When Washington and Moscow don’t see eye to eye, disaster can ensue.
Tensions between the United States and Russia rose rapidly during the final months of the Obama administration. Symbolizing that trend is the new deployment of three thousand U.S. troops along with tanks and other military hardware in eastern Poland, directly on that country’s border with Russia. That decision drew an angry rebuke from Moscow.
Long gone was the hope Obama expressed early in his presidency for a “reset” of relations with Russia. Equally obsolete was the president’s ridicule of GOP nominee Mitt Romney for stating that Russia was America’s principal adversary. “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back,” Obama mocked his opponent in a presidential debate.
Since then, bilateral relations have deteriorated rapidly. The United States led the charge to impose economic sanctions on Russia in response to Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and support for rebel forces in eastern Ukraine. In its waning weeks in office, the Obama administration imposed a new round of sanctions for Russia’s alleged cyber hacking of the Democratic National Committee and other supposed interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. Vice President Joe Biden epitomized Washington’s hard-line attitude when he branded Russia as the most serious threat to the global order.
The reality, though, is that underlying tensions in the bilateral relationship have been ascendant for the past two decades. Despite occasional conciliatory rhetoric, U.S. actions during the initial post–Cold War decade suggested a lack of trust toward Russia—even during Boris Yeltsin’s presidency, to say nothing of the mounting suspicions once Vladimir Putin succeeded Yeltsin. The first round of NATO expansion took place in 1998, while Yeltsin was president, and long before U.S. officials could point to Putin’s aggressive moves as justification for adopting anti-Russian policies.
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