Russian Reset a Cold War Restart

09 August 2011 | 18:27 Code : 15266 Latest Headlines

Nationalinterest--Recent statements by Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Rogozin, the Russian president's Special Representative for Missile-Defense Cooperation with NATO, raised hackles in Washington. Putin called the United States a “parasite” on the global economy, while Rogozin claimed that U.S. senators told him our missile defense is aimed at his country.

Putin was speaking at his United Russia Party youth camp on Lake Seliger, while Rogozin let his hair down during a visit to Washington. Their words were not uttered in a vacuum. Russia has also threatened to stop cooperating with the United States over Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, and North Korea, if Congress passes the Sergei Magnitsky sanctions. (Already the State Department has placed some 64 Russian officials affiliated with the death of the famous whistle-blower while in prison on a visa blacklist.)

The toughening Russian negotiating positions and rhetoric—including Putin’s outburst and Rogozin’s calling two U.S. senators “monsters of the Cold War”—suggest the Obama “reset” policy is failing and needs reassessment.

Last month, Rogozin requested a meeting with Senators Jon Kyl (R–Ariz.) and Mark Kirk (R–Ill.). Rogozin was accompanied by Sergei Kislyak, the Russian ambassador and arms-control expert; Colonel Anatoly Belinsky, acting Russian military representative to NATO; and Vladimir Leontyev, deputy director of the Department of Security Affairs and Disarmament of the Russian Foreign Ministry. The meeting did not go well, and the two sides provided diametrically opposed accounts of what went down. Rogozin stated: