![Lavrov and Clinton reset relations-1 (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Lavrov_and_Clinton_reset_relations-1_%28cropped%29.jpg)
The Russian reset was an attempt by the
Obama administration
Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...
to improve relations between the
United States and Russia in 2009–2013.
Symbolic reset
On 6 March 2009 in Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
presented Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov
Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov (russian: Сергей Викторович Лавров, ; born 21 March 1950) is a Russian diplomat and politician who has served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Russia), Foreign Minister of Russia since 2004.
...
with a red button with the English word "reset" and the
Roman alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
transliteration of the Russian
Cyrillic alphabet
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
word перегрузка ("peregruzka"). It was intended that this would be the Russian word for "reset" but actually was the word for "overload".
(The correct translation would be перезагрузка
perezagruzka") Additionally, the button switch was the type commonly used as an emergency stop on industrial equipment. Hillary Clinton was later praised by the Russian diplomats for resolving the issue politely, stating her team's good intentions. Lavrov and Clinton pushed the button simultaneously.
Substantive reset
![Dmitry Medvedev in Honolulu, November 2011-12](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Dmitry_Medvedev_in_Honolulu%2C_November_2011-12.jpeg)
Prior to the reset, US-Russia relations had been hurt by the
2008 Russo-Georgian diplomatic crisis
An international diplomatic crisis between Georgia and Russia began in 2008, when Russia announced that it would no longer participate in the Commonwealth of Independent States economic sanctions imposed on Abkhazia in 1996 and established direct ...
in
Ossetia
Ossetia ( , ; os, Ирыстон or , or ; russian: Осетия, Osetiya; ka, ოსეთი, translit. ''Oseti'') is an ethnolinguistic region located on both sides of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, largely inhabited by the Ossetians. ...
and the
Russo-Georgian War
The 2008 Russo-Georgian WarThe war is known by a variety of other names, including Five-Day War, August War and Russian invasion of Georgia. was a war between Georgia, on one side, and Russia and the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of Sou ...
, leading to
Immediate Response 2008
According to United States European Command,
Immediate Response is an annual, bilateral security cooperation exercise conducted between U.S. and NATO and coalition partners. It is a longstanding Joint Chiefs of Staff-directed exercise focused on ...
by the
Bush administration. In private, several Obama administration officials expressed doubts about the reset and were concerned that it was overly optimistic, particularly Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates
Robert Michael Gates (born September 25, 1943) is an American intelligence analyst and university president who served as the 22nd United States secretary of defense from 2006 to 2011. He was originally appointed by president George W. Bush an ...
and U.S. ambassador to Russia
John Beyrle
John Ross Beyrle (born February 11, 1954) is an American diplomat. A career Foreign Service Officer and specialist in Russian and Eastern European affairs, he served as Ambassador of the United States to the Russian Federation from July 3, 2008, ...
.
In July 2009, Russian president
Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev ( rus, links=no, Дмитрий Анатольевич Медведев, p=ˈdmʲitrʲɪj ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mʲɪdˈvʲedʲɪf; born 14 September 1965) is a Russian politician who has been serving as the dep ...
announced that U.S. forces and supplies could pass through Russian airspace on their way to
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
. On 17 September 2009, U.S. President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
announced that the U.S. was dropping the Bush Administration's plan to build a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe. Russia had viewed the planned missile shield as a military threat.
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
said the decision was "correct and brave". In March, 2010, the U.S. and Russia agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals.
In May 2010, major powers including the U.S.,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and Russia agreed on sanctions against
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. Three days later, the Obama Administration cancelled sanctions against the Russian state arms export agency, which had been sanctioned for exporting arms to Iran.
In response to the adoption of the
Magnitsky Act
The Magnitsky Act, formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson–Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, is a bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in D ...
in 2012, the Russian government
denied Americans adoption of Russian children and issued a list of US officials prohibited from entering Russia.
At the 2015
Munich Security Conference
The Munich Security Conference (MSC; german: Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz) is an annual conference on international security policy that has been held in Munich, Bavaria, Germany since 1963. Former names are ''Wehrkundetagung'' and ''Münchner ...
, Vice President Biden specified the substantive progress, and setbacks:
Subsequent deterioration of relations
As early as the March 2014 censure of Russia by the United Nations over the
Russian annexation of Crimea, the reset was described in the press as "failed". Stated reasons included the annexation, the
2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine
From the end of February 2014, demonstrations by pro-Russian and anti-government groups took place in major cities across the Eastern Ukraine, eastern and Southern Ukraine, southern regions of Ukraine in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dig ...
, and lack of Russian cooperation with the U.S. on
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
. Former Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs
Adam Rotfeld stated that the reset showed "weakness".
Jeb Bush
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (born February 11, 1953) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. Bush, who grew up in Houston, was the second son of former President George H. W. Bush a ...
also called the reset a failure, stating that Russia had "invaded
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
", which Russia had not done prior to the reset. He added that Putin was a "bully" and that "nuanced" behavior by the U.S. towards Putin tended to "enable bad behavior."
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė
Dalia Grybauskaitė (; born 1 March 1956) is a Lithuanian politician who served as the eighth President of Lithuania from 2009 until 2019. She is the first woman to hold the position and in 2014 she became the first President of Lithuania to be ...
in 2010 refused to go to
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
to meet with President Obama in protest of the reset.
However, Hillary Clinton defended the reset as a "brilliant stroke", pointing to the Russian agreement to sanctions against Iran and permission to fly over its territory to supply joint NATO troops in Afghanistan.
In October 2014, Medvedev said that a reset of relations with the U.S. was "impossible" and that relations had been damaged by "destructive" and "stupid" Western sanctions against Russia. The sanctions had been imposed because of the Ukraine crisis and the shooting down of flight
MH17
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Kuala Lumpur that was shot down by Russian forces on 17 July 2014, while flying over e ...
, which Western powers said was the result of a missile fired from rebel-controlled territory.
In April 2015, CNN reported that "Russian hackers" had "penetrated sensitive parts of the White House" computers in "recent months." It was said that the FBI, the Secret Service, and other U.S. intelligence agencies categorized the attacks "among the most sophisticated attacks ever launched against U.S. government systems."
In April 2016, two Russian jets flew over the US destroyer
USS ''Donald Cook'' almost a dozen times, American officials said. At one point the jets were so close - about 9 m (30 ft) - that they created wakes in the water around the ship. The jets had no visible weaponry and the ship took no action.
This sharp decline in relations has been termed
Cold War II
The Second Cold War,
Cold War II,
or the New Cold War
are terms that refer to heightened political, social, ideological, informational, and military tensions in the 21st century. The term is used in the context of the tensions between th ...
by some.
References
{{Russia–United States relations
Russia–United States relations
Presidency of Barack Obama