Was President Barack Obama’s recent trip to Russia a success, failure or in between? Did he waste a perfect opportunity to stand up in front of the microphones and cameras and declare U.S. victory in the cold war — or would that have been an unwise and/or inaccurate move?
Cathy Young, a contributing editor at Reason, a weekly columnist at RealClearPolitics, and the author of Growing Up in Moscow: Memories of a Soviet Girlhood (1989), has two must read pieces that look at this issue.
First, on The New Republic’s The Plank, she looks at the question “Did Obama Concede Too Much To Russia?” Here’s a small portion of what she says:
Barack Obama’s fairly unremarkable trip to Moscow has already sparked a small outburst of conservative outrage over arms-control concessions that supposedly undercut American security. Yesterday Liz Cheney, the vice president’s daughter and former deputy assistant secretary of state (and possible congressional candidate), joined the chorus with a Wall Street Journal op-ed accusing Obama of “rewriting Cold War history” to America’s detriment in his Moscow speech.
She explores the realities in detail and at the end writes:
Yes, Obama probably should have added that in the Cold War standoff, America was the Soviet Union’s adversary but a friend to freedom in Soviet-bloc countries. And Cheney makes a good point about his failure to acknowledge that Soviet communism was a brutal tyranny, not just the West’s rival in science, sports, and weapons. Overall, however, Obama’s Moscow speech hit most of the right notes. It included a scathing critique of Putinite ideological obsessions–from “spheres of influence” to the notion that it’s in America’s interest to keep Russia weak–and an unapologetic defense of the U.S. commitment to freedom and democratic government everywhere. The idea that it would have been better for the American president to stand before a Russian audience and claim the end of the Cold War as a single-handed victory of “us” over “them” would have been not only politically myopic but, as it happens, also historically inaccurate.
Now read it in its entirety…
Next, read her piece on RealClearPolitics titled “Obama’s Trip to Russia a Mixed Bag.” It begins:
While the mainstream media have hailed the advances in U.S.-Russian relations supposedly achieved on Barack Obama’s trip to Moscow, some conservative commentary has depicted Obama as a pushover if not a dupe for the Kremlin. The cheerleading and the alarmism are both unwarranted. The visit was no great success, but Obama probably did as well as any president could have – and some aspects of his Russia strategy can only be judged by their long-term results.
Were there significant steps forward in Moscow last week? Doubtful.
She then gives a detailed analysis. Her conclusion:
The signal to Russia seems to be that if Medvedev asserts himself and chooses reform, he will have American support. Given the murkiness of Kremlin politics, this tactic has its risks: the U.S. could be investing political capital in someone who could be either a puppet or – even as his own man – another dubious ally. Still, as long as Obama’s team proceeds with caution, it is a genuine if small chance to encourage change.The administration’s Russia policy deserves careful but fair scrutiny. Uncritical praise for symbolic “advances” is not helpful. Neither is criticism based on stereotypes of Obama as a foreign policy weakling.
Now read it all from beginning to end.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.