Let's ignore what is happening right now in Ukraine. Why American politicians continued to treat Russia as if it was still the USSR, when the USSR hasn't existed since 1991.
I think it would have been smarter to try to draw Russia into the American camp to draw them away from China and thus isolate it even more.
The United States had once moved closer to China against the USSR.
Why did the USA not try to get closer to Russia, to counter China?
That is an excellent question. The answer to it being related both to the underlying nature of the strategic relationship between the two countries. The other aspect best being summed up in an old phrase, "Ya dance with the girl that brun' ya."
To take the first point, there is the following (beware, rather lengthy) quote:
“There are at the present time two great nations in the world, which started from different points, but seem to tend towards the same end. I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and whilst the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly placed themselves in the front rank among the nations, and the world learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time.
All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and they have only to maintain their power; but these are still in the act of growth. All the others have stopped, or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these alone are proceeding with ease and celerity along a path to which no limit can be perceived. The American struggles against the obstacles which nature opposes to him; the adversaries of the Russian are men. The former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization with all its arms. The conquests of the American are therefore gained with the ploughshare; those of the Russian by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of the people; the Russian centres all the authority of society in a single arm. The principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.”
The foregoing was written in 1835 by (a Frenchman no less) Alexis DeToqueville. In effect, there is a limit to the degree to which the USA and Russia can cooperate related to their differing historical experiences and to their inherently competing strategic interests.
That noted, the USA and Russia have cooperated in the past. Most notably in World War II against the Axis alliance. Even then, though the relationship was marked by a heavy level of distrust and - sotto voce - competition. In part, this is because of the very nature of the international arena, and in part because of what DeToqueville noted. Quiet simply, the very nature of the two countries placed an effective limit on the length and depth of their other relations.
As to the more recent situation, the problem also stems from, on the Russian side, that country's understandable desire to regain its great power status, thus placing it in competition with a world strategic order that has largely been defined by the USA and its allies in the wake of the West's victory in the Cold War.
On the American side, it was that victory in the Cold War that has prevented even an alliance of convenience between the USA and Russia. For Americans, at a deep cultural and therefore ultimately political level, victory in the Cold War vindicated their national experience.
Freedom, free trade, free markets. These things, Americans have been convinced at a very fundamental level, gave them victory in the Cold War. The further triumph of these values will, Americans assume, assure global peace and prosperity.
Thus, for example. the Americans are only now awakening to the costs of free trade with China and the consensus for such trade is only now beginning to ebb. On the Russian side of the question, Russia is still a dictatorship with a weak economy but a strong military, cyberwarfare capabilities and an intelligence apparatus.
To American politicians this has made it - almost reflexively - a rival power. Thus, for example, when President Trump DID make an effort to improve relations with Russia (as a counterweight to China), he drew fire not only from Democrats, but even within his own Republican party. America, they asserted, stands for freedom and thus must ally only with other democracies. (Thus also was born the various Russian conspiracy theories that the Clinton campaign attempted to shape and capitalize on in the 2016 presidential campaign.)
It is an ahistorical argument - and a self-defeating one - but no nation, not even dictatorships, shapes its foreign policy entirely free of domestic political influences. (Even Russia. Mr. Putin is playing to Russian nationalism in his own country, but in the process may end up making his country a satellite of China. He may take Ukraine, but not without a price in his future freedom of action.)
So long story short, Americans - and all nations - are shaped as much by their foreign policy victories as by their defeats. It would be better, perhaps, if they defined their interests entirely in rational strategic terms, but life and international relations are seldom so simple. Americans won the Cold War, and so they dance with the girl that got them there, even when the tune has changed.
I am okay. Russia has nothing to gain in the long term by allying with China. Moreover it is not a natural alliance.
The two countries would, I think, have something to gain by trying to get closer. The United States would have a strong ally against China and the Russians would to win for its economy
I also have the impression that Putin conceives Geopolitics as it was in previous centuries. That is to say that in the end for Putin, what will determine the power of a country is military power.
You know Bismarck's phrase "Diplomacy without arms is music without instruments."
Or that of Clausewitz "War is the continuation of Politics by other means."
