On August 7, the White House announced the cancellation of a September G20 summit meeting between Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, citing a “lack of progress on issues such as missile defense and arms control, trade and commercial relations, global security issues, and human rights and civil society in the last twelve months,” as well as Russia’s granting of asylum to Edward Snowden – essentially, the failure of Obama’s “reset.” While the U.S. secretaries of State and Defense have both since hosted their Russian counterparts in Washington and worked to smooth bilateral relations, the noted cooling will likely decrease cooperation on arms control, Iran, Syria, and other pressing international issues.
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