Tit-for-tat moves between Russia and the US are plunging the two nations into a new Cold War, says Russia expert Stephen Cohen. Washington’s longtime policy towards Moscow is to blame for the growing tensions.
The ‘reset’ in relations between the United States and Russia is dead, as the Obama administration has never truly cooperated with Moscow, instead pushing the same policy Washington has been imposing on Russia for the past 20 years.
“That policy is advancing NATO toward Russia’s borders, building missile defense on Russia’s borders, interfering in Russia’s internal politics,” Stephen F. Cohen – professor of Russian Studies and History at New York University and Princeton University told RT.
RT: After the US Senate passed the controversial [Magnitsky] bill, Russia accused Washington of engaging in ‘Cold War tactics’. Now that Moscow has retaliated, how would you describe the two countries’ relations?
Stephen Cohen: Increasingly we are plunging into a new Cold War. But it’s not a surprise. The story of the orphans doesn’t begin with the Magnitsky Bill. Number of us in the United States have been warning since the 1990s – nearly 20 years – that unless Washington changed its policy, its kind of winner-take-all policy after the Cold War policy toward Moscow, that we would drift toward Cold War, not toward the partnership we all hoped for 20 years ago. This is just the last stage I wouldn’t say it’s inevitable. But even though the tragedy of those orphans already adopted in effect who now will not be able to join their families in America is foremost in our minds – especially on the Christmas Eve and the eve of the New Year.
A real honest, analytical approach by an American patriot – as I am – is that Washington bears a large part of responsibly because of the policies it pursued toward Moscow. And what we saw in the Russian Duma and in the Russian Higher House – the Federal Assembly – when virtually every deputy voted in favor of the ban on American adoption, which was just signed by Putin, is an outburst of pent-up of anti-American feeling in Moscow which has been caused not only, but in large measure by American policy.
RT: How much is this dispute actually just political saber-rattling and how will it actually impact the children?
SC: There is an old Russian saying – “Words are also deeds.” A lot of people in Moscow and in Washington- when they passed the Magnitsky Act and now the ban on adoption in Moscow – may have though that they werejust talking, showing off, playing grandstanding. But these words have consequences. They have backed, they have fueled this new Cold War atmosphere which is enveloping the relationship between our two countries. Each going to affect American relations with Russia regarding Afghanistan, regarding missile defense, regarding Syria, regarding Iran – these are very serious matters. The angrier people get, the more resentment people have on both sides, the worse is the situation.
For example, anti-Putin feeling in America is irrational, completely irrational. There has been a kind of demonization of Putin in America. Some of us tried to counter it by beginning a rational discourse about Putin as a leader. We are not pro-Putin, we just see him as a national leader who needs to be understood. But these events – the Magnitsky and the orphan act are going to make it impossible to have a discourse in America about Putin’s leadership in a way that would lead to any cooperation between Obama and Putin.

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