Although we can consider that Nuclear has made this obsolete.
However, I have the impression that we are indeed witnessing the return of this geopolitics or the balance of power ultimately made by military power.
Westerners believed that with the fall of the ussr that international relations would be dominated solely by the economic aspect and that only, commercial, see also by universal ideals and that only these data were important in our new world to determine the power of a nation.
Westerners rediscover over time the return to a world they had wanted to forget
On your second point, yup. However, I have made that point to you, I believe, in other questions. The wars of the French Revolution, the Second World War and the Cold War were ideological contests. The era pre-1914 being an example of a non-ideological era. (The First World War began as an ideological contest but became - with disastrous results - an ideological contest because of two events. The Russian Revolution and the American entry into the war. )
We are in a non-ideological era. The great passions of the hour in international relations are a contest of opposing states - as is always the case - but states that are not defining themselves as the harbingers of a new era or a new ideology. For example, say what you will - but China is many things but one thing it is not is communist. As one wag has put it, "China is less interested in Marx in theory than it is in Lenin in practice."
As to your former comment. Nope, American would NOT have a strong ally in Russia against China. It would have an ally of convenience - at best temporary and not without its own conflicts.
In this we have been here before. As Churchill - a ferocious anti-communist said in 1941 of the USSR after Germany invaded it, "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."
Indeed, the Americans and British were able to make common cause with the USSR during WWII. However, once the Axis powers were defeated, the thin nature of that Anglo-American alliance with the USSR became obvious and the Cold War was born.
Yup, American politicians, for a variety of reasons many of which are deeply rooted in American culture, have made a mistake in grouping Russia and China together. (Mr. Trump, here, knew what he was doing and it a shame he drew fire from not only Democrats, but many in his own party.) However, it goes waaaayyyy too far to say that Russia would be a "strong" ally.
Nope. It would be, at best, an alliance of convenience. Drawing two opposing sides together against a common enemy - until that enemy is gone or makes one side or the other an offer it cannot refuse.
Boneheadedness, mostly. Remember that the Tienanmen square massacre was before the fall of the Wall, and the idea in the US was "If we make positive overtures to China, they'll start appreciating democracy, and eventually they'll make a push for it. Will they be stomped down? Yes. But the sentiment will grow, and eventually there'll be another push. Will THEY be stomped down? Probably." Essentially, time and openness will make the Chinese more susceptible to democratic goals and norms. That... that didn't work out.
Meanwhile, things in the US weren't exactly great, either- MASSIVE cuts in government defense spending put a LOT of people out of work, and resentment and poverty were rising, coupled with a listless sense of "well, NOW what?". The war was over, the enemy was gone, and we had won, but our cities were beset with crime, our educational standards were plummeting, and we were STILL spending fortunes on superadvanced weapons systems to protect us from... what, exactly? Freighters full of Toyotas ordered by orthodontists in Connecticut?
Then there's the fact that two and a half generations of politicians had grown up demonizing the Red Menace, and they couldn't quite bring themselves to switch gears. For all their failings, the Russians were a LOT more Communist than the Chinese ever were; in 2005, the Chinese government opened the South China Mall, the largest shopping complex in the world, some fifty miles north of Hong Kong. It has 7.1 MILLION square feet of leaseable space, room for 2,350 stores (twice the size of the massive Mall of America), and up until about six years ago, 99% of was empty. It turns that an 85 million-strong customer base doesn't mean much if they're mostly subsistence farmers. But the point is, the CHINESE GOVERNMENT took a look at the great American temples to the Almighty Dollar, and decided "we're going to build to the greatest and more glorious one of those in the whole world!". And they were not immediately arrested or fired. Sure, they're Communists. SURE.
Anyway, many Americans, and presumably American policymakers, figured Yeltsin would stay in power for some time; his resignation was apparently something of a shock. Although I don't recall my exact feelings at the time, my brother told me years later that, upon being informed of Yeltsin's resignation, I stared blankly at my mother and then asked for a cookie. Boris Yeltsin is what happens when a Boston Irish city councilman is somehow born in Russia. He was a known variable; Putin was not. He is now; he'll be President of Russia until he dies (one way or another). But while we probably WOULD have done better to try and draw closer to the Russians, well, hindsight.
