It is high time a worldwide competition was launched among scholars, journalists and bloggers on how to define the US-Russian relations after the Geneva summit between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin. "Reset" will not pass, since the two sides have demonstrated some fundamental disagreements not limited to their approaches to specific international problems, but including their general views on global politics, on the present and future world order. "Détente" is no good either, because in coming months and years we are doomed to see more US sanctions against Russia, an intense information war between Moscow and Washington and an apparent lack of mutual empathy that was an important dimension of the US-Soviet interaction half a century ago. Still, it would be misleading to talk about a "new edition of the Cold War" - primarily because both Russia and the United States today have neither the will nor the capacity to run the international system to their liking. Both nations are much more concerned about their multiple domestic problems than about expanding their global empires.
It is high time a worldwide competition was launched among scholars, journalists and bloggers on how to define the US-Russian relations after the Geneva summit between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin. "Reset" will not pass, since the two sides have demonstrated some fundamental disagreements not limited to their approaches to specific international problems, but including their general views on global politics, on the present and future world order. "Détente" is no good either, because in coming months and years we are doomed to see more US sanctions against Russia, an intense information war between Moscow and Washington and an apparent lack of mutual empathy that was an important dimension of the US-Soviet interaction half a century ago. Still, it would be misleading to talk about a "new edition of the Cold War" - primarily because both Russia and the United States today have neither the will nor the capacity to run the international system to their liking. Both nations are much more concerned about their multiple domestic problems than about expanding their global empires.
For the lack of a better term, one can call the emerging relationship "mutual containment with selective engagement". It sounds rather clumsy and does not qualify as a meme, but it at least describes the ambiguity of the relations. Containment here is a much more important dimension than engagement; the US-Russian interaction will continue to be primarily adversarial and/or competitive. It seems that both the Kremlin and the White House believe in an irreversible historic decline of the other side and therefore, the US and the Russian leaderships hope to outlive their opponents on the other side of the Atlantic. Only time will tell us who is right and who is wrong in these expectations.
At the same time, neither Vladimir Putin, nor Joe Biden is interested in an uncontrolled confrontation with political risks and economic costs going through the roof. No matter what they say publicly, both feel vulnerable in the rapidly changing world, where Russia and the United States are getting smaller and weaker - at least, in relative terms. Unsurprisingly, in Geneva they focused on strategic arms control and stability as the prime area for selective engagement. Neither side would like to see the New START turning into the last bilateral agreement in the nuclear field. Both should be concerned about new developments in military technologies including space, cyber, autonomous lethal systems, hyper sonic and so on. Both should like to engage third nuclear powers in this way or another into their future bilateral agreements.
Read the full article at the Institut Montaigne website.
