Negotiating With Russia

Should the U.S. be willing to “trade off” Georgia and Ukraine’s NATO aspirations in return for Russian support for U.S. missile defense systems in Central Europe?

“Well, I think first of all the administration has said very clearly and publicly that there will be no trade-offs,” Scheunemann responded. “Trade-offs like that are kind of a relic of a bygone era of power politics.” - Randy Scheunemann, foreign policy advisor to John McCain, April, 2008.

"We're not going to reassure or give or trade anything with the Russians regarding NATO expansion or missile defense" Michael McFaul, special assistant to President Obama and senior director for Russian and Eurasian affairs. July, 2009

As a negotiating tactic, it makes sense not to preemptively concede anything. In that vein, McFaul's stance is understandable. As a practical matter, I'm struggling to understand the sentiment. The U.S. has a number of issues on its plate with Russia and not all of them are of equal importance or significance to U.S. security. Why wouldn't we, at the end of the day, identify which issues are of greater importance and seek to pursue those, even if we have to concede issues of less significance?