Russian-American Reset: Afterwards

By Pavel Koshkin

Almost one year has passed since Russia and the United States started resetting their relations. American president Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev made an attempt to improve their countries’ relationship and then shaped up the framework for further bilateral collaboration in the summer and autumn of 2009. What progress have they made so far? Deputy of the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow, Eric Rubin, will answer this question and talk about perspectives of further Russian-American collaborations after the Reset.

Mr. Rubin, as far as I know, the Bilateral Presidential Commission was announced during Mr. Obama’s visit to Moscow in July, 2009. Could you tell about this commission in detail?
The inauguration of the new Russian-U.S. Bilateral Presidential Commission came as a result of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s very successful visit to Moscow last autumn. This commission that President Obama and President Medvedev agreed to found and to create is the first structure of its kind for regular bilateral ties between Russia and the United States since the end of the Putin administration. And, it’s important in many ways.

First and foremost, we need to have a real framework for Americans and Russians at all levels to work together on a daily basis, not just in some high-level meetings but with regular contacts, at all different levels between different parts of our governments and with various non-governmental organizations (NGOs), cultural, sports, religious and other organizations.

This framework started very slowly and has gradually gained speed in more separated groups. We have 16 separate working groups. More than half of them have already met. They work on a decentralized and nonhierarchical basis so that they don’t have big plenary sessions with ministers and big delegations. We are asking each group and each area to work separately and schedule their own meetings and then to report back to the chairmen of the commission through the ministers on how they’re doing.

We’ve already seen real progress in a number of different spheres from education and culture to agriculture and space. We’ve created some new groups including some subgroups on sports which are beginning to talk about plans in advance of the Olympics in Sochi. Also, we are dealing with some difficult issues, for instance, with agricultural trade.

We are trying to figure out how to avoid protectionism from both sides. We’re talking about the ways which we can help Afghanistan. We see the problems of Afghanistan in roughly the same way and we have to work together to resolve them.

This covers the whole relationship. It’s very impressive how quickly we came together without a lot of pushing from either side because, I think, we sense a real need for frequent contacts, talks, and cooperation.

What agreements between Russia and the USA have been reached on problems in Afghanistan?
The Russian and U.S. presidents admitted the need for a joint assistance project for Afghanistan in July 2009. Russian and American specialists from the working groups are also talking about different aspects of Russian-U.S. collaboration in Afghanistan which include ways on how to do more in some areas of Afghanistan. For example, there are a lot of old Soviet hydroelectric stations and dams in the country and the Russian government has helped put them back into service. But we also agreed to talk about military aid to defeat extremism in Afghanistan. An important agreement reached in July was for the transit of Russian air space by American military aircraft en route to Afghanistan, with the first U.S. military flights crossing Russian airspace just before Secretary Clinton’s visit to Moscow. There will be a large number of such flights under this agreement. This is a big contribution to the military effort by our Russian counterparts.

And what about the Iranian nuclear program?
We agree on an outcome but we still don’t agree on a tactical approach on Iran. The U.S. and Russian sides absolutely agree that Iran should not acquire nuclear weapons but we still don’t agree on the urgency and what appropriate steps should be taken to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear weapon. We made significant progress on that during Secretary Clinton’s visit to Moscow. What we have seen so far are some practical results from the discussion that she had with Mr. Medvedev and Mr. Lavrov in Geneva in the first real serious negotiations with Iranians on the part of international community. For the first time, we saw U.S. and Russian negotiators sitting at the table with Iranian negotiators talking about ways to assist Iran’s development of peaceful nuclear energy. It’s a concrete example of what is possible when the USA and Russia are able work together on critical international problems like this.

What other important issues will Russia and the U.S. cooperate on?
Space is another area where the U.S. and Russia are cooperating. One of the major developments in recent years is the merging of the U.S. and Russian manned space programs into a collaborative partnership. For example, we are cooperating on joint space missions to and from the international space station, not just simply serving there together. Next year, when the U.S. shuttle program is shut down, we will be relying on the Russian space program for transportation to the international space station for the next three years until our new replacement space shuttle is ready. Our astronauts and cosmonauts are training together and our new NASA administrator, who is a former astronaut and flew with Russian astronauts on one of the first joint missions in the 1990s, has been to Russia as well.

During Secretary Clinton’s visit to Moscow, she was able to discuss (with Minister Lavrov) our additional efforts, including plans for space exploration and potential missions to Mars. And this is an area where we have a great history of cooperation. Maybe we can do some new things together.

Secretary Clinton also participated in an informal discussion with representatives from Russian civil society, NGOs, cultural figures, journalists, and political activists at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence at Spaso House. They had a very interesting discussion about the prospects for Russian-American relations. It was Secretary Clinton’s idea to find out what more we have to do in terms of bringing together Russian and American civil society activists.

A lot of Russian students would like to study in the United States, but because of the global economic crisis the number of educational exchange programs have decreased.
There were some positive discussions on exchanges and cultural programs. We agreed that we need to do more on both sides to reverse the decline in the number of student exchanges between Russia and the U.S. and the need for financial aid. Secretary Clinton has made a major effort to find more financial aid for scholarships and educational exchange programs, which have had a very positive impact in the past, but have suffered due to inadequate funding. This issue was also discussed during Secretary Clinton’s visit to Moscow State University (MSU). According to her, there are people in both governments who don’t believe that there can be better relations between Russia and the United States and we have to prove them wrong.

Are there any differences between Russia and the United States that might prevent our countries from resetting the relationship?
There are some complicated issues which I have mentioned. Agricultural trade is a good example of these differences. This is what we call an ‘irritant’ in the diplomatic world. It doesn’t seem like it should be a big deal but it is for both sides because you have producers, you have lobbies, you have different interest groups and a lot of money is at stake when you’re talking about trade and things like that. We also have to mention pressure on the governments. For example, some in Congress might feel that if Russia won’t let in more of our chicken, we won’t vote for this kind of change in the relationship. This is how things work in Congress. I mean agricultural trade might influence the decisions of the two governments and prevent us from achieving an agreement.

There is a long list of disagreements between the two sides. We do have some very complicated issues, including the Georgian conflict, Russian accession to the World Trade Organization and disagreements around the disputed territory in the Arctic. And this is normal for two big countries. Every year, we have misunderstandings between us. That’s why the Presidential commission has been created to come up with solutions.

I can go on and on, but I would say, if you, right now, made a list of disagreements and a list of areas where we have agreed and are cooperating, the positive list would be much longer. The positive list is growing every week.

According to Secretary Clinton, we may agree or disagree, but it should not prevent us from improving our relationship. That is what the reset means.