MOSCOW — President Barack Obama’s efforts to “reset” relations with Russia were in full view Monday in his joint news conference with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev — but if their first summit is any indication, the two leaders are going to have to hit control-alt-delete a few more times.
Obama, admittedly, faces a daunting task. On top of 50 years of icy Cold War mistrust, he has to deal with the aftermath of high-level U.S.-Russia turbulence during the Bush years, a period that began with the former U.S. president adoringly gazing into Vladimir Putin’s soul and ended with the Russians furious over the Iraq war, missile defense and a general feeling from Washington that Moscow didn’t much matter in the neoconservative view of the cosmos.
Add to that the ongoing high-wire act that U.S. officials have to walk between engaging Russia and expressing alarm at its increasingly authoritarian character, and even the immensely charismatic Obama couldn’t wave a wand and magically change the mood no matter how hard he seemed to be trying on the grand stage at the Kremlin.
The biggest achievement touted from the summit — and the only document the two men signed — was a nonbinding “joint understanding” setting target ranges for a new round of nuclear arms reductions.
But a look at the fine print shows the deal is less than meets the eye, experts said. The two presidents punted on how to count total weapons or total warheads — a crucial detail in the mathematics of arms reductions. And they committed in writing only to finish the deal “at the earliest possible date,” though Obama said it would be done by year’s end, when the current Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expires. - Politico Story
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