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The peaceful resolution of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union brought about significant changes in the global power and influence distribution as well as the international order. Emerging as the unipolar superpower with the fall of its ideological opponent, the US set out to remake the planet in its picture of liberal democracy and market capitalism.
Illustration by The Geostrata
Russia, the legal successor state of the USSR, was in a far lower position and struggled to redefine its relationship with the West following more than forty years of contentious struggle. As the two countries have jockeyed over redefining the lines of the new world order, the following decades have seen the Russia-U.S. relationship swing between hesitant cooperation and open hostility.
This dynamic has fundamentally transformed the underlying character of the post-Cold War emerging balance of power. This dynamic has fundamentally transformed the underlying character of the post-Cold War emerging balance of power.
The Russia-U.S. relationship was marked in the initial post-Cold War era of 1991–2000 by a sense of optimism and possible cooperation tempered by residual hostility and different interests. Russia under Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton moved to become more closely associated with Western economic and security institutions such as the G8 and NATO's Partnership for Peace program.
Agreements indicating the end of Cold War hostilities and adversarial thinking included the START nuclear weapons reduction treaties and the founding of a permanent joint council with NATO.
Nevertheless, this period also exemplified the fundamental tensions and impediments that Russia faced in its pursuit of becoming a full partner in the liberal international order led by the United States. Moscow sees NATO's spread into former Warsaw Pact nations in Eastern Europe as an incursion into Russia's traditional area of influence and as a breach of pledges provided at the end of the Cold War.
Domestically, the disorganised "shock therapy" economic reforms destabilised Russia's economy and society, so weakening Yeltsin's authority and supporting a rebirth of Russian nationalism opposed to wholesale Westernisation. By the end of the decade, Russia was already starting to turn away from what it considered to be too extreme U.S. unilateralism and hubris, best shown by the 1999 NATO bombing campaign in the former Yugoslavia carried out without UN permission.
In 2000, Vladimir Putin assumed the presidency, and the initial years were characterised by a combination of pragmatic cooperation and increasing tensions with the United States. Following 9/11, Putin broke with past Russian tactics by providing vital support to the American war effort in Afghanistan, exchanging intelligence, and establishing air corridors for American forces.
On problems like reducing nuclear stockpiles via accords like SORT, the United States and Russia cooperated cordially. However, Russia fiercely objected to what it perceived as more U.S. actions undermining its security, such as the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty in 2002 in order to pursue national missile defence and NATO membership expansion near Russia's borders.
Putin saw the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, carried out without UN sanction, as part of a larger trend of U.S. unilateral assertion of hard power and disrespect of Russian interests.
With the 2008 Russia-Georgia War, Russia's reaffirmation of its ability to affect the former Soviet region in opposition to U.S. supremacy underwent a significant turning point. Russia's military entry into the pro-Western Georgia and subsequent recognition of the independence of Georgia's breakaway areas of South Ossetia and Abkhazia directly challenged the U.S.'s aim of including former Soviet republics into the Euro-Atlantic community.
It also highlighted the differences between Russia and the United States on fundamental concerns including national territory integrity and sovereign countries’ right to pick their own alliances. From the United States, Russia under Putin was returning to an antiquated conception of restricted spheres of influence and stomping on liberal democratic values.
From the Russian perspective, it was reclaiming its prerogatives as a great power following a period of crippling weakness and was defending stability on its borders against too strong US intervention.
During President Obama, the brief era of the U.S.-Russia "reset" between 2009-2012 was a pragmatic attempt to set aside differences and negotiate transactional deals on areas of shared interests like nuclear arms limitation. Considered a major achievement of this strategy, the New START deal caps Russian and American strategically placed nuclear weapons.
Nevertheless, with the two countries supporting different sides in regional crises like the Libyan and Syrian civil wars, the general dynamic stayed contentious even during this period. Frictions also accumulated over Putin's persecution of domestic dissent, Edward Snowden's refuge offered by Russia. Fundamentally, the reset did not help to ease the more underlying conflicts over the American and Russian ideas for the international order.
Any last hopes for a possible U.S.-Russia strategic alliance were dashed with the Ukraine crisis starting in 2014. The most obvious and serious challenge to the U.S.-led order in the post-Cold War era came from Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and the backing of separatist insurgents in the Donbas region.
From Russia's vantage point, it was acting forcefully to protect strategic interests in its vicinity and prevent any Western alliance system integration of Ukraine. For the United States and its allies, it was an intolerable transgression of the European security order built following the Cold War and the core concept of state sovereignty.
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This was quickly followed by waves of economic sanctions, diplomatic expulsions, duelling military drills and the United States and its allies seeking to isolate and punish Russia while boosting defences along NATO's eastern flank.
One of the boldest intelligence operations by the Kremlin against its Cold War rival, the poisonous dynamic resulted in the U.S. intelligence community concluding that Russia participated in a campaign of interference and cyberattacks meant to disrupt the 2016 U.S. presidential election and sow divisions.
Even as they have sought ongoing collaboration on specific issues like arms control, later U.S. administrations have emphasised discouraging and competing with Russian intervention and "malign" influence operations.
From promises of cooperation to rising rivalry over regional crises to today's escalating rivalry, the Russia-U.S. relationship has oscillated through several phases looking at the larger trajectory over 30 years. Originally seen as Russia's likely participation into a growing U.S.-led liberal order, what had first been envisioned has instead become a visceral challenge over the fundamental premise and ideals backing such order.
Russia sees itself as a guardian of conservative values and norms including state sovereignty and non-interference against a U.S. objective of democracy promotion and as a countervailing factor to unipolarity. Russia is still seen by the United States as an obstructionist force trying to acquire influence in ways that compromise world rule of law.
This dynamic has changed the more general balance of power in ways that go much beyond the U.S.-Russia dyad. Russia's attempt to offset American influence has led to a strategic realignment with other illiberal nations such as China that also object to Western interventionism.
Announced in 2022, the Russia-China "no-limits" cooperation clearly aims to pool resources and influence in opposition to what they define as the U.S. pursuit of supremacy. Beijing and Moscow have formed quasi-alliances to limit U.S. influence in regional crises, at venues like the UN Security Council, in forming technology standards, and in the information sphere while keeping tactical distinctions.
Along the arc of instability covering Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia, the U.S.-Russia rivalry and more general contestation over the character of the international order has also had a destabilising effect.
Russia has personally sent military advisers, mercenaries, and advanced weapons systems to support friendly governments and offset U.S. influence and democracy development objectives in regional hotspots such as Syria, Libya, and the Sahel.
Russian misinformation networks have magnified uncertainty and conspiratorial notions. Not emerging from the Cold War into an expanded zone of peace and liberal democratic ideals, these areas remain caught in cycles of war and repression that Moscow and Washington used as forums for power and influence.
The hostile U.S.-Russia relations appear firmly ingrained going ahead for the foreseeable future. Although both parties understand the significance of keeping lines of communication open to avoid miscalculation and escalation, the chances for a "grand bargain" that may reestablish and realign the two powers as cooperative partners seem unlikely.
One of the main geopolitical conflicts of our day is Russia's ambition for a sphere of influence over former Soviet states against America's backing of their freedom. Moscow sees these countries as essential to its security and global posture, hence it tries to keep its supremacy by military, cultural, and financial ties.
On the other hand, Washington supports these nations’ ability to select alliances and sovereignty. Conflicts in Georgia and Ukraine have resulted from this tension, thus highlighting the continuous struggle between opposing ideas of regional order and international relations.
BY MUKUND SUSARLA
TEAM GEOSTRATA
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