How is the relationship between Russia and the U.S. evolving with time?
Biden and Putin are shaking hands with each other. Peter Klaunzer/ Bloomberg  Now, look at this picture; this might seem like very normal and a formal meeting between two heads of the state of a very two important nations, the United States of America and Russia, but theres a history behind this picture as well. Mr. Biden, in the past, has called Mr. Putin a killer, and we know how relations have hit the lowest point in recent years since the end of the Cold War. So in this article, we are exactly going to do the same. We will trace the relationship from 1990 and will divide them into two parts, 1990 to 2012 and 2012 to 2021, when the actual deterioration in the relationship took place because of Putin granting asylum to Snowden, the annexation of Crimea, Syrian civil war, Russian intervention in US elections and deepening relationship between Russia and China and then finally, we will look into what is causing the recent shift in both U.S. and Russian policies. So let us just now begin the discussion. So the United States relationship with Russia is today the worst that it has ever been since 1985. We know how the last U.S. president, Mr. Trump, came into office determined to improve ties with Russia. But what we are seeing in the last one to two years is more and more sanctions being leveled by American executives against Russian companies and Russian firms. Then in the last six months, we have seen how both of them have expelled each others diplomats. Not only that but the United States national security strategy names Russia and China as the top two threats to American national security. At their best, US-Russian relations are a mix of cooperation and competition. However, they are now primarily antagonistic to one another. But, of course, it has not always been like that, especially since the breakup of the USSR. USSR Breakup  After the Soviet Union fell apart, many Americans anticipated that once the Russians were free of Soviet communism, they would want to join the West and become more like Americans and Europeans, primarily what we refer to as the global west. So after the breakup of the USSR, the American government sent political and economic advisors to work with officials and people in the very new private sector in Russia to promote democracy and the market. Now, when these advisers worked in Russia, there was a lot of chaos. After all, Russia had just ended a very, very long communist regime. So this period saw a lot of chaos, a few people getting very, very rich very quickly, and most people were getting poor. But, along with that, most of the population and general perception of the public was that the West ignored Russias genuine interests. So as a country, Russia felt quite humiliated because it was felt that Russias genuine interests were ignored. Of course, this includes Russias claim to a sphere of influence in the post-Soviet republics, which means they should not seek membership in NATO or the European Union. But it was increasingly being felt by Russia that America was conspiring with other Western European nations to force more and more breakaway states from USSR to join these organizations, which obviously created a threat perception in Russia. At the same time, you have the arrival of a man who cannot be removed from office. Mr. Putin centralized the overall administration in Russia and has become increasingly authoritarian. Russia has come to define security perimeters as the frontiers of the former Soviet Union rather than the borders of the Russian Federation. So you talk to any of the former states of the USSR, youre creating a threat for Mr. Putin, so not only has Russia become increasingly authoritarian, but its global aspirations have increased a lot in the past 20 years. Cooperated Time  In the same 20-25 years, there have been two periods when they have cooperated, meaning the US and Russia. We know the USSR was there in Afghanistan and how it became the USSRs last war in the immediate post-9/11 period when Russia supported the US in the early phase of the war in Afghanistan, supplying information that it had collected from its decade-long struggle over there. So they had a lot of information and intelligence related to local people and how they operate, and Russia actively provided that to the US. The second is the cooperation as far as arms control is concerned, especially during the 20082012 period between President Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev when Moscow and Washington cooperated on arms control and cooperation continuing on Afghanistan and Iraq. The US Behind the Russian Protest  Let us now go over to the incidents of the last 10 years which have taken place, which has actually deteriorated inside the relationship between the U.S. and Russia, creating problems not just for India, but also for many, many other countries and so for the first time, drastic deterioration between the U.S. Russia relations came in 2012 when Putin returned to Kremlin in 2012, there were a lot of protests against him, against the way elections were conducted and Putin started believing that the United States, especially foreign secretary or the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was behind a demonstrator who was funding and fueling the protests in Russia. Asylum to Snowden  In retaliation, the Russian state-led by Putin offered political refuge to Mr. Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor who stole millions of confidential documents and fled to Russia via Hong Kong, the next year in 2013. If you are unfamiliar with him, he is a former computer intelligence expert who released highly sensitive information from the National Security Agency in 2013 while working as a CIA employee and subcontractor. His disclosures revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many quite actively run by NSA in cooperation with various other Western countries, and it was a big, big setback for American agencies. Since then, the US and other global agencies want to arrest him, but he is quite safe in Russia. The then-president of the US, Mr. Obama, directly requested the Russian government to return him, but to no avail, and finally, Obama canceled a planned summit with Putin. So that was the second big instance of deterioration in the relationship. Annexation of Crimea  Following months of public protests, the pro-Russian Ukrainian president fled to Russia and was replaced by a pro-Western government. Shortly thereafter, Russian troops moved into Occupy annexed the Crimean Peninsula, a part of Ukraine since 1954, thereby violating the 1994 Budapest memorandum. Russia, the United States, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom had all promised to protect Ukraines territorial integrity. Over the next few months, Russian-backed rebels and Russian forces in plain clothes advanced into seized areas of the Donbas region in southeastern Ukraine, deposing legitimate local administrations. Since then, Russia and Ukraine have been fighting a very bloody war in the region in which around 14000 people have died so far. Responding to this violation of sovereignty, the US imposed sanctions on Russia and Russian individuals, which are very, very close to Mr. Putin. Syrian Civil War  After the annexation of Crimea, we had the Syrian civil war. In the Syrian civil war, the American side wants to remove the president, Bashar al-Assad, and Russians have supported him since then, and now we know what the outcome is. However, he still the president of Syria, and Russias entry into the Syrian civil war in 2015 to support the president has also created many tensions. To avoid unforeseen accidents, Washington and Moscow have had to deconflict their air operations in Syria since then. In addition, since the last few years, there have been many protests against the sitting president, Mr. Maduro, which the United States quite dislikes because of his history with communist parties. Venezuela Crisis  Then the American government supports the opposition leader who has been continuing with his protests in Venezuela. But Russia has been actively supporting the current regime. It has been quite successful as well, and this is a problem because Venezuela lies in the South American continent quite close to the US, and Russia still has a lot of influence over there, which quite angers the US. Russian Interventions in the US Elections  Then the decisive and major blow to U.S. Russia relations was Russias cyber interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaigns. Simultaneously, Russia attempted to infiltrate electoral machines in several jurisdictions, increasing the risk that it may attempt to influence the outcome of future elections. Deepening Russia-China Ties  In the past 10 years, there have been very, very good relations between Russia and China. Not only are their ties deepening in the sense of economics or economic relations, but also in terms of their convergence as far as they view the globe together, and now this is a problem. This is a problem because now Mr. Biden has to handle two adversaries at the same time, Russia and China, and their stance of Mr. Biden are now appearing to change because of his strategic thinking because now he thinks that China is a much bigger and a difficult adversary to handle as compared to Russia. Because after all, Russia might have some geopolitical power, but it is not an economic powerhouse; it does not have financial assets. Whereas if you consider China, it is the world's manufacturing hub, it is funding massive infrastructure projects across Asia and Africa. In addition, more and more countries of Europe are increasingly moving in their pocket. Changes Under Biden  The main reason behind the change in American stance and the new president, Mr. Biden, prefers the change in American priorities. That change in priorities was indicated when, in March, Mr. Biden called the first summit QUAD countries, including the US, India, Japan, and Australia, which decided to boost vaccine production to help other countries. Then at home, the U.S. Congress passed a 250 billion techs and manufacturing bill, which would ensure funds for semiconductor research, design, and manufacturing and lets admit it, all of these aspects in which China is the current leader, whether your mobile is from Apple or Oppo, all of it is being manufactured, including the chips in China and it is the leader in electronic manufacturing and design, which is providing the crucial edge to China in the technological world. So Mr. Biden realizes that now when hes gearing up to focus on China, Russia is quite a distraction. So you cannot handle two geostrategic rivals or adversaries simultaneously, so you will have to mend ties with one of them. Apart from that, it would help if you realized that America and Russia were the first two countries to develop quite effective vaccines against Covid-19. Then, with advances in technologies, national governments and international institutions explore different approaches to the Arctic region. There needs to be coherence, or there needs to be an agreement on Arctic governance on which both the US and Russia have to collaborate actively because these are the only two major players over there and then what it appears to most of the political thinkers that now both America as well as Russia are actively thinking to dismantle more and more number of weapons. At the same time, sanctions against Russia have impacted Russias economy quite adversely. Conclusion  So for Russia, also improving ties with the US is not such a bad proposition. Follow me to see more articles like this. ... Follow  This is original content from NewsBreaks Creator Program. 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