John Hockenberry for The Takeaway: Yesterday, in Russia, the President stood before an audience of economics students and wanted his message to be absolutely unmistakable.
Recording of President Obama: Let me be clear: America wants a strong, peaceful and prosperous Russia. This belief is rooted in our respect for the Russian people, and a shared history between our nations that goes beyond competition.
John Hockenberry: In fact, you could call the shared history between the United States and Russia more of a rivalry. What is the state of that relationship now after this very important meeting between President Barack Obama and the President and the Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin. Medvedev, of course, the President. Continuing now our discussion with Strobe Talbott, he’s the President of the Brookings Institution and former Deputy Secretary of State during the Clinton administration, and author of most recently, “The Great Experiment: The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States, and the Quest for a Global Nation.” Strobe Talbott, you wrote a little bit about this idea of resetting the U.S.-Russian relationship which was ostensibly the mission of the Obama administration. First of all, we talked a little bit about that at the top of the hour, do you think “reset” is a relevant, useful term here?
Strobe Talbott: I think a lot of people are getting kind of tired of it. I think it also needs to be understood correctly. Resetting a relationship is a little bit like dancing the tango: It takes two to do it. Even the headlines in our own press keep talking about this as though it’s up to the United States all by itself to get things right with Russia. There’s an implication there, of course, that we all by ourselves, the U.S., got it wrong. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The Russians have a lot of resetting of their own to do. It’s going to take a long time to do it. It’s going to be a slogging operation diplomatically. But it took a step forward, I think, this week.
John Hockenberry: It seems to me that unlike some of the other receptions that Barack Obama has received around the world, he’s not coming to two leaders who have any interest in projecting a lot of change, projecting a lot of liberalization. These are very tough, hard-line Russian leaders who have an explicit agenda, and it involves territory in the caucuses and their relationship with difficult problems in Chechnya. They signaled well before Barack Obama arrived that they’re not moving on any of these issues.
Strobe Talbott: Well, all true up to a point, John. May I just make two points on that. First of all, I think there is still a case to be made, although it’s long from proven, that there are potentially some differences between President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, and we can go into that if you want. But there’s no question, as you suggest, that they’re joined at the hip to some extent and they’re joined at a pretty tough posture. President Obama needs to be very careful, in fact more careful than he was on the eve of this trip, not to appear to be trying to play the two off against each other, because that won’t do Medvedev any good if he is any better than Putin over the long run. So the real point here, and I think we ought to spend a second on this, is on the vitally important question of nuclear arms control, and there’s sort of a Back to the Future quality about that whole subject as we just went through the Cold War doing arms control with the Soviet Union. That enterprise is back on track now. That matters. And I think the hope is, and I think I’d even make a prediction, that some progress between now and the end of the year on strategic nuclear arms control will begin to move the relationship as a whole in a somewhat more positive direction.
John Hockenberry: So the strategy here is to talk about something that we agree on, or can agree on, the U.S. and Russia, and then make progress in a variety of other areas, and you’ve described them in some of your writing that if we talk about everything from the organization of cooperation, economic cooperation in Europe where Russia is an observer, you can also talk about other economic bilateral and multilateral organizations that Russia has been sort of quiet and now needs to be brought more into. There are a number of channels where this relationship can be improved.
Strobe Talbott: Right. And even on the really tough issues, and that means Iran and getting the U.S. and Russia more together on the Security Council to use sanctions if Iran remains on a belligerent course, which there’s every reason to expect it will. That too ought to be an area where the Russians will see their interest to be pretty closely aligned with the United States’ interest. They’re closer to Iran than we are, they’ve got a large culturally Islamic population. They shouldn’t want to see Iran become a nuclear weapons state. But, again, there is this deep, deep resentment which you alluded to at the top of the conversation that we’re having, of festering resentment about the United States. The Russians have a real case of the Rodney Dangerfield Syndrome, they just feel they don’t get enough respect and they’re just going to stomp their feet and get more, that’s sort of their tactic.
