The Road Forward With Russia

This article at Foreign Policy by Thomas Graham and Matthew Rojansky on how the U. S.-Russian relationship has gone wrong is the best thing on the subject I’ve read in a long time. Here’s a snippet:

The most common U.S. policy responses to Russia — from both Republican and Democratic administrations across three decades — have depended either on the hope that Moscow can be fully defeated or that it can become a friend and fellow democracy. But Russia is not a democracy, nor is it democratizing, and although Russia may be in secular decline, it is a major power on the world stage. The next president needs to accept that Moscow cannot simply be defeated or contained in the emerging multipolar, globalized world order. It must be engaged through a comprehensive balance of cooperation and competition.

The next president will have to persuade Moscow to cooperate where cooperation is needed on things like preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) while limiting room for Russia to maneuver where its interests largely oppose American ones, such as in Syria. And this new U.S. policy must also recognize that tensions with Russia do not divide neatly along the lines of geography or individual issues, and that even shared interests will seldom overlap entirely. The goal should involve constructing a web of interactions, both cooperative and competitive, that yields the most beneficial balance for our national interests. But above all, rather than setting out to defeat or transform Russia, a new U.S. approach should deal with Russia as it really is.

They go on to present six steps for improving the relationship between the two countries:

1. Understand That It’s Not Just About Putin
2. Stop Ukraine From Becoming a Frozen Conflict
3. Have an Honest Talk About Europe
4. Push for More Arms Control
5. Work With Russia in Asia
6. Recognize That Syria Is About More Than Syria

I think that can be distilled into just three principles. First, we need to consider clearly what the U. S. interests are. Germany is not our friend and Russia is not our enemy. The U. S., Germany, and Russia are different countries and sometimes our interests coincide with each of theirs and sometimes they’re different. For the last thirty years we’ve been pushing Germany’s interests even when they aren’t consistent with our own and opposing Russian interests even when they don’t interfere with ours.

Second, a war between the U. S. and Russia isn’t in anybody’s interest. That isn’t idle speculation. Russia is taking the very bellicose words and actions that have come from the United States seriously.

Third, it’s legitimate for Russia to have interests different from ours, just as it’s legitimate for Liechtenstein or Spain to have interests different from ours. That’s what it means to live in a Westphalian order rather than an American empire. We can’t dictate to the other countries of the world what’s in their interests.