, foreign leaders are not very fond of Obama and fear him even less. Thus, they feel they have nothing to lose when making decisions that are “extremely” unpopular among Obama’s administration, such as Russia and China’s offers of political asylum to Edward Snowden, the aggressive denunciations of the nation’s errors (as Hamid Karzai does on a regular basis) and Iraq’s Nouri al-Maliki’s indifference toward the United States.