Partnership With Russia Vital for US National Security – Stephen Cohen

Interfering in the Ukrainian conflict and indulging Kiev's warmongering, the United States risks alienating Russia; however, Washington will never have "real sensible national security" without Moscow as a partner, emphasized Stephen Cohen, a prominent American historian and professor of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University.

According to the professor, the "new Cold War" instigated by Washington against Moscow has dealt a severe blow to numerous bilateral projects in such areas as space and science, arms control, fighting international terrorism, limiting nuclear proliferation and resolving regional conflicts.

However, "American national security still runs through Moscow," Stephen Cohen pointed out, "We will never have real sensible national security without the Kremlin as partner." Washington needs Moscow in those areas where Russian and American security interests coincide, and there are many such issues, the historian stressed.

Russia has long been involved in Iran's nuclear negotiations, and the United States does need Russia on its side, Professor Cohen noted. He elaborated that Moscow is concerned about Iran's nuclear weapons potential and does not want a nuclear armed power on its borders. However, the new Cold War launched by the West over the Ukrainian crisis is undermining Russo-American cooperation on the Iranian issue.

If Washington insists on behaving aggressively, militarily, toward Moscow, Russia’s stance regarding Iran is going to change. Instead of considering Tehran as a subject of negotiation the Kremlin may begin to see Iran as a vital ally. And it would pose a substantial challenge to US national security, Stephen Cohen warned. 

The professor qualified tensions between the United States and Russia over Ukraine as the worst confrontation since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

"We [the US] are closer to the actual possibility of war with Russia than it has been since the Cuban Missile Crisis," Stephen Cohen said.

The historian pointed out that the trade dispute between the EU and Ukraine in November 2014, erupted into a Ukrainian civil war, but the White House, the State Department and NATO denied there was any, insisting that the Kiev regime was facing a Russian invasion. The professor denounced such a stance as "complete ignorance" not only of history but of what is currently taking place on the ground in Ukraine.

Stephen Cohen noted that Washington, Brussels and Kiev in fact have sabotaged the Minsk 2 peace agreement and suggested that they could potentially be interested in direct military confrontation with Russia.

He also expressed his deep concerns about the narrative actively propagated by the West that Russian President Putin planned to destabilize Ukraine as a part of wider strategy of taking back former Soviet territories in Eastern Europe. "It doesn't correspond to the facts and above all it has no logic. This is the last thing Putin wanted," Stephen Cohen emphasized.

The professor underscored that Ukraine is completely destroyed and referred to the fact that both Russia and Europe are currently suffering from economic crises. However, while the EU wants the sanctions ended, Washington pushes it to toughen them.

Remarkably, while experts are discussing how Russia will bear up under the double burden of Western sanctions and low oil prices, it has turned out that Moscow "has really done better than anyone expected," Stephen Cohen noted. Meanwhile, Russia is turning East, and away from the West, the professor warned, adding that the EU and particularly Germany could ultimately lose their investment opportunities in Russia.