Several media report these days the overtures made by U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to Moscow, on issues such as the proposed anti-ballistic missiles defense system in Central Europe, cooperation on Iran’s missile and nuclear threats, and on Afghanistan’s logistical problem.
U.S.-Russian talks will concentrate first on the possible renewal of the START treaty. But the Russians will push for a “grand bargain” between Moscow and Washington, since, as I’ve stated several times in the last years, they feel that the systemic context of international relations has changed significantly since the end of the Cold War. Russia wants to avoid two things in the first place: (a) U.S. deep political-military penetration into Russia’s “Near Abroad” via-NATO, and (b) being considered just a junior partner in East-West strategic relations. In other words, Russo-American political-strategic relations are conditioned by security and prestige considerations alike — not a novelty at all in history.
In order to achieve its goals, Russia must stop NATO’s enlargement and maintain maximum influence on politics in Ukraine and Georgia. Moscow must also signal to Lithuania, Poland, and the Czech Republic that the Americans will negotiate with Russia before taking into consideration the three countries’ anti-Russian orientation. Russian foreign policy in Transcaucasia, Eastern and Central Europe has used the threat of force, force (the Georgian war), and energy security as leverage in order to achieve such goals, at a time when the U.S. was “stuck” in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Moreover, Russia’s flirts with the rogue states and militias in the Middle East, as well as its diplomacy towards Hugo Chavez in the last years were aimed at putting irritants into U.S. grand strategy that could be then used as leverage to take the Americans to a negotiating table.
Now, while it’s very difficult to predict how Russo-American talks will end up, it is already possible to identify some obvious diplomatic and geopolitical implications of Hillary Clinton’s overtures to Moscow. From a diplomatic point of view, Washington is colder toward Warsaw, Vilnius, and Prague than it was only a few months ago. This will in turn weaken the “New Europe’s” political weight inside the E.U., and it may open a window of opportunity for France and Germany to re-launch a more “Carolingian” view of European Security and Defense Policy, i.e., a stronger role for Europe under the leadership of Paris and Berlin. However, this would take time and diplomatic ability.
From a “global geopolitical” point of view, better U.S.-Russian relations spell problems for China. The fundamental power triangle of the current geopolitical phase is the U.S.-Russia-China one. Now, if Russia and the U.S. succeed in a strategic rapprochement, China’s leverage against the U.S. in the south-eastern and north-eastern Rimland gets diminished. Moreover, if Russo-American cooperation helps stabilizing Afghanistan and crippling Iranian defense ambitions, U.S. politico-military energies may be freed to be used effectively elsewhere than in the “Greater Middle East”. And for China, that’s again bad news. Let’s not forget that China’s rise as a global power would be only assured if Beijing can maintain a firm grip on its peripheries (Tibet, Xin-Jiang) and, most of all, if it can achieve regional hegemony in its maritime area. An American power freed by the Iraqi and Afghan “traps” and nearer to Moscow would certainly be much more able to throw its weight behind China’s strategic rivals: Taiwan’s nationalists, South Korea, Japan, and Australia, but also more Tibetan and possibly Uighur separatists.
In the end, the above mentioned developments remain hypothetical, because we can’t be sure about the success of Russo-American talks and rapprochement. However, U.S. changing diplomatic relations with Russia are certain to trigger far-reaching consequences.
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