[ad_1]
Philip Stephens (“The Case of a Biden-Putin Thaw,” Opinion, November 20) is wrong in stating that Barack Obama’s “reboot” with Russia “went nowhere.”
It was a fairly successful policy shift that improved the atmosphere in US-Russian relations and resulted in a new nuclear weapons reduction treaty and the agreement that ended Iran’s atomic bomb program. Supported by Vladimir Putin, who was then prime minister, President Dmitry Medvedev responded to the reboot with enthusiasm and revived Moscow’s proposal for a pan-European collective security system that included Russian membership in NATO.
That reboot was shattered by the West’s disastrous regime change intervention in Libya in 2011, by its catastrophic fanning the flames of civil war in Syria, and by its misjudged support for the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected president in 2014. Since So saber-rattling, self-righteous sanctions, and Russophobic propaganda have been the hallmarks of Western policy toward Russia.
Stephens proposes that President-elect Joe Biden should redouble this hard-line policy toward Russia by being “relentlessly tough” on Putin from the start. A renewed restart, he argues, can only be successful on the basis of a “lasting change” in Putin’s behavior.
Obama’s reboot was based on conciliation, negotiation and compromise. That is the only approach to Russia that has worked and can work again, but first the West has to step back from its dangerous confrontation with Putin.
Geoffrey roberts
Emeritus Professor of History
University College Cork, Cork, Ireland
