Carnegie Moscow Center
The MH-17 catastrophe has been a major factor in the current state of relations between Russia and the West for more than a year already. Paradoxically, the establishment of an international tribunal is unlikely to sour relations further, even though Moscow fears that protracted legal proceedings might stand in the way of a future détente with the West
The Iran nuclear deal and the restoration of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba are victories achieved through informal or semi-informal diplomacy. As for the Russian-American relations, this diplomacy successfully worked even during the Cold War—but not now.
Russia is a superpower in decline, and the challenge it poses to the United States is very different from that posed by the Soviet Union.
A theory of “hybrid war” based on the events in Crimea and eastern Ukraine ignores both the chronology and cause-and-effect links between events on the ground.
Putin phoned IMF chief, asking the Europeans to support Athens in any way possible. It is likely that Obama asked to do the same thing: there is no indication that Greece was ever a point of contention between Russia and the United States—despite Greece’s position on the Ukrainian crisis, its anti-Western rhetoric, and Tsipras’ friendship with Putin
The BRICS and the West are neither rivals nor partners. The BRICS isn’t challenging the West, but the West’s own growing weaknesses are empowering the BRICS.
Today, reaching out pro-actively to the non-West is the only realistic option for Moscow. It should view its role as an economic resource base, a diplomatic adviser, and a defense arsenal of the emerging community of the non-West.
Divisions exist among major nations about how to approach Putin, and his isolation is anything but watertight. At the same time, the Russians themselves are no less defiant of what they see as U.S. global domination.
Putin’s announcement that Moscow plans to add more than 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles to its nuclear arsenal is troubling mainly because of its political and psychological impact on NATO allies. But it is no cause for alarm.
Rather than thinking about some grand architecture for the future, all sides of the current Russian-Western conflict should step away from the brink.