'Red line' challenges in Russia-US relations

Dual Deterrence Strategy

The arrival of President Joe Biden has shown both continuity and newness in White House policy. The current administration's main priorities are related to the domestic socio-economic problems facing the US. Washington is trying to reduce excessive military commitments and has increased cooperation with allies. The US has ended the 20-year war in Afghanistan and is also seeking to rebuild the Iran nuclear deal.

The US also continues to increase the Pentagon budget and implement a dual containment strategy with China and Russia. With its dual deterrence strategy, Washington is pushing Moscow and Beijing into a military alliance, although the two countries are not trying to create one.

US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo: Getty

It should be noted that new aspects have also emerged in the US approach to Russia. Mr. Biden immediately agreed to extend the START Treaty for five years, and at the Summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June 2021 in Geneva, the two sides began negotiations on strategic stability and submitted a joint resolution on cybersecurity to the United Nations. The Biden administration has not imposed new sanctions on Nord Stream 2. In the first half of this year, trade between the US and Russia increased by about 50% compared to 2020.

Defining the “red line”

The Ukraine crisis and lack of progress in implementing the Minsk agreements were the most important issues in the recent negotiations between the Russian and US leaders. US President Joe Biden expressed concern about Russia's large concentration of troops and equipment on the border with Ukraine and threatened to impose unprecedented sanctions in case of "Russian aggression against Ukraine". Mr. Biden revealed the US plan in case of Russia's "invasion" of Ukraine. Accordingly, Washington will deploy forces to Eastern European NATO countries including Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Estonia.

Ukraine is a key link in Washington's plan to try to expand its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, but US leaders insist there have never been any plans to send troops to Ukraine.

However, for Russia, the Ukraine issue is a "red line" that Russia has publicly declared many times. Russia has asked the US not to cross the "red line" that Russia has determined based on its national interests.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that Ukraine's accession to NATO would become a "red line" for Moscow, stressing that attempts to turn Ukraine into a springboard for confrontation with Russia are fraught with negative consequences, arguing that such actions by NATO destabilize the military-political situation in Europe.

NATO's expansion to the East

NATO's eastward expansion is currently one of the most serious issues in bilateral relations. Russia is particularly concerned about this issue and warns that the consequences of such a move would be catastrophic. Russia believes that over the past 10 years, NATO has been continuously expanding the Alliance, contrary to its previous commitment not to expand eastward.

The Russian President raised the issue of the need for legal guarantees that NATO will not expand to the East, stressing that this is one of the key issues in ensuring Russia's security in the medium term and even from a strategic point of view. NATO's expansion to the East is unacceptable for Moscow.

According to Mr. Putin, each country has the right to choose how to ensure its security, but this must be done in a way that does not infringe on the interests of other parties and does not undermine the security of other countries, in this case Russia.

Recently, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced a draft agreement with the US and NATO on security guarantees. According to the draft agreement, NATO countries need to commit to excluding Ukraine from joining the alliance and further expanding the alliance. The US needs to commit to not expanding NATO further to the East and not admitting countries that were formerly members of the former Soviet Union. NATO does not conduct any military activities on the territory of Ukraine and other countries in Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia and Central Asia.

In addition, Russia and NATO pledged not to create conditions that could be perceived as a threat by the other side. In addition, the parties confirmed that they do not consider each other as adversaries. The parties to the agreement maintain dialogue and interaction to improve mechanisms for preventing incidents at sea and in the air, primarily in the Baltic and Black Sea regions.

The parties exclude the deployment of short- and medium-range land-based missiles in areas capable of striking targets on the territory of other parties to the treaty. Moscow is demanding the withdrawal of the 2008 NATO Summit decision on Ukraine and Georgia becoming members of the alliance.

Russia threatens to use unprecedented measures if the US and NATO continue to take provocative actions and ignore Moscow's requests.

Visa negotiations deadlock

The negotiations on visas with the United States have not yet reached an end. Russia believes that the US side does not want to make a clear and simple decision, which is to send the necessary personnel to Russia within the framework of quotas to restore normal service for Russian citizens, but instead makes absurd accusations that Moscow is obstructing the US.

The diplomatic visa issue is also a vicious circle. The two sides have not been able to find a common voice, but instead have increased restrictions on each other's activities. On December 1, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, announced that a group of employees of the US diplomatic mission in Moscow will leave the territory of the Russian Federation before July 1, 2022, if the US side does not make concessions to resolve the diplomatic crisis. Previously, Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said that Washington had announced the expulsion of 27 Russian diplomats and their families and they must return home no later than January 30, 2022.

Unpredictable outlook

It is too early to conclude that there has been a radical change in Russia-US relations after the summits between the two sides. From Russia’s point of view, the prospects for improving relations are difficult to predict. This is a sad conclusion based on the results of the long journey of Russia-US relations at the present time, as well as under former Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov noted that this is due to the United States' desire to interfere and impose its own approaches on Russia and reject it as a factor in international life. Ryabkov did not give optimistic forecasts regarding the normalization of relations, emphasizing that in the current situation Moscow is ready for negative scenarios.

The recent summits are clearly not about resetting relations, as former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden did in 2009 after the Russia-Georgia war. Instead, it is an attempt to agree on the rules of competition, as the US and the Soviet Union did in the early 1970s, by signing a strategic arms limitation treaty and a series of treaties to prevent war. This raises questions that remain unanswered. It is unclear what structure the two sides will seek. Will it be a bilateral mechanism or a structure that includes the five leading Western countries or the NATO-Russia Council?

There is also no precedent for NATO’s legal obligations to abandon eastward expansion. In theory, such commitments could be made by NATO member states, which would have to be ratified by the 30-nation parliaments. However, in the current context, such a scenario is highly unlikely./.