Presidents Obama, and Medvedev (and Prime Minister Putin) seem to be having a good summit. Nuclear talks look like they have gone well, there has been mention of expanding NATO’s transit for its Afghan mission through Russia, and the mood – crucial at any summit – has been reasonably good. Nobody stared into any one else’s soul, but the leaders nonetheless agreed, as Bush and Putin did a few years ago, that the US and Russia can do business.
But is a rapprochement between the US and Russia really possible? Dmitri Trenin, of Carnegie Russia, says the West and Russia share many threats. But he also says that anti-Westernism is an “obsession” on the part of Russia’s elite. You need to look no further than Russia’s recently updated National Security Strategy to see this strategic schizophrenia. It talks about threats such as demographic change and economic dislocation but then attacks NATO and the US.
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