‘Russia Needs to Learn to Ignore the US Rather than Try to Force It to Negotiate,’ MGIMO Analyst Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 20 – The Cold War was a symmetrical struggle in which each side sought to impose its system on the other. Now, the struggle is different. The US still seeks to impose a universal order, but Russia seek not that but rather the opportunity to go its own way, Ivan Safranchuk says.

            The director of the Center for Eurasian Research at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO)argues that this change means that “Russia needs to learn to ignore the US rather than seek to force it to negotiate” (profile.ru/columnist/vynesti-za-skobki-1183668/ adapted from eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/reverse-cuban-missile-crisis/).

            Such a policy of “disengagement from the US” can be “an alternative to confrontation,” as its “main goal would not be to act against the US but to gain the ability to solve its primary security and developmental issues without agreements with the United States,” Safranchuk argues.

            Given such an approach, the MGIMO analyst continues, “the absence of agreement with the US and even the absence of any need for such an agreement could be considered precisely as the main indicator of the success” of Moscow’s policies,

“One might argue that exclusion of the U.S. is practically impossible and, therefore, is a wrong basis for decision-making,” Safranchuk says. “But what are the alternatives? A no more probable successful coercion of Washington to clinching equitable agreements, an implicit consent to compromise and retreat behind one’s own red lines, or an obsessive focus on military muscle and the immanent risk of nuclear war?”

This is a fundamentally different calculus than was the case during the Cold War, he continues. Then, “there was a symmetrical struggle in terms of basic goal-setting, which, however uncompromising, made it possible to come to the negotiating table, when the awareness of the ultimate risks of a nuclear war gained the upper hand and, in general, in a military-political impasse.”

“Now there is no such symmetry.” Moreover, “Moreover, the logic of offshore balancing, as practiced by the U.S., leaves no chance for picking the right moment for negotiations. By avoiding direct rivalry and relying on the containment/balancing of its main rivals “by proxy” the U.S. in fact does not recognize Russia and China as potential parties to direct agreements but tries to force them into obedience through pressure exerted by its regional allies.”

At the same time, Safranchuk says, “Russia and China see them as vassals devoid of any agency, which means that there is nothing to talk about or negotiate with them. This is a vicious circle, where at each level one of the parties does not recognize the agency of the other. This situation bars all chances of coming close to full-fledged negotiations and agreements.”

“Coercion seems to be the only viable tool that might make the U.S. to conclude equitable agreements. But so far, such efforts have not yielded results. Agreements are possible (but not guaranteed) only as a result of new rounds of escalation,” raising the risks of a nuclear war or a costly long-term military struggle.

But “in a situation where Russia and China do not have the basic goal of remaking America, an anti-U.S. policy as such does not make sense. It can be used only as an attempt at reaching an agreement. It may turn out that this path is not only quite costly, both in terms of time and resources, but also does not guarantee a positive result.”