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Letter: Obama’s reset of Russia ties offers lesson for Biden

Letter: Obama’s reset of Russia ties offers lesson for Biden

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2 mins read

From Geoffrey Roberts, Emeritus Professor of History, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland Philip Stephens (“The case for a Biden-Putin thaw”, Opinion, November 20) is wrong to state that Barack Obama’s “reset” with Russia “went nowhere”. It was quite a successful policy turn that […]
From Geoffrey Roberts, Emeritus Professor of History, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland
Philip Stephens (“The case for a Biden-Putin thaw”, Opinion, November 20) is wrong to state that Barack Obama’s “reset” with Russia “went nowhere”.
It was quite a successful policy turn that improved the atmosphere in American-Russian relations and resulted in a new treaty on nuclear arms reductions and the deal that ended Iran’s atomic bomb programme. Supported by Vladimir Putin, who was then prime minister, president Dmitry Medvedev responded to the reset with enthusiasm and revived Moscow’s longstanding proposal for a pan-European collective security system including Russian membership of Nato.
That reset was destroyed by the west’s disastrous regime change intervention in Libya in 2011, by its catastrophic fanning of the flames of civil war in Syria and by its ill-judged support for the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected president in 2014. Since then, sabre-rattling, sanctimonious sanctions and Russophobic propaganda have been the hallmarks of western policy towards Russia.
Mr Stephens proposes that president-elect Joe Biden should double-down on this hardline policy towards Russia by being “implacably tough” with Mr Putin from the outset. A renewed reset, he argues, can only succeed on the basis of “enduring change” in Mr Putin’s behaviour.
Mr Obama’s reset was based on conciliation, negotiation and compromise. That’s the only approach to Russia that has ever worked and it can do so again, but first the west has to step back from its dangerous confrontation with Mr Putin.
Geoffrey Roberts
Emeritus Professor of History
University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

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