Trump won’t be the first president to attempt to find common ground with Moscow. Everycommander-in-chief since the fall of the Berlin Wall has started his tenure with a fresh, positiveapproach to America’s former nemesis. Bill Clinton made a point to woo Boris Yeltsin. Afterthat, George W. Bush looked into Putin’s eyes and was reassured (because he saw a soul there).Most recently there was President Barack Obama’s 2009 “reset”—the first one to claim thename officially. [...]
The “reset” wasn’t a complete failure. Obama achieved some key objectives: the New STARTtreaty; a much-needed alternative transit route for troops and equipment to Afghanistanthrough Russia; a signed agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation; Russia’s abstention in theSecurity Council on the vote to bomb Libya in 2011; and Russia’s accession to the World TradeOrganization. But there were sticking points, too. Russia still refused to share intelligence oncounter terrorism or illicit narcotics trafficking, and even in the run-up to the Sochi Olympicswould not coordinate with U.S. security officials. And then in the aftermath of the ousting of theKremlin-backed Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich, Russia illegally annexed Crimea andstarted a war in the Eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. The reset was off life support; it was dead. [...]
Trump’s gains under this robust reset deal won’t, however, compensate for the giant harm itwould cause. If Putin gets everything he wants—including a free hand in Ukraine—the UnitedStates and the world would be in a far more dangerous situation. From the U.S. perspective,security, trade and political relationships with its closest allies would suffer a massive crisis ofconfidence and erosion of trust, which could lead to misunderstandings and miscalculationsamong them and with Russia—and in the worst case, to military clashes. A large scale war couldalso break out between Russia and its non-NATO neighbors, like Ukraine, whose governmentsand people will resist these new reset terms, adding to existing refugee flows and economicinstability in Europe. In cases like these, damage occurs quickly, but recovery—rebuilding trustand institutions—is difficult and slow work. That’s all for a few gains—increased trade with Russia, a re-negotiated Iran agreement, some cooperation fighting terrorists in Syria, reining in North Korea and China, progress on the INF Treaty and some kind words—which could easilybe undone by Moscow at any time.
