From Confrontation to Cooperation Examining the Duality of U.S.-Russian Security Cooperation as the Fulcrum of U.S.-Russian Relations

摘要

In an era where asymmetric threats have caused the United States to create new and correspondingly asymmetric partnerships, the U.S. military often finds itself in the de facto lead of the effort to protect the nation and its interests, as well as those of its allies and partners. Russia, once an avowed enemy, is now an avowed partner in this struggle against this global insurgency. Even in the absence of political harmony with Russia, the United States must look to proven mechanisms of practical, effective cooperation that can serve to prevent future crises affecting our respective countries or our interests. For the indefinite future, those mechanisms will be found in the shared experiences of security cooperation between our two militaries in combined peace support operations in the late 1990s, and the subsequent programs of enhanced military cooperation that grew from that extensive collaboration. Given the nature of today's threat to individual nations and the international order, the instability within and the disturbing political developments in the Russian Federation, and the sense of urgency needed to address them, the most readily available tool we have is the U.S.-Russian military relationship. That relationship can provide the foundation from which we can expand our collaborative relationship, one which for time being will constitute the fulcrum of overall U.S.- Russian relations.