Part 1: United States and Russia

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama had their first meeting April 1. Though the two countries have many critical issues to discuss, the only one being talked about publicly after the presidents’ meeting is the renegotiation of a nuclear arms treaty — the least-controversial topic on the countries’ agendas.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama had their first meeting April 1, the day before the G-20 summit in London. This highly anticipated meeting comes at a critical time for both countries.

Russia is attempting to alter the balance of power in the former Soviet sphere as it resurges onto the international scene. To this end, Russia wants the United States to renegotiate a nuclear arms reduction treaty (ideally, a replacement for START), abandon its ballistic missile defense (BMD) plans in Central Europe, freeze plans to expand NATO to the former Soviet states of Georgia and Ukraine, ensure that the U.S. presence in Central Asia is only temporary and cease ramping up the Polish military. Washington, meanwhile, wants Moscow to cease supporting Iran and allow U.S. military supplies to be transported across Russian and former Soviet territory to supply its military in Afghanistan.

But as the rumors swirl around what was actually agreed upon — whispers about deals over Afghanistan and BMD are leading that front — the only deal being publicly announced by both sides is a renegotiation of nuclear reduction treaties. As STRATFOR has noted, nuclear arms talks are an area of general agreement between Washington and Moscow; both have reasons to pursue nuclear arms reductions and sign another treaty. For the United States, further reductions are in the works anyway. For Russia, further reductions are not only planned, but necessary as the arsenal ages, and it is this sort of treaty structure through which Russia maintains a semblance of parity (if only on paper) with its old Cold War rival.

But even on this front, little concrete progress has been made; this is merely the beginning of the process. Negotiators from both sides have been asked to report back in July with their initial findings, and at that point the deep technical discussions can begin. Obama is expected to visit Moscow at that point, but the details of the issue has been pushed off the table for the time being — and in the case of nuclear arms reduction treaties, the devil is in the details.

Agreement on rebooting the START process should not be confused with a lack of hostility between the two players. The treatment of other topics — in particular, the silence over anything related to Poland — emphasizes just how up in the air Russo-U.S. relations are. START is the least controversial topic and the only one that can easily translate into a public discussion. It allows Medvedev and Obama to come out of their first meeting claiming they have “reset” relations and found common ground. But the rest of the issues look to be in deadlock. It seemed hard to believe that either Medvedev or Obama would actually concede anything substantial in this meeting, but now that it is over, the difficult issues between the two are not being spoken about publicly, as both Russia and the United States know they still have tough (if not impossible) negotiations ahead.

The next step in the process for the Russians is to solidify their position and give the Americans less room to maneuver. Progress on this front has already been made April 1; Ukraine announced elections which are likely to oust the pro-Western president and create a Moscow-friendly government in Kiev.

This makes it even more important for Obama to find out where the Europeans of all stripes stand on the issue of re-containing Russia. The NATO summit — scheduled for April 3-4 — will be decisive.

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