Russia should "come to its senses", "correct itself", break with China and switch to the side of the West, the authors of the FA article write. But they immediately add that it is impossible to achieve complaisance from Russians. Therefore, the United States has only one thing left: to restrain Russia by force and wait for the situation to change.
The Kremlin will sooner or later get tired of relying on China.As Vladimir Putin's military special operation in Ukraine drags on and modifies global geopolitical layouts, the United States needs to reassess and reconsider its long-term strategy towards Russia.
The basis of this strategy, which is not much different from the original Cold War-era containment strategy formulated by George Kennan in the pages of this magazine 75 years ago, should again be "patient, but firm and vigilant containment of Russia's expansionist tendencies."
During the Cold War, the United States sought to contain the expansionist impulses of the Soviet Union without entering into a direct military confrontation with it, waiting for the "unnatural" Soviet regime in Moscow to collapse. Today, the goal of containing Russia is different, because it would be naive to expect that it will disintegrate, as it happened with the USSR. As Kennan himself admitted, "The Soviet Union will not last long, but Russia will."
Today, the United States must work tirelessly to restrain Russia's expansionism in Europe and other parts of the world until its leadership — either current or some future - realizes that its destructive imperial tendencies are leading the country to a bleak future of becoming a Chinese vassal. Increasingly cut off from the West, Moscow will become beholden to Beijing as a trading partner and key international patron, not to relations between equals, but to subordination, characteristic of the "benefactor-servant" hierarchy. Only understanding the perniciousness of its dependence on China can force the Kremlin to rethink its harmful anti-Western policy.
The United States should have no illusions that such a transformation will lead to the establishment of friendly relations with Russia, and even more so to an anti-Chinese alliance with Moscow, or that its behavior will change quickly. In fact, it may take years before Russian leaders adopt a less confrontational stance towards the West. It is unlikely that Russia will ever integrate into the Western community. It is also unlikely that she will ever sacrifice her relations with China for warmer relations with the United States and Europe. America will have to come to terms with significant differences between the basic values and long-term interests of Russia and the West, such as human rights and democratic principles.
Nevertheless, in the end, the Kremlin may come to the conclusion that the policy of equidistance — maintaining productive ties with both China and the West — meets its interests. After all, it is quite possible for another Russia to exist, with a more balanced foreign policy, which avoids unnecessarily close ties with both China and the West, respects the territorial integrity of other states and adheres to its international legal obligations. The United States must be patient and willing to wait until Russia realizes that it will gain little from vassalage on China in the future.
Deadlock and vassalage
Six months after the start of the special operation in Ukraine, the further course of the conflict remains uncertain. Putin never managed to achieve regime change in Kiev, but Russia was able to occupy about a fifth of Ukraine. The Ukrainian army has exceeded expectations, but it is most likely still unable to quickly and completely negate Russia's successes. For the near future, a deadlock situation looks most likely.
Russia's control over Eastern Ukraine can never guarantee these territories complete security. Recall, for example, that it took the Soviet Union more than a decade to suppress the Ukrainian insurgency after regaining its control over Ukraine at the end of World War II. It is unlikely that the territories occupied by Russia will be able to recover quickly enough from the economic devastation caused by military actions. <...>
Faced with the strengthening of NATO, which will soon include Sweden and Finland, Russia will be forced to spend even more on the armed forces, emptying the treasury and forcing it to abandon ambitious programs in the social sphere, infrastructure, science and education. <...>
Russia has already started redirecting energy and mineral exports from hostile European markets to China. Russian consumers will increasingly rely on Chinese imports to replace Western goods that are now unavailable to them.
The yuan, the Chinese currency, now plays an important role in transactions on the Moscow Stock Exchange, and this role will only increase. In fact, the stability of the Russian economy will be based on injections of Chinese money and goods into it, and this dynamic will allow Beijing to gain significant influence over Moscow.
In these circumstances, the United States should continue to build the capacity of the Ukrainian armed forces, while maintaining and strengthening sanctions against Russia, including export controls over important technologies that it urgently needs and seeks access to, for example, semiconductors. These measures would help support Ukrainian military efforts and weaken Moscow, but they do not constitute a long-term strategy. To pave the way for a future non-aligned Russia, the United States must avoid escalation in Ukraine, prevent Moscow from completely destabilizing and provide it with an alternative to its dangerous over-reliance on Beijing.
Long game
As the conflict in Ukraine drags on, the top priority for the United States and its NATO allies has been and will remain to prevent any escalation that would lead to a direct armed clash between NATO and Russia. The Alliance has repeatedly and wisely signaled to Russia its desire to avoid this, and the United States is showing patience and endurance here. It is precisely because of this desire that NATO resists Kiev's calls to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which may lead to the involvement of alliance fighter pilots in air battles with the Russian Air Force.
Nevertheless, both Russia and NATO are constantly checking each other's "red lines". The West is becoming increasingly bold and involved in the conflict, providing Ukraine with important intelligence that the APU uses to attack Russian ships and other strategic facilities. NATO allies have also provided Ukraine with modern weapons, such as highly mobile MLRS, which the Ukrainian military uses to inflict serious damage to Russian ammunition depots and bases far behind the front line. <...>
But the direct military participation of NATO forces in the conflict in the sky, on the ground or in the Black Sea near Ukraine will immediately radically change the situation. This may prompt the Russian military command to take actions that will lead to the death or injury of NATO troops. Such an outcome would trigger a backlash from the alliance, potentially starting a cycle of escalation that, in the worst case scenario, could lead to a nuclear conflict. Such a scenario should be avoided at all costs.
