Carnegie Moscow Center
This is not a call for a reset or a new partnership, but rather for a responsible, less hostile relationship between rivals bitterly divided by visions of world order, geopolitical interests, and values.
President Biden will challenge the Kremlin both domestically and geopolitically. To thwart that dual challenge, Russia needs to deal with its numerous vulnerabilities effectively before its adversary is able to exploit them.
Biden calls Russia the biggest threat to the United States, and sees Moscow’s policies as aimed at weakening Western countries internally; undermining the unity of such institutions as NATO and the European Union; and subverting the liberal world order.
Simultaneous crises in Belarus, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Kyrgyzstan have demonstrated Russia’s maturing approach to its neighborhood. Russia is learning to mind its limitations; to repel residual nostalgia; and to think straight, putting issues before personalities, and staying focused on its own interests, leaving the empire farther and farther behind.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War. It was initially a civil war that gradually evolved into an international conflict, during which the Soviet Union and China supported North Korea.
Bilateral nuclear arms control is being succeeded in a polycentric nuclear world by deregulation. Rather than mourn arms control, we should focus on complimenting deterrence—which has been and will remain the bedrock of strategic stability—with reliable communication, contacts, transparency, and restraint among relevant parties.
Berlin is ending the era launched by Gorbachev of a trusting and friendly relationship with Moscow. Russia, for its part, no longer expects anything from Germany, and therefore does not feel obliged to take into account its opinion or interests.
The Kremlin has had enough of Lukashenko, but it cannot allow Belarus to follow the path of Ukraine and become another anti-Russian, NATO-leaning bulwark on its borders.
For the foreseeable future, Russian-Chinese relations are likely to be closer, and more productive than Russian-American ones. This is not based on emotions, but on national interests.
The coronavirus pandemic has hastened the arrival of a new era of bipolarity. The short essays in this panoramic collection examine the various implications of the pandemic for Russia’s foreign relations.