WILL INBODEN

As the end of the year approaches, along with it comes the ritual end of year evaluations as well as New Year's resolutions. In that spirit, several Shadow Government contributors here offer our thoughts on the Obama administration's foreign policies -- specifically:

1. Advice for the administration in the new year,

2. Suggestions on what policies are working and should be continued, and

3. Suggestions on what policies aren't working and should be consigned to the archives.

Advice: Seize the initiative. This is not about a specific policy but an overall posture. Two years since President Obama's election, the question of an "Obama Doctrine" remains elusive, as the administration's national security policy has mostly been reactive, focused on managing current challenges and crises. This inbox by itself is a substantial challenge to be sure, and one which the administration is handling with varying degrees of success (e.g. decently well with Iran and North Korea, with mixed results with Afghanistan and Iraq, and less well with Pakistan and Israel/Palestinian issues). Missing thus far, however, has been an overarching strategic framework. Hence my advice that the White House seize the initiative for its next two years, and develop a strategic doctrine or at least proactively take advantage of creating some new foreign policy opportunities. Implications for seizing the initiative include:

• Don't acquiesce in predictions of U.S. decline. The world needs responsible global leadership, and there remains no better candidate than the United States.
• Establish principles, alliances, and institutions that will endure beyond this presidency.
• Take the long view. Ignore annual global popularity surveys, and instead ask a question that President Bush told us to consider while on his NSC staff: "What policies should I adopt now as president that my successor's successor will look back on with gratitude?"

What might seizing the initiative look like in practice? For specific policy ideas, perhaps a new alliance of democracies in Asia, or a new global free trade initiative, or reinvigorated transatlantic partnerships, or a new strategic outreach in a neglected region such as Latin America or Africa (including an American partnership with the likely new state in southern Sudan, as Andrew Natsios has suggested), or establishing a robust strategic framework for winning the war of ideas against jihadist ideology.

Continue: Rediscovery of the freedom agenda. After its initial woeful neglect of democracy and human rights promotion, earlier this year the Obama administration rediscovered -- rhetorically at least -- the importance of supporting freedom around the world. The White House should build on this, particularly with specific policies and with new resources. As events in just the past few weeks have shown, in places like Belarus, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, and China, the demands of citizens for their liberty remain embattled and in need of America support.

Drop: The "reset" with Russia. Now that New START has passed the Senate, and thus completes the centerpiece of the administration's "reset" policy, it is time for a new, realistic look at Russia -- which necessarily means a delete of the reset framework. The original reset framework assumed that U.S.-Russia relations could be put on a sustained positive trajectory based on shared interests and reciprocal good will. But as Bob Kagan wrote earlier this week, "relations with Moscow are about to grow more challenging," as serious issues including Russia's ongoing occupation of Georgia, growing corruption and internal repression, and cynical ambivalence on Iran remain. Defense Secretary Robert Gates's reported description of Russia got it right: "An oligarchy run by the security services." Taking a fresh look at the United States' Russia policy should include strengthening U.S. support for beleaguered Russian reformers, reaffirming U.S. commitments to our allies and partners in Russia's border regions, and jettisoning unrealistic assumptions about shared interests. Ironically, such a reduction in expectations might well enable better cooperation in the areas where our interests do align.

PETER FEAVER

Advice: Be as committed to seeing Iraq and Afghanistan through to success as the President was in pursuing health care "reform." President Obama secured his place in history with the passage of Obamacare. Whether it comes to be seen as a positive legacy like Social Security, or as an overreach and folly like Prohibition, it will always be seen as historic and as the president's own. This was a policy war of choice, not of necessity. There were needful aspects of health care reform, but most of them fell out of the bill or got swamped by far more expensive and consequential optional items. Elections have consequences, and in this case it empowered Obama to doggedly pursue what he considered to be the right thing -- and he showed he was willing to pay a huge electoral price, if necessary.

It is time for him to engage in a policy war of necessity, building a political coalition in support of prevailing in Iraq and Afghanistan. His policy moves in the next two years will likely prove decisive in determining whether U.S. forces leave in success or defeat. Until now, President Obama has not made war leadership a central priority of his administration, and he has devoted very little effort at all to the crucial task of mobilizing political/public support. It is time, past time, to devote the political capital to this effort.

Continue: President Obama and his team proved quite adept in passing New START. To be sure the treaty itself was only of secondary importance for national security. Indeed, the side deals on force modernization and missile defense wrung out of the administration by skeptical senators will likely prove far more consequential in the long run than the modest treaty provisions. Yet the orchestration of lobbying, arm-twisting, bipartisan outreaching, principled deal-making, and even somewhat hyperbolic policy-shilling -- all of that amounted to an impressive effort culminating in what surely is the administration's greatest national security accomplishment to date. If the administration devotes a similar effort to forging bipartisan support for the various wars under its command (see point above), it will be an even more impressive national security accomplishment.

