“Every American administration that I remember has come with some idea that they will recharge – everyone uses this word - relations with Russia. That they have the opportunity to turn the page and start over. And they have always been wrong.“ emphasizes Sam Green, director of the “Democratic Sustainability“ program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA)."
This is what Ognyan Minchev recalls on "Facebook".
Every American administration that enters the White House leaves the impression that it is starting to build its relations with Russia from scratch. It begins with gratuitous goodwill and generous gifts for which the Kremlin does not even consider it necessary to thank. In fact, this strange policy, which begins at least with Bill Clinton after the end of the Cold War (in fact, much earlier) and ends - for now - with Donald Trump's second consecutive flirtation with Putin, is not a product of ignorance - lack of information, but of a persistent habit - a tool for conducting foreign policy "piecemeal" and with a short-term perspective, while other, acute problems of the American international presence are solved. For more than three decades, policy towards Russia has been this "empty can" that can be kicked down the street - "to deal with it in better times". ("To kick the can down the road...") Bush Jr. saw the soul in Putin's eyes and set out to wage a war on terrorism. Obama offered Moscow a generous "recharge" (re-set) - without conditions and commitments. Trump looked at Putin in Helsinki with the gaze of a teenager facing his first love.
In all this, there may be naivety, there may be ignorance, there may be principled goodwill, which in everyday life we should not refuse to any new acquaintance. But above all, there is a position of short-termism - of situationality, of the absence of a long-term vision for relations with perhaps Washington's most difficult partner in international affairs - the Kremlin. This approach is not limited to the attitude towards Russia. It is to a significant extent characteristic of America's overall foreign policy. In the early 1980s, the Reagan administration began arming the Saddam regime, which was at war with Iran of the ayatollahs. The goal was to bleed the Islamist regime in Tehran, whose revolution threatened to deeply destabilize the Middle East. In parallel, Washington provided active support to the growing Islamist movement of the mujahideen, fighting the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. In one case - against Islamic radicalism. In the other - in favor of the Islamist militias, bleeding the Soviet aggressors in Kabul. In both cases - the implementation of an American short-term-medium-term political strategy of the type "one wedge kills another, but the second remains..." The second wedge after pumping Saddam's muscles turned out to be the transformation of Iraq into a powerful regional power and the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Saddam had to have his wings "clipped" - and that is why the first Gulf War was fought... After the expulsion of the Soviet army from Afghanistan, the second wedge turned out to be the growing Islamist movement of the mujahideen, which grew into the terrorist networks of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. This second wedge caused the "war on terror" after September 11, 2001.
In the 1930s, America industrialized Stalinist Russia, and in the 1940s, it provided it with unlimited Lend-Lease for the war with Nazi Germany. Over the next 40 years, America spent four trillion dollars on the Cold War. Wedge, second, third... Over the past 40 years, America has invested enormous resources in China for its economic modernization and development - financial, technological, organizational. Today, Donald Trump is hammering a second wedge in defense against the "celestial empire" that has become the second superpower... by bluntly and unconditionally showering Putin with the benefits of American goodwill, helpfulness, and generosity. Well, yes... at the expense of Ukraine. At the expense of Eastern Europe, over which Kremlin expansionism looms. At the expense of all of Europe, which is very guilty of the fact that America under Trump wants to withdraw from the system of control over European security, which it itself created and maintained for the last 80 years. Every second wedge is driven with another short-term perspective, without an assessment of how much it will cost to drive a third wedge - to eliminate the damage caused by the second one... How much will it cost America itself - not to mention others - the "collateral damage". Today, collateral damage is Ukraine... Tomorrow - who knows, the Balkans or the Baltics.
In a sense, such behavior by a great power is nothing new under the sun. Empires do not inform the smaller nations around them when and how they intend to treat them in different circumstances. The problem with Pax Americana policies, however, is precisely this short-termism and unpredictability in the logic of imperial behavior. Empires usually have long-term consistency and sustainability of their strategies, regardless of whether they project expansion or temporary restraint. American unpredictability stems from the fact that America is not an empire in the classical sense of the word. America combines in a deeply contradictory and conflicting model its political identity as a republic with the inevitable priorities of a global empire, which it became in the second half of the 20th century. On the one hand, America projects enormous power in defense of its global interests, and on the other - in Washington, the democratic political game of polyarchy (the plurality of centers of power), inherited from the constitutional structure of the Republic, continues. Parties change, strategies change, priorities change. To the point that Donald Trump finds it completely legitimate to declare - "This war is Obama's... This inflation is Biden's..." Where is the continuity of the state and its responsibilities...?
The Kremlin - and not only there - is well aware of this short-termism of American policy, its subordination to situational temptations. Therefore, for the Kremlin regime, cornered by the results of its adventure - aggression in Ukraine, the sentiments for reconciliation and association between the "great leaders" coming from Washington are simply a jackpot. True, this jackpot will ring and release cash only until it becomes abundantly clear that once again Moscow has woven its own canvas and maliciously kicked the crossbow of Trumpist Washington. Then the storms of supreme anger will fly across the ocean, but it will be too late. Defeats will be suffered not only by those who have been forced to endure the imperial arrogance of the Kremlin for centuries. Defeats will also be suffered by Washington's long-term strategic positions. Because for the Kremlin, Donald Trump is much more than a smiling Santa Claus. He is on the way to realizing the innermost dreams of the imperial summit in Moscow after 1945 - the dreams of America going overseas, and Russia being left to rule in Europe. Well, not in all of Europe anymore - Russia is not what it used to be. Maybe Europe will wake up too, will see that it no longer needs American protection... It will see that it no longer has a common future with America... The only thing that I somehow fail to see in the whole picture is where in all of this is the long-term interest of America itself? Or has America condemned itself to have no long-term interest. And kick the empty can down the street - step by step, wedge by wedge...?