Wanting Russia To Play Nice

"We want Russia to play a different role."
"We want Russia to be a stabilizing force on issues that we care about. But they’re not going to be able to do that … if they’re violating the sovereignty of a country next door."
Ben Rhodes, U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser

Obama and Putin attend a plenary session during the APEC Summit in Beijing. Photo: Reuters

And truth is, Vladimir Putin, who calls the agenda in Moscow, doesn't much care what the Obama administration, let alone the European Union or any other critical authorities care of the activities and trajectory he has set Russia upon. A slow, but steady progression of awakening the memory of the Soviet Union, rejuvenating positive thinking about Josef Stalin and the greatness that was the USSR, leading to a gradual reincarnation of a Russian federation.

Any eastern European countries no longer in thrall to Russia who shudder at the very prospect of that great grizzly's fondness for the past, clawing into the future to stealthily impose its will, by force if required -- and it has been required, as was done in Georgia and in Ukraine -- will do to bring back very bad memories that they must have willed themselves to thank the heavens for their escape. Only to realize that escape may have been temporary.

Consequences? There were none. Abkhazia and South Ossetia are no longer Georgian and nor is Crimea any longer in the geography of Ukraine. The world was silent on the former and spoke its outrage over the latter, but what has been done has no prospects of being undone. In the face of Moscow's pungently uncouth international indifference to honour between nations, much tut-tutting and few solutions.

No hard feelings have surfaced detectably in the gathering in Beijing, with collegial photographs showing smiles all around, though more sober moments of infelicitous haphazard meetings and stilted conversations demonstrate the blank visages of discomfort and rejection. A coldness pervades more reminiscent of the Cold War era of the USSR than the hopes of a conjoined universality of good governance and international justice.

Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images   International tensions have created personal tensions between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama, pictured on Nov 11, 2014 at an APEC summit at Yanqi Lake, north of Beijing.

The two men were purported to have 'spoken' on three occasions at the Asia-Pacific economic meeting; the issues of contention revolving around Ukraine, Syria and Iran's nuclear ambitions. With all of these issues the distance between the White House and the Kremlin could not be more frostily apart than collaboration between the two now in Arctic discussions and Antarctic research: contemptuously icy and grudgingly defiant on the one hand; damning on the other.

Now there's a picture of international cooperation and goodwill, emblematic of an discomfiting reality; the Chinese President Xi Jiping, walking alongside the American President Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin bookmarking Mr. Xi on the opposite side. What a splendid opportunity for these three world leaders with their disputes and disagreements to talk frankly and openly in an effort to straighten out unfortunate situations.

Unfortunately, there is nothing an American president can say to persuade a Chinese president that his country's ambitions will destroy harmony between it and its neighbours, even though harmony is such a revered internal condition for China. And nor can an American president prevail upon a Russian president to restrain himself from enlarging his country's imperialist-held ambitions, for China and Russia appear to be cut from the same cloth on that particular agenda file.

Raw: Leaders at APEC Pose for Group Photo