Drop: The silly campaign boasting that "America is back" in Asia. The boast was always a bit absurd but it quickly became an embarrassment when President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had to skip regional meetings and postpone long-planned trips to attend to domestic political priorities. The boast also reflected a needless defensiveness on the administration's part. The United States has pursued a common bipartisan grand strategy in Asia for over a decade now, with President George W. Bush building on President Bill Clinton's initial efforts regarding China, India, and Japan, and now President Obama building on Bush's initiatives. Rather than pretend to be offering a bold departure, why not make a virtue out of the truth and note that there are some areas where mainstream Democrats and mainstream Republicans can agree, and one of them is Asia? Both sides recognize that the United States is an Asia-Pacific power and the world will be a better place if the United States remains vitally engaged in this region. No need to pretend that the United States ever left, because it didn't and it won't.

PHIL LEVY

Advice: From a trade perspective, it is remarkable to think how little has been accomplished in the first two years of the Obama presidency. When he took office, President Obama inherited an agenda that included stalled global trade talks (the Doha round of World Trade Organization negotiations), three already-negotiated free trade agreements (South Korea, Colombia, and Panama), and a troubled trade relationship with China. Across all of these items, the only achievement approaching progress was the revision to the Korean free trade agreement, and that came at the very end of 2010. The revision left Ford and the United Auto Workers happier, but came at the expense of other sectors, such as pork producers.

Better late than never, but there were costs to the lost time. Free trade agreements that promised U.S. producers at least a period of privileged access to a trading partner's market are now just offering the prospect of equal access, since our jilted partners went and negotiated agreements with other countries while the United States dallied. Frustration was already high with the lagging global trade talks; it has since mounted. What's more, the repeated empty promises of the G-20 nations to conclude the Doha round undermined that group's credibility.

The ineffectiveness of the G-20 was also revealed in the sad Seoul summit, in which China and Germany objected to any global rebalancing plan that pushed past platitudes. The Obama administration -- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in particular -- deserves credit for putting forth a credible approach; it just didn't seem to gain traction. As with trade liberalization, the administration might have been more credible had it led by example. In trade, it called for a new WTO agreement while condoning "Buy America" protectionism and showing that it would not spend the political capital to push through existing agreements. In international finance, it called for global rebalancing while dramatically increasing spending, creating a significant new entitlement program through its health care plans, and relegating any plans for fiscal restraint to a separate deficit commission (as opposed to using its own Office of Management and Budget).

So what happens when you defer serious action on the international economic front for a couple of years? Institutions (in this case the WTO) deteriorate, problems (resurgent global imbalances) fester and grow, and resolutions to address these issues soon may be undercut by new crises that demand attention.

Looking ahead to the rest of Obama's term, my top candidate for major distracting crisis to come is the bubbling debt trouble in Europe. The leaders of the Euro nations have been working furiously to address problems as they pop up in Greece, then Ireland, then Portugal, with Spain and Belgium starting to simmer. But all of their remedies have done little more than buy time and, in some cases, allow the problems to grow. There are fundamental inconsistencies ripping the euro apart. When that happens, it will not simply be a matter of having to deal with currency exchange at the borders; it will likely involve a significant banking crisis. Those, it turns out, can be nasty.

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President Obama appeared yesterday with former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and received his endorsement of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia. In today's Washington Post, Powell joined Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, James Baker, and Lawrence Eagleburger in presenting "The Republican case for ratifying New START."

With former Republican officials coming out in favor of the treaty's ratification and amidst reports that some Senate Republicans may be willing to trade New START for an extension of the Bush tax cuts, New START ratification now seems to be mostly a matter of timing.

That said, the debate over New START has been an interesting one on both the left and the right. Many conservatives rightly highlighted a number of substantive concerns about the treaty in the months after Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed it in April, but some took their opposition further. Former Massachusetts governor and potential presidential candidate Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed calling the treaty, "Obama's worst foreign policy mistake," and in June, a group of conservative leaders wrote in a "memo for the movement" that New START "will make America less safe."

The reality, as I lay out in more detail in a piece on ForeignPolicy.com, is that New START is a rather meaningless treaty. The treaty would reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal by only a modest amount and leave us at levels that most experts agree are sufficient to maintain our global nuclear deterrent. Most of the concerns expressed by New START critics are due to the bungled manner in which the Obama administration announced its new phased adaptive approach for missile defense last year, as well as the savvy rhetorical games played by the Russians in a signing statement they released on missile defense. Fortunately, the resolution of ratification approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and subsequent administration statements address most of these concerns about missile defense and other contentious issues. Once New START reaches the Senate floor, critics will also have the opportunity to further modify the resolution of ratification to address any outstanding questions.

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President Barack Obama and his advisors formulated their Afghan policy almost exclusively to achieve one goal: deny safe haven to al Qaeda, according to Bob Woodward's book Obama's Wars. Counterterrorism is an important goal, but the administration seems to believe it is the only goal. This is a seriously myopic vision of U.S. national security interests. We have a much broader range of interests at stake in Afghanistan and South Asia. The administration's failure to understand them goes a long way to explain why it settled on a half-hearted strategy in Afghanistan.

So why are we fighting?

• Deny safe haven permanently. If al Qaeda returns the day or the year after we leave, we lose. Our effort in Afghanistan has to be about more than an endless holding pattern or a temporary band-aid. It actually has to enable Afghans to continue denying safe haven after the last U.S. soldier has left. That is the main problem with the scaled-down counterterrorism-only plan: it presents no realistic scenario for the United States ever to leave.
• Prevent instability in Pakistan. Chaos in Afghanistan will bleed over into Pakistan. Woodward's book records only a few brief mentions of this danger by administration officials, yet state failure in Pakistan is probably a much greater long-term danger to U.S. security than al Qaeda regaining another safe haven.
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U.S. policymakers for years have lamented their lack of leverage in pushing for democratic reform and respect for human rights in Russia. Well, now we may have an opportunity, but the question is whether we will make use of it. If Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is serious in wanting our help with his economic modernization agenda, we should insist that he needs to make measurable progress in political liberalization first. 

Medvedev has made "modernization" and "innovation" the buzzwords in Russia these days, and he brought that buzz with him to the United States this week. Before arriving in Washington today, Medvedev visited Silicon Valley to study that high technology center in hopes of replicating it in Russia. He has designated an area just outside of Moscow, Skolkovo, and a Russian oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg, to spearhead this effort. During a speech at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum last week, he also promised various economic reforms designed to spur foreign investment in the high-tech field as part of his efforts to diversify Russia's economy away from dependence on exports of natural resources. 

The West is eager to get in on the act. The European Union earlier this month launched a "Partnership for Modernization" with Russia. Medvedev met with top representatives from Cisco Systems, Apple, Microsoft, and others to encourage their investment. And the Obama administration, in a June 11 statement announcing Medvedev's trip to the United States, noted that President Obama looked forward to exploring greater cooperation with Russia in "trade, investment and innovation." According to the statement, Obama is "pleased" that Medvedev will visit Silicon Valley and "have the opportunity to review the unique set of factors that has fostered this important center of technological advancement and entrepreneurship." 

What's wrong with this picture? Let's begin in Russia. Medvedev's high-tech project so far appears to be driven by a top-down approach. The Russian state plans to pump lots of rubles into Skolkovo, but this contradicts Medvedev's previous pledge to reduce the role of the state in the economy. Throwing lots of money at the problem is more likely to feed corruption than spur innovation. As Vladislav Inozemtsov, director of the Moscow-based Center for Post-Industrial Studies, recently argued, the Russian government is simply "throwing money at ventures...but little is being done to develop innovation from the bottom up."  In an interview the other day with RFE/RL, Vladimir Babkin, an expert at the State Duma's committee for science and technology, noted, "Silicon Valley in California was created on the basis of universities. It was a bottom-up growth. In Russia, it's top down, and the goals are unclear."

Moreover, Russia doesn't have a competitive advantage to focus on development of a high technology economy. It spends little of its GDP, comparatively speaking, on research and development. According to the number of patents issued by the United States Patents Office to residents of foreign countries, Russia registered 904 over the past five years; Belgium with one-fourteenth the population of Russia, registered four times as many. Many Russian scientists and engineers have emigrated to more promising prospects overseas (including, fortunately, many smart ones to the United States), leaving Russia suffering still from a brain-drain. Russia's economic advantage, for better or worse, is in natural resources, and most Russian businessmen know that. 

When the price of oil plummeted in 2008-09 and Russia's GDP dropped by nearly eight percent last year, Medvedev sought to energize his modernization drive by emphasizing the need for development of a high technology sector. The price of oil has bounced back, albeit not to the highs of two years ago, and pressure to diversify has decreased correspondingly. But Medvedev has not given up and has made Skolkovo the centerpiece of his agenda.

It is one thing for the Googles and Microsofts of the world to invest in Skolkovo; after all, they are accountable to shareholders and will be driven by whether they see the possibility of making a profit in Russia. The bigger question is why the U.S. government should get involved. What policy reason do we have to help Russia develop into a high technology economy, assuming this is even possible? 

After all, despite Medvedev's rhetoric about dealing with corruption and rooting out legal nihilism, Russia continues to move in an anti-democratic direction, with no real rule of law or accountability but lots of impunity for murders of human rights activists, critics, and journalists.  Pending legislation would expand the powers of the FSB (the KGB's successor organization), and the farcical Khodorkovsky trial continues apace. Russia ranks 146th out of 180 countries on Transparency International's Corruption Index and 63^rd out of 137 in the latest Global Competitiveness Report. The "values gap" between our two countries is growing and contributes to diverging interests on key issues. The argument that a Russia with a more vibrant economy over time will become more democratic is belied by the trend of the last decade -- Russia's economy soared (thanks to the rise in the price of oil) but its political situation deteriorated badly. 

