By Angela Stent, professor of Government...
It has been a year since President Obama came into office and six months since the summit in Moscow. The atmospherics in the US-Russian relationship have improved over the last year, as have the level of engagement and negotiations on a variety of issues.
Yet the concrete results so far are modest and both sides sense mutual ambivalence about what the reset should mean or how far it should go. A brief inventory of where we are highlights the importance of developing realistic expectations for moving the US-Russian partnership forward.
Afghanistan: there has been concrete progress on US military transportation across the territory of the Russian Federation, although some technical challenges remain. Despite Russian skepticism about whether NATO can ultimately achieve its objectives in Afghanistan, there is agreement that neither Russia nor the United States want to see the Taliban return to power. There is room for more robust cooperation both on counternarcotics and counter-terrorism.