Why It Is Possible to Consider Putin and Obama’s Negotiations a Success

Hardly any serious analysts expected any sort of breakthrough to occur during the personal meetings between the Russian and American presidents. There is simply far too much profound conflict between Russia and the U.S. regarding the most pressing issues — Syria and Ukraine, in particular. The screeching, stinging tone of accusation is simply too strong; the level of information wars and propaganda skirmishes is too high. Finally, the leaders of the two top nuclear powers have simply taken too long to meet. The world is not afraid of the re-emergence of the Cold War; rather, they are afraid of the transition of the conflict, through some ridiculous occurrences, into a “hot” one.

Moreover, even fewer serious observers expected the speeches of the Russian and U.S. presidents at the U.N. General Assembly to contain breakthroughs in the form of passages urging reconciliation, as well as mutual repentance for their own actions. This political setting does not at all imply this type of behavior.

Nonetheless, numerous journalists and expert commentators on the U.S. act as if they have waited a long time for this mythical “breakthrough” that for some reason did not take place. They speculate back and forth — who “outplayed” or “outsmarted” whom, who was tougher, who was more flexible, who overcame whom, how many times and on what grounds did someone purposefully spread harmful information in order to discredit the other (although they never call it this), what were the secret motives behind the meeting of the two presidents and what were the true goals behind their speeches to the U.N. General Assembly — in order to fill the media void, and to fill in exactly what conclusions we should draw from “Super Monday in New York” (the opening of the U.N. General Assembly).

In reality, everything is being done as usual — not in a rush, in a corridor or as an expected happenstance, but via “e-prepared,” agreed upon and sufficiently long personal meetings between two leaders. The meetings, which were not excessively long for such troubled times, marked the catastrophic brittleness of the old international system and the sharp downturn in relations. In the modern world, the rupture of political and military contacts between the two main nuclear powers under the conditions of increasing international crisis is completely unacceptable. Instead of inventing motives to explain your opponent’s behavior, one should, at a minimum, find out what these motives actually are and explore this from every angle. Otherwise, one runs a great risk of not understanding them at all. The consequence of this is catastrophic.

The meeting of the presidents allowed us to find out and know for certain the positions and motives of both sides. We now understand where they are diametrically and irreconcilably opposed to each other, where there is the potential for compromise and where their opinions coincide. I would even be so bold as to say that even if it is discovered during the negotiations that neither side agrees with the other at all, it would still be possible for the negotiations to be considered a success, as they have made it clear what each side can expect from the other. It really seems to me that the presidents’ negotiations have opened the door to an even wider range of possibilities: the stated commitment to the Minsk Protocol, the understanding of the necessary war against the terrorists of the Islamic State (the group is banned in the Russian Federation) and, perhaps, even some sort of future negotiations regarding the exit of Assad from his leadership position in Syria and the establishment of a transitional government. Additionally, neither side has any desire to expose excessive violations of U.N. principles.

The publicly announced negotiations regarding regulated contact and conversations between the heads of foreign ministries and military agencies inspire confidence. In fact, the meeting between Lavrov and Kerry was not derailed, and not long ago became the first lengthy telephone conversation held between the ministers of defense. However, the meeting between the two presidents has established this kind of contact as a clear necessity, and there is hope that this will become a regular practice.

As is evident, the issue here is not so much contact between ministers as it is the importance of maintaining the security of military contacts at lower levels of expertise. This is done in order to avoid unsanctioned incidents in conflict zones — what is called “military-to-military.”

I would prefer if more was done. However, it is always easier to destroy than it is to repair.