MOSCOW, April 21 (RIA Novosti) – The United States has revised its approach toward Russia away from cooperation in favor of a new Cold War, said Veronika Krasheninnikova, Director of the Center of International Journalism and Research with the International News Agency Rossiya Segodnya.
The shift was detailed in a New York Times article published Monday describing Washington's roadmap for the future of US-Russia relations. The new approach, it says, is an “updated version of the Cold War strategy of containment.”
“The article can be safely regarded as [Washington’s] new official strategy that it will pursue with regard to Russia,” Krasheninnikova said.
“It sounds like a declaration of a new Cold War,” she added.
According to the article, Washington’s new Russia strategy echoes the approach set out by US diplomat George F. Kennan in 1947, in which the US attempted to isolate the Soviet Union by cutting off its economic and political links to the outside world, while cooperating with Russians where it was unavoidable.
The journalist believes that the Obama administration will spend the next couple of years trying to minimize the disruptions that Russia may cause in response.
Krasheninnikova said the Ukraine crisis was the last straw that changed Washington’s attitude towards Moscow.
“Washington’s main objection is that Moscow tries to pursue an independent policy and doesn’t take into account US interests,” she explains.
Maxim Bratetsky of the Center for Comprehensive European and Global Studies said the US will now move away from engagement and focus on containing Russia.
“It will be more containment and less or almost no engagement,” Bratetsky told the Voice of Russia, adding that Moscow and Washington were entering a period of chilled relations, although there was no telling how long it would last.
Both experts said it was unlikely that Europe, China or other key global powers would agree to follow the US in its Cold War-style crackdown on Russia.
Bratetsky recalled Washington’s recent attempts to talk the EU into slapping tougher financial sanctions on Russia, a move that Brussels has so far defied, fearing the repercussions on its own economy.
“It looks like they expect [the EU] to scarify itself for American ambitions and perform something like a ritual Japanese disembowelment by cutting their ties with Russia,” he suggested.
“It’s unlikely that China will act on US orders, neither will the other BRICS member states, who cannot be omitted in this equation. Washington will draw a blank if it tries to isolate Russia from the modern world,” Krasheninnikova said.
US-Russian relations soured after the breakout of the Ukrainian crisis, which followed the decision of the now-deposed Ukrainian president to drop out of an association agreement with the European Union. The refusal triggered large-scale demonstrations in the Ukrainian capital that ended in a coup in February.
The country’s parliament ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, changed the constitution and scheduled an early presidential election for May 25. Moscow has repeatedly questioned the actions.
