Experts Hope U.S-Russia Summit Will Bring Change To U.S Foreign Policy

By Celia Canon- Talk Radio News Service

As the July 6th thru 8th US-Russia Summit draws nearer, a plethora of foreign affairs and Russian experts gathered on Wednesday at the Heritage Foundation to discuss the likelihood that the summit produces changes in America's policies towards Russia. Several panelists agreed that the meeting should lead to the reestablishment of disabled ties between the two states.

Former National Intelligence Council Chairman Fritz Ermath said “the Obama administration is trying to improve U.S-Russian relations from their worst or chilliest since the Cold War.”

President Barack Obama will be visiting Russia next week as part of a series of trips abroad. The administration’s meeting with the Russian government should include discussions on the renewal of START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), ratified by Russia and the United States in 1991 to achieve a dramatic reduction in strategic forces. The treaty also brought Georgia into NATO.

Ermath explained that “as was the case in the Cold War today, U.S policy-making for Russia should be informed by the deepest possible understanding of Russia as a system, as a country, as a state, as a culture. During the Cold War, we devoted enormous resources to the Soviet Union, comprehensively, not just militarily, and that investment payed off.”

“Our understanding of Russia is weaker than it should be. This is partly because its a confusing reality. Russia doesn’t get the attention it deserves in academic, think tank, and government analytical circles. other priorities have taken over the funding,” he added.

But, according to Ariel Cohen, Senior Research Fellow of Russian and Eurasian Studies, progress between the two nations on the issue of weapons is being impeded by past tensions.

“Arms control is at the heart of historically the U.S soviet relationship and now Us-Russia relationship,” Cohen said.

Baker Spring, a Research Fellow on National Security Policy at the Heritage Foundation, insisted that “it is necessarily the case that arms control and missile defense are going to have a close relationship with each other,” referring to the Bush administration’s decision to install missiles at a base in Poland, and to build a radar station in the Czech Republic.

“The question really is what is the direction of that relationship. Is arms control going to drive the agenda to the detriment of missile defense or can missile defense be a driver to push arms control in the right direction and in my opinion the latter is defining the direction we need to be moving in because the most immediate requirement for both the U.S and Russian is to adjust to the unpredictable nature of today’s world,” said Spring.