U.S.-Russian Ties Still Fall Short of "Reset" Goal Ekaterina Shtukina/Epa - Ria Novosti President Obama found common ground with President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, above in Seoul, South Korea, last year. WASHINGTON - Just days before Vladimir V. Putin reassumed the presidency of Russia last year, President Obama dispatched his national security adviser to Moscow. Mr. Obama had made considerable progress with Dmitri A. Medvedev, the caretaker president, and wanted to preserve the momentum. Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press Mr. Obama has had a much tenser relationship with the current president, Vladimir V. Putin. Any hopes of that, however, were quickly dashed when Mr. Putin sat down with the visiting American adviser, Tom Donilon, at the lavish presidential residence outside Moscow. Rather than talk of cooperation, Mr. Putin opened the meeting with a sharp challenge underscoring his deep suspicion of American ambitions: "When," he asked pointedly, "are you going to start bombing Syria?" At the time, Mr. Obama had no plans for military involvement in the civil war raging in the heart of the Middle East, but Mr. Putin did not believe that. In Mr. Putin's view, the United States wanted only to meddle in places where it had no business, fomenting revolutions to install governments friendly to Washington. The meeting 16 months ago set the stage for a tense new chapter in Russian-American relations, one that will play out publicly this week when Mr. Obama travels to St. Petersburg for a Group of 20 summit meeting hosted by Mr. Putin. Although Mr. Obama had no intention of bombing Syria last year, on Saturday he said he now favored military action against Syrian forces, not to depose the government of Bashar al-Assad, a Russian ally, but in retaliation for gassing its own citizens - an assertion Mr. Putin denounced as "utter nonsense" to justify American intervention. While it was the Kremlin's decision last month to shelter Edward J. Snowden, the National Security Agency leaker, that finally prompted Mr. Obama to call off a separate one-on-one meeting he had scheduled with Mr. Putin while in Russia, the core of the schism is not so much that case as the radically different worldviews revealed by the Syria dispute. Where Mr. Obama feels compelled to take action to curb the use of unconventional weapons, Mr. Putin sees American imperialism at work again. The story of the administration's "reset" policy toward Russia is a case study in how the heady idealism of Mr. Obama's first term has given way to the disillusionment of his second. Critics say he was naïve to think he could really make common cause with Moscow. Aides say it was better to try than not, and it did yield tangible successes in arms control, trade and military cooperation before souring. "There's this cycle of initial enthusiasm and hope that gives way to reality," said Robert M. Gates, Mr. Obama's first defense secretary, Mr. Obama expected more when he arrived in London in April 2009 for a Group of 20 meeting and his first encounter with Mr. Medvedev. The two sat down and found they had much in common - both were new-generation leaders, trained in law, unburdened by the past, who saw themselves more as pragmatists than ideologues. And while it was clear Mr. Putin, then serving as prime minister, was still the paramount figure, Mr. Obama resolved to build up Mr. Medvedev in hopes that he would eventually emerge as the real power. The theory, advanced by aides like Mr. Donilon and Michael McFaul, then the president's Russia adviser, was that after the rupture over Russia's 2008 war with Georgia, there were opportunities for cooperation in areas of shared interest. That did not mean there would no longer be disagreements, but they would try to delink them so that the entire relationship did not suffer. "It was an opportunity to make things better," said a senior official. Not everyone was so optimistic. Hillary Rodham Clinton, then the secretary of state, supported the reset and even presented an ill-fated button to her Russian counterpart with the word "reset" mistranslated into Russian. But privately she had a more jaundiced view of Mr. Putin. So did Mr. Gates, who recalled that he "thought it was worth a try" but was not sanguine about the prospect.