Dmitry Trenin: The Reset Has Begun
[Dmitry Trenin is director of the Carnegie Moscow Center.]
NATO soldiers marching in Red Square on Victory Day. Moscow agreeing on a compromise resolution of the 40-year sea-boundary dispute with Norway. The sight of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin kneeling at the memorial to the Polish officers murdered by Stalin’s regime at Katyn. These are a few glimpses of what the New Europe newspaper two weeks ago described as a kinder, gentler Russia. But three questions immediately arise: Is this real? Why the change? And how to respond to Russia’s new foreign policy?
In this case, what you see is what you get. Russia’s tone, especially toward the United States, began to change last year, but the Kremlin’s support for a fourth version of United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran demonstrates that, today, there is real substance. Moreover, surrendering territorial claims in the Arctic — the stakes in the dispute with Norway — is no small matter.
Putin’s joint visit to Katyn with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in April was, of course, symbolic. But serious conversations between the two men started in September, during Putin’s visit to Gdansk to mark the 70th anniversary of the beginning of World War II. The kneeling act was also followed, just three days later, by Russian officials going out of their way to help investigate the air crash in Russia that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and scores of Polish dignitaries, and to pay respects to the victims.
An apparently genuine internal Foreign Ministry document, which was published in Russian Newsweek on May 10, made it clear that the Kremlin now prioritizes relations with the United States and Europe. All of this is a far cry from the 2007 Victory Day parade on Red Square, when then-President Putin compared President George W. Bush’s policies to those of the Third Reich; or when Russia resumed strategic bomber air patrols in 2007 along the Norwegian coast and into the North Atlantic and the Caribbean; or President Dmitry Medvedev’s address to the nation on Nov. 5, 2008 — the day after Barack Obama was elected U.S. president — when Medvedev threatened to deploy Iskander short-range missiles in Kaliningrad.
Four factors have contributed most to this positive reversal: the Georgia war of 2008, the global economic crisis, the Obama factor and China’s relentless rise...
Read entire article at Moscow Times
NATO soldiers marching in Red Square on Victory Day. Moscow agreeing on a compromise resolution of the 40-year sea-boundary dispute with Norway. The sight of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin kneeling at the memorial to the Polish officers murdered by Stalin’s regime at Katyn. These are a few glimpses of what the New Europe newspaper two weeks ago described as a kinder, gentler Russia. But three questions immediately arise: Is this real? Why the change? And how to respond to Russia’s new foreign policy?
In this case, what you see is what you get. Russia’s tone, especially toward the United States, began to change last year, but the Kremlin’s support for a fourth version of United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran demonstrates that, today, there is real substance. Moreover, surrendering territorial claims in the Arctic — the stakes in the dispute with Norway — is no small matter.
Putin’s joint visit to Katyn with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in April was, of course, symbolic. But serious conversations between the two men started in September, during Putin’s visit to Gdansk to mark the 70th anniversary of the beginning of World War II. The kneeling act was also followed, just three days later, by Russian officials going out of their way to help investigate the air crash in Russia that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and scores of Polish dignitaries, and to pay respects to the victims.
An apparently genuine internal Foreign Ministry document, which was published in Russian Newsweek on May 10, made it clear that the Kremlin now prioritizes relations with the United States and Europe. All of this is a far cry from the 2007 Victory Day parade on Red Square, when then-President Putin compared President George W. Bush’s policies to those of the Third Reich; or when Russia resumed strategic bomber air patrols in 2007 along the Norwegian coast and into the North Atlantic and the Caribbean; or President Dmitry Medvedev’s address to the nation on Nov. 5, 2008 — the day after Barack Obama was elected U.S. president — when Medvedev threatened to deploy Iskander short-range missiles in Kaliningrad.
Four factors have contributed most to this positive reversal: the Georgia war of 2008, the global economic crisis, the Obama factor and China’s relentless rise...