United Press International,
MOSCOW: Paradoxically, while Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart, President George W. Bush are very friendly to each other, Russia-U.S. bilateral relations remain highly fragile.
There are several reasons for this situation. One of them is that since the end of the Cold War the United States has been trying to assert itself as the only superpower in a uni-polar world. Building partnership in an asymmetrical world is a difficult albeit not impossible task, especially if the two countries have identical security and economic interests.
Their security interests coincided with the emergence of the common enemy — terrorism — after Sept. 11, 2001. But the mechanism of cooperation in the fight against it has not yet been established. The Russia-U.S. partnership rests on declarations, on meetings and good relations of the two presidents, but there are no joint institutions, which would be solving common problems day in and day out. Neither the American, nor Russian bureaucracy displays much interest in this.
There are also other factors, which stand in the way of bilateral partnership. Unfortunately, Russia and America are still in the mutually assured destruction, or MAD, situation. Our nuclear forces are designed for war against each other by 95 percent. But can the two countries be allies, and even partners, if they are ready to destroy each other in a matter of 30 minutes?
Another obstacle to cooperation is a deep arms control crisis. Little is remaining of arms control due to the fact that it used to be a unique feature of Soviet-U.S. rivalry. The two roughly equal enemies required special rules of the game, which were embodied in arms control agreements.
One more reason for the instability of our relations is that strategic partnership cannot be reliable unless it rests on an economic foundation. Despite the budding investment process, the economy does not yet help stabilize Russia-U.S. relations. Sino-American contacts are much more solid despite a host of ideological and military contradictions. Our bilateral relations are doomed to remain fragile and vulnerable to political crises and regional conflicts until the two countries put them on a sound economic foundation.
Non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear arms above all, is another sphere where America and Russia should be together, if only by virtue of common sense and egotism. Yet, America is not worried at all that Israel has developed “the bomb in the basement”, or that India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons as well.
India is regarded as a certain counterweight to China. But we will then have a trilateral arms race. This is a source of concern for Russia, because a U.S. ABM challenge and Indian nuclear arms buildup may provoke China into a fast upgrading of its nuclear armaments. In some 10 to 15 years China may match Russia in nuclear arms. This is not what the Kremlin wants, and it seems that the White House does not need it in a long-term perspective, either.
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