US Ambassador to Russia Talks on Obama’s Reset, Bilateral Relationship

Editor’s note: Posting will be light for The Conversationalist this week as Daniel Strauss, the blog editor, has contracted a particularly nasty stomach virus. Things should be back to normal on Tuesday (after the weekend and MLK Day).

John Beyrle, the US ambassador to the Russian Federation, delivered a lecture to a full house at the Alumni Center Tuesday evening. Beyrle is a Michigan native, born in Muskegon, and has held various State Department posts since 1983.

Beyrle discussed the continued centrality of the US-Russian relationship, and the improvements wrought by President Obama’s ‘reset’ of last summer. He was careful to strike an optimistic tone, and highlighted successes such as nuclear nonproliferation, cooperation on Afghanistan, and growing economic symbiosis. Beyrle emphasized the fact that a “prosperous Russian democracy” is in the best interests of the United States.

His optimism was nonetheless qualified. For instance, Beyrle cited a recent survey in which sixty-five percent of Russians felt that the United States is attempting to weaken their country. The ambassador was also very careful to skirt pricklier statements and topics akin to Biden’s gaffe of last summer, in which the Vice President stated that the Russians were “clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable.” However, unnamed “individuals” were accused of harboring “post-imperial nostalgia”, longing for the days when Russian military power stretched from Berlin to Ulaanbaatar. Interestingly, the ambassador also predicted that a crowded, resource-hungry China would become Russia’s main future security threat, rather than the US or NATO. “China does not necessarily have designs on Russia, but the growth of the Chinese population will necessarily encroach.”

–Evan Johnson