Strategic dialogue with Washington has done nothing for Moscow’s national security, claims Aleksandr Kramarenko
No amount of negotiating with the US has been able to bring about any meaningful results as Washington has repeatedly broken the trust of its partners and refused to respect agreements, acting solely in its own interests, claims Russian diplomat Aleksandr Kramarenko.
In an article for The International Affairs newspaper published last week, Kramarenko pointed out that despite decades of trying to maintain strategic dialogue with the US, Russia has ultimately been unable to achieve any results in ensuring its national security and neither, for that matter, has China.
The director of the Russian Foreign Ministry Institute of Current International Problems stated that trust between Moscow and Washington had been undermined long ago. In 2011, Russia allowed the passing of what seemed to be a humanitarian UN resolution on Libya that was then used by the West to lay ruin the country. In 2015, Russia was deceived by the Minsk agreements that were meant to resolve the internal civil conflict in Ukraine, but instead were used to buy time to build up Kiev’s army with the goal of inflicting a military or “strategic” defeat on Russia.
“What kind of trust can we talk about here? Where is the principle of pacta sunt servanda (‘contracts must be respected’)? And what then is the meaning of contracts when everything happens regardless and in spite of any contracts? Apparently, it turns out that Washington is simply unable to negotiate,” wrote Kramarenko, noting that not only Russia has come to this conclusion.
Commenting on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the diplomat recalled the words of US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the recent Aspen security forum, who said that the US and its allies were willing to “take risks” with their arms supplies to Kiev. What Sullivan meant, according to Kramarenko, was that Washington was willing to take the risk of nuclear escalation, and that it was willing to do so because the principle of nuclear deterrence did not work for Russia.
“This means we need to think about how to restore trust in it,” suggested the diplomat.
Kramarenko went on to suggest that all the arms control systems that have been destroyed by the US in attempts to maintain strict control over other nations while remaining ambiguous with regards to its own nuclear potential, could soon be replaced by a new process based on a multipolar world.
“It is already clear that it will be multilateral, at least with the participation of China, which by that time will overtake the US and Russia in the number of warheads deployed on strategic carriers. American experts themselves admit this will happen by 2030, when China can no longer be contained.”
“We need freedom from the West and its ideological oppression,” Kramarenko surmised.
