Free The Long Game by Derek Chollet

role in world affairs. The US-German relationship was defined by mutual recriminations and suspicions, and even to express solidarity with the United States was a risky proposition politically. In 2003, Angela Merkel, then still virtually unknown in the United States, nearly undermined her political career by writing an article for the Washington Post to make the unpopular point that then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder didn’t speak for all Germans when he criticized the Iraq War.
    By 2008, Europe was clamoring for new American leadership, and Obama represented the ideal. To the thousands packed in the Tiergarten who hung on his every word, Obama embodied all of their dreams about the United States; to them he truly was, as Obama described himself in the speech, a “citizen of the world.” Obama used the Berlin address to outline the idea that “partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.” But he also reminded his audience that this would be a two-way street, and that just as the United States would seek to reach out, the Europeans would need to step up.
    In many ways, Bush’s foreign policy had let European leaders off the hook. Because the United States had expected less of Europe—and because it had become politically easy, if not advantageous, to oppose the United States due to Bush’s unpopularity—many European leaders had been able to shirk hard choices. That’s why Obama stressed the common burden that the United States and Europe must share, one that, he said, “a change of leadership in Washington will not lift.” In fact, Obama promised things would only get tougher, because “in this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more—not less.”
    The Berlin speech laid the basis for Obama’s approach to the transatlantic relationship: for all the talk of pivots and rebalancing, when it came to solving problems, Europe remained America’s partner of first resort. Obama promised a new kind of leadership, but had high expectations in return. In this way, the speech also set the stage for the mutual disappointment that riddled the relationship during Obama’s presidency. Just as Obama could not meet the unrealistic hopes that Europeans had placed on him to change the world with the snap of his fingers, as Europeans’ frenzy of enthusiasm waned, many still proved unprepared to make tough choices to meet the challenges ahead.
    T HE SECOND RELATIONSHIP in need of a reset was with Russia. Obama’s approach to Moscow, which was also first outlined during his 2008 campaign, combined both wariness and a sense of opportunity.
    As a candidate, Obama was clear about the dangers Russia posed, especially after its invasion of Georgia in August 2008. During the first presidential debate with John McCain, Obama had warned of “a resurgent and very aggressive Russia” as a threat to global stability. Obama also expressed concerns about Russia’s drift away from democracy and its bullying behavior toward neighbors such as Ukraine and NATO allies in the Baltics, saying that the Russian leadership needed to understand that “you can’t be a twenty-first-century power and act like a twentieth-century dictatorship.” However, Obama also believed that because Russia was simply too important to ignore, one had to find a way to work with it. For Obama, the key was to approach Russia with clear-eyed pragmatism. 8
    Since the end of the Cold War, the disputes over how the United States should approach Russia have never really been about what we wanted to achieve. Democrats and Republicans largely agreed that the fundamental goal should be to help promote a democratic Russia at peace with itself and its neighbors, working where possible to cooperate with the rest of the world in solving