Obama has destroyed the
relations of the United States of America with Russia. Will Donald Trump try to
restore them? Russia needs cooperation, rather than bargaining with the USA.
Judging from the fact that the Americans will not be present at the Syria talks in Astana,
Trump wants to cooperate - he would not have missed an opportunity to bargain
on Ukraine and Syria otherwise.
To a
large extent, the state of affairs in the US-Russian relations will depend on
whether Washington is ready to finally admit that Russia has vital interests
abroad. As Putin said, Russia has no boundaries, it only has horizons.
A lot will depend on the personal relationship between Putin and Trump. The
new US president has made it clear that he is prepared to fulfil his campaign
promises to establish a dialogue with Moscow. Donald Trump offered to restore
relations with the help of breakthroughs in the field of nuclear
disarmament.
Of course, the very desire to search for variants of cooperation
is commendable, but Putin is not Gorbachev, who was brown-nosing Reagan in
Reykjavik. Russia is a consolidated country, rather than the collapsing
USSR.
How can one show respect to Russia? First, one can do it verbally,
just for starters. Before taking military or diplomatic moves, one needs to
consult with Russia, or at least inform her without resorting to ultimatums and
dictates. Russia should not expect Washington to make a U-turn in its foreign
policies. Rex Tillerson, Trump's candidate for the post of the Secretary of
State, said last week that Russia was "a threat"
to the United States. New Defence Secretary James Mattis went even
further and called Russia one of the major threats to America.
What
changes will US-Russian relations see in 2017?
Syria.
The United States has refused to send a delegation to the Syria talks in
Astana, Kazakhstan (the talks started on January 23). The country that leads
the coalition against the Islamic State (ISIL is banned in Russia) will be
represented at the ambassadorial level.
Trump
is not interested in restoring Syria, but he is very interested in the
destruction of the Islamic State - it was his campaign promise. Russia and the USA could join
forces at this point.
After all, terrorism finds new members among the poor and those in
misery.
At the
same time, Russia must make it clear to the USA that it does not depend much on
America's assistance in Syria: there are Turkish, Iranian and Chinese capitals
that will be willing to participate in the reconstruction of the country.
Ukraine.
Trump said that if elected, he will consider the possible recognition of the
Crimea as part of Russia. In addition, he may think about moves to lift
sanctions from Russia. According to him, most of the Crimeans have decided to
join Russia.
Donald Trump does not have good relations with Ukrainian President
Pedro Poroshenko. Most likely, Trump will listen to Henry Kissinger, who
believes that the United States should recognize Russia's domination on former
post-Soviet space, forget about the Crimes, whereas Ukraine will legally
approve a non-aligned status in its legislation.
"I
prefer an independent Ukraine, outside military blocs. If two areas of the
Donbass are separated from Ukraine, it will definitely become constantly
hostile to Russia. In this case, Ukraine will remain under the influence of its
western part. The solution is to give those two areas autonomy and the right to
vote in military matters, but keep them under Ukraine's control in everything
else," Kissinger said in an interview with The Atlantic.
It is
quite possible that this position has been coordinated with the Kremlin as
Kissinger knows Putin in person and pays regular visits to Russia. With Trump
in the White House, there is no need for Putin to pretend that the Minsk
Accords are still alive. It is vitally important for Moscow today to determine
the international status of the Donbass. The legal discrimination against
residents of the Donbass should be addressed as a humanitarian issue, political
scientist Mikhail Remizov believes. In this sense, providing Russian
citizenship to residents of Donetsk and Lugansk regions would be an impeccable
humanitarian gesture, Remizov said in an interview with the Federal News
Agency. Russia maintains the public sector of the Donbass anyway, said the
expert.
If there
is a status or a good road map for the Donbass, investors will come to the
region, and Russia will be relieved of the burden to maintain the Donbass.
NATO. It
is extremely important for Russia to stop NATO'a aggressive behavior. In
interviews with Bild and the Times, Trump had said that the North Atlantic
Alliance was an obsolete institution. We can already see there are no reports
about Russia's alleged violation of NATO airspace.
"The
demonization of Putin is a reflection of our declining confidence in our own
capabilities. It's easier to blame Putin. He's pursuing Russian national
interests, but he's not running world affairs," Thomas Graham, of the
Kissinger Associates consulting firm and a Senior Fellow at the Yale Jackson
Institute for Global Affairs told NPR. "Russia has significant military
capability, as we've seen in the cyber sphere. It's a major power and we have
to deal with it. It will be part of a stable world order. It's not the Cold War
and it's not the strategic partnership in the immediate post-Cold War period.
Neither framework is adequate because the global context is different. The world
order is shifting. We need to come to a new equilibrium," he added.
It
appears that the Trump administration is on the right way.
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