Dimitri Simes

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread across Europe, the United States has reduced its participation in a Nato military exercise that was set to be one of the alliance’s largest since the end of the Cold War. In April and May, the Defender-Europe 20 exercise was meant to feature 37,000 troops from 18 countries, including 20,000 soldiers deployed from the United States. It was planned to take place across ten European countries, with the bulk of the drills in Germany, Poland, and the Baltic states. Shortly after the WHO declared that Europe had become the new ‘epicentre of the pandemic’, the Trump administration enacted a travel ban for foreign visitors from the 26 countries in Europe’s Schengen travel zone, and then from the UK and Ireland.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov kicked off his tour of Latin America this week with a visit to Cuba. The choice is not a mere coincidence. Lavrov's visit comes at a time when Moscow and Havana are enjoying their closest relationship in decades. The Soviet Union was once Cuba’s greatest patron. It lavished the island with economic subsidies and favourable trading arrangements in an attempt to bolster the lone communist outpost on America’s doorstep. Infamously, the United States and the Soviet Union neared the brink of nuclear war in 1962 over Moscow’s attempt to deploy ballistic missiles in Cuba. But as the Cold War approached its end, Cuba became less and less of a priority for the Kremlin.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Sochi to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and, of course, Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was the first such trip by a high-ranking US official since the release of the Mueller report in April. During his meeting with Lavrov, Pompeo struck a conciliatory tone while calling for cooperation more between the United States and Russia. If that sounds familiar that’s because it is. US-Russia diplomatic efforts always start pushing in the same direction, then something goes wrong. ‘We have differences.