Russia will not allow a repetition of the “humiliating” scenario of the late USSR during the reign of Mikhail Gorbachev. This opinion was expressed by the publisher and chief executive officer of the National Interest magazine Dmitry Simes, an American political scientist specializing in Russia.
According to him, Moscow, despite the desire to achieve the lifting or mitigation of anti-Russian sanctions, is not ready to make serious concessions in the hope of a response from the West. “To insist that Moscow repeat what many Russians consider an unfortunate and humiliating approach would be to confuse the desired with the reality,” Simes explained. He noted that sanctions can be a useful tool, provided that they do not isolate Russia, but encourage the country to behave more flexible.
The magazine’s publisher pointed out that Moscow cannot be “discounted”, although it is inferior to the United States and China in terms of the size of the economy. “And although Russia is known for its excessive dependence on energy exports, its many achievements in the field of military technology, space, cybernetics, the creation of a vaccine against COVID-19 demonstrate that it is a developed country,” the political scientist added.
The future of US-Russian relations is largely a US choice, Simes said. If Washington cannot agree to anything other than undeniable hegemony, Moscow will become a serious obstacle ready to challenge it. Russia is extremely important to America, as the only country capable of physically destroying the United States. In addition, the role of the Kremlin as a geopolitical balancer in the competition between China and the West is significant. Moscow’s support for Beijing gives China courage and makes it geopolitically more aggressive towards the United States and its allies, the political scientist concluded.
In 2019, Gorbachev called NATO enlargement the West’s biggest strategic mistake. According to him, this led to the destabilization of the military-political situation in Europe and beyond. The politician noted that it would have been absurd in those years, given the existence of the Warsaw Pact, to propose to legally prohibit the spread of NATO to Eastern Europe.