By Jonathan Weisman in Washington and Gregory L. White and Alan Cullison in Moscow
The Obama White House on Thursday adopted a hard line against negotiating away missile-defense sites in Eastern Europe and limiting NATO expansion in the former Soviet Union, just days ahead of a summit meeting in Moscow.
The hardened posture made it clear the Kremlin wouldn't make headway on two of its top priorities for the summit.
"We shouldn't have excessive hopes" for the meeting, said a senior Russian diplomat in Moscow. "Despite all this constructive atmosphere, the deeper you get into details, the more difficulties you find."
In the past few weeks, the Russians have recognized the controversial
re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, forced peacekeepers out
of Georgia, and suggested that Mr. Obama can realize his ambitious goals to
reduce nuclear weapons only if he pulls back on the U.S.'s missile-defense
plans.
White House officials, in turn, signaled Wednesday that they don't plan to
offer overt concessions or even softer reassurance on issues at the top of the
Kremlin's list -- the deployment of missile-defense systems in Poland and the
Czech Republic and the possible acceptance of Georgia and Ukraine into the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
"We're definitely not going to use the word 'reassure' in the way that we
talk about these things," said Michael McFaul, special assistant to the
president and senior White House director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs.
"We're not going to reassure or give or trade . . . anything with the Russians
regarding NATO expansion or missile defense."
Instead, he said, Mr. Obama will explore with Russian leaders a longstanding
proposal by Moscow to install U.S. missile-defense components on Russian soil,
aimed at growing threats such as the Iranian and North Korean missile programs.
The White House and Kremlin do expect progress on negotiations to reduce
strategic nuclear warheads to about 1,500 for each side. Movement also is
expected on some side issues, such as transit of U.S. military materiel through
Russia to Afghanistan and cooperation on fighting terrorism.
Later this year, negotiators will turn to a more ambitious effort to further
cut the number of strategic warheads, as well as battlefield nuclear weapons
and nondeployed warheads.
In Moscow, Mr. Obama will deliver what White House officials are billing as
his third major foreign-policy address, after his April arms-control speech in
Prague and his address in Cairo to the Muslim world. The speech at the New
Economic School in Moscow, a center of economic liberalism, will try to
reorient relations from the traditional Russian "zero-sum" view that a stronger
U.S. means a weaker Russia, White House officials said.
Mr. Obama also will seek to underscore his commitment to Russian democracy in
meetings with Russian opposition leaders and former Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev.
He is set to hold more than four hours of talks with Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev.
But lengthy private talks with Mr. Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
aren't likely to be enough for Moscow, after ties worsened last year in the
wake of Russia's invasion of Georgia. Russia wants concrete signs its concerns
are being heard, such as formal cooperation on missile defense, said a Kremlin
representative in Washington. "A reassurance -- and only a reassurance -- is
not that reassuring," he said.
