Is the Russian reset dead?
Stephen Cohen charts the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations:
Still more, expanding NATO eastward has institutionalized a new and even larger geopolitical conflict with Russia. Moscowâ??s protests and countersteps against NATO encroachment, especially Medvedevâ??s statement in 2008 that Russia is entitled to a â??sphere of strategic interestsâ? in the former Soviet republics, have been indignantly denounced by American officials and commentators as â??Russiaâ??s determination to re-establish a sphere of influence in neighboring countries.â? Thus, Biden stated in Moscow in March, â??We will not recognize any state having a sphere of influence.â?But what is NATOâ??s eastward movement other than a vast expansion of Americaâ??s sphere of influenceâ??military, political and economicâ??into what had previously been Russiaâ??s? No US official or mainstream commentator will admit as much, but Saakashvili, the Georgian leader bent on joining the alliance, feels no such constraint. In 2010, he welcomed the growth of â??NATOâ??s presence in the regionâ? because it enables the United States and its allies to â??expand their sphere of influence.â? Of all the several double standards in US policy-makingâ??â??hypocrisy,â? Moscow chargesâ??none has done more to prevent an American-Russian partnership and to provoke a new cold war.
I think the lingering distrust on both sides explains why the initial bout of NATO expansion was (from Washington's point of view) necessary and inevitable and (from Russia's point of view) threatening. It was unrealistic to expect two countries that had been locked in a decades-long struggle to instantly shed their habits and cooperate in previously contested geopolitical space.