Why would they trade a quasi-ally that shares a border with them for one that's much farther away and has been portraying them as monsters for over half a century?
One reason (*): The 41st President, George Herbert Walker Bush aka Bush 41.
When the Iron Curtain came down and the Soviet Union ended, Bush had the chance to foster Russia's integration with the West. Instead, he was pessimistic and took a wait-and-see attitude and - what happened? - Russia wasn't fostered and became exactly what Bush predicted. He basically made it come true when he could have - and should have - taken action.
HOWEVER, back then, the US didn't need "Russia to counter China" because our diplomatic relations with China didn't really take off until Clinton was President. That too was a mistake. By listening to the conservatives who wanted China as a new market (and cheap labor source), a shitload of money flowed to China giving them the impetus to be what they are today.
Russia and the Eastern Bloc should have been thoroughly reintegrated with the West before engaging China.
(*) Mostly Bush, but, as I had mentioned, Clinton as well. The commonality? Presidents listening to Conservatives thus fucking up.
0
0 Reply
Anonymous
(45 Plus)
+1 y
Because any democratic society or government as powerful as the United States, (or NATO), will always encounter resistance with any communist regime. They, democracies, need an opponent, communism, to justify their existence, apart from the innate freedom democracies offer.
China, Cuba and Russia alike. ALL authoritarian https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism regimes... where no one in those positions EVER wants to surrender their power as incompletely as those in direct or representative democracies. Communism is proof that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Democracies and their denizen politicians aren't that far behind with their power hungry attitudes. Different sides of the same coin. One just blatantly takes its power, the other lets you think you're choosing who's in power.
Like them or not, Reagan and Gorbachev, were once in an eon, politicians. They understood, in ways politicians of today, don't have a clue about.
The enemy of mine enemy, is NOT ALWAYS my friend. They're communists of a feather. You won't get one to consort against the other, EVER, because they're ALL against democratic societies and what they represent. I'm surprised they haven't banded together.
@goaded I'll concede that, if you concede that all candidates are choices between the lesser of two evils.
It's hard to honor any election when both sides of the aisle are out for self enrichment at their supporters expenses. Nothing about an election is ever FOR or ABOUT you, and that's fair? They're supposed to represent you, not their self interest.
They say what they say to appease you, because of they you told the truth, they'd be burned at the stake.
All of which is a distraction and not the OP's question.
So the best way to address this is through the Theory of National Self Interest. Which breaks down into two schools of thought.
1. Internationalism - which is those that believe in the common interest of all humanity to work together in cooperation to achieve what's best for all.
2. Realists - who empathize the need to main their own self interests through national economic sovereignty and notional power to promote or balance its own self interest gains threats against the common good.
I would not say the United States did not try to get closer to China or Russia, but when three countries see its own best interests threaten by another countries own best interests then Internationalism is not enough to maintain a common balance of interests. So Realists have to take a realistic approach to defend its own best interest.
Because USA has seen China and Russia as both stereotyped commie dictatorships ever since it all kicked off in the 1900s. Which as of now Dictatorships yes, commie not so much. Yet that word commie it's self still holds power against them getting along even if China and Russia are actively Capitalist. And them been with dictator don't matter much, since USA has had many partnerships with countries that are run less democratic than themselves. So it's mostly just that Feud that runs deep within American towards Communism. It's like even in 100 years time, people will still see Russia and China as commie states Don't help that China keeps it's name as CCP but srsly look at China? Tell me what about china say's labour in our country get's treated fairly. Because I bet you Marx wouldn't agree at all that China has done anything close to his idea which was mostly to support labour.
This is a very good question. I think there are two possible explanations.
1) Russia and China already have too cooperative of a relationship and don't have enough reason for conflict at this time that the US could exploit. There is also a lot of anti-US sentiment in Russia.
2) Russia doesn't have the kind of influence in the US that China has, so US business and political elites (who are in league with the CCP) have no incentive to challenge China in the first place.
#2 is why Russia makes for a useful foil for US politicians- it hasn't bought them, China has though.
