European Tour Romney's Trans-Atlantic Policy Needs a Reboot
A Commentary By Annette Heuser and Tyson Barker
Cold-War Rhetoric
At the moment, Romney's European policy hints at a worldview more reminiscent of 1982 than 2012. In a March interview, Romney described Russia as the US's "number-one geopolitical foe." More recently, one of his top defense surrogates warned of the creeping Soviet threat in the Arctic. Another stated that the Obama administration's decision to opt for a phased adaptive approach to missile defense was abandoning "Czechoslovakia."
Individually these unfortunate statements are meaningless, but taken together they represent a worldview that is tinged with Cold War-era tropes. The Romney camp seems to overlook that Russia's accordance of access to the International Security Assistance Force's northern distribution network has been essential to the continuation of the mission in Afghanistan. His campaign also fails to remember that recent arms reductions in the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty make the US military more effective and the world safer, and that Russia's entry this month into the World Trade Organization forces Moscow to accept higher standards for the rule of law.
That is not to say that US-Russia relations are unproblematic. Russia's obstinacy in the face of the Syrian civil war runs counter to the humanitarian responsibility incumbent upon the United Nations Security Council's permanent members. The Kremlin's new, restrictive laws on non-governmental organizations and internet freedom also call into question even the most basic commitment to civil society. And the country's endemic corruption is worrisome. Indeed, Russia's relationships with the US and Europe are complex and wrought with difficulty. They cannot be boiled down into simplistic, anachronistic sound bites.
Read it at Der Spiegel
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/commentary-on-romney-s-visit-to-europe-a-846382.html
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