So, why would the U.S. government want to help Russia become more economically efficient and diverse -- i.e., stronger -- when Russia is becoming more authoritarian? The Obama administration explicitly rejects linkage in its relationship with Russia -- it pursues each issue on a separate track -- and thus won't insist on political modernization in Russia as a precondition for helping Medvedev's high technology pursuits. Such an approach forfeits any leverage we may have to push for liberalization in that country. That is a shame, for a Russia that is reforming economically and politically would indeed be a Russia worth investing in. 

The Obama administration is already gearing up its push for Senate ratification of the recently signed New START agreement between the United States and Russia, with hearings that began yesterday and a vote possible by the end of the year. As senior administration officials make their case around town at various think tanks and before Congress, they need to do a better job of refining their message to make sure it stands up to scrutiny.

In a speech last week at the Atlantic Council, undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher stated three times that the New START agreement "does not constrain U.S. missile defense programs." Despite the repetition, Tauscher's claim, like that of other Administration officials, is simply not accurate.

Article V, Section 3 of the text states: "Each Party shall not convert and shall not use ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) launchers and SLBM (submarine-launched ballistic missile) launchers for placement of missile defense interceptors therein. Each Party further shall not convert and shall not use launchers of missile defense interceptors for placement of ICBMs and SLBMs therein. This provision shall not apply to ICBM launchers that were converted prior to signature of this Treaty for placement of missile defense interceptors therein." This section makes clear that the treaty does indeed constrain one possible way for the U.S. to develop missile defense capabilities. This may not be the way the current administration envisions developing its missile defense system, but that isn't what Tauscher claimed. (A White House fact sheet issued March 26 is more accurate in stating, "The Treaty does not contain any constraints on testing, development or deployment of current or planned U.S. missile defense programs..." [emphasis added].)

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This week's bad news on nuclear proliferation far outweighed the pleasant production values surrounding the Washington Nuclear Security Summit. But let's look at the good news first.

Representatives of 47 nations declared this week that nuclear terrorism is a bad possibility. They issued a communiqué to that effect and provided a non-binding work plan to counter "one of the most challenging threats to international security," as the communiqué characterized it. The White House blog was stronger, calling nuclear terrorism "the most dire threat of our time." The fact that the administration recognizes this is very welcome.

But such declarations are not new. The United States saw the problem immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union and, under President Clinton, worked with Russia to safeguard nuclear material. The United Nations recognized the danger and in 2005 adopted by consensus the Convention for the Suppression of the Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. That extensive set of measures entered into force in 2007 and, by the end of last year, had been ratified and agreed by 59 nations, more than attended this summit. Both this week's communiqué and work plan recall that convention and call for its implementation.

Nothing in the work plan is binding beyond agreement to meet again in South Korea in 2012. The tentative wording of the plan often betrays its own ineffectual outcome. For example, it says:

Participating States encourage nuclear operators and architect/engineering firms to take into account and incorporate, where appropriate [emphasis added], effective measures of physical protection and security culture into the planning, construction, and operation of civilian nuclear facilities and provide technical assistance, upon request, to other States in doing so."

Is there somewhere it would be inappropriate to incorporate physical protection and safety culture into nuclear facilities? But at least the participants were able to agree that, for the most part, this is a good idea.

The other outcomes of the summit -- reiteration of a 2000 agreement between the United States and Russia on plutonium disposal, a fuzzy but positive step forward on Ukraine's disposal of nuclear materials, closure of a Russian nuclear facility that ceased production last year -- were all useful. They are, however, unlikely to achieve any real reduction in the risk of proliferation and nuclear terrorism.

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As Politico has pointed out, the Obama administration has a tendency to describe their every action as "unprecedented." In the case of the U.S.-Russia Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, this is actually true. Theoretically, the treaty agreed to by the Obama administration limits each side to 1,550 strategic nuclear weapons. In practice, it will allow least 200 nuclear weapons in excess of the U.S. and Russian stockpiles permitted under the 2002 treaty signed by the Bush administration. The administration is laying claim to a 30 percent reduction in strategic nuclear weapons while actually permitting an increase in the force. This is unprecedented. 

The discrepancy comes from what each treaty actually limits.  The earliest treaties (SALT I and II) limited but did not reduce stockpiles, and established "counting rules" on the basis of how many warheads each system could deliver. The 1992 START Treaty was structured to give the Russians incentives to shift from fast-flying missiles to bombers. In the theology of nuclear deterrence, it is believed that "slow-flying" bombers are more stabilizing because a leader could reconsider the decision after launching, and the target country would have greater warning of an impending attack. So the 1992 Treaty gave generous discounts to bombers, counting the newer B-1 and B-2 bombers as a single weapon although they have the capacity to carry up to 20 warheads. The older B-52s that carry air-launched cruise missiles were counted at half their true capacity, so tallied as 10 warheads each. The Obama administration's new START treaty counts all bombers as a single nuclear weapon, leading the Federation of American Scientists to conclude that 450 U.S. warheads and 860 Russian warheads will be excluded from the count.

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By Jamie M. Fly

The events of the past week pose a challenge to President Obama's vision of a world without nuclear weapons. Last week in Vienna, the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) met to discuss Iran and Syria's continued stonewalling of IAEA investigations into illicit nuclear activities carried out by each country.

On November 16, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei submitted reports on both countries to the members of the Board. His report on Iran was perhaps the strongest IAEA report on Iran to date. It found that Iran violated its safeguards obligations by not reporting the existence of a covert enrichment facility near Qom. The report also noted that Iran continues to not cooperate with the IAEA's investigation into Iran's pre-2003 covert weaponization program. It was a damning final report from ElBaradei, who retired at the end of last week having spent much of his twelve years at the helm of the IAEA trying to cajole the Iranians into coming clean, often undermining U.S. and Western efforts to pressure in the process.

President Obama has relied heavily on ElBaradei to try to broker a deal to transfer a significant portion of Iran's stockpile of low enriched uranium out of Iran for processing into fuel for Iran's research reactor. Despite reportedly agreeing to a deal last month in Geneva, Iran has since backed away from the deal, reverting to its traditional negotiating tactics.

It had been almost four years since the Board of Governors passed a resolution condemning Iran's actions, even as Iran has flouted successive United Nations Security Council resolutions and stymied ElBaradei's IAEA. On Friday, the Board reacted to the recent revelation of Qom and Iran's continued stonewalling of the IAEA investigation by approving a resolution calling on Iran to suspend construction at Qom and expressing concern that Iran's recent actions as well as its failure to implement the Additional Protocol limit the IAEA's ability to verify that Iran's nuclear program is purely for peaceful purposes.

The Bush administration tried repeatedly to push the board to pass such a resolution last year as Iran's noncompliance became more and more egregious. Unfortunately, the administration backed down quickly (too quickly in my view), when it became clear that Russia and China did not support such an action. The fact that Russia and China supported last week's resolution is a positive sign, but there are already debates among experts about how strong the resolution was and whether it is tantamount to a second referral of the Iranian nuclear file to the United Nations Security Council. It is likely that the Obama administration agreed to water down the resolution to keep Russia and China on board. Russian and Chinese acquiescence in Vienna does not mean that they will support meaningful sanctions in New York early next year.

However, if Iran's initial reaction to Friday's resolution is any indication, Iran could be the Obama administration's greatest ally in getting China and Russia to support sanctions. A conservative Iranian member of parliament threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). On Sunday, President Ahmadinejad announced that Iran would build ten more uranium enrichment facilities. The second threat is likely just that, a threat. Iran lacks the capacity to build large scale enrichment facilities very quickly -- witness the fact that Qom was still not operational despite reportedly being under construction for years. The threat to withdraw from the NPT however, is more troublesome. If Iran were to do this, it could be a trigger for Israeli military action. If the IAEA is unable to verify the location of Iran's nuclear material, Obama administration officials may have to consider U.S. military action or risk diversion of nuclear material to covert facilities.

On Syria, the Board last week missed an opportunity to send a message to the Assad regime. ElBaradei's latest report makes clear that Syria has adopted the Iranian playbook on handling IAEA investigations. The report says that Syria has not responded to the IAEA's questions about its former covert nuclear reactor at Al Kibar even though some of its early answers contradict information that the IAEA has obtained from other sources. Syria has also refused to give the IAEA access to other facilities related to Al Kibar, claiming that these are sensitive military sites even though the IAEA has reminded Syria that under its safeguards agreement, this is not a reason to deny the IAEA access. In addition to unanswered questions about Al Kibar, the report raises new concerns about illicit activity at Syria's declared research reactor near Damascus.

Unlike Iran, Syria at the moment is experiencing a renaissance in its relations with the United States as well as Europe. This will have to change if the international community is serious about upholding the nuclear nonproliferation regime. The Board of Governors, which has largely been silent on the Syria nuclear issue, should have sent a strong message to Damascus that unless the Assad regime begins to share information, it will be subject to the same treatment as Iran (including eventual referral to the Security Council for further action).

The issue is not that Syria has an ongoing nuclear program (although it is difficult for the IAEA to verify this given Syria's lack of cooperation), but it is about the sanctity of the nuclear nonproliferation regime and the message that needs to be sent to other countries thinking about shirking their commitments. The lesson cannot be that such countries will be slapped on the wrist but then quickly forgiven, only to receive increased trade and diplomatic relations from the United States and Europe.

How President Obama handles these two issues in the coming months will say much about how serious he is about his supposed goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons. As Obama said in his April speech in Prague after North Korea violated several United Nations Security Council Resolutions by conducting a missile test, "Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something."

Last week's IAEA Board resolution on Iran was a start, but there is much work to be done before he can turn this rhetoric into reality.

JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images

By Peter Feaver

Secretary Clinton's recent visit to Moscow provides another opportunity to do a midcourse assessment of Iran policy. The assessment is bleak. Very bleak. The "mission accomplished" banners that Obamaphiles were unfurling when the Russians hinted at a greater openness to sanctions look a bit more faded and ironic today in light of reports that the Russians are back to their old script of opposing sanctions as an impediment to negotiations.

