Russian pundits see ties with USA unaffected by poll outcome

(Interfax – November 5, 2012) The outcome of the US presidential election will not change Russian-US relations significantly, Russian pundits have said, as reported by the Russian privately-owned news agency Interfax on 5 November.

The first vice-president of the Centre for Political Technologies, Aleksey Makarkin, said that Obama’s victory would mean the continuation of the “reset” but problems would still remain.

Makarkin said: “Certainly, if Obama wins, then this will mean the prevalence of the course in relation to Russia. Discussions devoted to the reset will continue but, at the same time, problems on both Syria and missile defence will remain. Further talks on democracy and the development of human rights in Russia will continue.”

He added: “It is unlikely that there will be any serious changes even if Mitt Romney wins. Certainly, if he wins, then discussions on the reset will stop. However, all above-mentioned problems will remain and the agenda in the relations will be similar. In any case, if Romney wins, then he will prove himself more of a pragmatist in the presidential seat in contrast to the election campaign period when he took an emphatically critical position towards Russia.”

Meanwhile, first deputy head of the State Duma International Affairs Committee Vyacheslav Nikonov has said that the victory of either of the US presidential hopefuls would not change Russian-US relations fundamentally.

“This will not fundamentally change anything in terms of Russian-US relations with the exception that Obama had earlier told the Russian leadership that it would be easier for him to conduct dialogues with Moscow after the election,” Nikonov said.

He added: “In case of Obama’s victory there is nothing that indicates the development of relations along a crisis scenario. If Mitt Romney wins, then judging by his team, certainly, one may fail to come to the happiest conclusion. His main foreign policy experts are such that they attest to the possibility of problem relations between Russia and the USA.”

Although seeming to agree with other experts in general, political analyst Nikolay Zlobin painted a bleak picture of Russian-US relations.

Zlobin said: “In principle, regardless of Romney’s victory or defeat, one can say that Russian-US relations will continue to worsen in general; regardless of who will lead these two countries because the potential for improving relations between Russia and the USA, which had existed in the past several years, has been used up. But problems, which remain and which cannot be resolved, are deepening. Therefore, relations are fraught with becoming worse.”

In turn, the chairman of the presidium of the public council on foreign defence policy, Sergey Karaganov, said that Russian-US relations had started to cool down during the current US administration.

Karaganov said: “I believe that the relations will not change fundamentally. Cooling has already taken place under the current administration. All of Mitt Romney’s statements on Russia must be divided by four since he will inherit the same problems that Barak Obama’s is bearing now. However, it will be even more difficult for him (Romney) to solve them since he has not offered very effective ways to resolve them.”