At the same time, taming an interdependent world requires working across ideological lines. Washington should phase out the promotion of democracy and human rights abroad and the Biden administration should refrain from its tendency to formulate a geopolitical vision that divides the world all too neatly into democracies and autocracies. Strategic and economic opportunities will sometimes prompt the United States to cooperate with repressive regimes; for example, moderating oil prices may require cooperation with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
While the United States will continue to work with its traditional democratic allies in Europe and Asia, many of the world’s democracies will avoid taking sides in a new era of East-West rivalry. Brazil, India, Israel, South Africa and other democracies have indeed been on the fence when it comes to responding to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russia clearly poses the most immediate threat to geopolitical stability in Eurasia, but China, owing to its emergence as a true competitor to the United States, still poses the greater geopolitical challenge in the longer term. With regular cooperation between Russia and China, together they could form a hostile bloc far more formidable than its Soviet ancestor. Accordingly, the United States must seize opportunities to distance itself between Moscow and Beijing, following in the footsteps of quintessential realists Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who weakened the communist bloc in the 1970s by driving a wedge between China and the Soviet Union.
The United States must play on both sides. The Russian invasion of Ukraine marks a fundamental break with the Atlantic democracies, but the West cannot afford to turn its back on Russia completely; there is too much at stake. As during the Cold War, Washington will need a hybrid strategy of containment and engagement. Russia should remain in the penal box for now, while the United States pushes back against the Kremlin’s territorial expansionism and other aggressive behavior by strengthening NATO’s eastern flank and enforcing harsh economic sanctions.
But Washington must also continue to look for opportunities to do business with Moscow. The invasion of Ukraine just made Russia economically and strategically dependent on China; Mr. Putin will not enjoy being Xi Jinping’s sidekick. The United States should take advantage of the Kremlin’s discomfort to become China’s younger partner by signaling that Russia has a Western option.
Assuming an eventual peace settlement in Ukraine that would allow for sanctions to be lifted, Western democracies must remain open to cautious and selective cooperation with Moscow. Potential areas of cooperation include promoting nuclear and conventional arms control, sharing best practices and technologies on alternatives to fossil fuels, and jointly developing traffic regulations to govern military and economic activities in the Arctic.
Russia needs China more than China needs Russia, so Washington should also try to pull Beijing away from Moscow. Beijing’s ambiguous response to the invasion of Ukraine suggests at the very least a degree of discomfort with the economic and geopolitical disruption caused by Russian recklessness. Yet Beijing continues to benefit from Russia’s energy and strategic cooperation, and from Mr Putin’s forcing the United States to focus on Europe, blocking the US ‘pivot to Asia’. Nevertheless, Washington should look for opportunities to work with Beijing on areas of common interest – trade, climate change, North Korea, digital governance, public health – to improve relations, address global issues and potentially strengthen the relationship between China and Russia. to weaken.
