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The Russophobes’ Latest Excuse for Scrapping the “Reset”

The Wall Street Journal unsurprisingly wants the administration to damage U.S.-Russian relations: It’s possible that this month’s election—and Mr. Putin’s cynical attempt to grab another 12 years in power—have aroused the Russian public in a fundamental way. In any event, it’s time for President Obama to drop the illusion of his “reset” with Mr. Putin […]

The Wall Street Journal unsurprisingly wants the administration to damage U.S.-Russian relations:

It’s possible that this month’s election—and Mr. Putin’s cynical attempt to grab another 12 years in power—have aroused the Russian public in a fundamental way. In any event, it’s time for President Obama to drop the illusion of his “reset” with Mr. Putin and speak up for Russians who want more political freedom.

The WSJ editors have never liked the “reset,” and have wanted to scrap it from the beginning. That’s unremarkable in itself. The editorial line there has been reliably anti-Russian for as long as I have been reading the paper, so it makes sense that the editors would have no interest in a continuing a policy that has produced improved relations with Russia. What makes Russophobes so angry is not that the “reset” is an illusion, but that it is only too real and has yielded results that serve U.S. interests. This is why they are constantly demanding that the “reset” be abandoned, because they are completely opposed to cooperation with any Russian government that still pursues its own interests.

Despite the harm that Bush-era and Clinton-era policies did to U.S.-Russian relations, Russophobes openly prefer how U.S. policy used to be when Washington was routinely provoking and irritating Moscow to no one’s benefit but theirs. We should understand that the editors are advocating that the government abandon the policy that has brought the U.S. demonstrable benefits for the sake of “speaking up” for Russian protesters whom the U.S. cannot effectively aid anyway. In any case, the U.S. may not want to be aiding an opposition that is mostly more nationalist and illiberal than the current regime.

In 2009 and much of 2010, the excuse for abandoning the “reset” was the supposed “selling out” of American allies, but no such thing ever took place. Late in 2010, the excuse was the arms reduction treaty, despite the fact that the treaty was entirely in the American interest. Now the excuse is that there is political discontent in Russia. This discontent may amount to nothing and it could empower political movements even less inclined to cooperate with the United States on major international issues. Judging from the poor quality of previous criticisms of the “reset,” there seems no reason to heed the call to abandon a policy that has been working to indulge in lending fruitless rhetorical support to protesters whose politics we would probably find unpalatable.

Update: Paul Saunders makes the relevant observation that the vast majority of Russians doesn’t care what the U.S. government has to say about their elections:

Some in the administration, and outside it, must believe that Russians turn on their computers, smartphones or televisions after every major development in their country to wait for the U.S. reaction. In fact, there is no clear audience for Clinton’s comments in Russia, where its two main liberal parties—Yabloko and Right Cause—received only a combined 4 percent of the vote. Members of these two generally pro-Western parties might pay attention to what the United States says, but few others will.

The parties that picked up seats in the election, the Communists, the social-democratic Just Russia party and the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, have limited interest in editorial comments and policy recommendations from American officials. Their supporters—who total 43 percent of voters in the election—may not agree with Putin on much, but they seem to share his irritation with perceived U.S. efforts to butt into their politics.

I know it’s hard to imagine, but sometimes the last thing people in another country want is for a major foreign government to start holding forth on the quality and credibility of their domestic political practices. It doesn’t even matter if those practices are corrupt and unpopular–the interference can still be resented simply because it is coming from an outside government that has no business getting involved. It might be worth bearing in mind the next time someone insists that our government officials “speak out” about another country’s internal political disputes.

Saunders criticizes Obama’s policy towards Russia, but the difference is that his criticism actually makes sense:

This is ultimately the biggest problem with the Obama administration’s policy toward Russia, though it was a shortcoming of the Bush and Clinton administrations as well: American officials ostentatiously meet with Russia’s opposition leaders whenever they visit Moscow but give vastly disproportionate time and attention to people with a tiny political constituency. Lower-level officials do the same, concentrating on individuals and groups that often receive U.S. government funding. This is no way to understand what is happening in Russia, much less to develop policies to manage events there.

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