Russia also has no incentive to get closer to the US. Would there be more trade? No. More investment? No. Does Russia need US geopolitical support? No.
Let’s not forget that Putin was a former KGB officer. You are delusional if you don’t believe he doesn’t want to bring back the old Soviet Union. Although Russian citizens might highly dislike the oppressive regime of communism that doesn’t mean influential leaders have different ideas.
However I do agree that China is much bigger geopolitical threat than Russia. Also why the f*ck isn’t the world not holding them accountable for covid? Why the hell did their culpability somehow get swept under rug despite being responsible for 4 million deaths and trillions of dollars in economic damage worldwide. Why is that they escaped answering that?
At least Trump love or hate him had the balls to call out China on their duplicity. I realize it’s complex given they are giant trade partner but still they deserve worldwide condemnation because of the outbreak.
Sorry, but you’re clueless. Firstly, Russia stole land from China in WW2. Secondly, both countries can overlook all that to take America and USD down.
Those two have been trading in their own Currency for awhile now. With the pressure China can assert, one may find all of Asia engaging in that process.
KGB-man Putin has declared again and again that his end-goal is a Soviet empire v2.0. Preferably even in the borders of the old Soviet empire. What is there to get closer to? That horse is out of the barn ever since he took over from Boris Yeltsin!
10.1K opinions shared on Society & Politics topic.
Because pretty much everyone realised the USA was as bad as the USSR and should have been broken up alongside it. But China and Japan took advantage in different ways and its why both are ahead of the USA.
Russia isn't interested. It makes its money and gets on by
i would say russia is way closer to china in ideology and general culture than it is to the USA.
after all china, russia and the usa are all rivals for the position of being the global hegemon and i think the US isn't gonna be able to defen that position much longer, which is why they are now getting more aggressive twards russia as a last ditch effort to keep their position of power.
i think the USA is declining rapidly and they have to make a move, before they're too weak.
Why would it? Russia was a massive failure of a state in the 1990s with economic crises, widespread poverty, high instability in its government while the other former USSR countries were orienting itself to join the EU and therefore gain a closer bond with strong US allies. And well, at that point you’re antagonizing Russia anyway.
Because too many people couldn't give up the old Cold War mentality. I agree wholeheartedly that the CCP (not the average citizens of China) is the US's number one enemy in the world and we should have tried to get Russia on our side instead of ostracizing both which just drew them closer together.
Because the democrats need a Bogey man that isn't China. Especially since they abandoned the working man and sent our factories there for the slave labor. There are also a lot of politicians who can't get out of a cold war mentality.
If we could make peace with Russia and have a working partnership of some kind. It would benefit both our countries greatly. Once again, Trump was right and had the better policy on Russia.
very intelligent suggestion. the correct answer is there are many old generals andCIA staffers who are still living in the cold war.
we call this phenomenon "strategic inertia" where we keep doing a thing because it is hard to stop doing it. national security strategies are hard to alter and move in new directions because the people in them have been doing them for so long.
0
0 Reply
Anonymous
(36-45)
+1 y
This has been tried before but Russia won’t be talked out of expanding its footprint. What happens a lot of time is that the US just doesn’t understand the resolve of these foreign leaders. The US is incredibly naive when dealing with evil leaders like Putin and end up just giving him more power by negotiating with them.
The USA and Russia got along just fine before, but the democrats hate Russia and as soon as they were in power they tried to cause problems and turn Russia into an enemy.
THE US has economic intrests that Russia is currently in the way of. China has intrests in the south China Sea that clash with us intrests. Russia and China are not going to be pals anytime soon.
because they are pretty clear that they still see themselves as the ussr and would love to restore the old borders before the berlin wall fell. Putin has expressed his desire as such
Girl's Behavior 
Guy's Behavior 
Flirting 
Dating 
Relationships 
Fashion & Beauty 
Health & Fitness 
Marriage & Weddings 
Shopping & Gifts 
Technology & Internet 
Break Up & Divorce 
Education & Career 
Entertainment & Arts 
Family & Friends 
Food & Beverage 
Hobbies & Leisure 
Other 
Religion & Spirituality 
Society & Politics 
Sports 
Travel 
Trending & News 
