ABSTRACT
To date, Russian and American experts disturbed by the sorry state of US–Russian relations have sought ways to repair them, embracing old and inadequate models of cooperation or balance. The task, however, is to rethink them. The models now being advanced fall short on one or more counts. A reset deals only with immediate irritants rather than fundamental causes. Countries, like individuals, have character, a set of ideas and drives grounded in geography, historical experience and sociopolitical traditions that remain more or less constant, while manifesting themselves in different ways over time. America, a young country among the world’s great powers, is ahistorical and forward-looking, infused with optimism that the arc of history bends towards its values of freedom and democracy. Russia has generally eschewed a universalist ideology and based its approach to the outside world in a stern realpolitik, informed by state interests and power relationships.
