The Cold Thaw: What To Expect from Russia-US Relations

The Negative Bottom Line

In 2015, Russian-American relations definitely plunged into a prolonged period of confrontation. Bilateral cooperation remains on hold in the different spheres. The strongest crisis of trust not only creates obstacles for cooperation in those spheres where there are many real possibilities (for example, in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria), but is also fraught with unintended international conflicts between the U.S. and Russia.

Expert and academic communities on both sides of the Atlantic enthusiastically discuss the concept of a New Cold War, and try to explain the nature of the new crisis with the help of old terminology. This phenomenon by itself is a milestone.

The war of sanctions is progressing. A “war of images” has broken out in the media of two countries: In 2015, the levels of anti-Americanism in Russia and Russophobia in the U.S. reached their maximum since the collapse of the bipolar system of international relations.

Welfare in Exchange for Greatness

The crisis in relations between the U.S. and post-soviet Russia is directly connected to Russian actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, as those actions violate the norms of international law. In a wide sense, this crisis is determined by the crisis in global and regional administrative processes in the world after the Cold War. This past year has demonstrated the ultimate destruction of the post-bipolar order: Russia, with its actions in Ukraine and Syria, has declared its unwillingness to put up with the asymmetry of Russian-American relations and the global dominance of the United States. Vladimir Putin once again stated this, in very rigid form, at a meeting of the Valdai Club on Oct. 22, 2015.*

Russia decided to teach the U.S. a lesson; to make the U.S. respect Russian national interests; to demonstrate to the world the kind of real mess the U.S. has made due to its short-sighted policy of double standards. This goal about national greatness still has fairly broad support in Russian society — another unspoken contract between Russian society and its government: society’s welfare in exchange for the country’s greatness. However, the question is how long this consensus will continue to exist under conditions of growing economic crisis and falling living standards in the country, and whether Russia’s military operation in Syria can strengthen the consensus and compensate for failure at the Donbass.

The U.S. is not going to revise its previous scheme of relations with Russia; it refuses to see the real reasons for such aspiration from a regional power with a GDP lower than Spain, according to Obama. The Russian vector of U.S. foreign policy is still formed with the predominance of a values approach. This means that the formation of a bilateral relations agenda is dependent on internal political processes in Russia itself. Although there are many realists in the United States who are urging the government to hold a pragmatic policy toward Russia, their ideas are lost in a mass of demands to punish Russia with international isolation and economic sanctions — both for Ukraine and for Russia’s internal authoritarianism.

As a result, the new formula for Russian-American relations, as noted by Dmitri Trenin, has become an asymmetrical confrontation that is doubly dangerous in the conditions of failure of the containment policy.

Simultaneously, the information war between Russia and the United States, as one of the main dimensions of the present crisis, has clearly demonstrated the importance of the application of anti-Americanism in Russia, and the desire to use the power of a hostile image of the United States for the consolidation of Russian society.

Anti-Americanism and Russophobia

A new round of “hunting for foreign agents,” which targeted the following American organizations, marked the year 2015: the MacArthur Foundation and the American Cultural Center at the U.S. Embassy. References to “Washington’s machinations” fended off any accusations against Russia — starting with how processes in Ukraine were conducted and world oil prices, and ending with the FIFA corruption scandal and the Russian athletes doping scandal.

The enemy, America, is known, and it is easy to hate — plus it increases national self-esteem. Especially since this enemy is not doing well at his own home, from race riots inside the country (Ferguson and Baltimore) to failures of foreign policy (Iraq, Afghanistan, the Arab Spring and Syria). Anti-American rhetoric in Russia is also directly linked to anti-liberal socio-political discourse in general, within which universal American liberalism is opposed to Russian national conservatism. This fundamental divergence of values was reflected in Putin and Obama’s speeches at the September U.N. General Assembly, and became evidence of the diametrically opposite views of the situation in the world in general, and in Ukraine and Syria in particular.

Russophobia has not disappeared from the United States, and the "Russian card" is still widely used in domestic political games, especially by Republicans under the circumstances of the election campaign for the presidency that started in 2015. In the new U.S. military doctrine, Russia has been named one of the major threats to its national interests, and a revisionist state that violates international law.

In this crisis, Russia and the United States pay more attention to the political situations of each other. The difference lies in the fact that Russia has lost its key role in the formation of national identity in the United States, like it had during the Cold War — whereas for us America still constitutes the “other.” This asymmetric perception supplements the asymmetric confrontation, which only exacerbates the crisis.

The Positive Bottom Line

However, 2015 also had some positive outcomes. Despite the crisis, Russia and the United States made some common cause in the development of an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program. The Federal Space Agency and NASA also agreed to build a new space station after 2024.

Moreover, Russia finished the year in less isolation than at the beginning of 2015, due to Russian military actions in Syria (with all the ambiguity of those results), and due to the start of coordination processes between Russia and the United States in the fight against the Islamic State group (an organization banned in Russia). Mr. Putin and Mr. Obama have repeatedly negotiated during the last months; also, there are constant negotiations between John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov, even though in May the arrival of the U.S. secretary of state in Sochi was perceived as a sensation. Kerry’s last visit to Moscow, in mid-December, was held in a much more positive atmosphere. The secretary of state said that the U.S. does not seek to isolate Russia, he walked along the Arbat,** refreshed his memory of the Perestroika era, and discussed the draft of the U.S. resolution on Syria with Putin. Three days later Russia voted [for the U.S. resolution] in the U.N. Security Council, along with the other members, although Russia had blocked all previous resolutions.

Thus, the year of 2015 showed the outlines of divergence between public rhetoric and diplomatic practice. Clearly apparent differences in the foreign policy decision-making processes between Russia and the United States also became apparent. In Russia, these processes are highly personalized, while in the U.S. they are complex and influenced by many factors — party struggle, the different positions of various departments, public opinion, etc.

Should we wait for an overload [of tensions]? A strategic partnership between the two countries is certainly out of the question. The U.S. is not going to form any coalition with Russia in Syria, like the anti-Hitler coalition during World War II; and the U.S is not going to abandon its position concerning the Ukrainian issue. The abolition of sanctions against Russia will depend on compliance with the terms of the Minsk-2 agreement. An overload in Russian-American relations still stays as an idle fancy, until the next Washington administration is in charge. This cannot be foreknown. However, even the normalization of negotiation processes at the summit talks (when one side does not consider the fact of negotiations as a defeat, and the other as a victory) is already a miracle. There is also development of step-by-step cooperation in areas where there are still some opportunities for it; and finally, stabilization at the current level of relations. This alone demonstrates the depth of the crisis in Russian-American relations at the end of 2015.

Translator's note: The author, Victoria Zhuravleva, is a professor in the Regional Studies and Foreign Policy department of the Russian State University for the Humanities.

*Editor’s note: The Valdai Club is a group of Russian and international analysts, academics and politicians.

**Editor’s note: Arbat Street, mainly referred to as the Arbat, is a pedestrian street about one kilometer long in the historical center of Moscow.