John Hockenberry: Strobe Talbott, President of the Brookings Institute, former Deputy Secretary of State for the Clinton administration. We’re talking about the potential change or repositioning of the U.S.-Russian relationship. You mentioned Iran a moment ago, Strobe Talbott, listen to Barack Obama speaking on this issue of using a cooperative relationship to deliver clout in East Asia or the Middle East.
Recording of President Obama: As we keep our own commitments, we must hold other nations accountable for theirs. Whether America nor Russia, neither of us would benefit from a nuclear arms race in East Asia or the Middle East.
John Hockenberry: Now, Strobe Talbott, you have described Russia as being kind of encircled both geographically and diplomatically at this point in history. Does Russia actually have legitimate clout with nations like North Korea or Iran on this issue of an arms race?
Strobe Talbott: Some. The Chinese have more with regard to North Korea, but the Russians have, I think very stupidly and short-sightedly, given a lot of help to the Iranians both in the nuclear program, ostensibly their peaceful nuclear program although we all know it isn’t peaceful, and in their ballistic missile program. But just one point on encirclement: That’s their perception, or the perception of too many Russians. The flipside to that, the mirror image, is I think the more accurate way to say it, is that they’re given a chance to be part of the international community. It’s really more of an opportunity for them to join international institutions and that kind of thing. So they have to, over time, get over this historically very deep-rooted feeling that everyone’s out to get them. One of the problems with that attitude which goes back to Tsarist times, is when Russians get on the defensive, they tend to go on the offensive, as we saw in Georgia. Breaking that mindset is a challenge mainly for them.
Todd Zwillich: Strobe Talbott, Todd Zwillich here, I want to ask, you say the Russians have a long, chronic and deep-seated sense of not getting enough respect. In the acute sense, since we have a new President, do you think that they see any movement on the U.S. side, in the transition from the Bush administration to the Obama administration a different attitude that makes a difference to them? Or is it the same old song and dance from the Unites States for them?
Strobe Talbott: Well Todd, you know there are different Russians with different perceptions. My guess is that the people who really count recognize more than they’re letting on publicly that, of course, there’s a difference. That is potentially useful to both sides in the transition from George W. Bush to Barack Obama, not least because President Bush really didn’t care that much, didn’t care at all, about treaty based arms control. He was much more of a unilateralist. That means the U.S. does what it wants and the rest of the world can get used to it. President Obama is committed to diplomacy, committed to treaty-based arms control, of a kind that the Russians are used to, they’ve gotten kind of good at, but they don’t want to feign Obama-mania and say “This is terrific. Everything is great because Obama’s in the White House.” Because they think that would lead the United States to make excessive demands on them. So they’re just playing it real cool.
Todd Zwillich: What about on the issue of missile defense, which was a major, major spur under their saddle that George W. Bush instituted unilaterally as you said. President Obama has said he will review missile defense, not saying that we will continue with it or discontinue it. Do you think the Russians find any solace there?
Strobe Talbott: I think they do. By the way, it goes beyond the issue of the anti-missile systems that were contemplated for Poland and the Czech Republic, which was kind of a dumb idea that President Obama inherited from President Bush but he didn’t want to just give it up for nothing as it were. They really are, that is the United States and Russia toward the end of this year, going to move towards significantly lower levels of offensive ballistic missiles and systems. That is going to require both sides to reopen the question of whether there doesn’t need to be agreed treaty-based regulation of strategic defenses. Because the lower you get on the offensive side the more you need regulation.
John Hockenberry: And that’s where the old ABM issue comes straight out at us. We’ve just got about 30 seconds, Strobe Talbott, before we go. Is it fair to say that the takeaway here is the big challenge going forward with the Obama administration is dealing with a very defensive Russia?
Strobe Talbott: Yes. And getting them to recognize that they’ve got some basic resetting to do including in terms of their basic mentality.
