The Not-So-Elusive Joe

Andrey Kortunov, the director-general of the Russian International Affairs Council, discusses the significance of Joe Biden’s first phone call with Vladimir Putin.

If we compare Joe Biden’s first week in office to Donald Trump’s in terms of U.S.-Russian relations, we would see that “sleepy Joe” seems to be the more preferable option. This might seem surprising to many Russians. Biden does not make declarations of love to Russia. He just picks up the phone, makes a call and explains his view on the future of bilateral U.S.-Russian relations.

It is clear that U.S.-Russian relations are going to look more like a rivalry, at times slipping into direct confrontation.

The new administration will expand its support of Ukraine, Georgia and other post-Soviet states, which are now trying to get rid of the tiring guardianship of Moscow.

Human rights in Russia are going to be under significant scrutiny. The U.S. is not going to neglect distressing cases such as the one of Alexei Navalny. The Democratic administration is willing to pick up the torch of sanctions against Russia, which are going to be expanded.

And yet, everything is relative.

We should not forget that the previous U.S. president managed to destroy all the important channels of U.S.-Russian relations: summits, arms control mechanisms and diplomatic dialogue. Now, his successor is trying to rehabilitate some of them.

Presently, the most urgent task is to restore bilateral strategic arms control. Biden is motivated to do that by his own political convictions, the position of most U.S. allies and budget considerations. Obviously, the extension of the New START treaty with Russia is just the first step on a long road. However, unlike Trump, Biden took that step without any delays or haggling with Russia. That means that communication channels among the U.S. and Russian members of the military, experts and diplomats, as well as reliable verification measures, are going to stay in place. The U.S. and Russia will avoid destroying an important strategic framework, which will help build the future multilateral arms control agreements, including nuclear nonproliferation measures and nuclear test bans.

It looks like that will be the starting point of gradually renewing the diplomatic dialogue between the U.S. and Russia.

The Biden administration’s “Russia team” seems to be very ambitious and professional. It looks like there is going to be much less staff turnover now, and Washington’s actions are going to be more consistent and predictable.

The situation with summits is more complicated, since it looks as though neither leader has warmed up to the other. Yet, in U.S.-Russian relations, respect has always been more important than affinity. If both countries achieve some cooperation, summits and meetings at multilateral events are going to follow suit.

Biden is undoubtedly going to be a difficult counterpart, maybe the most difficult of all of Moscow’s foreign contacts. We cannot underestimate the firm anti-Russia consensus that now exists in Washington. However, Kommersant was right to note before the New Year that, “thus, even if under Trump Russian-American relations had not yet reached the bottom they may reach under Biden, this bottom will have not only downslides, but upswings.”