Obama’s Legacy and Russia

Visits by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his deputy, Victoria Nuland, to Russia have made commentators once again talk about relations between Russia and Washington, relations upon which in preceding months it seemed they’d already given up. Is this really a turning point?

First and foremost, it’s worth recalling what’s nearly forgotten: State-to-state interaction doesn’t at all necessarily have to have as its goal reaching an agreement about something. During the Cold War, the quite intensive communication between the two countries by no means always had as its goal concluding an agreement or even resolving a particular issue. The far more urgent task was understanding the logic of the opposing side’s actions and, where possible, intentions. A system of “risk management” was one of the results of the first stages of the confrontation, which reached a climax during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Approaching a dangerous boundary, the sides saw to the creation of a system that would allow them to manage the confrontation and prevent it from spilling over established limits.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, these arrangements and know-how began to be lost, since it seemed like they weren’t needed anymore. The risk of war ceased to be perceived as real, while intercommunication activity without fail had to lead to concrete results. But the political changes of 2014 to 2015 have shown that hopes for the definitive and irreversible denouement of confrontation were illusions. The manners and mores of the Cold War era have returned, and here there are no tools to keep them in check. Moreover, for quite a long time the very mention of the need to re-establish them evoked an indignant reaction from the West: How can we return to the methods of confrontation!

The U.S. line toward Moscow from the moment Crimea became part of the Russian Federation has been roughly as follows: minimizing contacts so long as the Kremlin hasn’t changed its behavior. Sergey Lavrov and John Kerry met quite regularly but discussed specific topics, mainly Ukraine and the Middle East. In fact, Russian-American relations remained for the most part the subject of public and behind-the-other’s-back polemics, which only made the situation worse. Iran brightened things up slightly, what with the joint participation in the intensive negotiations over the future of its nuclear program. But overall, the agenda came almost to naught.

Such a line didn’t bring any results. Washington’s expectations that Russia would change course on Ukraine didn’t pan out. On the other hand, it became clear that it’s also difficult for Moscow to count on acceptable stability coming about in a neighboring country against the will and without the participation of the United States. Well, and finally, tension began to grow overall, tension that finds expression in all sorts of unpleasant incidents involving Russia and NATO’s military ships and aircraft. Every such incident is most likely exaggerated and exacerbates things, but a problem exists, and it very much demands utilizing “good old” communication arrangements.

That said, there can be no talk of a full-scale cold war. In the past, it was silly to discuss “common challenges” between the Kremlin and the White House; now they’re obvious and there’s no way around them. For example, Moscow and Washington have different understandings of the genesis of events in the Middle East, but they don’t dispute that the Islamic State is a threat both to Russians and Americans.

Barack Obama is entering the final stage of his presidency, a time when the head of state thinks, above all, about his legacy. Obama ended up with a difficult period that is precipitating the deconstruction of the world order, so it was objectively difficult to achieve international success. And indeed, he didn’t get by without serious mistakes. It’s all the more important now to focus on those areas that are amenable to making a mark in history. In Obama’s case, this is first and foremost Iran, possibly Cuba. Completing the Iranian epic requires diligent work on all fronts, and the agreement taking shape is very fragile, so maximum cooperation from all sides, including from Russia, is necessary.

In broader terms, Obama, of course, doesn’t want to leave the Middle East in the chaotic state it’s in now; here Russia’s participation, or at the very least neutrality, is also needed. Ukraine, on the other hand, doesn’t bode well in terms of a legacy. The U.S. president realizes that a breakthrough isn’t on the horizon.

Thus, the new chapter in Russian-American relations (until the start of 2017), by all appearances, will look something like this: establishing working communication at the level of persons responsible for political-military security in order to minimize the risk of accidental conflict; and exchanging views and possible action on the situation in the Middle East. There’s no point waiting for a unified position, but there won’t be an outright standoff either. In the case of Iran, active cooperation is even likely; there won’t be any drastic steps on Syria. Positions on Ukraine will remain in opposition, but, most likely, both sides will try to avoid escalation.

The present modus vivendi doesn’t mean the rhetoric will soften. On the contrary, any real reduction in tension might have to be offset by more combative statements. But by and large, this situation might continue until the end of Obama’s presidency. And what comes next will depend on many factors, not least of which are the dynamics of both sides’ relations with China.