OPINION: Global Responsibilities to Normalize Russia-US Relations Within 7 Years

MOSCOW, April 21 (RIA Novosti), Daria Chernyshova – Relations between Russia and the US will normalize within the next seven years as the two countries bear significant global responsibilities and must cooperate on numerous international issues, the director general of the Eurasian Communication Center told RIA Novosti.

“I believe the situation will normalize in 3-7 years,” Alexei Pilko said. “Russia and the US are powers with global responsibility. We have commitments on nuclear non-proliferation, we cooperate on issues in the Middle East, we’ve worked together in Afghanistan, and there will be many more issues requiring the joint work of Moscow and Washington,” Pilko told RIA Novosti.

The souring of relations between Russia and the US in recent months has revived memories of the Cold War, with many now speaking about US containment policy against Russia. The New York Times wrote in an article published over the weekend that US President Barack Obama is looking to change the administration’s long-term approach to Russia toward extensive isolation.

"President Obama and his national security team are looking beyond the immediate conflict to forge a new long-term approach to Russia that applies an updated version of the Cold War strategy of containment," the article said, outlining Obama’s intentions to isolate Russia and "effectively make it a pariah state."

“Obama is already thinking about the 2016 presidential election and tries to ensure the victory of his party, of the Democrats,” Alexei Pilko told RIA Novosti. “So this harsh rhetoric is quite understandable in this context. He is often blamed for being too soft with the Russians, so he is trying to prove he is hard on Russia. But in reality he won’t be hard, just in his words,” Pilko added.

The same is true about NATO beefing up its presence in Eastern Europe. “Yes, the US will deploy 1,500 troops in Romania, a dozen jets somewhere else in Europe, but these are symbolic moves to save face,” Pilko said. “The US does not desire to start a new Cold War and, moreover, it does not have the resources to do so.”

Pilko concluded that rhetoric would be harsh, but verbal diplomacy is different from practical politics. “Practical politics is far more complicated, and even if on the surface the countries seem to be in a serious conflict, in fact they do not interrupt consultations,” Pilko told RIA Novosti.

US-Russia relations have always been a rollercoaster, with moments of high tension and profound cooperation. Pilko said that negotiations the two countries were holding at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963 helped to resolve that episode, just as they had in 1961 at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin.