(The National Interest) (Co-authored by Ivan Kurilla) Hope that the U.S.-Russia “reset” would survive Vladimir Putin’s return to the Russian presidency has crumbled in the last few months, as Moscow pulled out of several cooperative agreements underpinning the U.S.-Russia partnership.
All is not lost, however. Moscow and Washington still agree on a global agenda they can tackle in concert. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described his first meeting with new U.S. secretary of state John Kerry in Berlin on February 26, discussing Syria and Russian orphans, as “constructive.” Following talks on nonproliferation cooperation last week, Rose Gottemoeller, acting U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, and Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov were similarly upbeat.
More significantly, while the Putin administration may have allowed itself a new bout of anti-Americanism over the last year, the Russian people have not fallen in line. When it comes to Russian public opinion, the “reset” is alive and well. The United States should seize the opportunity to react to increased Russian receptivity to Western engagement.
To be sure, the path forward remains murky. Moscow has withdrawn its invitation to the U.S. Agency for International Development to support development work in Russia; did not renew the 20-year-old Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, by which the United States helps Russia safeguard and eliminate weapons of mass destruction; terminated a ten-year old agreement on law-enforcement and drug-control cooperation; and banned U.S. citizens or organizations from financing Russian nongovernmental organizations engaged in “political” or vaguely “threatening” activity. And, yes, Moscow also banned Americans from adopting Russian orphans.
The Kremlin argues that it is responding to the United States’ own retreat from the reset. Late last year, a bipartisan congressional consensus led the Obama administration to introduce sanctions – visa bans and asset freezes – against a potentially open-ended list of Russian officials whom Washington believes have been guilty of violating the rights of human-rights defenders and anti-government whistleblowers.
But Washington is not the primary target of the Kremlin’s recent bout of anti-Americanism. What might look like the start of a new U.S.-Russian spat reflects the dynamics of an internal Russian political struggle. […]
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Ivan Kurilla is Professor of History and Chair of the Department of International Relations and Area Studies at Volgograd State University in Russia. Cory Welt is Associate Director of the George Washington University’s Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies and an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for American Progress.
