US, Russia Ties on New Trajectory

Face-to-face meetings between the leaderships of the United States and Russia have a history of inspiring optimism that eventually turns out to be illusory and short-lived. The summit meeting at the Black Sea resort of Sochi a year ago was a perfect instance. The Sochi summit produced a grandiloquent declaration spelling out the contours of strategic cooperation between the two big powers.

But no sooner had the summit ended, acrimony broke out and US-Russia ties plunged into free fall. The ties grew increasingly strained. The conflict in the South Caucasus last August led to a dangerous drift in relations between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It added to the list of contentious issues already complicating the US-Russia relationship - deployment of components of the US missile defense system in