U.S.-Russian Relations in the Trump Era.

AuthorSakwa, Richard
PositionCOMMENTARY - Essay

Relations between Russia and the U.S. have been deteriorating for a long time, and quite possibly they will worsen. Although Russia is not a peer competitor in the league of China, it nevertheless poses a challenge to certain definitions of American primacy. As a candidate and then as president from January 2017, Donald J. Trump appeared to offer a way out of the spiral of decline in mutual relations. He repeatedly argued that it would be good to get on with Russia. Instead, not only did he find himself constrained by powerful vested interests opposed to a rapprochement with Russia, in the end Russia turned out to be the cudgel with which Trump's opponents sought to constrain him and even to drive him from office. Charges of collusion with Russia to defeat his Democratic opponent in the November 8, 2016 election were compounded by the alleged Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the emails of the Democratic election coordinator, John Po-desta, with the whole scandal becoming known as 'Russiagate,' by analogy with the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals. Russiagate signaled the worsening of relations between Washington and Moscow, but this came on top of a long period of deterioration. During the cold peace (1989-2014) after the end of the Cold War, relations veered between cooperation and conflict, but after the Ukraine crisis of 2014 they settled in for what some call a new Cold War. For many in Russia, one of the few salutary features of the Trump presidency was that it offered the opportunity for a fundamental reset in relations, but Russiagate in the end constrained Trumps room for maneuver, and concessions were interpreted as proof of collusion. Relations between the two countries are in a deep impasse, fraught with the risk that various proxy conflicts between the two major nuclear powers could trigger a direct confrontation.

The Trump Challenge: From Leadership to Greatness

Trump is an outsider to the political establishment, having never served in an elected office before his unexpected victory in November 2016. His populist insurgency criticized the deleterious effects of globalization on American jobs and the economy, and his slogan 'make America great again' raised hopes that his planned investment in American infrastructure and support for declining industries (such as coal-mining) would usher in a new era of prosperity. His unorthodox policies raised hopes in Moscow that he would bring new ideas to the table, although Russian elites were well aware that he was unstable in his views, temperamental, and unpredictable in his behavior.

His Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, by contrast represented policy continuity and intensified hostility towards Russia. As opposed to this, Trump expressed the view that 'NATO is obsolete and it's extremely expensive for the United States, disproportionately so,' and 'it should be readjusted to deal with terrorism.' (1) He later warned that he would only assist European nations during a Russian invasion if they first 'fulfilled their obligations to us.' He also noted that the U.S. had 'to fix our own mess before trying to alter the behavior of other nations': 'I don't think we have the right to lecture.' He argued that his 'America first' slogan was a 'brand-new, modern term,' and did not signal isolationism of the sort advocated by Charles Lindbergh before the U.S. entered the Second World War. (2) Above all, candidate Trump adopted a radical position:

We desire to live peacefully and in friendship with Russia. ... We have serious differences... But we are not bound to be adversaries. We should seek common ground based on shared interests. Russia, for instance, has also seen the horror of Islamic terrorism. I believe an easing of tensions and improved relations with Russia--from a position of strength--are possible. Common sense says this cycle of hostility must end. Some say the Russians wont be reasonable. I intend to find out. If we cant make a good deal for America, then we will quickly walk from the table. (3) Trump certainly did not plan to weaken American primacy, but by contrast with his post-Cold War predecessors, he offered an alternative version. The prevailing bipartisan consensus stressed American 'leadership,' working with allies and multilateral institutions, whereas Trump's idea of American 'greatness' prioritized American national interests and was more unilateral. All post-Cold War American leaders from George H. W. Bush through Bill Clinton, George W. Bush to Barack Obama asserted a triumphal reading of American victory in the Cold War, accompanied by the assertion of American leadership in a unipolar world order, although that leadership would be alliance-based, multilateral and intended to defend the 'liberal world order.' Although the liberal world order delivered enormous public goods in the postwar era, it nevertheless represented a power system with the U.S. at its head. This, of course, encountered the resistance of Russia, and increasingly also from Beijing. With the collapse of the Soviet alternative between 1989 and 1991, liberal internationalists and neoconservatives allied to assert America's position as the 'indispensable' nation, accompanied by an enlargement agenda of norm expansion. The combination of an ideology of exceptionalism and moral supremacy delegitimized not only alternative social and political models, but also the language in which resistance could be couched. The other powers effectively became the subjects of various soft containment strategies to ensure that they did not challenge American supremacy. Against this homogenization of global political space, the other powers began to develop an anti-hegemonic agenda to defend pluralism in the international system. This is in keeping with the classic postulates of 'offensive realism.' (4)

Trump, of course, also defends American primacy, and he is certainly not ready to cede American military predominance to any other power. Nevertheless, the shift from U.S. 'leadership' to American 'greatness' represents a fundamental challenge to the liberal international order, but not to the power system on which it is based. The change entails a new style of engagement in international affairs, some of them with benign implications, and some with rather more negative features. The 'America first' ideology means a retreat from multilateralism and less commitment to the defense of global public goods, such as the December 2015 Paris environmental accords, from which Trump withdrew. (5) It also means a more mercantilist approach to international political economy, especially since Trump's administration includes a large number of business people close to the libertarian end of the political spectrum, accompanied by a clutch of generals. However, on the plus side, in international affairs 'greatness' makes possible a less ideologized style in relations with other states. No longer is democracy promotion an instrument of U.S. foreign policy, and this opened the door to a more pragmatic, rational and transactional mode of engagement with other states. It was through this door that Russia hoped to pass, but found it guarded by the custodians of traditional representations of American power.

Resistance to Trump

The putative shift from globalism to nationalism, from leadership to greatness, provoked an almost unprecedented counter-mobilization to Trump's policy program and to his entire presidency. Trump became mired in one scandal after another, notably over his travel ban on those without direct family members from certain predominantly Muslim countries. The focus in particular was on 'Russiagate,' in which the alleged Russian interference in the American democratic process was taken to be an assault on America itself. The hacking allegations and the accusation that in one way or another Trump and his associates had in some way colluded with Russia was used to weaken, if not destroy, Trump's presidency, and to return U.S. foreign policy to the globalist 'leadership' path. The neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, keen to ensure American military primacy and the...

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