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Executive Summary

For nearly thirty years, successive U.S. administrations have struggled to come up with a sustainable policy toward Russia. Throughout this period, the U.S.-Russian relationship has experienced a familiar pattern of boom-bust cycles: a new administration comes in dissatisfied with the state of the relationship and promises to do better. It launches a policy review that generates a reset aimed at developing a partnership. A period of optimism follows, but obstacles to better relations emerge, and optimism gradually gives way to pessimism. By the end of the administration, the relationship is at the lowest point since the end of the Cold War. 

Russia, with its disruptive and often rogue actions, bears a major share of the responsibility for the deterioration in the relationship. But U.S. policy toward Russia has largely ignored such crucial factors as Russia’s history, culture, geography, and security requirements—as they are seen from Moscow. For three decades, U.S. administrations have pursued the same unrealistic policies and contributed to the failure of the relationship. Two in particular stand out:

• a refusal to accept Russia for what it is, as evidenced by repeated initiatives to reform and remake its political system, despite the Kremlin’s rejection of democracy promotion in and around Russia as a threat to Russian domestic stability; and
• insistence that NATO is the only legitimate security organization for Europe and Eurasia and the extension of the Euro-Atlantic security architecture to the Eurasian space surrounding Russia, which in Moscow’s eyes represented a threat to Russian security.

Several other patterns in U.S. policy toward Russia account for the failures over the past three decades. Overreach has been a persistent feature of U.S. Russia policy, reflected in commitments to ambitious goals without the means to accomplish them. U.S. policymakers have repeatedly exaggerated America’s ability to affect developments in Russia and their influence over the Kremlin. They have defined American interests in the most expansive terms, failing to distinguish between core and peripheral concerns or to prioritize them. When Moscow pushed back, Washington reasserted its right and responsibility to teach Russia and its neighbors how to manage their affairs rather than take account of Russian objections. It is hard to escape the conclusion that a more restrained U.S. approach to dealing with Russia and the states of the former Soviet Union could have resulted in a more productive U.S.-Russian relationship. 

Changing the trajectory of U.S.-Russian relations will be difficult. Russia’s image is toxic in the current U.S. political climate, and as a result there will be few opportunities for cooperation even where Washington and Moscow have common interests. Russia is vitally important to the United States, however, and managing this relationship responsibly—even if not necessarily making it better or solving problems—is a task that U.S. policymakers can ill afford to neglect. Yet the difficulty of managing the relationship is compounded by the fact that both countries are set in their respective approaches to each other and will find it hard to change course.

• Russian leaders see their country as a great power in charge of its own destiny. They do not accept American primacy and want to accelerate the transition from a unipolar to a multipolar world; they reject democracy promotion as a cover for U.S.-sponsored regime change; they believe they are entitled to a sphere of influence and will resist perceived U.S. intrusions; and they rely on anti-Americanism to legitimize their unpopular policies with domestic audiences.
• The post–Cold War consensus in the United States—its primacy in a unipolar world, insistence on no spheres of influence, and commitment to democracy promotion—is baked into its foreign policy DNA. In today’s poisoned climate, where Russia is seen as the cause of many problems in the world, changing that consensus will be an uphill struggle.

To break out of this impasse, the United States will have to—for its part—make several key adjustments to its Russia policy, including:

• prioritize U.S. interests vis-à-vis Russia and focus on the essentials—the nuclear relationship and strategic stability;
• leave Russia’s internal affairs for Russians to untangle;
• halt NATO’s eastward expansion and refocus on the alliance’s core mission of collective defense;
• be clear with Ukraine and Georgia that they should not base their foreign policies on the assumption that they will join NATO, but sustain robust programs of security cooperation with them; and
• rethink the sanctions policy toward Russia and use them with restraint.

These changes will not, by themselves, guarantee a different U.S. relationship with Russia, since the Kremlin would also have to make major changes in Russia’s foreign policy behavior. But pursuing the same policy and expecting different results is not a sound approach for the United States. At the very least, the proposed changes would restore a measure of realism, prudence, and discipline to U.S. policy; more closely align the ends and means of U.S. policy toward Russia; avoid inflicting further harm to the relationship; hold the door open for cooperation on shared interests; and shed the chronic habit of overpromising and underdelivering. These are not grandiose or transformational objectives, but they are realistic and attainable and will help the two countries manage their differences more effectively. To quote the great philosopher and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, sometimes it is best to find “proximate solutions to insoluble problems.”