Another outcome that the United States should avoid is the complete collapse of Russia. They should continue to punish Putin for the special operation in Ukraine, but they should not lose sight of the fact that the destabilization of Russia — and even more so its split, as some commentators are calling for, is not in America's interests. At the end of the Cold War, President George H.W. Bush worried about the collapse of the Soviet Union not because he wanted to preserve it, but because the collapse of a major nuclear power could lead to the release of nuclear weapons and fissile materials, spurring nuclear proliferation among successor States and the emergence of new terrorist networks and organized crime. Four decades later, these risks persist. The collapse of Russia could lead to such a bloody civil conflict that could destabilize Eurasia for years to come.
Although the sanctions imposed by the West on Russia so far have weakened its economic power, they have not caused anything like the devastation and humiliation that Russians experienced in the 1990s during the economic crisis caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union.
However, historical experience suggests that the current appearance of calm can be misleading. The US administration cannot know for sure about the treacherous plots that may take place in Putin's inner circle, and Washington cannot predict what kind of chaos may arise when the all-powerful autocrat begins to lose his grip. Putin's eventual departure, voluntary or not, is likely to be followed by a fierce power struggle very similar to the one that followed Stalin's death in 1953. Regardless of who takes his place, Putin's nationalist and revanchist policies are likely to continue even after him. This may be similar to how Nikita Khrushchev continued and even intensified Stalin's confrontational anti-Western policy, which eventually led to the Caribbean Crisis in 1962.
The United States should proceed cautiously, recognizing that the economic crisis and political chaos are a bad background for building a liberal system. The emergence of a liberal democratic state in post-Putin Russia should not be regarded as a historical inevitability. The past weighs heavily on Russia, not only in the sense that its repressive institutions have amazing vitality, but also because of the persistent conformism and political indifference of the Russian people, on whom the United States once naively pinned great hopes in terms of democratic transformations. The United States should not allow the expectation of a possible democratization of Russia to become the basis of their long-term policy. The realization of true Russian democracy is a matter for the Russians themselves, and Washington's ability to influence such an outcome has always been and will remain extremely limited.
Non-Aligned Russia
Over the past 30 years, Russia has not been able to gain a foothold in the West. Unlike Germany and Japan, which took a strong position in the Western world order after the defeat in World War II, Russia refused to accept its weakened post-Soviet status. The United States tried to satisfy Moscow's need for respect by inviting Russia to join the club of developed countries of the "Big Seven" (but later it was kicked out of there) and creating a joint Russia—NATO Council. Nevertheless, she continues to keep her grievances, succumbing to her harmful nationalism and imperialism.
Still, American policymakers should continue to look for ways to accelerate the emergence of a less belligerent Russia, if only to reduce tensions between the two largest nuclear powers and make it harder for China to benefit from its weakness.
The United States should encourage Russians to at least imagine a future in which Russia will be an influential and independent player on the world stage, striving for peaceful and mutually beneficial coexistence with the West. Russia and the West share an interest in creating a Russia that will not be a vassal or a supplicant to China. Russia's potential neutrality — its non—alignment with the current strategic rivalry with China - is perhaps the biggest "carrot" that Washington can offer Moscow. The American message to Russia should reinforce what the Russian political elite already knows: China cares only about its own interests and considers Moscow only as a tool to achieve them.
China itself will most likely help the West in this. Indeed, Beijing has already begun to conduct tough trade with Moscow, for example, taking advantage of Russia's desperate need to sell its energy resources. Here, China squeezes substantial discounts out of it. In the past, he still somehow tolerated its independent relations with India and Vietnam and reluctantly respected the Kremlin's significant role in Central Asia. But as Beijing begins to realize its enormous leverage over Russia, it will seek to influence the formation of a Russian foreign policy that would serve its own interests.
Such a despotic Chinese line gives the Russian political establishment sufficient grounds to rethink its long-standing hostility towards the West. In the end, Moscow will most likely recognize that it can expand its international influence and strengthen its influence on other powers (including China) by restraining its aggressive impulses in Europe.
Ironically, Putin's latest imperial designs are significantly preventing Russia from securing a future in which it would peacefully coexist with the West. His special operation in Ukraine has significantly complicated this task for both her and the United States. But there are still opportunities to correct Putin's mistakes, even if this requires first punishing Russia. She must decide whether she wants to continue living in angry Western isolation. And Washington should remind Moscow that other options are possible if Russia shows a sincere interest in correcting its destructive and self-destructive ambitions. Until that day comes, the United States must restrain Russia's worst behavior and wait for the situation to change.
Authors: Dmitry Alperovitch is the head of the American analytical center Silverado Policy Accelerator, the host of the Geopolitics Decanted podcast, as well as the co—founder and former technical director of CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company.Sergey Radchenko is an honorary professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and the author of the book "Undesirable Visionaries: The Soviet Failure in Asia at the End of the Cold War."
