For nuclear weapons watchers, the months since December 5, 2009, when the original START treaty expired but no new agreement was in sight, were especially tense. Yet it appears the deal has come in just under the wire before three (at least rhetorically) important 2010 milestones: First, the anniversary of Obama’s April 5, 2009 speech on nuclear disarmament in Prague; second, the April 12-13 nuclear materials security summit to be hosted by President Obama in Washington, DC; and third, the May 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which will convene 189 nations in New York. Each of these events presents a major opportunity for the Administration to make political hay in the glow of the new agreement, and potentially to add momentum to its broader nuclear policy agenda.

So is the new treaty a triumph for the Administration? Not yet.

The end of negotiations opens up at least three major challenges for Team Obama even before any of the benefits of a new treaty can be applied to the above-mentioned opportunities. First, the treaty itself represents relatively modest reductions in the US and Russian arsenals, and thus limited progress toward the ultimate goal enunciated by both Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev of totally eliminating nuclear weapons. According to most reports, the new treaty will match a framework agreement signed by the two presidents last summer, requiring reductions from 2,200 to 1,600 deployed strategic nuclear weapons, and 1,600 to 800 delivery vehicles, but will say nothing about tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapons or the two sides’ vast stockpiles of non-deployed warheads. A generous count of all US and Russian nuclear forces puts the total number of nuclear weapons well over 10,000, even after the new treaty takes effect. Critics will call the new deal a drop in the bucket for nuclear disarmament, especially with the end of the Cold War arms race now two decades past.

At the May NPT Review Conference, other nuclear armed states, non-nuclear powers, and nuclear aspirants will be looking to the US and Russia to deliver on our NPT Article VI commitment to “general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” This new START agreement just doesn’t get anywhere close to meeting international expectations, and given the difficulty of getting to this point, a new round of cuts is unlikely to be achievable before Obama faces reelection in 2012.

Nor is it certain that the Russian side will remain committed to the new nuclear deal, despite painstaking work by negotiators on their side to fold in language about missile defense and other top Russian priorities. If the forthcoming US nuclear posture review—the core document on US nuclear policy, which has been subject to internecine wrangling for the past year—gives another boost to US missile defense plans, or otherwise suggests a challenge to Russia’s “strategic parity” with the US, expect the Russians to threaten a walk-out on the new START treaty before it’s even come into force. The leader of Russia’s parliament, the Duma, may have had exactly this in mind when he threatened to torpedo ratification of the new agreement based on US plans to site missile defense bases in former Warsaw Pact countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

Of course, the biggest challenge Obama must overcome before enjoying much political bounce from the new START treaty is a potentially bitter fight over ratification in the US Senate. Few Senators are likely to oppose the agreement’s core provisions outright—after all, the basic outlines of the deal are modest and have been known for months—but several have already signaled their intent to link ratification to other goals, like increased funding for missile defense, development of new nuclear and conventional strategic weapons, or blocking future approval of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the Senate rejected in 1999, and which Obama has promised to bring back for ratification soon. So while “new START” itself may be ratified this year, if Administration allies and foreign leaders believe Obama secured the necessary votes by abandoning important elements of his long term nuclear disarmament vision, it will have been a pyrrhic victory at best.

None of this is meant to denigrate the two sides’ historic achievement in Geneva. Just bringing the US and Russia back into a deep and substantive bilateral dialogue on any issue—let alone the greatest challenge to international peace and security in the modern era—is hugely important. However, given the obstacles Obama must overcome between signing the new treaty in Prague next month and delivering on the broader vision of his original Prague speech, it would be premature to uncork the champagne now and celebrate.

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Retired Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral James Lyons argued in a Washington Times opinion piece on Monday that the US should “halt our participation in the START negotiations until we bring balance back into the equation.” The equation to which Lyons refers is that of nuclear deterrence: by maintaining the ability to destroy any potential nuclear-armed adversary, the logic runs, we can ensure that none will attack the United States. Unfortunately, a focus on the conventional logic of deterrence doesn’t fit in a world where the most urgent threats to US national security are posed by terrorists and other non-state actors who are difficult to identify, much less deter.

Lyons asserts that Russia has “embarked on an aggressive modernization program to field new nuclear weapons” and seeks a “breakout” capability, allegedly so that it could quickly build and deploy new weapons after withdrawing from any new arms control treaty. China, he adds, may be emboldened if the US commits to nuclear reductions, triggering a panic among our East Asian allies. Our looming nuclear weakness, the Admiral concludes, is exacerbated by the proliferation threats of North Korea and Iran.

Each of these assertions twists reality, but even if true, none would justify withdrawing from bilateral arms control, which is essential to protecting Americans from the clear and present danger posed by proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials to those most likely to use them against us. In recent Senate testimony, the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, himself a retired four-star Admiral, called the possibility of terrorists acquiring nuclear capability a “top concern,” and noted that traditional means of deterrence would likely be of “less utility” against such a threat. For that reason the President has committed to stopping proliferation at its source, by halting the spread of nuclear weapons to new states, and securing fissile materials. These efforts depend greatly on US-Russian cooperation, since our two countries possess over 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons and material. A new agreement to replace the expired START treaty is an absolutely essential first step.

On the other hand, were the United States to give Russia and other nuclear powers a pass on nuclear security by withdrawing from bilateral arms control and expanding our own arsenal, the danger that terrorists could buy or steal what they need to build a nuclear weapon would expand exponentially. The simple fact is that the more nuclear weapons there are, and the more states have them, the more likely they are to fall into the wrong hands. It is hard to imagine how Admiral Lyons thinks such a scenario would benefit American national security, even if we built and deployed deadly new nuclear weapons, as he recommends. In fact, the most likely consequence of building a new US nuclear weapon would be to usher in a renewed global nuclear arms race, with all the dangers of Cold-War style mutually assured destruction and none of the multilateral cooperation that has helped to keep nuclear materials out of terrorists’ hands to date.

Of course, completing negotiation of a new START agreement by no means precludes sensible investments to upgrade the safety, security and reliability of the US nuclear arsenal. Lyons is absolutely right that new personnel will need to be trained, and new programs implemented to ensure that the US nuclear arsenal sets the global standard for safety and security, while continuing to effectively serve in the deterrent role assigned to it by our military planners. The brand new 2011 budget request already includes about three times as much for nuclear weapons activities as for nuclear non-proliferation programs. In reality, these categories are closely linked, because US nuclear security today is as much about advancing a comprehensive, multilateral approach to preventing proliferation as it is about maintaining the best possible nuclear arsenal.

Terrorists have declared time and again their intention to acquire a nuclear device and use it against us; even after the Cold War, governments from Pyongyang to Islamabad have crossed the nuclear threshold, while Iran’s iron-fisted dictators are pursuing a weapon of their own; and despite proof he sold nuclear technology on the black market, AQ Khan was released from house arrest last year. The equation is clear: If we fail to work with Russia, China and others to rein in and reduce global nuclear arsenals, we are far more likely to see a nuclear terror attack in the future.

Cartoon by Volha Charnysh.

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Two years ago this week, on this blog, I wrote the following about politicians who thank men and women in uniform “for their service” without doing anything to improve their lot:

After six years of war, we must pay more than lip service to our gratitude.  We must act to ease the burden on our armed forces, and to give strategic vision and moral depth to our national security policy.

It has now been eight years of war in Afghanistan and approaching seven in Iraq.  We have a new President, a new Congress, new military commanders on the ground, and a new set of relationships on the world stage.  Yet I am concerned that Americans have seen too little progress on the foreign policy challenges that matter most.

The Obama Administration, less than a year into its tenure, has reached a national security tipping point.  Despite swift and significant troop reductions in Iraq (coupled with a handover of security duties to Iraqis), invitations to Iran and North Korea to sit down at the negotiating table, and an ongoing policy review on Afghanistan and Pakistan, the new Administration has won few admirers for its national security program.  One obvious reason is the lack of clear, immediate payoffs.  Other than “resetting” the US public image in European capitals, it is not clear that Obama’s changed approach has delivered any concrete benefits appreciable to average Americans, or to our elected leaders on either side.

There are plenty of good reasons to give Team Obama more time to deliver the goods.  After all, delicate negotiations and strategic planning involving regions as complex as the Middle East and South Asia take a long time.  But I’d like to suggest another approach, one which might give the Administration the political breathing room it needs on national security, while beginning to satisfy millions of Americans who have felt for years that the policymaking process in Washington is detached from reality, on a local and a global scale.

My prescription for this Thanksgiving week foreign policy review is simple:  Communicate with the American people.  While foreign policy and national security are traditionally the realm of experts, in this age of globalization, not a single American worker is immune to global economic forces, tens of millions of Americans have cross-border family ties, and millions of families have borne the costs of military service and sacrifice abroad.  We know that public perceptions matter and that the outcome of foreign wars can hinge more on attitudes at home than on decisions in the field.  It is ironic, then, that President Obama, whose campaign was so effective at tapping into and leveraging the emotions of countless voters and volunteers, has appeared to make foreign policy and national security decisions in Bush-like isolation.

So what do Americans want?  According to the latest Pew survey, Americans expect two big things they don’t seem to be getting from the Obama Administration on national security and foreign policy:  (1) Clear evidence that American troop commitments in Afghanistan will result in victory, and will benefit American national security, and (2) a plan for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.  Simply put, Americans are willing to support the President on foreign policy, but they need a lot more confidence about where he’s going, and how he’ll get there.  The Administration’s ivory tower approach to major decisions on Afghanistan and Iran has not reassured those surveyed on either front.

While I am sure foreign policy decisions should not be based on poll numbers alone, matters of such great importance to all Americans deserve to be made much more accessible to all Americans.  Doing so is one of the President’s main responsibilities, and one of the reasons that great communicators like Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton succeeded in the face of complex foreign policy challenges.  Although Obama has given four major foreign policy addresses (in Cairo, Moscow, New York, and Tokyo) all four have been intended more for an international audience than for domestic consumption.  The buzz in Washington is that announcements on Afghanistan and Iran are in the offing, but there is a difference between announcing a policy and explaining it.

Perhaps this Thanksgiving Day, the President can take some time to talk with the American people about the challenges we face, like he did on the campaign trail.  Another opportunity is his State of the Union address in January.  At any time during this season of giving thanks, one way the President can show his appreciation for the contributions and sacrifices of average Americans is by explaining his views, sharing his decisions, and opening a dialogue with the people who elected him.

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Here are the details:

When:  Wednesday, November 18, 7:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m.

Where:  University of the District of Columbia, David A. Clark School Of Law, 4200 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Building 39, Room 21.

Who:  Dr. Assem Akram, Professor, American University, School Of International Service; Matthew Rojansky, Executive Director, Partnership for a Secure America; Malou Innocent, the Cato Institute (standing in for Michael Darner from Rep. Conyers’ office, a PSA Congressional Fellow); Mackenzie Eaglen, Research Fellow, Heritage Foundation.

The basic question up for discussion is whether the Obama Administration should commit additional US combat forces to Afghanistan, acceding to a recommendation and request from commanding General Stanley McChrystal, that was leaked to the press in August.  I take the view that while a serious review of US strategy in Afghanistan has been much needed, it is long past time for a decision from the White House.  Each day we delay, the Afghan insurgency gains ground, and our Afghan and NATO allies lose confidence in the US commitment.

I anticipate my opponents will argue both that the war has been mishandled and that it is unjustified in the first place, from the standpoint of core US interests.  I will concede off the starting line that there are innumerable ways in which the US presence in Afghanistan has been mismanaged, and that the costs of those mistakes have been and will continue to be enormous.  That said, we must simply accept that the costs of being in Afghanistan are vast, and will continue to mount, especially if we commit more troops and civilian resources in the years ahead.  A few illustrative statistics:  Over 900 US troops have been killed since 2001, almost 400 of whom were killed by IEDs.  53 US soldiers died in Afghanistan last month alone, making it the deadliest month on record.  Deaths and injuries among Afghans have been even higher: over 10,000 Afghan troops and police, and over 7,000 Afghan civilians have died in the fighting.  US operations in Afghanistan have cost over $200 billion since 2001, and are expected to total over $50 billion a year going forward, if more troops are added and plans to expand training and equipment of Afghan forces are pursued.

Clearly, costs of this magnitude are justifiable only in the face of an urgent national security priority.  I believe Afghanistan represents such a priority.  The obvious rationale is that Al Qaeda has used Afghanistan as a base of training and operations to attack this country and kill our citizens.  That cannot be allowed to happen again.  Today, Al Qaeda is on the run, its operatives broken into isolated cells and its leadership in hiding in Pakistan’s remote mountain villages.  However, should Afghanistan once again fall under Taliban rule, Al Qaeda will quickly return and exploit it as a safe haven to plan and launch terror attacks on US interests around the globe.  Moreover, state failure in Afghanistan is dangerous for the entire region.  Should Afghanistan fall to the Taliban, or devolve into outright civil war between ethnic factions, it will be impossible for the country’s neighbors to remain uninvolved.  Pakistan is particularly threatened, since its Pashtun minority would be dragged by physical proximity, family, ethnic and economic ties into an Afghan civil war.  As near neighbors with closely linked populations, Russia and the former Soviet satellites in Central Asia would face a potential upsurge in Islamic extremism, insurgent activity, and drugs and weapons smuggling across their borders.  Iran would seek to exploit any further weakness of the Afghan central government to expand its regional hegemony, especially by funding Shia extremists.  In sum, state failure in Afghanistan would pose a clear threat to the stability of the entire Central and South Asian region, and the US must invest in preventive measures now, before others exacerbate the problem.

I support a troop boost for Afghanistan today (yesterday, in fact) not only because I agree with President Obama that this is a war we “cannot afford to lose,” but because I see in the leaked McChrystal report and other expert assessments a viable strategy for improving the situation on the ground in the near future.  As General McChrystal has argued, a new strategy for the US in Afghanistan is not primarily about more troops or resources, it is about focusing on how US assets can be used more effectively to reverse the insurgency’s momentum and build long term Afghan capacity.  Simply put, the Commanding General has offered a clear vision for combining counter-terror operations with a counter-insurgency strategy and a plan to transfer responsibility to Afghan security forces as soon as they are able.  We cannot afford not to give this strategy a chance.

To hear my complete view on the subject, and to hear how it stacks up against those of my fellow panelists, you’ll have to join us tonight.  I hope the forum will be an opportunity to prove that Democrats and Republicans can disagree about important issues without being disagreeable.  I am gratified by the wise choice of topic for this event, and I suspect that the results will be very good.

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With the possible exception of Georgia-US-Russia, no US relationship in the former Soviet region is more fraught today than the US-Russia-Ukraine triangle. At a time when Washington and Moscow have variously committed to a relationship reset, a new operating system, and a rerun of the Clinton-Yeltsin strategic partnership, it is disappointing how little substance has followed rhetoric. Meanwhile, Central and Eastern Europe are still reeling from the US Administration’s abrupt and ill-timed reversal on missile defense deployment, and Team Obama is eager for opportunities to demonstrate its commitment to the new Europe, which received no shortage of love from the Bush Administration.

Enter the prospect of US-Ukraine cooperation on missile defense. According to Ukraine’s Ambassador to the US, the two countries have begun working discussions on sharing data from Ukrainian radar for use with a revised US-led missile defense system in Southeastern Europe. The Ukrainians may be overreaching here, trying to manufacture a moment of decision that the US Administration prefers to avoid, however there is no doubt that missile defense cooperation with Central and Eastern Europe remains very much on the table, even after the Bush plan was scrapped last month. And while the Obama Administration insists any radar-interceptor system is still intended primarily to defend against a rogue missile launch by Iran, Moscow has renewed its objection that missile defense based in former Warsaw Pact territory is a threat to its nuclear deterrent, an absolute red line for an ex-superpower whose conventional forces are not up to the task of defending its sprawling borders.

All of this makes perfect sense in the context of an increasingly zero sum US-Russian relationship: If the possibility of US-Ukraine missile defense cooperation reassures Kiev (and Warsaw and Prague) that the US is still fully engaged in the region, it should be no surprise that Russia is as upset over this as it was over the Bush Administration’s plans for a Polish and the Czech system–perhaps more so because some of the radars at issue are in Crimea, a Russian majority region of Ukraine where Moscow could exploit ethnic tension to empower a pro-Russian separatist movement. Ironically, during the month between Obama’s cancellation of the original missile defense plan and now, Moscow had refused to acknowledge the importance of the US concession, latching onto the system’s technical shortcomings to dismiss it as destined for failure from the outset. In turn, Congressional hawks have argued that Russia’s offer to cut its deployed nuclear arsenal by about a quarter is hollow, since most of those weapons are unreliable antiques.

The bigger picture: If it can’t have close ties with both Russia and the West, Ukraine’s best bet is security through NATO membership, and prosperity through EU membership. Both are threatened by Russia’s plans to build the Nord Stream pipeline, which will cut Ukraine out of the gas trade, and Moscow’s ambition to control a sphere of influence, which will, at a minimum, extend to borderlands with large Russian populations. The Ukrainian Presidential election in January will reshuffle Kiev’s cast of players, but is unlikely to effect a permanent reorientation toward Moscow over Brussels and Washington. For the US, opening a dialogue on potential cooperation with Ukraine signals that the missile defense reversal in September was not the beginning of the end of US engagement in the region.

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President Barack Obama’s decision last week to scuttle missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic was the second time the U.S. has withdrawn a ground-based missile defense system.

In 1975, the Pentagon actually deployed a missile defense system codenamed Safeguard in North Dakota and supported by personnel from the Grand Forks and Minot Air Force bases. That system of interceptor missiles and ground-based radar was designed to counter the threat of a Soviet nuclear first-strike against launch sites in the Upper Midwest, but was canceled after less than a year, officially because of ineffectiveness and high cost.

The truth is that U.S. missile defense reversals then and now were motivated by broader strategic goals as much as considerations of expense and efficacy. In the mid-1970s, U.S.-Soviet arms control talks led to two landmark agreements (SALT I and II) which made Americans safer by reducing the likelihood of nuclear war. Pushing ahead with missile defense at that time might have convinced the Soviets the U.S. was not serious about arms control.

The situation is similar today. On the heels of the relationship “reset” announced by the Obama administration in March, the U.S. and Russia are engaged in bilateral talks aimed at scaling back both sides’ outdated nuclear arsenals and replacing a crucial arms control treaty (START), which is set to expire in December.

The missile defense sites in Eastern Europe had cast a pall over those talks, which are essential because failure to reach a deal with Russia could derail the president’s broader nuclear nonproliferation and arms control agenda.

At the top of the president’s list of goals, outlined in a speech in Prague in March, is revitalizing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the single instrument most important to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons for the past four decades.

The 9/11 Commission told us the greatest threat to U.S. security was the possibility that terrorists might acquire a nuclear weapon and use it to attack America. And the more countries that have nuclear weapons, the more opportunities terrorists have to buy or steal them.

To avert this nightmare scenario will take broad-based global cooperation among nuclear and non-nuclear states. That is possible only if the U.S. holds up what the world views as our end of the nuclear security bargain.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. pushed hard for new multilateral efforts to curb nuclear proliferation and prevent nuclear terrorism, but at the same time neglected and even undermined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The treaty’s “basic bargain” promises access to peaceful nuclear technology for countries that agree to renounce nuclear weapons on the condition that the world’s recognized nuclear powers — the U.S. and Russia being by far the biggest — commit to work toward nuclear disarmament.

Without the disarmament piece, the bargain falls apart.

That is why progress on U.S.-Russian arms control is so critical now and why the Obama administration was right to remove a possible stumbling block from the process. For the next step, it should not be hard to agree on credible cuts to arsenals on both sides.

According to the State Department, the U.S. maintains more than 5,500 strategic nuclear weapons, and the Russians have just under 4,000. These bloated arsenals do little for our security, and both sides are prepared to cut deployed warheads to below their current maximum of 2,200.

With two months left before START expires, the time to strike a deal is now. Success on that front, in turn, could give the U.S. a boost in credibility and leverage when we ask the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s 188 other member states to fulfill their end of the basic bargain: keeping nuclear weapons and materials out of terrorists’ hands to prevent the ultimate nightmare of a nuclear Sept 11.

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This morning’s Politico was all over the political map, at least when it comes to the issue of bipartisanship in Washington.  As several colleagues on Capitol Hill have pointed out to me, an “Analysis” piece by Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen appears on the front page under the title: “The Great Myth: Bipartisanship,” which pretty much says it all.  Yet on the very same front page, leading off a “Special Section” on transportation policy, is a piece all about how indispensable Secretary of Commerce and former Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL) is to Team Obama, because he “lends credibility,” “can provide invaluable insight” into the Republican side, and can tap into his network of Republican friends and former colleagues to win backing for the President’s agenda.

Front Page of this morning's Politico

Of course, I suspect the Politico editors may have been more aware of this contradiction than first glance suggests.  The fact that the articles are continued back-to-back inside the paper (at pages 13 and 14 respectively, where the LaHood piece is titled, “LaHood Brings Bipartisan Charm to Team) means either this was an intentional juxtaposition of two perspectives on bipartisan cooperation in Washington, or somebody at Politico’s editorial desk really needs a new prescription.

Actually, I am not sure the two pieces are as inherently at odds as one might conclude from the side-by-side headlines.  The “Great Myth” piece points out that while the American people want to see bipartisan cooperation and real results, specifically on the health care reform bill, members of Congress do little more than pay lip service to the virtues of bipartisan dialogue.  It goes on to suggest that part of the reason for this may be the increasing polarization of political districts, and even entire regions, such as the Northeast, which has lost 20 Republican House seats and six Republican Senate seats in the past decade.  In short, it’s a piece about the sorry state we’re in as a country, and not an attack on the importance of bipartisanship, per se.

The LaHood piece highlights some good news at a tough moment for bipartisanship in Washington.  President Obama, as we here at PSA know well, has long backed a bipartisan approach to important policy challenges, especially national security and foreign policy, where he identified “bipartisanship and openness” as part of his campaign platform and his governing philosophy.  In addition to appointing three Republicans to his Cabinet (LaHood, National Security Advisor Jim Jones and Secretary of Defense Bob Gates), he frequently brings Republican members of Congress to the White House for policy consultations and informal chats.

True, the President’s drive for bipartisan cooperation has not necessarily paid dividends in terms of Republican votes for his stimulus package, climate change legislation, or the proposed health care overhaul, but that is to be expected.  It will take much more time to work through the hostility built up over the past two decades, and to rebuild real working relationships, based on trust, between Democrats and Republicans at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.  Likewise, the White House should not expect bipartisan consensus on the toughest, most divisive issues that hit Americans in their pocket books.  Issues like health care, taxes, or entitlement reform are always going to be painful and partisan, because they draw on basic differences of economic interest and political philosophy.  Foreign policy and national security challenges, on the other hand, are more amenable to respectful, careful debate, objective analysis, and bipartisan action.

I could write a treatise here about the deeper causes and consequences of partisan politics’ invasion of the national security and foreign policy decision making process, but I’ll spare you.  For those interested, a detailed paper on the subject will be available shortly from PSA.  And I will present an overview of our recently completed research on bipartisan foreign policy and Congressional voting patterns at a talk on Thursday at the University of Maryland’s CISSM forum at noon, as well as in a noontime talk at the San Francisco Commonwealth Club on Friday, October 9.

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What is most striking about the eighth anniversary of the September 11 attacks may be its ordinariness. Certainly, memorials and moments of silence will be observed across the nation, as they should be, but life—and politics—goes on. Here inside the beltway, we are focused on the roiling healthcare debate, the looming risk of a swine flu pandemic, and ongoing economic malaise. On the national security front, we are gradually bringing the War in Iraq to a close, while we gear up for a sustained conflict in Afghanistan and draw near a deadline for Iran to return to the nuclear negotiating table.

The 9/11 Anniversary stirs a mixture of feelings. On the one hand, the shock and horror of that day are beginning to fade into historical memory. Millions of pages and pixels of retrospective on the attacks, their causes and aftermath, have been published; the Pentagon is fully repaired; even the World Trade Center site is once more under construction. So in that sense, life in America has gone back to normal.

On the other hand, the trauma of 9/11 brought about a permanent shift in our national priorities. No longer can intelligence officials or policymakers afford to dismiss out of hand security threats that may at first seem incredible—after all, who would imagine that terrorists could hijack a commercial airliner using box cutters, and then transform it into a guided missile powerful enough to bring down a skyscraper? And no longer can we wait to connect the dots between terrorist cells, crackpot dictators, and black market traffickers. It may be that 9/11 forced an end to the era of American uncertainty about globalization. If nothing else, today, we can be sure that what happens in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, in a refugee camp on the Horn of Africa, or at a crumbling research lab in Eastern Siberia, deserve our attention.

On this anniversary, our first duty is to remember and honor the victims of 9/11. But as the emotional immediacy of the tragedy inevitably fades, our resolve, our constant vigilance, and our heightened awareness of interconnected threats in a globalized world must endure.

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The US-Russia “reset,” so named by Vice President Biden in a February speech, is far from complete, despite impressive progress over the past six months. Biden’s own recent visit to Ukraine and Georgia included a furore-inducing comment about “withering” Russian power, and followed a July 16 letter from 22 Central and Eastern European elder statesmen that cast their countries’ interests and US cooperation with Russia as zero-sum. All of which suggests there are plenty of pitfalls awaiting unwary practitioners of “reset” diplomacy.

Even the newly created “Bilateral Presidential Commission,” symbolic of Washington and Moscow’s shared resolve to fix their frayed relationship, could fail to deliver a new era of partnership. Paradoxically, the greatest danger is not that either side will fixate on minor conflicts to torpedo cooperation on shared interests, but that either might lose sight of why cooperation matters in the first place. Given the number and gravity of global challenges President Obama and his team now face-the global economic crisis, climate change, two ongoing wars, the threat of terrorism, and regional crises in East Asia and the Middle East-Russia might easily slip off the high priority list simply for lack of bandwidth. Since Russia’s own renewed goodwill towards the US is based largely on the perception that it will once again be “taken seriously” as a global great power, a deficit of high level attention risks undermining the gains of recent months.

To keep the relationship “reset” on track, the US and Russia need an insurance policy for engagement in two parts: First, dramatically increase bilateral investment, so that each side has a significant financial stake in the other’s security and stability, and so that there is a self-interested and well-heeled lobby in each country that can speak out against confrontation. Second, open new opportunities for grassroots interaction between the two societies, so that in future decades there will be a network of citizens with the knowledge and relationships needed for effective lobbying of both governments to stay engaged. This insurance policy approach is not unique to the US-Russian relationship, but it is especially important because without it, the momentum of the “reset” might be lost, with dire implications for global security.

The case for bulking up US-Russian economic relations is clear. Compare the volume of US-Russian trade at its height in 2008 ($36 billion) with our level of exchange with Japan ($204 billion), which has a smaller population than Russia, or with France ($73 billion), whose economy is smaller than Russia’s. US-Indian trade ties, worth just $67 billion in 2008, have served as a powerful counterweight to conflict over nuclear testing, Kashmir, and climate change. And despite political, ideological and geostrategic tensions between the US and China, our economic interdependence, manifest in a $408 billion bilateral trade volume, ensures that both sides prefer peaceful dispute settlements to armed confrontation.

Even if nowhere near a US-China level of economic symbiosis is possible with Russia, Russia’s natural resource wealth, underdeveloped but growing consumer products market, and highly skilled, educated work force offer diverse opportunities for increased engagement. What is needed is commitment from both sides to provide the regulatory framework and political will to lower perceived risks and costs for cautious business leaders. With increased transparency and lowered risk in the Russian regulatory environment, as well as a renewed Kremlin commitment to international trading rules necessary for WTO membership, leading global companies like Walmart, Caterpillar and Microsoft would bring direct investment, sophisticated business know-how, and new jobs, while creating a powerful business lobby in both countries to oppose destabilizing conflict.

Trade ties are key to preventing and resolving political conflict because of the premium business places on stability. But US-Russian commercial links are not as effective for keeping the bilateral relationship a high priority during times of relative calm, since companies will seldom push for deeper political or social engagement as long as they enjoy unfettered market access. It is only the emergence in the US of a strong community of individuals with close personal connections to Russia that can ensure official US-Russian dialogue and cooperation remain high on the Administration’s agenda.

The model should be other affinity group networks and lobbies working to advance US cooperation with foreign governments. For decades, American Jews have been highly effective advocates for Israel’s security and a close US-Israel relationship, with the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC routinely topping the list of the most influential groups in Washington. Americans of Indian descent have paid attention: now several lobbying groups work to strengthen US-Indian security and economic ties, and boasted a major victory with the ratification of the US-Indian civilian nuclear agreement last year. Another influential group, the National Council of La Raza, convened Hispanic leaders in June to push for comprehensive US immigration reform, important not only to Latinos in the US, but to governments in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and elsewhere. While the issues at stake in the US-Russia relationship are clearly different, they are no less important. Groups like these are needed to put US-Russian cooperation on the domestic political map.

To allow stronger US-Russian affinity networks to develop, both governments must lower barriers to travel, particularly the cost, delay and uncertainty of the current visa system. Compared with visa-free travel opportunities to Western Europe and even many former Soviet states for Americans, the process for securing a Russian visa is arcane and onerous. With increased openness to travel can come more extensive educational and professional exchange programs, modeled on the successful Fulbright and Murrow exchange programs for teachers and journalists. Direct citizen diplomacy of this kind is needed to break the barrier of cynicism and distrust created by negative and distorted media coverage on both sides.

The US and Russian governments can build on over a decade of successful cooperation between NASA and the Russian space agency, and on the work of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, which has built communities of mutual understanding and respect among top researchers from nuclear science to bacteriology. Already Congressman Bill Delahunt (Democrat, Massachusetts) has called for a US-Russian athletic exchange program to “unlock the mystery” of Russia for average Americans. Such exchanges and collaborations are wise investments, since each additional American with deep, personal knowledge of Russia can be another voice reminding Congress and the White House that Russia matters not only in times of crisis, but as an important and permanent partner on the world stage.

The US and Russia have little choice but to begin the “reset” by dialing back tensions over urgent security challenges like Georgia, NATO expansion, and missile defense in Central Europe. Progress on resolving these differences, coupled with cooperation on counter-terrorism, drug prohibition and nuclear non-proliferation will create a new opening for productive bilateral relations. But to hold this door open over the longer term, an insurance policy is needed that includes both a bilateral economic stake in stability, and a grassroots constituency on both sides committed to keeping US-Russian cooperation high on the political agenda.

Without new guarantors of stability and political commitment, the US-Russia relationship risks grinding to a halt over the same disagreements that obstructed cooperation and partnership in the past two decades. In today’s complex, interconnected and dangerous world, we cannot afford to lose another game of Russian roulette.

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I am a late addition to the bandwagon of blogosphere praise for the President’s speech delivered in Cairo yesterday. He hit all the right notes on Israeli-Palestinian peace, US engagement with the Muslim world, democracy building, and science and economic engagement. But it was, at the end of the day, just a speech.

That’s why I was interested to read Tom Friedman’s New York Times column yesterday, which opened with a joke about “Goldberg the Jew.” Per Friedman, the joke goes like this:

There is this very pious Jew named Goldberg who always dreamed of winning the lottery. Every Sabbath, he’d go to synagogue and pray: “God, I have been such a pious Jew all my life. What would be so bad if I won the lottery?” But the lottery would come and Goldberg wouldn’t win. Week after week, Goldberg would pray to win the lottery, but the lottery would come and Goldberg wouldn’t win. Finally, one Sabbath, Goldberg wails to the heavens and says: “God, I have been so pious for so long, what do I have to do to win the lottery?”
And the heavens parted and the voice of God came down: “Goldberg, give me a chance! Buy a ticket!”

Right, I get it. Friedman is saying that for God to help you, you’ve got to be willing to help yourself. Wait, what’s the analogy to Obama’s speech? According to Friedman:

I told the president that joke because in reading the Arab and Israeli press this week, everyone seemed to be telling him what he needed to do and say in Cairo, but nobody was indicating how they were going to step up and do something different. Everyone wants peace, but nobody wants to buy a ticket.

So, Friedman’s point is, I guess, that like God, Obama is expected to do everything to bring about peace and reconciliation in the Middle East, while the parties on the ground won’t even take the first steps. I think that’s a fair point. But the better point, I think, is that America—even a vastly stronger, more popular, credible and morally certain America under President Obama—is less important to all of the problems in the Muslim world than average citizens and their leaders are.

That’s why I think the most important thing the President can do is to set high expectations, and stick to them, like: We expect Israel and the Arab states each to stop playing for advantage in a peace process that has dragged on for too long. We expect Muslim countries to give women equal political and economic rights. We expect the “Arab street” to stop spreading lies about America, Jews, and 9/11.

Obama is not God, and he doesn’t have the power to deliver even most of his vision for peace and harmony with the Muslim World, whether or not Muslims take the first step of “buying a ticket.” It’s time for citizens and leaders in the region to realize that nobody else can solve their problems for them, and that it won’t be easy.

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