As it was so eloquently stated in the leader of Friday’s Economist, President Barack Obama is becoming known as a guy who is easy to push around in terms of foreign policy.  The Kremlin has been given quite a few concessions – most importantly the cancellation of the missile shield – but the big kahuna is still out there:  Will an American administration ever recognize that it broke a spoken agreement with the Russians not to expand NATO into former Warsaw Pact countries following the reunification of Germany?  Perhaps more importantly, what would happen if they did talk about breaking their word … would it be the last kiss goodbye to Eastern Europe before slipping into Russia’s reclaimed sphere of influence, or would it just be a lesson that you should always get your deals signed on paper?

The story has become something of an urban legend, and was the basis for a heated debate between Ariel Cohen and Stephen Cohen on the Dan Rather show.  There are those who deny that the negotiations were ever so specific (especially given that Helmut Kohl could not speak on behalf of Washington), while others who complain of this as a key betrayal cannot produce a written piece of evidence.  Writing in the New York Times today, Marie Elise Sarotte of USC takes a look at this underpinning of U.S.-Russia hostility: