VIDEO
A new report by Ambassador Daniel Fried and Ambassador Alexander Vershbow challenges conventional US foreign policy thought on how Western actors should engage with Russia. US-Russia relations are currently at their lowest point since the early 1980s, when the Soviet Union’s Leonid Brezhnev clashed with the Ronald Reagan administration. Since then, American foreign policy has largely continued to seek to attract allies through its leadership of an open and prospering democratic system, a strategy that Moscow increasingly views as a threat to its interests, particularly in its neighborhood. This approach has led Western leaders to engage with a stagnating kleptocracy that starts wars with its neighbors, violates human rights, and tramples on international norms.
The report offers a fresh series of policy guidelines to set a new trajectory for Western engagement with Russia. The authors argue that while some experts recommend that the West deal with Russia “as it is,” it might be more constructive to base Western relations with Moscow on a vision of gradual progress toward a freer, more democratic Russia that can grow into a stable international actor.
