The European media generally gave a cautious evaluation of President Barack Obama’s trip to Russia, concluding that the atmosphere between the two countries had improved but that concrete progress still remained to be achieved. Like the U.S. media, the Europeans pointed to the value of Russia’s agreement to allow the transit of U.S. military supplies to Afghanistan and the joint commitment to negotiate cuts in strategic nuclear weapons, given that the current Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (START) expires in December.
The European media, however, tended to overstate the importance of the statement to this effect by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev – the plan to negotiate further reductions had already been agreed between Washington and Moscow, and Obama made no progress in Moscow in the actual negotiations. The Financial Times in particular went overboard, reporting that Obama and Medvedev were “clearly proud of their biggest achievement: a substantial cut in their strategic nuclear weapons arsenals.” But the cut was not achieved, and will not be until many complex hurdles are overcome.
The BBC came close to making the same mistake, with a headline U.S. and Russia agree nuclear cuts, but then correctly reported:
Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev publicly signed a joint understanding to negotiate a new arms control treaty that would set lower levels of both nuclear warheads and delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles and bombers.
BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus commented: “By setting low expectations for this summit, the U.S. and Russian leaders have been able to appear to achieve more than had been hoped.”
Le Monde’s Washington Correspondent, Corine Lesnes, led an analytical piece by proclaiming that “Le reset” was under way. Her article, entitled, À Moscou, Barack Obama recueille les fruits de relations apaisées, (In Moscow, Barack Obama harvests the fruits of soothed relations) said Obama and Medvedev were keen to show that their commitments to improve U.S-Russian relations had already been productive. But she pointed out that the arms reduction agreement was as yet no more than a working framework, and that on Iran the two leaders had agreed only on “a joint evaluation of the threat.” The Paris-based daily Le Parisien reported the outlines agreed for replacing START, but contained a hint of pessimism, saying Obama was blowing hot and cold air in Moscow.
An analysis by French news agency AFP began: “It was style over substance this week as President Barack Obama eloquently urged a fresh start in troubled relations with Russia but otherwise strayed little from a well-worn U.S. policy script, experts said.” Nobody disputed the importance of the deals and declarations published in Moscow, but the real work of putting deeply damaged U.S.-Russian relations back on track had barely begun, AFP said. “It is a new tone in Washington’s approach to Moscow that Obama brought this week – a palpable departure from that of his predecessor, George W. Bush – that both sides hope will produce deeper breakthroughs later.”
Financial Times columnist Gideon Rachman was more cynical than most European commentators, arguing that: “Mr. Obama’s charismatic aura is obscuring an uncomfortable truth. His foreign policy is in crisis.” Agreements on arms control and transit routes to Afghanistan could not extinguish the still smoldering antagonisms created by last year’s Georgia war, Rachman said. “Above all Mr. Obama is getting nothing on the issue he placed at the center of his drive for a rapprochement with Russia: Iran. Mr. Obama’s problems with Iran and Russia are merging into a single, nasty mess.”
A BBC round-up of Russian media reaction included the following extracts:
