The discussion about where Russian-American relations are heading and whether Moscow and Washington can not only dive in, but still jointly create some useful added value for world politics and solving security problems, was unexpectedly continued in the first days of August by the first and last President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev. A politician who, at the end of the first Cold War, tried to build a great utopia of a nonviolent nuclear-free world and believed that it was possible. The architect of new thinking in international affairs, of which not a trace remains today.
An opportunity to break the long silence of Mikhail Gorbachev, unloved by many in modern Russia, who, with the light hand of Margaret Thatcher, received the affectionate nickname Gorby in the West, presented itself this week.
This case was the 30th anniversary of the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), signed less than six months before the collapse of the USSR, on July 31, 1991, during a meeting in Moscow between Mikhail Gorbachev and then US President George W. Bush.
In an interview with Interfax, the ex-president of the USSR said that START-I "became the basis of all agreements that followed," but "the problem of strategic offensive weapons has not yet been resolved."
In this regard, he called on Moscow and Washington not to postpone negotiations on a new START treaty.
Is the failed new thinking capable of gaining another historical chance that it missed at the end of the Soviet era and the classic Cold War?
What is this: the first swallow of a new wave of change, indicating that it is possible to try to get away from Cold War 2.0 now?
Hope dies last, and this hope seems to come from the fact that at the Geneva summit of Presidents Putin and Biden, relations between the two nuclear superpowers took the first small step towards recovery.
The first turn towards pragmatism and basic common sense after years of madness that began with the 2014 Ukrainian crisis, when President Obama declared that Russia was “on the other side of history”.
And then Donald Trump destroyed the mechanisms of diplomacy and pelted Moscow with all imaginable and inconceivable sanctions, proudly declaring that there was not yet a president in America who treated Russia more harshly than he did.
No matter how it is: literally on the same day when the former Soviet leader called on Russia and the United States to return to the origins of constructive interaction, another piece of news reminded us that the new thinking of the second half of the 1980s is still dead.
As Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said in an interview with The National Interest, the United States handed over to the Russian side a list of 24 diplomats who must leave the country by September 3 due to the expiration of visas.
“Unfortunately, the situation is not changing for the better.
Russian diplomatic missions in the United States are operating under unprecedented restrictions that not only remain in effect, but are also increasing.
Despite the Biden administration’s statements about the important role of diplomacy and its readiness to develop stable and predictable relations with Russia, the Russian diplomatic presence is experiencing ongoing blows, ”lamented Anatoly Antonov this week, who recently returned to Washington to start collecting after the Geneva accords. do not throw stones.
How do these completely contradictory news, of which a great many appear about Russian-American relations literally every day, get along with each other?
After the signing of START I, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge.
Over the three decades that have absorbed ups and downs, years of rosy hopes, touching "friend Bill and friend Boris", and then the tumultuous American discussion of the late 1990s on the topic "Who lost Russia?" strange pulling.
They resemble a kind of mythological creature with two heads, which desperately pull the poor torso in opposite directions, since one head is turned into the past, and the other - so far without much success - is trying to look into the future, which Mikhail Gorbachev tried to remind.
On the one hand, today these relations are simply oversaturated with negativity. During his time in the White House, President Biden managed to agree to call Vladimir Putin a "killer." And after the meeting in Geneva, he said that President Putin "leads the economy, which has nuclear weapons and oil wells - and nothing else", and this, according to Joe Biden, makes the Russian president "even more dangerous." Russia still remains a bargaining chip or hostage to the internal political struggle in the United States. Willingness to contain Moscow remains the yardstick of American patriotism for politicians in Washington. All this still determines the overall trend, tonality and atmosphere.
On the other hand, there is other news, which is also impossible not to notice.
After the summit in Geneva, Vladimir Putin spoke in the spirit that Joe Biden is not at all the kind of politician he is portrayed by the media.
Thus, apparently, he called on the Russian mass media to moderate their anti-American fervor and the wave of mocking and openly offensive publications about an old man falling into dementia in the White House.
Moreover, President Putin announced that Russia and the United States had decided to begin consultations on the further fate of START III.
“Of course, the question arises as to what's next.
We agreed that consultations will begin at the interdepartmental level under the auspices of the US State Department and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ”said Vladimir Putin, and this statement directly echoes the words of Mikhail Gorbachev.
“The United States and the Russian Federation bear a special responsibility for strategic stability in the world, proceeding at least from the fact that we are the largest nuclear powers: in terms of the number of ammunition, warheads, and the number of delivery vehicles, and the level and quality of modernity of nuclear weapons. "- continued Vladimir Putin.
He also emphasized that "President Biden made a responsible and, in our opinion, absolutely timely decision to extend the START III treaty for five years."
After that, on July 28, consultations on strategic stability were held in Geneva in development of the agreements between the two presidents to begin a comprehensive dialogue on this topic.
Based on the statements made following the consultations, both sides considered them professional and meaningful.
The next meeting to discuss strategic stability will be held at the end of September, and before that Moscow and Washington intend to conduct informal consultations.
Finally, against the backdrop of muscle flexing and the ongoing Russian-American war of nerves in different regions of the world, the commander of the US Second Fleet, whose area of responsibility includes the North Atlantic Ocean, Vice Admiral Andrew Lewis, made a surprise statement this week.
A senior American military man said that he assessed cooperation with the Russian military as "adequate" and considered it possible to develop it in order to treat each other more respectfully "and for the common good."
“As for the areas of cooperation, this is professional behavior, when there is a standard of such behavior that everyone understands and implements.
We had such an experience a couple of years ago, when we were in the Baltic Sea and acted alongside Russian forces, and we never had any problems.
Everything was very professional, no questions asked, ”recalled Andrew Lewis.
In general, today's Russian-American relations remain a two-headed push, when one head does not know what the other is doing, and these heads looking in opposite directions are not friends with each other and are not responsible for each other.
A strange, unnatural creature.
Still not a monster.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.