Committee on Foreign Relations United St

Russian Violations of Borders, Treaties, and Human Rights Committee on Foreign Relations United St

Together, [the United States and Russia] have conquered the Nazis, prevented the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the 1990s, and worked against terrorists in the years after 9/11. Yet, for most of modern history, Americans and Russians have found themselves at cross-purposes. Throughout the Cold War, we trained to obliterate each other. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, many politicians argued that the difficult days of confrontation were behind us. Leaders like Gorbachev and Yeltsin worked to place Russia on a path towards democracy and peaceful engagement with the rest of the world. Reagan asked for the walls to be torn down, George W. Bush had Putin come to his home in Texas, and Obama sought to reset the relationship in a way that prioritized communication and cooperation. Scholars will long argue over exactly when the U. S./Russia relationship again became confrontational, but looking back, the Russia-Georgia war in August of 2008 seems to mark the beginning of a new age. Since that summer, a so-called resurgent Russia has pushed back on the institutions and allies of the West. Russia has invaded Georgia and Ukraine, striking them in ways designed to prevent their integration into the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance. Russia has acted contrary to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, and the Incidents at Sea Agreement. Russia has altered the human rights landscape within its own country, decreasing democracy and begging questions about the future of governance, not just in Moscow, but across the Federation. Moreover, Russia has joined the civil war in Syria and begun militarizing the Arctic.