I argued earlier that the key intermediate objective of the negotiations with Iran was getting Russia (and China and the European in-laws) on side to impose tougher economic pressure on Iran. Without such leverage, negotiations were very unlikely to succeed.

Of course, the overall objective of those negotiations is to get the Iranian regime to abandon its nuclear weapons program. The Obama team, like the Bush team before it, believes that the only way the Islamic Republic will do so peacefully is if the United States can exert serious economic leverage over the regime so a compromise deal looks attractive -- hence the urgency of the intermediate objective of establishing such leverage.

From the beginning, the diplomatic track has been stymied by two stubborn facts. Fact 1: The U.S. cannot unilaterally generate the sanctions leverage it needs to give diplomacy a chance. Fact 2: The Russians, the Chinese, and sometimes the European in-laws all believe that diplomacy is an alternative to sanctions (and vice-versa) rather than understanding that sanctions are a necessary component of the diplomatic track. In other words, sanctions are what you resort to when diplomacy has failed rather than something you resort to in order to help diplomacy succeed.

The "shocking" news that the Iranian regime had been misleading the international community with a hidden second enrichment program provided a one-time opportunity to bring the international community on side, impose sanctions, and then pursue negotiations. Instead, the Obama team contented itself with the rhetorical support for sanctions the Russians offered -- the vague suggestion that if the Iranians kept up their bad behavior stiffer penalties might follow -- basked in the glow of praise for its deft diplomacy, and launched negotiations.

With Secretary Clinton in Moscow, the Russians sprung the trap. We can't do sanctions, the Russians explained, because that would undermine negotiations. As long as the negotiations are ongoing, the Russians will block sanctions. All the Iranian regime has to do to keep sanctions at bay is to string the negotiations along. As was foreseeable, Team Obama is trapped negotiating with the Iranian regime without significant leverage and without much prospect of additional leverage. This does not guarantee failure, but it does guarantee that the Iranian regime has the strongest possible hand and that the U.S. hole card, the evidence of Iranian duplicity revealed at the U.N. General Assembly in late September, has been played to minimal effect.

ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images

By Christian Brose

Patrick Barry and my colleague Josh Keating think I’m understating the importance of what President Obama accomplished in Moscow. So let me be clear: The arms reduction agreement and the Russian air corridor into Afghanistan aren’t small peanuts. Indeed, the latter is quite important because it will help to advance a key national interest -- success in Afghanistan. Still, we’d better not put too many of our eggs in that basket, because what Moscow giveth, Moscow can easily taketh away. And considering how many conflicts of interest we still have with Russia, even after our reset buttoning, U.S. military planners are probably not taking that air corridor as a given indefinitely.

As for negotiating an update to START, which expires this year -- of course we should do it, and it’s not unimportant. But would anyone drawing up a list of U.S. national interests put the negotiation of a bridge agreement for the START treaty at the top, or anywhere near the top? That’s all I’m saying. It’s a worthwhile step, but let’s put it in perspective.

Now, nonproliferation more broadly IS a national interest that I'd put at or very near the top of my list, and U.S.-Russian arms reductions are a piece of that. Furthermore, Josh is right that if your goal is "a nuclear-free world", then you have to start somewhere. Well, yes, as far as that goes. Still, no matter how clearly we meet our obligations under the NPT, and no matter how much legitimacy that adds to our argument that others should follow suit, I just don’t think that will markedly advance those goals in the real world. So by all means, let’s restart START, let's wrap our policies in whatever added legitimacy that gives us, but let’s not overstate the importance of doing so.

This is generally how I feel about Obama’s speech yesterday: It was important. It had some very nice touches (championing democracy in terms of anti-corruption and national success, flipping Russian concerns for sovereignty into an argument against Russian meddling in Georgia and Ukraine). It helped to clear the air by reaching out to ordinary Russians in a respectful and thoughtful way. And it will help to improve the tone of U.S.-Russia relations around the margins. Beyond that, no one should expect much more.

One more thing: Amid all the talk of Obama’s vision of a nuclear-free world, and his college musings on this subject, it’s worth acknowledging that the earlier visionary was Ronald Reagan. (Paul Lettow literally wrote the book on this, and it’s excellent.) Obama should make more of this. The nuclear arms reductions that he has negotiated with Medvedev will require a lot more of the United States than of Russia, and it could be a hard sell back on the home-front. Having the humility to give a conservative icon his due would go a decent way, I think, toward disarming Obama’s critics and building greater domestic consensus behind what are pretty sensible arms reductions.

By Will Inboden

This week brings President Obama’s visit to Moscow, and with it a cauldron of questions over the state of US-Russia relations and the curious trajectory of Russia itself. Continuing uncertainties over who is really in charge in Russia and what Russia wants were further complicated by Prime Minister Putin’s abrupt announcement a few weeks ago that -- sixteen years after applying and just as admission seemed to approach -- Russia was suspending its bid for membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and instead forming a trade bloc with Belarus and Kazakhstan (which, at 66th and 53rd respectively in global GDP rankings, are hardly economic powerhouses).

