U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently returned from a tour of Eastern European countries and the post-Soviet space where she seemed to be backtracking on promises made during the recent successful Obama-Medvedev summit held in Washington, DC. Yet, notwithstanding some tough talk from Clinton, one might have noticed there was very little reaction from Moscow. And that was because it was pretty clear this time around that the secretary of state was grandstanding for a domestic-political audience. It is a sign that U.S.-Russia relations are in fact moving in the right direction.
To show just how significant the change is, after the supposedly successful Moscow summit a year ago between Obama and Medvedev, the U.S. administration sent Vice President Biden to the region with a mission to clarify Washington’s new reset policy. He was charged with convincing America’s allies that improving relations with Moscow did not mean handing the region over to Russia on a silver platter, and that giving up missile-defense plans in the Czech Republic and Poland, and abandoning further expansion of NATO by inviting Ukraine and Georgia into the club, did not mean that the United States would be giving Russia carte blanche.
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