Problems with the Reset Button

Jed Babbin, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for George HW Bush, recently published an op-ed in The Washington Examiner titled "The pravda about Hillary Clinton's Russian 'reset'".

In the article, he lambasts the failures of the reset citing both the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011 (freezes assets and bars entry into the US for individuals associated with Magnitsky's death) and the recent, headline-grabbing Dima Yakovlev Law (which does the same thing as its American counterpart, but goes further by banning the apoption of Russian children by US citizens).

Gotta admit... it looks pretty cool

He goes on to criticize Russian submarine deployments near our east coast, the development of new Russian weapons systems such as the T-50 stealth fighter and the new, highly advanced Borei Class Nuclear Missile Submarine, and of course, the troubling relationships between Russia, Syria, and Iran.

He concludes by saying, "By any objective measure, Clinton's 'reset' hasn't worked".

He is completely right, the reset has not worked at all... However, Babbin fails to account for our own failures in resetting relations.

The real question I'm getting at is "why would Russia want to reset relations with us?"

Courtesy BBC

1) We continue to plan, promote, and install the European Anti-Ballistic Missile shield despite the fact that the hosting nations don't want them, and the Kremlin will move missile batteries to counter them.

2) We expect Russia to get on board with our plans to remove dangerous leaders- Gaddafi, Assad, Ahmadinejad- when Russia has a financial and geopolitical interest not to do so (alliances based on multi-billion dollar weapon contracts).

3) We have given Russia a pass on human right violations before -most notably in Chechnya- so, in their eyes, why the sudden fuss over Sergei Magnitsky?

So on point number 1: The United States has a commitment to protect its allies in Europe from any foreign threat-- including Russia.  But why do the missile batteries have to be ours? If Poland, Czechoslovakia, Turkey, etc... are concerned of the threat from either Russia or Iran, why can't they operate a system purchased from us? That would remove US personel from the equation and allow the continent to defend itself from foreign threat with the promise of US backup in the event of something catastrophic.

Number 2: Obviously there is a giant moral problem surrounding the above mentioned leaders. They kill their citizens, saber-rattle with their neighbors, and all around just aren't nice people. However, for Russia, they are good customers and some of their only remaining allies following the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Russia sees the West taking away its allies and disrupting a solid source of revenue. We won't be able to have a negotiation with Russia about these leaders without negotiating the future of arms agreements. Arguing morals has not and will not work; we need speak the global language of finance.

Number 3: The Russian concepts of democracy and human rights are completely different from ours. Democracy is a new experience (that the old guard does not like) and human rights have never been held in high regard.  The state is and always has been the highest authority. Russia sees NGO's from the west as groups of individuals deliberately meddling in their affairs with money from Washington. In several cases I'm sure that is exactly what happened, and I honestly hope they succeed in making Russia more democratic... but...

If we are going to sit across the negotiating table from Mr. Putin, we can't ride in on our high horse about human rights. We have no problem acknowledging the failures of other nations in human rights, but when it comes to our own faults we remain silent.

The first step in resetting relations with Moscow is admitting that we are 50% of the problem. Only then can a true reset happen. The US and Russia will not see eye to eye on all issues, but using increasingly combative and reactionary rhetoric with Russia will only push us back to where we were 50 years ago- the Cold War.