This odd gambit, seemingly against Russia’s own economic interests as well as President Medvedev’s previous statements, recalls an earlier episode in history. In February 1946, the Soviet Union decided against participating in the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, both of which were just being formed as institutional pillars of the post-war global economic order. As George Kennan relates in his memoirs, this news caused no small amount of distress within the US Government, as it seemed to go against the USSR’s own economic interests and indicate an adversarial posture towards the West. And it was also this Russian decision against international economic cooperation which prompted Kennan, then a diplomat at the US Embassy in Moscow, to compose the “Long Telegram” inquiring into the puzzle of Russian behavior.

Expanded the next year into an article, "The Sources of Soviet Conduct", Kennan’s argument is remembered today as the paradigmatic exposition of the containment doctrine that defined American grand strategy during the Cold War. But one of Kennan’s central themes is easily overlooked yet unfortunately still relevant. This is his analysis of Russian political character, or what might be called the Sources of Russian Conduct.  Before studying Marxist-Leninist ideology, Kennan was first and foremost a student of Russia -- its language, history, culture.

Even hinting at parallels between the Soviet Union of the past and the Russia of today is fraught with peril, because they are not the same, and the United States is not in a “new Cold War” with Russia, and should not seek a new Cold War with Russia. On this President Obama got it exactly right when he warned Putin against such a posture. But just because history should not be repeated does not mean it should be ignored. 

So Kennan’s article still has much to teach us, as it described a nation with an intrinsic distrust of others and a zero-sum view of international relations.  Kennan observed how Soviet ideology interacted with Russian history in the minds of the nation’s leaders.  It “taught them that the outside world was hostile...[and] the powerful hands of Russian history and tradition reached up to sustain them in this feeling.”  Moreover, members of the Russian government “are unamenable to argument or reason which comes to them from outside sources. Their whole training has taught them to mistrust and discount the glib persuasiveness of the outside world.” Presumably, such “glib persuasiveness” would include things like “reset buttons."

Kennan also described a lamentably familiar posture towards dissent: “all internal opposition forces in Russia have consistently been portrayed as the agents of foreign forces of reaction.” Such slurs are well-known to the brave few remaining Russian political dissidents and independent journalists who are regularly disparaged as tools of the West, or America, or Britain, or Georgia, or whomever the Putin regime’s villain du jour may be. 

This kind of paranoia and xenophobia may seem oddly misplaced, even irrational, today. After all, it is hard to conceive of a threat that the United States and the rest of the outside world really pose to Russia, especially to a Russia whose most profound problems may be its own demographic death spiral. But here Kennan’s analysis may still help explain Russian actions that might otherwise seem to go against Russia’s own interests -- whether it be WTO application suspension, continued belligerence toward Georgia, arms sales and a political heat shield to Iran, and fulminations against the third site ballistic missile defense.

President Obama, for his part, has thus far admirably resisted including Russia in his series of international apologies. And the Russians seem willing to show some good will, at least in their own way, by dialling back on the state-sponsored media slander of America during Obama’s visit. His meetings this week seem to be producing some modestly encouraging cooperative steps, such as the nuclear arms reduction agreement (though still a sideshow from the more substantive issues in US-Russia relations). Yet on the most contentious issues a firm and realistic posture is needed, and promising in this regard is NSC Senior Director Mike McFaul’s assertion that,

We're not going to reassure or give or trade anything with the Russians regarding NATO expansion or missile defense...We're going to define our national interests, and by that I also mean the interests of our allies in Europe with reference to these two particular questions.

Whatever the outcome of this week’s summitry, going forward relations with Russia will probably continue to be a significant challenge for the Obama administration.  Perhaps most prescient is this line from Kennan, as true in 1947 as it is today: “we are going to continue for a long time to find the Russians difficult to deal with.”

By Christian Brose

For everyone wondering where the U.S. government keeps the "reset button" that Vice President Biden tells us we will be hitting on our relationship with Russia, it has now been located. In fact, Secretary Clinton, in Geneva today, presented a "reset button" as a gift to Foreign Minister Lavrov. This presents a few interpretive problems. Had Clinton already hit the reset button prior to giving it to Lavrov? Is it Russia that is now supposed to hit the reset button on its relationship with the United States (a more fitting though far-fetched metaphor)? When hitting said reset button, will Russia use an open hand or a clenched fist? These are serious questions, and Americans want answers.

Well, the plot thickens. Turns out, the Russian word inscribed on the button didn't translate to "reset." As Lavrov pointed out, Clinton had given him an "overcharge" button. Something tells me that's a button Moscow won't be hitting anytime soon, even if the Obama administration tries to pay for better Russian behavior by selling off NATO missile defense or bargaining away the peace of mind of our eastern European allies. In fact, Clinton may want to take back that overcharge button. She may need it soon.

