Obama: Reloaded

Barack Obama has won the presidential election in the United States. The struggle was intense: Mitt Romney even managed to take advantage of Barack Obama by the number of votes at one point.

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For many political scientists the outcome of the US presidential election did not come a surprise. Most polls held before the election showed that sitting President Obama was only 1-3 percent ahead of Romney.

Experts note that Hurricane Sandy made its own adjustments to the development of the campaign. Immediately after the storm struck the east coast of the U.S., Obama made strenuous efforts to eliminate its consequences. In this regard, the so-called "hurricane factor" has worked in favor of the incumbent president.

It is worthy of note that elections in the U.S. are not direct, universal and equal. The head of state is elected by 270 electors who are entitled not to support the candidate whom they were "entrusted" to vote for. In addition, observers note that there is absolutely no confidentiality of information on the political preferences of common Americans. One can not blame the American election system for the absence of alternative, though - that's a fact.

Another question is who really rules in this endless competition of Democrats and Republicans. It is believed that the power of oligarchy in the U.S. is hidden behind the curtain of democracy. In any event, no one has abolished the funding of election campaigns at the expense of big capital. According to experts' estimates, Obama and Romney have been able to collect two billion dollars of donations combined for their campaigns. There is no transparency here, and most likely it will not appear for a long time. Suffice to say that Mitt Romney refused to disclose the names of his main sponsors in June.

Whatever the final outcome of the U.S. election could be, one shall not expect a breakthrough in Russian-American relations. Despite the "reset" of relations, which Obama proclaimed four years ago, Moscow and Washington have not been able to establish a constructive dialogue on key international issues. As is known, the positions of Russia and the U.S. on Libya and Syria diverge radically. Moscow opposes NATO's intervention in internal affairs of other countries. The States insists on the need to support democratic reforms in the Middle East and Africa.

Observers note that the majority of Russians do not pay much attention to the presidential election in the U.S.. Yet, polls show that Russian citizens are more sympathetic to the current host of the White House - Barack Obama. Thirty-eight percent of respondents believe that his victory is preferable for Russia, and only 4 percent would be willing to support Republican Mitt Romney.

The Kremlin also outlined its preferences for current U.S. president Obama. The harsh statements from his opponent Romney, who called Russia geopolitical enemy number one, came as great disappointment for Moscow.

One of the key issues on which the positions of the U.S. and Russia differ - is the deployment of U.S. missile defense system in Europe. Both presidential candidates from the very beginning advocated the creation of the European missile defense system near the Russian borders, despite objections from the Kremlin. However, Obama, unlike Romney, admits a possibility of a compromising solution on missile defense, which would satisfy Russia. The undoubted achievement of the administration of the 44th president was the signing of the START-3 Treaty that provided a reduction of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550. The treaty also halved the number of strategic carriers to 800.

In November 2011, during the APEC summit held in Honolulu, Obama pointed out three main achievements of the US-Russian "reset": the new START Treaty, progress on Russia's accession to the WTO and the introduction of sanctions against Tehran.

The victory of Barack Obama does not mean that it would be possible to ease  international tension. One has to admit, though, that the situation would be much worse if Romney came to power. In any case, the current president was able to withdraw American troops from Iraq to ​​correct the mistake of his predecessor George W. Bush. After the election, the Obama administration will have to go back to the problems of resolving the crisis over Iran's nuclear program and the civil war in Syria. The diplomatic struggle between superpowers about these issues continues.

Yuri Sosinsky-Semikhat

Pravda.Ru

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