WarSclerotic

The US defense chief has vowed to take “all necessary steps” against a resurgent Russia which is challenging a frustrated Washington in eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Ash Carter, the US defense secretary, said the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had wrapped his country in a “shroud of isolation” which only a drastic change in policy could reverse.

“We will take all necessary steps to deter Russia’s malign and destabilising influence, coercion and aggression,” Carter said, attacking Russian military intervention in Ukraine and Syria.

The speech at a US army convention on Wednesday included some of the strongest language yet by the Obama administration, which came into office determined to “reset” relations with Russia and move them in a more cooperative direction.

Carter said that as long as Russia pursued a “misguided strategy” in Syria to bolster its client Bashar al-Assad, “we have not, and will not, agree to cooperate with Russia”.

Meanwhile, Russia claimed that the United States snubbed its overtures for high-level consultations on Syria, refusing to send a delegation to Moscow or receive a high-ranking Russian delegation.

On Tuesday, Putin said he wanted to send a delegation led by the Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, to the US. Moscow said the suggestion was first raised during a meeting between Putin and Barack Obama on the sidelines of the UN general assembly last month.

“Literally today, we got an official reply,” the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said on Wednesday. “We have been told that they can’t send a delegation to Moscow and they can’t host a delegation in Washington either.”

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Wednesday evening: “Given the current situation in Syria, refusing dialogue does not help to save the country and region from the Islamic State.”

There was no immediate response to the claim from US officials, though the accusation stands in contrast to two weeks of unresolved requests from the Pentagon to the Russian defence ministry for a clear procedure to avoid midair conflict.

While the US Defense Department last week held out hope for “deconfliction”, three rounds of talks have yet to result in clear rules for US and Russian pilots and their commanders, despite a series of undisclosed proposals and counterproposals. A third video conference made “progress” on Wednesday, and was described as “focused narrowly on the implementation of specific safety procedures” by a Pentagon spokesman, Captain Jeff Davis.

Lavrov said on Wednesday that agreement was close and procedures “should become operational any day now”.

The diplomatic disagreement over the international community’s response to the Syrian war reflects the positions of two distinct coalitions with divergent goals. Russia, Iran and the Syrian regime of the dictator Assad have accelerated a military offensive against Assad’s Syrian enemies.

The pro-Assad coalition is reportedly aiming to retake Aleppo in the coming days, with Russian warplanes supporting Iranian ground forces.

The US and much of the west are focused instead on a relatively slower campaign against the Islamic State, which formally opposes Assad but has turned its attention to consolidating its hold on eastern Syria and north-western Iraq.

On the one hand, Russia has been using its entrance into the Syria theatre to regain diplomatic clout after isolation following its actions in Ukraine, with Putin meeting with Obama in New York on the sidelines of the UN general assembly meeting, and the latest attempt to send a negotiating group to Washington.

On the other hand, when the strategy has failed, Putin has not shied from going it alone, launching the air campaign in Syria just two days after his speech at the UN calling for a coalition, and giving the US just an hour’s notice, via diplomats in Baghdad.

“I believe some of our partners simply have mush for brains,” Putin said, complaining that the US did not appear to have a firm set of goals in Syria.

In the balance for the US is the Iraqi government, which pivots between US and Iranian sponsorship. The Iraqi government of Haider Abadi, installed with the aid of the US last year, has begun flirting with the Russian-Iranian-Assad coalition in frustration with what it considers insufficient US support against Isis.

Iraq now hosts an intelligence fusion centre with Russian, Syrian and Iranian liaisons and reportedly has begun using situational awareness generated from the centre to bomb Isis positions.

Russia has said it would be willing to consider expanding its airstrikes to Iraq but only if it was asked to do so by Iraqi authorities.

The US has made clear it will not participate in the intelligence centre, out of concern that its Russian and Iranian adversaries would gain access to US information; the US maintains its own independent intelligence cell with the Iraqis. The Iraqi defence ministry has provided “assurances that our information will be appropriately protected”, Warren said on 1 October.

Meanwhile Carter said that he did not know if Putin would take “the opportunity to change course”.

“From the Kamchatka peninsula through south Asia, into the Caucasus and around to the Baltics, Russia has continued to wrap itself in a shroud of isolation. And only the Kremlin can decide to change that.”