Speaking to an international conference in Sochi last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated Moscow’s July proposed security concept for the Persian Gulf, which he somewhat tepidly described as “still important.” Despite Putin’s effort to remind his audience about the plan, however, the Russian security concept has largely failed to win backing outside Tehran and Damascus and cannot realistically secure US support. Given America’s considerable influence in regional security affairs — even in the more restrained US policy environment since the end of the George W. Bush administration — this is almost certainly a fatal flaw in the Russian plan.

Four years after its military intervention in Syria, Russia is still trying to get America’s attention and to formalize an ongoing role in regional security in the Middle East. Moscow outlined its current proposal in late July, in a document titled “Russia’s security concept for the Gulf area” in its English translation. Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who is also Russia’s special presidential representative for the Middle East and Africa, presented the plan. Bogdanov has led much of Moscow’s regional diplomacy, though his colleague Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov was the lead negotiator on the ill-fated Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran’s nuclear program.

So far, Moscow’s security concept for the Persian Gulf seems to have provoked the reaction that Russian officials likely least wanted from Washington: indifference. Of course, the Trump administration is much more sparing in its public commentary on international issues than previous administrations, in no small part because its decision to end daily White House and State Department press briefings dramatically curtails what official spokespeople reveal. With daily opportunities to ask questions at the State Department, someone may well have asked for and obtained a reaction to Russia’s proposal. The topic does not appear in online transcripts of the four briefings since Russia’s July 23 unveiling of its concept.

Moreover, it is challenging to interpret America’s silence as anything other than disinterested opposition to Russia’s security concept. As Kremlin and Foreign Ministry officials should well know, the proposal incorporates long-standing Russian approaches that the United States has consistently rejected. The fundamental problem is Moscow’s insistence that “peace-making operations can only be conducted on the basis of relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council or upon request of the legitimate authorities of the attacked state.”