Introduction

For nearly thirty years, successive U.S. administrations have struggled to come up with a sustainable policy toward Russia. The U.S.-Russian relationship is now at its lowest point since the Cold War. The two countries harbor deep mutual mistrust and are locked into an intensifying geopolitical competition in Europe and beyond. As long as Washington and Moscow remain committed to their current policies and practices—and neither side appears likely to alter them—there are few near-term prospects for alleviating tensions and putting the relationship on a more positive trajectory. Given the scope of U.S. foreign policy ambitions, even under President Donald Trump’s neo-isolationist and unilateralist administration, and Russia’s insistence that it be treated as a major power and its growing international activism, the quality of the two countries’ relationship will have a significant impact on global security and the ability of the United States to advance its interests and protect its values.

At present, the broad bipartisan consensus in Washington is that Russia is entirely responsible for the breakdown in the U.S.-Russia relationship. Among its transgressions, it has invaded Georgia and Ukraine and annexed a portion of Ukrainian territory, interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections and in the elections of the United States’ democratic allies in Europe, violated the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, backed Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela, and assassinated or attempted to assassinate former Russian officials on foreign soil. These Russian activities are well documented and widely understood. What is less clear is the extent to which U.S. policy has been a contributing factor in the deterioration of the bilateral relationship. Without a careful and critical analysis of the United States’ own record, there is little chance of doing better in the future and stabilizing one of the United States’ most important foreign relationships.

This paper will outline the causes of America’s inability to build a sustainable policy toward Russia and assess the implications of this failure. It then will examine the lessons that can be learned from the mistakes that have been made in managing the relationship, and present a strategic framework and set of guiding principles to achieve a more stable, sustainable, and productive U.S.-Russian relationship. First, the paper summarizes the many ways in which Russian policies can help to advance or harm U.S. interests. Next, it provides an overview of U.S.-Russian relations since the end of the Cold War and explains what went wrong. It then examines the outlook for U.S. policy toward Russia, in the context of the broader debate in the United States about America’s grand strategy, the changing global balance of power, the main drivers of Russian foreign policy, and U.S. policy priorities toward Russia. The final section offers a framework and guidelines for a more sustainable and productive U.S.-Russian relationship.

Why Russia Matters

Over the past decade, Russia has returned as both a major European and, increasingly, global power.¹ Its relationship with the United States, antagonistic or cooperative, is consequential for U.S. interests. Specifically, Russia:

• remains a nuclear superpower, and is the only country that poses an existential threat to the United States and its major treaty allies;
• is endowed with vast natural resources and has weaponized this asset to achieve its political objectives in Europe;²
• has veto power on the United Nations (UN) Security Council, which it has frequently used to thwart U.S.-supported initiatives toward Syria, Venezuela, and North Korea, to name a few;³
• is capable of projecting military power well beyond its borders in pursuit of a competing vision of global order and its own great power aspirations;⁴ and
• pursues geopolitical ambitions inimical to U.S. interests—notably, the creation of an exclusive sphere of influence in the former Soviet space and opposition to a unified transatlantic community, as well as American efforts to maintain a liberal international order.⁵

A military confrontation between the two countries could have profoundly destabilizing and even catastrophic effects on global order and security. In contrast, a more cooperative U.S.-Russian relationship could yield progress on threats to U.S. national security and prosperity—challenges that the United States cannot tackle effectively alone. Preventing further nuclear proliferation, including the complex problem of securing nuclear materials and other components of weapons of mass destruction, will require not only greater U.S.-Russia collaboration but also preserving at least some elements of the remaining arms control framework and inspection regimes. Efforts to combat transnational threats, from terrorist movements to criminal organizations and illicit trafficking, would also benefit from U.S.-Russian cooperation. Likewise, it will not be possible to resolve long-standing regional conflicts, for example on the Korean Peninsula and in Afghanistan, Syria, and Ukraine, without U.S. and Russian cooperation and willingness to negotiate. Finally, the United States and Russia will need to find practical ways to avoid escalation of tensions in cyberspace and outer space, and restrain the growth of Chinese influence.

Notwithstanding these potentially overlapping interests and opportunities for cooperation, the toxic legacy and current political climate of U.S.-Russia relations make it difficult to address critical questions that should be at the center of the debate about how to manage their strategic competition. What does the United States need from Russia, and what are realistic goals for the relationship? Given the limits on U.S. capacity and political will, how should the United States prioritize its different goals where U.S. and Russian interests overlap and diverge? What price should the United States be prepared to pay to secure Russian support for American policies and initiatives? Finally, how can the United States build and deploy leverage with Russia to secure its preferred outcomes?

Post–Cold War U.S.-Russian Relations—What Went Wrong?

U.S. policy toward Russia since the end of the Cold War is a story of different administrations pursuing essentially the same set of policies. Two aspects stand out as major irritants in the bilateral relationship: a refusal to accept Russia as it is, as evidenced by repeated initiatives to reform and remake its political system; and the extension of the Euro-Atlantic security architecture into the Eurasian space surrounding Russia. Both of these highly ambitious pursuits have been attempted repeatedly and unsuccessfully, yet both continue to be cornerstones of official U.S. policy toward Russia. In retrospect, it is hard to escape the conclusion that a less ambitious U.S. approach to dealing with Russia and the states of the former Soviet Union could have established a better basis for a less rocky U.S.-Russian relationship.

Boom to Bust

Then U.S. president George H. W. Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin sign the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II (START II) in Moscow on January 3, 1993. (MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/Getty Images)

Addressing a joint session of Congress in January 1991, then president George H. W. Bush spoke about his desire “to continue to build a lasting basis” for cooperation with Russia.⁶ His wish, no doubt sincere, was expressed at a time of widely held hopes that the Cold War was ending and the two superpowers would put their differences aside and begin collaborating on the world’s many problems “for a more peaceful future for all mankind.”⁷

It was indeed a promising phase in relations between Washington and Moscow, full of significant accomplishments and optimism about the future. In a short period of time, the two Cold War adversaries negotiated a treaty to reduce strategic nuclear weapons (START II), signed a multilateral treaty on conventional forces in Europe, negotiated the terms for German reunification and a unified Germany’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and agreed on a charter for European security and stability after the Cold War. Moreover, their cooperation was not confined to Europe; they also jointly sponsored a major conference in Madrid on the Middle East and successfully dealt with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s aggression against Kuwait. Most important, they entered into all of these endeavors with a new spirit of U.S.-Russian partnership, a far cry from the threatening rhetoric and tensions that had been a hallmark of their relationship for more than a generation.

For the three decades that followed, the U.S.-Russian relationship went through a series of boom-bust cycles, reaching its nadir after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Through the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama administrations, U.S. policy toward Russia followed a familiar pattern. First, a new presidential administration comes into the White House deeply dissatisfied with the state of the U.S.-Russia relationship. It commits to do better and launches a policy review that generates a new approach—a “reset”—toward Russia aimed at developing a partnership. The road toward partnership looks promising, but obstacles gradually begin to emerge and eventually escalate into a full-blown crisis. By the end of the administration’s time in office, the relationship is at the lowest point since the Cold War.

Thus, the spirit of partnership that marked the end of the Cold War did not last long. The elder Bush’s hope for a new relationship with Russia in a new world order ran into the harsh reality of the rapid disintegration of the Soviet Union and the chaos that engulfed Russia less than a year after his speech. The Bush administration had little chance to prepare for such a dramatic turn of events and develop a policy commensurate with the magnitude of the change in Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. Consumed by domestic economic and political crises, Russia largely retreated from the world stage and for the most part was rendered largely incapable of acting as a partner to the United States as envisioned by Bush. Demoralized and embittered Russian elites soon constructed a narrative—greatly amplified by the Kremlin throughout Vladimir Putin’s presidency—that the United States had taken advantage of their country at a moment of weakness, which created a sense of victimhood and soured the overall atmosphere in U.S.-Russian relations.

