Is This The New U.S. Strategy To Counter Russia?

Photo: White House/Pete Souza

In Cold War Echo, Obama Strategy Writes Off Putin -- New York Times

WASHINGTON — Even as the crisis in Ukraine continues to defy easy resolution, President Obama and his national security team are looking beyond the immediate conflict to forge a new long-term approach to Russia that applies an updated version of the Cold War strategy of containment.

Just as the United States resolved in the aftermath of World War II to counter the Soviet Union and its global ambitions, Mr. Obama is focused on isolating President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia by cutting off its economic and political ties to the outside world, limiting its expansionist ambitions in its own neighborhood and effectively making it a pariah state.
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Mr. Obama has concluded that even if there is a resolution to the current standoff over Crimea and eastern Ukraine, he will never have a constructive relationship with Mr. Putin, aides said. As a result, Mr. Obama will spend his final two and a half years in office trying to minimize the disruption Mr. Putin can cause, preserve whatever marginal cooperation can be saved and otherwise ignore the master of the Kremlin in favor of other foreign policy areas where progress remains possible.

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My Comment: On a practical level .... especially in regards to sanctions .... this "new U.S. policy" is having a minimal impact. U.S. oil firms are still investing in Russian oil ventures, NASA is still paying Russia for using their space launch facilities, and the oligarchs who support Putin are still living on Jupiter Island in Florida.