ON THE FUTURE OF RUSSIAN-AMERICAN RELATIONS PART II

Considering such massive damage done to America’s image in Russia, one can only wonder about both the foreseeable future and the more distant prospects of the Russian-American relations.

In the foreseeable future, I am afraid, the pattern of manipulation and desire to hurt the United States will be predominant, occasionally, even at the expense of Russian national interest. I will never forget my personal experience, during my 1973-1974 business trip to the United States, when Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin, in order for Russia to retaliate against Washington for passing the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the U.S.-Soviet Trade Agreement, forbade the signing of a very good contract with an American company, giving it instead to an inferior Italian company, thus acting against Russia’s best economic interest in order to score a purely political point.

Today a much worse sore stands in the way of better Russian-American relations and commands Moscow to keep punishing America at whatever cost, and this sad situation will undeniably persist for a long while. But eventually, as whole new generations of Russians will grow up, unaffected by the events of the past twenty years, Russia’s attitude toward the United States is going to be determined then by whether or not America will be still relentlessly pursuing the same hegemonic ambitions as it is pursuing today. In that case, a new, and better memory of the United States will not be allowed to set in in the Russian psyche, and the hurt and the bitterness of our time will be transferred onto the next generations of Russians, perpetuating the current unfortunate trend.

But considering that in this section my purpose is to try to avoid even objective doom and gloom, and raise some hope for a better future, be it called wishful thinking, I have two better-case scenarios to offer instead of that doom and gloom. In one of them (the ‘noble enemy’ scenario) the old cold war order will be restored in the world, we are back to the bipolar two-superpower structure, with the rich nations of Europe resubmitting themselves to the leader of the rich world (although holding their noses), and even though the United States, in this scenario, has not quite pigged out on the humble pie, a sufficient measure of mutual respect has hopefully been restored to the international relations to make them workable again, in some moderately decent sort of way.

The other scenario is for the United States to realize its modern global limitations and, stopping short of a complete conversion to political and military isolationism, to accept a new world order, where the old Pax Americana no longer holds sway. In this scenario, America certainly remains one of the world’s Greatest Powers, but this is it, only one of a few, which is bound to change a lot of attitudes and policies, --- not the easiest solution to be accepted by a pampered imperialist mind.

Now, which of these two more optimistic scenarios will prove to be the more acceptable, if at all, is for the reader in the short run and for history in the long run to decide. But, as I said earlier, I am afraid that there is too little room for wishful thinking here.