By Steve Biegun

Yesterday, a Russian newspaper leaked the contents of a February letter sent from President Obama to President Medvedev of Russia in which a trade was offered: The United States would abandon its deployment of a NATO missile defense site and radar placement in Poland and the Czech Republic respectively if Iran's nuclear weapons program were ended. Since the entire purpose of the NATO missile defense system in Central Europe, as conceived by the Bush administration and approved by the full NATO Alliance, is to counter a rapidly advancing Iranian nuclear and missile threat, this grand bargain looks on its face to be eminently reasonable. We will see. But depending on the fine print of this agreement, it could also turn out to be a second coming of Yalta -- a sell-out of America's eastern European allies of epic proportions.

In today's Washington Post and New York Times stories, there are differences in how the "bargain" is described by the State Department, the Defense Department, and the White House letter. State appears to suggest that the missile defense deployment will be abandoned if the Russian government cooperates on ending the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Undersecretary of State Bill Burns is quoted as saying, "If, through strong diplomacy with Russia and our other partners, we can reduce or eliminate that threat, it obviously shapes the way at which we look at missile defense." Secretary of Defense Gates is quoted as suggesting that deployment of the missile defense system should be halted "if there is no Iranian missile program." And in yet a third construct, the Times today describes the Obama letter as saying, "the United States would not need to proceed with the interceptor system, which has been vehemently opposed by Russia since it was proposed by the Bush administration, if Iran halted any efforts to build nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles" (all emphasis mine). These are important differences. Let's hope the New York Times has it right (for once).

In understanding the U.S.-Russian "bargain," the actual text of the Obama letter and the intentions of the Obama administration are ultimately more important than the descriptions in today's papers. But as the words and intentions become clearer, one should consider the following choices that are likely still being debated inside the U.S. government, and will ultimately prove the worth of this initiative:

1. Halt deployment of the NATO missile defense if the Russian government is more cooperative in international diplomatic efforts to suspend Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons (e.g. Russian support for additional sanctions, slowing cooperation on Russian-Iranian civilian nuclear energy projects, etc);

2. Halt deployment of the NATO missile defense if the Russian government is more cooperative in international diplomatic efforts with the result being to end Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons;

3. Halt deployment of the NATO missile defense if the Russian government fully joins a successful effort to verifiably end Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and missile programs; or

4. Suspend deployment of the NATO missile defense if the Russian government fully joins a successful effort to verifiably end Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and missile programs.

Choice 4 is the only outcome that should be accepted by the United States and its allies in NATO. 

From a scan of today's newspapers, one gets the sense that this issue may not yet be fully decided within the Obama administration. The coming debate is hugely consequential. It will determine whether the Russian government must simply cooperate in diplomatic efforts to put off the deployment of the NATO missile defense, or if that cooperation must produce an end to Iran's efforts. Likewise, decisions must be made whether to accept a suspension or to demand a verifiable end of the Iranian nuclear and missile programs -- and, for that matter, whether the focus of the policy is even to achieve an end to Iranian nuclear programs or missile programs or both. These decisions will shape how the United States defends the North Atlantic area (the territory of NATO), how U.S. relations with Poland and the Czech Republic develop (already under some strain according to reporting yesterday), and how the United States responds to Russian irredentism in central and eastern Europe.

If the United States trades off the defense of its own interests in Europe and the security of its NATO allies for anything less than an end to the Iranian nuclear and missile programs, the harmful consequences would go well beyond the direct threat those Iranian programs pose. First, the United States will strengthen Russian resolve to pursue irredentist claims in Central and Eastern Europe. The Russian government's opposition to the NATO missile defense has never really been about Russia's security.  The small number of interceptors NATO intends to deploy makes it completely useless in defending against a Russian nuclear strike. In fact, the Russian government is simply enraged that its former satellites in Central and Eastern Europe have the temerity to cooperate with NATO in the deployment of defensive capabilities of any kind on their sovereign territory -- a decision that is not Russia's to make.

Second, the United States and its NATO allies have a mutual interest and responsibility to maintain the defensive capabilities of the North Atlantic area. This is at the core of the NATO Treaty. If the Iranian nuclear and missile threat is allowed to develop unchecked, and if the United States, through its geographic location and its own missile defense capabilities, remains largely impervious to the threat, NATO will see a perceptible decoupling of transatlantic security interests that all NATO members have understood as a weakening of the alliance's ability and resolve to provide for a common defense.  As for the governments of Poland and the Czech Republic, which have taken great political risks at home to support the NATO missile defense deployment, if the United States pulls the plug on missile defense simply to produce more cooperative Russian behavior, but with no requirements for what must be achieved, it will send a signal loud and clear that central and eastern Europe are trade bait -- a sort of Yalta II, if you will. 

The NATO missile defense was not conceived as a reaction to uncooperative Russian diplomacy. It is intended to respond to a growing alarm among NATO members regarding Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. If Iran's weapons programs are halted, it is a fully supportable policy by the Obama administration to suspend the missile defense deployments. To settle for anything less is folly.