Strongman, The

arms reduction treaty, which was due to expire in December. The treaty, which would become known as New Start, was to be the centrepiece of the reset. But even agreeing wording for the framework agreement required some diplomatic acrobatics, to accommodate the two sides’ diametrically opposed views on whether the treaty should also impose limits on missile defences.
    President Obama had promised to ‘review’ George W. Bush’s missile defence plans, and in September he would delight the Russians by cancelling the plans for a radar in the Czech Republic and interceptors in Poland. But he still intended to build something in their place, and the Americans were determined not to include in the New Start treaty anything that would impede their development of a missile shield. The Russians were equally determined to link the two. They insisted that building defences against offensive nuclear missiles destabilised the general strategic balance by making the side without the shield vulnerable to a first strike.
    ‘We were categorical that we were not going to have this conversation together,’ says McFaul. ‘We could have a separate conversation about missile defence, but here we were going to talk about reducing offensive strategic weapons. That’s what the negotiations had to be about. The Russians wanted to do it all together. We said no.’
    Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, recalls: ‘It was clear from the beginning – for us at least and I think for our American friends too – that the subject of missile defence would become a stumbling block.’ 2
    They agreed a compromise, but it was a messy fudge. Their memorandum of understanding included a ‘provision on the interrelationship of strategic offensive and strategic defensive arms’. The two presidents interpreted this in quite different ways. At their joint press conference, Medvedev said: ‘We have agreed that offensive and defensive systems of both countries should be considered as a complex .’ Obama said: ‘It is entirely legitimate for our discussions to talk not only about offensive weapons systems but also defensive weapon systems.’ He did not say they should be ‘considered as a complex’, indeed he explicitly pointed out that America’s planned missile shield was aimed exclusively at dealing with a strike from Iran or North Korea and had nothing to do with Russia’s strategic forces, and added: ‘And so, in that sense, we have not thought that it is appropriate to link discussions of a missile defence system designed to deal with an entirely different threat unrelated to the kinds of robust capabilities that Russia possesses.’ So was there linkage or not? The fudge allowed negotiations to start ... but on a fatally flawed basis.
    The July summit in Moscow was designed to demonstrate the new ‘dual track’ approach, taking in not just summit talks with the Russian leadership but also ‘civil society’ – a speech at an independent college, the New Economic School, and a meeting with opposition figures, ‘the biggest critics we could find of the Russian government’, according to McFaul.
    The first day was devoted to talks with President Medvedev, but Obama was also keen to meet the man who had shaped Russia for the past ten years. The second morning began with breakfast on the veranda at Putin’s dacha – a sumptuous meal that included three types of caviar (‘at least one of which must have been illegal’, according to one of the Americans). The meeting was scheduled to last one hour, but went on for two and a half. Obama started by asking Putin, ‘How did we get into this mess – this low point that US–Russian relations have been in for the past years?’ Luckily Obama is a good listener. Putin’s answer took up the whole of the first hour.
    He delivered a history of the two countries’ relations, going back to his hobby horse, the West’s bombing of Serbia, and enumerating every slight he had felt in the years that followed: ABM, Iraq, WTO, NATO expansion, missile defence, Kosovo ... Putin’s tale of unrequited love. McFaul felt that while one could argue over the substance ‘the prime minister was actually saying things that I think President Obama also agreed with – that if we just focus on our interests and talk very pragmatically about where we agree and disagree, we can cooperate’. For Obama, the history lesson was even rather helpful because it enabled him to emphasise to Putin: