Presidents Medvedev and Obama made solid but modest progress at their Moscow summit, writes Jacqueline McLaren Miller. But both must achieve real results before they tout the dawn of a new relationship.

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When President Obama departed Moscow for the G-8 summit in Italy, there was a danger that he could have been leaving Russia figuratively as well as literally. Obama’s advisors were concerned that if their Russian counterparts did not realize how serious the American president was about quickly revamping the relationship, Obama would pull back the hand he had extended to Medvedev and turn his attention to the long list of other issues clamoring for his attention. Although there were no major breakthroughs at the summit, there also were no disasters. There was solid but modest progress-- and that was enough to allow both Obama and Medvedev to reasonably claim that the summit was a success.

In the weeks leading up to the summit, the Obama administration was careful to ratchet down expectations. This was a wise move. Obama’s “reset button” rhetoric was generating high expectations—higher than could be met six months into a relationship that had suffered from years of tensions, inattention and drift. Michael McFaul, the president’s key Russia advisor, had bluntly declared that the United States would not sell-out Ukraine and Georgia as part of the reset nor would the U.S. “give or trade anything with the Russians regarding NATO expansion or missile defense.”  This sent the message that the two countries would continue to disagree on these highly sensitive issues.

As widely anticipated, the START follow-up agreement was the main highlight of the Moscow talks. Both sides agreed to further cuts in nuclear warheads by up to one-third. Medvedev can also point to two concrete concessions by the United States: a cap on delivery vehicles, and an agreement to discuss the relationship between strategic offensive and defensive weapons. What is apparently not up for discussion is the issue of stockpiled versus deployed warheads. Obama’s willingness to take on the offense/defense issue opened him up immediately to criticism from conservatives in the United States, who were quick to claim that Obama putting U.S. national security interests at risk.

Obama has less to show by way of concessions from Russia, but there were some positive developments. Ahead of the summit, Russia announced that it would permit the U.S. military to fly personnel and equipment (including lethal equipment) through Russian airspace. This was seen as an offering of sorts by the Russians who had earlier appeared to be trying to get Kyrgyzstan to eject the Americans from the Manas airbase.  But this agreement is now more symbolically than strategically important since the United States was finally able to renegotiate—at much increased cost—its Manas lease. Still, symbols are important, especially early on in the relationship with a new administration.

Another key issue for the United States was to get Russia’s help with Iran, which was the main topic of Obama and Medvedev’s one-on-one conversation. The results here were mixed at best. While those talks produced no concrete results, Obama and his team came away with a sense that Russia is coming around to the U.S. view that Iran’s nuclear potential has to be taken seriously. Gary Samore, Obama’s WMD coordinator, called the agreement by the Russians to study the Iran and North Korean ballistic missile threat “one of the most significant things” to develop from the summit.

For Obama, the summit would have been a failure if there was only progress on arms control, if the only concrete thing to emerge was the outline of the post-START agreement. He got more than that, but not much more. Yes, there is a better basis for moving forward. And as with Afghanistan, a new convergence of views on Iran could lead to more cooperation there. The dialogue has been started. But both sides will want to see real results before they trumpet the dawn of a new relationship.

Jacqueline McLaren Miller is Senior Associate at the EastWest Institute