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‘Resetting’ NATO–Russia Relations: A Realist Appraisal Two Decades after the USSR

This article provides an analysis of the ‘reset’ policy toward Russia, which was inaugurated in 2008 by the Obama administration and soon embraced by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It argues that, rather than being prompted by domestic dynamics in the United States, the ‘reset’ was a response to systemic pressures. More specifically, the West's relative decline on the international system, the retrenchment of expeditionary NATO, and the rise of potentially revisionist powers. Although prompting an improvement in the relationship, these pressures failed to bring about Russia's full integration into the post-Cold War Western international settlement. In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 Russian–Georgian War, NATO's relations with Moscow experienced an initial revitalization through a resumption of the works of the NATO–Russia Council (NRC), the signing of a New Start Treaty between the United States and Russia in 2010, and an expansion of supply lines to Afghanistan through Russian territory. However, there was no real incentive for both sides to truly ‘reset’ the relationship. The alliance never treated Russia equally, preferring instead to dictate conditions. Any discussion of Russian–NATO relations was couched in this context; the ‘reset’ was also conceived as a small gift to Moscow. For its part, the Kremlin never accepted a junior partner status, making it clear that its preferred option remains the alliance's dissolution and the creation of a different, new pan-European organization that would incorporate the Russian Federation as a full member. The article concludes that, despite the mixed achievements of the ‘reset’, the alliance retains a systemic incentive to seek durable cooperation with Russia.