Russia and the United States: Future Implications of Historical Relationships

摘要

This paper examines historical relationships between Russia and the U.S. to determine how much they were motivated by individuals, by societal drivers like military, economic, or political ideologies or if the motivations were from the international system. This paper uses an historical analysis to explore four periods between 1815 and 2008 and concludes that the international structure and its movement can be explained by realist states working inside of the Dcapitalist world system. The paper relates the theory to the current unipolar international structure and states how the U.S.-Russian relationship could proceed in the future multipolar environment. It then recommends how the U.S. can use its foreign policy towards Russia in order to influence outcomes of the international structure. The U.S. needs to recognize that countries with the size, population and economic capacity of Russia should always be treated like a major power, even when their current system of government or economy has them far behind the U.S. The techniques a nation uses against a rival are different than those used against an enemy and the U.S. should strive to be rivals versus enemies with other major powers.