Most items on notional agendas for U.S.-Russia
cooperation are irrelevant or impossible to achieve, regardless of the tenor of
the bilateral relationship.
This article is the second of three essays on U.S.-Russian relations in the
transition to a new U.S. administration. The first is here.
Realism takes reality as its starting
point, and the reality is that U.S. policy over the past 25 years has failed to
secure the transformation of Russia into a country that shares our perspective
the way that Western and Central Europe and Japan do. We must therefore set
aside the notion of a U.S.-Russian strategic partnership based on common values
and interests and accustom ourselves to dealing with Russia transactionally.
This is not the end of the world; perhaps it’s only the end of an illusion.
Frankly, even in the days when Washington and Moscow were thinking and talking
in terms of strategic partnership, much of their bilateral interaction was
really transactional in nature anyway.
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