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KENNAN CABLE from Primacy to Preeminence: Managing the U.S

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KENNAN CABLE from Primacy to Preeminence: Managing the U.S No. 63 l February 2021 KENNAN CABLE President Xi Jinping of China meets with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Photo courtesy of http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/ news/60669/photos From Primacy to Preeminence: Managing the U.S.– Russia Rivalry during the Biden Administration By Zachary Paikin Western analysts often contend that China’s rise since the 2013–14 Ukraine crisis, Moscow no longer threatens Russia’s status as a leading power, both has much reason to place possible long-term irritants within its traditional sphere of influence and on the with Beijing at the top of its list of security concerns.2 wider world stage.1 These predictions cast doubt on the Aside from traditional assets such as its sprawling durability of any political alignment between Moscow geography, nuclear arsenal, and seat on the UN and Beijing, reflecting the fraught nature of relations Security Council, it is Moscow’s entente with Beijing— between the two countries throughout much of modern rather than a special relationship with Washington—that history, from the 19th-century “unequal treaties” to now serves as the primary guarantor of Russia’s great the Sino-Soviet split. However, as the rivalry between power status at the global level. the United States and its great power adversaries has continued to deepen, this skeptical view of the Sino- This situation is the by-product of the consolidation Russian entente has become increasingly untenable. of an economic, political, and security architecture in Europe that largely excludes Russia. The Euromaidan Given the persistence of sanctions and the sharp revolution and its aftermath have ended hopes of an deterioration of relations between Russia and the West inclusive “Greater Europe” from Lisbon to Vladivostok, No. 63 l February 2021 KENNAN CABLE or even a long-term arrangement suitable to all among states, many of the principles that are said to parties in the absence of a full-fledged shared underpin the LIO rest on dubious intellectual ground, security system. Taking their place is an American- challenging the notion that it should be considered led “active pressure campaign” against Russia with synonymous with world order writ large. no clear endgame.3 This leaves Moscow with little incentive to show restraint for fear of being made For instance, the notion that the LIO rests upon subject to further demands. a commitment to free trade is challenged by the reality that many countries—including liberal While all sides have contributed to this state of democracies—embraced protectionist policies long affairs, the posture of global primacy that has guided before Trump’s arrival in the White House. Nor is U.S. foreign policy throughout the post-Cold War the advent of increasingly liberalized global trade era has been the main driver of growing security necessarily a product of an overarching and enduring competition between the world’s most powerful LIO. As Robert D. Kaplan has noted, “globalization states. Jennifer Lind and Daryl G. Press describe was never a conflict-free security order, as originally this drive for primacy, which goes beyond the advertised, but merely a value-neutral, temporary mere preservation of American preeminence, as stage of economic development.”5 being rooted in “disregard for the core interests of An additional feature of the liberal order—U.S. or potential adversaries.”4 This has not only pushed Russia and China closer together, but also exposed Western leadership—has not been recognized some of the contradictions of the so-called liberal as legitimate by other powers. What Moscow international order. With any fundamental reset considers to be a mere “system built around between Washington and Moscow unlikely for the American unipolarity” is not akin to the 6 foreseeable future, the limited but complex task of entrenchment of a universal LIO. Similar to the the Biden administration will be to shift the current early Bolshevik period in which Russia adopted primacy-oriented pressure campaign against Russia a revolutionary rather than a defensive mindset, toward a more sustainable—yet still adversarial— Russian attempts to liberalize and join the West in relationship based on deterrence. the early 1990s were more reflective of a brief turn in European and global history than a permanent shift in Russian strategic attitudes. W(h)ither the liberal order? Proponents of liberal internationalism also claim In Western policy circles, events such as Russia’s that their policies are aimed at protecting the right annexation of Crimea and the election of Donald of small states to determine their own security Trump are reflexively considered to be threats to the arrangements. However, the factors that have “liberal international order” (LIO). However, beyond buttressed the independence of small states in the the fact that this term did not come into regular postwar era—universal sovereignty, inviolable state usage until decades after the order’s supposed borders, and sustained U.S. naval dominance— creation in the wake of World War II, the nature and appear to conflict with more established liberal scope of the LIO are often taken for granted. Besides principles such as international integration, national a generic commitment to “rules-based” interaction self-determination, and security interdependence. No. 63 l February 2021 KENNAN CABLE This highlights how efforts to actualize and defend of Asia’s increasing strategic importance and a “liberal” order can be fraught with confusion, dynamism and not just the troubled character of leaving Western foreign policy vulnerable to Moscow’s relations with the West.8 While it is accusations of double standards. true that Yevgeny Primakov’s tenure as foreign minister in the late 1990s emphasized the idea According to Richard Sakwa, these inconsistencies of a partnership with China and India to balance serve to highlight a core contradiction of the LIO against the West, even his more liberal predecessor that has become evident with the return of great Andrei Kozyrev maintained that Russia should not power rivalry, in that it nominally embodies a choose definitively between East and West.9 This universal “values order” even though it is upheld by bicontinental discourse plays an important role in 7 a “power system” based on Western hegemony. Russian politics and foreign policy, simultaneously Behind the inconsistently applied goal of spreading reinforcing the country’s sense of national liberal values and norms rests a pursuit of American uniqueness, great power status, and special global primacy that has remained constant for responsibility to uphold international security. the past three decades. Moscow and Beijing perceive this U.S. posture as a threat not only to The process of normalization between Moscow their security but also to their status as equal great and Beijing after the Sino-Soviet split began in the powers in the international system. The fact that mid-to-late 1980s, long before Washington settled American relations with Russia and China have into an apparent strategy of “dual containment” continued to worsen over the past four years shows of Russia and China beginning in the late Obama the extent to which the Trump administration did years.10 In the context of the U.S.-Russia-China not fundamentally deviate from this approach, strategic triangle, Moscow has a natural interest in despite the concerns that were regularly voiced fostering good relations with Beijing irrespective of over the future of U.S. leadership. However, while Washington’s posture, particularly given the lengthy Washington’s post-Cold War strategic posture has border that the two countries share. If the factors helped to push Moscow and Beijing closer together, driving Sino-Russian cooperation inherently produce it is not the only source of the deepening Sino- a sustained confrontation with the U.S., then this Russian strategic partnership. perhaps says more about the nature of post-Cold War American foreign policy than it does about Russia-China relations and Russian or Chinese aims. global order It is true that Russia and China do not possess identical conceptions of international order and that Since the initial aftermath of the Ukraine crisis, they have experienced the post-Cold War world Russian foreign policy has been marked by its differently. While Russia emerged from the Cold burgeoning “Greater Eurasia” vision, underwritten War no longer a superpower, China has been a to a significant extent by its deepening entente beneficiary of existing international arrangements with China. However, Russia’s announcement of that have allowed it to mount an impressive its “pivot to the east” preceded the Euromaidan economic rise.11 Moreover, while Moscow pursues revolution by several years—a manifestation No. 63 l February 2021 KENNAN CABLE a vision of a “polycentric world” as an end in itself to avoid excessive dependence on China, but to guarantee its place at the table of great powers, Moscow’s limited aims in the region do not threaten China is primarily preoccupied with preserving the Beijing. In Central Asia, while no formal division of international conditions that allow it to continue its labor between the two countries exists, Russia and economic modernization.12 Taken together, these China have found a way to share power in a fashion differences paint Russian aims as more disruptive that has thus far assuaged Russian concerns over and Chinese goals as more pragmatic. its relative decline. In all cases, shared animosity towards Washington
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