NEWSLINK: Resetting the Reset: The United States needs to decide whether to treat Russia as a marginal global actor or an asset in America’s global strategy.

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(Resetting the Reset: The United States needs to decide whether to treat Russia as a marginal global actor or an asset in America’s global strategy – Foreign Policy – Dmitri Trenin – November 5, 2012 – Dmitri Trenin is director of the Carnegie Moscow Center – http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/05/resetting_the_reset)

Writing in Foreign Policy, Dmitry Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center holds that U.S. policy on Russia needs a reassessment regardless of the outcome of the 2012 presidential election:

Whoever wins the U.S. presidency, Washington’s Russia policy needs a reassessment and a rethink. The “reset” has run its course.
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The real choice for the new administration lies between keeping Russia on the periphery of the U.S. foreign policy, which means essentially taking a tactical approach, and treating Russia as an asset in America’s global strategy.

But there is a risk that Russia will be downplayed:

As the United States struggles with the plethora of issues in the Middle East, Iran, and Afghanistan, and focuses more on China and Asia, Russia will be seen as a marginal or irrelevant factor. In some cases, as in Afghanistan, Moscow will continue to provide valuable logistical support; in others, such as Iran’s nuclear program, it might be considered useful, but only up to a point; in still other cases, like Syria, it will be regarded as a spoiler due to its consistent opposition to the U.S. effort to topple the Assad regime. As regards China and East Asia, the United States will continue to ignore Russia, whose resources and role are believed to be negligible in that part of the world. Tellingly, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s seminal “pivot” article in Foreign Policy did not care to mention Russia at all.

At the same time, there also are the domestic political shifts within Russia itself.

But Russia also remains a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, and there are a wide range of issues on which the United States and Russia either have shared interests and concerns, or can impact ech other’s interests.

Have the United State and Russia fully adjusted to the new realities of their post-Soviet relationship?

The intellectual problem facing U.S. policymakers is that present-day Russia is neither an ally to be led nor a serious threat to be contained. This problem needs to be addressed if U.S. foreign policy is to be more than a fire brigade rushing from one conflict to another (be that Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, or Syria) or a power engaged in successive confrontations — with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and, as some believe, possibly with China. The starting point for escaping that pattern is thinking through the implications of the fundamental geopolitical, economic, demographic, technological changes in the international system. At the moment, the United States seems to be too much obsessed with the rise of China and over-preoccupied with the developments in the Arab world. By contrast, Europe, Africa, India, Latin America, and Russia are all getting scant attention. For a truly global policy, there has to be a better balance.

As to the Russia policy proper, three strategic goals would make sense. First is achieving practical cooperation with Moscow through coordinated missile defenses in Europe, which would not only make the Euro-Atlantic a zone of stable peace, but also ensure that Russia will not be on the wrong side of the United States in the evolving global balance. Second is promoting economic cooperation in the North Pacific, where the United States and Russia are near neighbors. A joint project, also involving Canada, Japan, and other countries such as Australia can both help Russia develop its Siberian and Pacific provinces, and contribute to overall stability in the region. Third is the joint economic, transport, and infrastructure development of the Arctic, where Russia has the longest shoreline of the five littoral countries.

(these notes barely touch upon some of the points raised in the commentary; click here for full article: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/05/resetting_the_reset)

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