American Committee for US-Russia Accord

America’s grand strategy, its long-term blueprint for advancing national interests and countering major adversaries, is in total disarray. Top officials lurch from crisis to crisis, improvising strategies as they go, but rarely pursuing a consistent set of policies. Some blame this indecisiveness on a lack of resolve at the White House, but the real reason lies deeper. It lurks in a disagreement among foreign policy elites over whether Russia or China constitutes America’s principal great-power adversary.

Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics at Princeton and NYU Stephen F. Cohen talks to Tucker Carlson in the aftermath of the US airstrikes on Syria in which they discuss the dismal state of US-Russian relations. [Note: Start of Prof. Cohen at the 10:30 mark.]

Kennan Institute Director Matthew Rojansky writes “At the present moment of obvious tension between Moscow and Washington, it may be tempting to dismiss the likelihood of progress on any diplomatic front, let alone in the complex multilateral format of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Yet the 1972–75 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (csce) itself took place against a backdrop of intense rivalry between the u.s. and Soviet-led blocs, suggesting that reasoned dialogue and consensus on core issues of shared security in the osce space is possible…”

The current approach to European missile defenses emerged prior to the conclusion of the agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program (JCPOA) at a time when missile threats from beyond the European theater dominated the European Security landscape.

On a recent trip through Russia, longtime Russia-watcher Sharon Tennison writes: “the most startling fact for me is how well Russian people are withstanding being cut off from their normal long-standing markets and trading partners in Europe––and how they are faring since their ruble lost about half of its value in the past year. They were concerned about how long this period might last, but none registered serious fear or diffuse apprehension.  Unlike us, Russians have gone through so much worse in their past. This is apparently rather small by comparison.”

For me and many others on the right, Russia is not the main focus, but a component of years of effort to advance a more realistic and restrained U.S. foreign policy. Someone who is interested in such a foreign policy would naturally conclude that it is in the best interests of our country to have a good relationship, if possible, with any country that possesses the world’s second-largest nuclear arsenal.

Clashes between the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed separatists have occurred regularly along the Line of Contact (LoC) in southeastern Ukraine since the February ceasefire agreement was signed in Minsk. Both sides seemingly lack the will to fully implement the agreement, so the conflict looks likely to remain unresolved for the foreseeable future.

The first Russian explosive device to land on US soil wasn’t delivered by a Russian missile, as Americans feared might happen throughout the Cold War. It was delivered by FedEx…

We can turn back to Yugoslavia to find the roots of Putin’s loathing toward Clinton and her ideology. It was during NATO’s 1999 air campaign over Kosovo that then-President Bill Clinton helped to inaugurate the current era of militant humanitarianism (that is, humanitarian intervention at the point of a gun).

In the geopolitical arena, do the ends always justify the means? Is it wise to inflict damage on yourself and your institutions to hobble an enemy? The relationship between the West and Russia over the last few years offers an illustrative case.

In an interview this week with the Huffington Post, ACEWA Founding Board Member Stephen F. Cohen discusses the crisis in US-Russan relations and the ongoing Ukraine crisis with author Dan Kovalik. Among other observations, Professor Cohen comments that “Ukraine had been on Washington’s agenda for a very, very long time; it is a matter of public record. It was to that that Putin reacted. It was to the fear that the new government in Kiev, which overthrew the elected government, had NATO backing and its next move would be toward Crimea and the Russian naval base there. … But he was reacting, and as Kiev began an all-out war against the East, calling it the “anti-terrorist operation,” with Washington’s blessing. …”

…details are spilling out, and they are not bolstering the intelligence community’s conclusion. Indeed, the most recent revelation suggests they don’t understand who has influence in Moscow.

Washington’s legion of escalation argues for “raising the costs” to Russia by increasing the number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine…This rationale is logical on its face, but in practice does not account for the gap between the Russian and American stake in Ukraine. Kiev’s geopolitical orientation is supremely important to Russia, while American interests’ via-a-vis Ukraine are peripheral at best. It’s a case of “must have” for the Russians, versus “nice to have” for the United States.

Given Trump’s clear impulsivity and belligerent tendencies, the last thing Democrats ought to be doing is incentivizing him to take a needlessly hostile stance toward Putin – or any other world leader, for that matter.