Vladimir Putin met with Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Gates regarding the American plan to install missile defense in Europe. He is not happy:
In a tense start to talks on a range of thorny issues, President Vladimir Putin on Friday warned U.S. officials to back off a plan to install missile defenses in eastern Europe or risk harming relations with Moscow.
Addressing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Russian president appeared to mock the U.S. missile defense plan, which is at the center of a tangle of arms control and diplomatic disputes between the former Cold War adversaries.
“Of course we can sometime in the future decide that some anti-missile defense system should be established somewhere on the moon,” Putin said, according to an English translation. “But before we reach such arrangements we will lose the opportunity for fixing some particular arrangements between us.”
After Putin’s session with Gates and Rice, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters that the U.S. delegation had presented “detailed proposals” to address U.S.-Russian differences on missile defense and arms control. He offered no details but said the Russian government is ready to seek compromise.
“We have differences and there is no need to hide them,” Lavrov said.
The Russian government sees the U.S. missile defense plan, which Washington describes as a hedge against the threat of missile attack from Iran, as a worrisome step toward weakening Russian security. It has been a longstanding dispute, and Putin’s remarks seemed to raise the level of tensions.
Rice and Gates appeared taken aback at the firm tone and forcefulness of Putin’s remarks, which were made from notes in the presence of American and Russian news media before they began a closed-door meeting around an oval table in an ornate conference room at his country house outside the capital.
“We will try to find ways to cooperate,” Rice said in response. “Even though we have our differences, we have a great deal in common because that which unites us in trying to deal with the threats of terrorism, of proliferation, are much greater than the issues that divide us.”
Alas, however, “that which unites us” is growing increasingly small in number. In addition to the dispute over the issue of missile defense, there are disputes over Russia’s worldwide role, disputes over Putin’s role in Russian politics and there are certainly disputes over Russia’s relations and actions concerning other former Soviet states. In each instance, Russia has taken a stance that is antithetical to American interests and concerns.
At some point, all of this needs to be addressed via a comprehensive overhaul of American policy towards Russia. We have not had that overhaul yet. I wonder how much time it will take–and how much fewer “that which unites us” will have to number–before such an overhaul takes place.