Putting the U.S. on its threat list of the Russian Federation, 63-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin mirrored the sad state of affairs between Washington and Moscow. White House officials cite Russia’s March 1 invasion of Crimea as the basis for the current deterioration that leaves the two of the world’s three remaining superpowers at arm’s length. Replacing a 2009 document called “About the Strategy of National Security of the Russian Federation,” Putin now lists the U.S. and European Union as threats to Russian national security. U.S. and EU officials never acknowledged the Feb. 22, 2014 coup in Kiev, Ukraine toppling the duly elected government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich. Watching the coup from the Sochi Winter Olympics, Putin could do nothing until the games ended Feb. 23, taking one week to annex Crimea.
U.S. and EU officials promptly slapped Putin with economic and trade sanctions July 29, 2014, hoping to persuade the Kremlin to give back Crimea. Putin told U.S. and EU officials that toppling Russian-backed Yanukovich was illegal, citing evidence that the CIA helped sponsor the coup. No one from the U.S. or EU to date acknowledges that the coup was CIA-orchestrated. “The strengthening of Russian happens against a background of new threat to national security, which has complex and interrelated nature,” read the new document, referring to the U.S. and NATO;s attempts to emasculate Russian power wherever possible. Hitting Moscow with punitive economic and travel sanctions July 29, 2014 and again Sept. 13, 2014, the Russian stock market and currency tumbled, plunging the Russian economy into recession in 2014 and 2015, especially with the slide in global oil prices.
Since starting air strikes against anti-al-Assad rebels in Syria Sept. 30, 2015 Putin has drawn White House ire, accusing Moscow of betraying their vow to go after the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS]. Instead of praising Putin for committing military assets to help end the Syrian civil war, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry criticized Putin for misleading. Speaking to the U.N. General Assembly Sept. 28, 2015, only two days before launching air strikes in Syria, Putin made clear that toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would repeat the mistakes in Iraq and Libya, throwing the region into chaos. Obama and Kerry only condemned Putin for prolonging the Syrian conflict. Putin rejected the Saudi-funded proxy war trying to topple al-Assad. Putin asked the U.S. to seriously reconsider its wholesale backing of Saudi Arabia’s Syrian foreign policy.
Putin’s resolute backing of al-Assad forced Obama and Kerry to reconsider its rubber stamp of Saudi foreign policy. Only recently did Kerry finally accept Putin’s position Dec. 15 that al-Assad should stay in Damascus, at least for now. Pushing U.S.-Russian relations to Cold War lows, Obama finally admitted his counter-productive foreign policy. Citing the U.S. and EU as a threat to Moscow, Putin sees the “counter-action from the USA and its allies, which are striving to retain their dominance in global affairs,” read the Kremlin’s new national security document. Seeing the U.S. as a global threat, serves neither Russian nor the Western alliance. Putin hasn’t gotten over the CIA-brokered coup in Kiev, led by 44-yar-old former Ukrainian heavyweight champion boxer Vitali Klitschko. Klitschko, the six-foot-seven-inch former boxer, is currently Kiev’s pro-Western mayor.
Allowing U.S.-Russian relations to deteriorate, Obama bears much of the blame for continuing allowing anti-Russian rhetoric on Capitol Hill to dictate U.S. foreign policy. U.S. needs Russia’s extensive resources in the Mideast and Caucus region to deal with rising threats from radical Islam. Recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino have helped to better relations with Moscow. Obama gave too much credit to concerns in former Soviet republics, like the Baltic States, that the Kremilin continues to threaten their sovereignty. Russia’s new security document fingers the U.S. and EU for backing the “anti-constitutional coup d’etat in Ukraine.” Much of U.S. and EU concern centered on Kremlin backing of pro-Russian separatists in Southeastern Ukraine, no longer wanting any part Kiev. Putin can’t be blamed for defending Ukraine’s duly elected pro-Kremlin government.
Whatever happens with the 2016 presidential election, Obama should work toward improving U.S.-Russian elections. Aligning U.S. and Russian interests in not only fighting ISIS but improving Mideast stability would be a step in the right direction. Allowing Saudi Arabia to dictate U.S. policy in Syria has been counter-productive, helping neither Washington nor Moscow. However the geopolitics works out in Ukraine, siding against Moscow only makes mending fences with Russia more difficult. Accepting Putin’s position on Syria’s Bashar al-Assad has opened more doors for better U.S.-Russian relations. Taking another look at Ukraine, the U.S. needs to acknowledge the events that led to the Feb. 22, 2014 ousting of duly elected pro-Kremlin President Viktor Yanukovich. Whatever forces ousted Yanukovich, it’s not worth taking sides against the Russian Federation.
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