What Russia watchers get wrong

[Article] "Obama is making Bush's big mistake on Russia" Foreign Policy, 22 Mar 2010. Here.

Though it raises some important issues, I think this is basically a superficial analysis which any Russia hand or Kremlin watcher would greet with a great deal of skepticism. The major claim seems to be that by relying on a personally amicable relationship with President Medvedev, Obama is falling into a game of deception as readily as Bush did.

We already know that Obama and Medvedev speak on the phone at least once a week, sometimes more (as in the heat of the START negotiations). But the authors don't answer an obvious question: what is there to do in international diplomacy OTHER than foster relationships with partners and allies?

I think the whole underlying claim of the article is that Obama is naive and will fall for any promises on democratization or human rights that Medvedev throws his way, a claim which is useless insofar as it can't (yet) be proved or disproved. There are some other problematic claims, though:

1) From the Russian view, Putin never got the best of Bush as the authors imply by dredging up the tired "looked into his eyes and saw his soul" quote. Instead, American-Russian relations soured because Bush got the best of Putin - by tromping around Russia's Central Asian backyard while promoting NATO expansion in the west.

2) Personal relationships are important. Strobe Talbott points out in his book Russia Hand that Clinton was able to gauge Yeltsin's opinion and mood by whether he ended their conversations with "Goodbye, friend" or discourteously hung up.

3) From the Russian view the "new security architecture" proposed by Medvedev isn't designed to undermine NATO's role in Europe (as the authors claim), because NATO has no role in Europe. What, any Russian will ask you, is the alliance for if Russia is not a threat? And Medvedev's so-called European Security Plan, if toothless, at least makes an important point: the architecture of security in Europe isn't complete without a delineated role for Russia.

4) "...there has been no noticeable effort to reform the Russian regime at home..." I direct you to the recent news of Interior Ministry reform, here.

Yes, Putin still wields an enormous amount of power both in his role as Prime Minister and behind the scenes. But it's important to keep two things in mind: one, as President, Medvedev has the constitutional authority to dismiss Putin; two, the protesters and "democratic forces" pointed to in the article direct their anger at Putin, not Medvedev. Two reasons (at least) that Obama needs an amicable relationship with Dmitry.