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A year ago at the 2009 Munich security conference, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden pronounced his now-famous “reset” speech. He signaled the high hopes that the administration of President Barack Obama had for improving U.S.-Russian relations after they reached a low point in the wake of the August 2008 war with Georgia.

The U.S. National Security Council conducted a formal review of its Russia policy, and it is worth noting that of the four top foreign speeches that Obama delivered in 2009 —  in Cairo, Prague, Moscow and New York to the United Nations — only his July 7 address to students at the New Economic School in Moscow was devoted to a single country. A bilateral presidential commission was created under the leadership of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and...