Then U.S. president Bill Clinton and Yeltsin take a walk together during their first summit in Vancouver from April 3 to 4, 1993. Yeltsin and Clinton declared a “new democratic partnership” between Russia and the United States. (Diana Walker/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images)

The Clinton administration, frustrated with what it saw as its predecessor’s insufficiently robust engagement to support reforms in Russia, declared its intent in 1993 to build “the foundation for a new democratic partnership between the United States and Russia.”⁸ Speaking in Vancouver, Canada, in April 1993, at the first of his many summits with Russia’s then president Boris Yeltsin, Clinton promised:

Mr. President, our nation will not stand on the sidelines when it comes to democracy and Russia. We know where we stand. We are with Russian democracy, we are with Russian reforms, we are with Russian markets. We support freedom of conscience and speech and religion. We support respect for ethnic minorities. We actively support reform and reformers and you in Russia.⁹

Soon after these hopeful words were spoken, the relationship encountered its first bumps. In late September and early October 1993, tensions between the Russian executive and legislative branches came to a head in a bloody confrontation in Moscow, as the constitutional crisis between Yeltsin and his rebellious parliament led to violence in the streets. When the dust settled, Yeltsin had managed to push through a new constitution that consolidated executive power to such an extent that in effect it placed the presidency above all other branches of government. That same autumn, Russian officials expressed their strong opposition to NATO enlargement, which was emerging as the principal pillar of U.S. policy in Europe.¹⁰

The following year, the Kremlin launched a military campaign against the separatists in Chechnya and tensions escalated between Russia and the United States over the threat of NATO air strikes against Bosnian Serbs in Sarajevo, eventually culminating in the full-blown crisis in the summer of 1999 over the Kosovo campaign. The U.S.-led Kosovo campaign, launched despite the absence of a UN Security Council mandate, which had been blocked by Russia’s veto, was perceived in Moscow as a manifestation of the tendency of the United States to act unilaterally without restraint. To Russian observers, this in turn raised the specter of a similar U.S.-led campaign, justified as a humanitarian intervention, in Chechnya. This concern was amplified when influential U.S. voices referred to the insurgency in Chechnya as not being all that different from Kosovo.¹¹

Clinton and Yeltsin sit in silence after a press conference on September 2, 1998, following a two-day summit in Moscow in the midst of the Russian financial crisis. (Photo by Dirck Halstead/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images)

Russia grew disappointed with U.S. assistance and advice on economic reform, especially following the 1998 financial crisis that forced Russia to devalue the ruble and default on its sovereign debt. Perhaps most damaging to the relationship from both sides’ perspectives was Russia’s backsliding on democracy and the criticism it elicited in the United States, especially after Boris Yeltsin left office at the end of 1999 and Vladimir Putin became president. In 2001, the outgoing Clinton administration’s relationship with Russia ended on a pessimistic note amid widespread domestic concerns that, in the words of Clinton, “Putin can get squishy on democracy.”¹² The relationship was, in the words of one former Clinton adviser, at its “lowest point since 1991.”¹³

When the George W. Bush administration took over in January 2001, it was initially critical of Russia, dismissing it as a failing state in irreversible decline.¹⁴ But that assessment quickly gave way to a more positive view, which in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11 was reinforced by U.S. interest in Russia’s offer of cooperation in support of the war in Afghanistan. The November 2001 joint statement by Bush and Putin began by declaring that the countries were “embarked on a new relationship for the 21st century, founded on a commitment to the values of democracy, the free market, and the rule of law” and concluded with a joint commitment “to advance common values [and] . . . work together to protect and advance human rights, tolerance, religious freedom, free speech and independent media, economic opportunity, and the rule of law.”¹⁵ Skepticism toward Russia gave way to a “new strategic relationship” imbued with a “spirit of cooperation.”¹⁶

Then U.S. president George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet during a four-day summit in Moscow, where they signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT or the Moscow Treaty) on May 24, 2002. (Photo by Konstantin Zavrazhin/Getty Images)

That spirit proved ephemeral. The relationship soon experienced strains over Russia’s opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and U.S. criticism of Putin’s backsliding on democracy and human rights.¹⁷ The list of major disagreements also included U.S. support for the “color revolutions” in Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in 2004, and Kyrgyzstan in 2005, which Russian officials suspected was part of a U.S. plan to encircle Russia and minimize its influence in the neighboring countries, and Russian opposition to NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, which culminated in Russia’s war with Georgia in 2008. By the end of the Bush administration’s second term, the relationship was once again at its lowest point since 1991. Russia, in the words of then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, was “on a path of isolation and irrelevance” thanks to its aggressive international behavior and unreformed domestic economy.¹⁸

Bush and Putin attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing on August 8, 2008. That week, war broke out between Russia and Georgia. (ANATOLY MALTSEV/AFP/Getty Images)

The breakdown of the U.S.-Russian relationship at the end of George W. Bush’s term set the stage for its rebound during the Obama presidency. The relationship, it seemed, had nowhere to go but up. Indeed, the election of Dmitry Medvedev as president of Russia in 2008 seemed to present U.S. policymakers with the opening for a fresh start with a new, seemingly more progressive and reform-oriented president in the Kremlin. The reset of U.S.-Russian relations launched by Obama and his Russian counterpart set forth an ambitious agenda not only for improved diplomatic relations but also for a partnership for modernization—an effort to support Medvedev’s flagship initiative to reform the Russian economy and political system.¹⁹ During the so-called tandem rule, with Medvedev as president and Putin as prime minister, the tone of the relationship between the two countries improved and they were able to conclude the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Then U.S. president Barack Obama and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev look at the menu of a local burger joint on the way to lunch near Washington, DC, on June 24, 2010, just over a year into the U.S.-Russia reset. (Obama White House photo)

But once again, the thaw in U.S.-Russian relations did not last long. Frictions arose in 2011 as the Arab Spring rocked the Middle East. The U.S.-led overthrow of the Muammar Qaddafi regime in Libya and Washington’s support for the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were especially neuralgic for the Russian leadership. When Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency in 2012, his abrupt change of course on domestic policy was another major blow to the reeling relationship. Medvedev’s efforts to modernize and reform the Russian economy and politics were largely abandoned, and the relaxation of the domestic political climate was abruptly reversed with the introduction of measures to clamp down on public protests, media freedoms, and activities of foreign and Russian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to promote Russian civil society. In 2014, U.S.-Russia relations plummeted to their lowest since the end of the Cold War when Russia responded to the U.S.-welcomed revolution in Ukraine by annexing Crimea and sponsoring a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. Inside Russia, the breakdown was accompanied by further constraints on weakened democratic institutions and civil society. Animosity in the United States toward Russia in the wake of its aggression against Ukraine was further inflamed by the revelation of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump meet for the first time on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hamburg on July 7, 2017. (Photo by Mikhail Metzel/TASS via Getty Images)

On the whole, relations between the United States and Russia during the Trump presidency have followed the familiar boom-bust cycle of its predecessors. From the outset of his administration, President Donald Trump expressed an almost preternatural desire to improve relations with Russia. His attempts at a reset with Putin—apparently without preconditions and guided largely by transactional considerations—represented yet another effort by a new U.S. administration to repair the relationship. It ran into strong resistance from Trump’s congressional critics, who codified and added to already existing sanctions on Russia designed to punish it for a range of transgressions, from interference in U.S. elections and aggression against Ukraine to violations of human rights and corruption in Russia. This was done to prevent Trump from lifting the sanctions in order to pursue a rapprochement with Russia without congressional approval.²⁰ Congressional opposition to improving U.S. ties with Russia intensified in the aftermath of the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki in July 2018, when Trump publicly questioned the findings of U.S. intelligence concerning Russian interference in the 2016 election.²¹ The relationship once again hit rock bottom, with some commentators describing it as a New Cold War or even Warm War.²²

Russia in the American Imagination

Many factors help explain the turbulent trajectory of U.S.-Russian relations. Overall, Moscow bears the lion’s share of responsibility for the problems in its relationship with Washington; its failure to become integrated into transatlantic security and economic structures has been at the root of many of these disputes. It was Russia who interfere