By Dmitry Trenin, Carnegie Moscow Center, 3/30/21

Following U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent comment indicating that he considers his Russian counterpart a killer, Russia recalled its ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, back to Moscow for consultations: an unprecedented step in the history of Russian-American relations. But even before this, bilateral relations were in need of a reassessment, one free of the emotions and illusions stirred up by the presidential clash.

Emotions compel Russia to escalate the confrontation with the United States, or even turn the fight against U.S. global domination into the central idea of Russia’s foreign—and to some extent domestic—policy. This positioning harks back to Cold War–era Soviet policy, but it’s not practicable with Moscow’s current shortage of resources.

Furthermore, overextension in foreign policy was one of the factors that led the Soviet Union into crisis in the 1980s. Letting off emotional steam through rhetoric—which is what we are seeing for now—is less dangerous, of course, but also entirely unproductive.

There is an illusion that Russia can still prove something to the United States, bring Washington to its senses, and force the United States to respect Russian national interests on the basis of a global Russian-American understanding: some sort of a grand bargain. These illusions have faded over the past four years, but the Russian elites still haven’t completely let them go.

We need to recognize that three decades after the collapse of the USSR, the mindset of Soviet-American détente and “equal, mutually beneficial cooperation” is hopelessly outdated. Furthermore, Russia’s foreign policy suffers from its fixation on relations with the United States.

Setting aside emotions and illusions, there are at least ten realistic objectives for Russia’s foreign policy.

First, continue to ensure that any incidents involving Russian and U.S. or NATO troops, aircraft, or ships are avoided or quickly resolved. This is why lines of communication exist, and these lines appear to be in good order. The main goal in U.S.-Russian relations for the foreseeable future is to prevent an unintentional armed conflict.

Second, reinforce the combined nuclear and non-nuclear deterrence of the United States as the cornerstone of Moscow’s independent position with respect to Washington. Deterrence—not arms control agreements—is the foundation for strategic stability and the guarantee of Russia’s very existence. While a costly quantitative arms race should be avoided, in the current conditions, deterrence is not limited to nuclear weapons, but increasingly involves outer space and cyberspace.

Third, begin talks on strategic stability, bearing in mind that the subject of these talks is extremely complicated, and that Washington will try to negotiate from a position of strength. This means that Russia and the United States are unlikely to reach an agreement during the five years that the recently extended New START agreement will remain in effect. Russia must therefore be ready to uphold strategic stability without an international agreement framework.

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