Russia is Finally Getting the 'Great Power' Talks That It Always Wanted

Nikolas K. Gvosdev

Security, Eurasia

More than two years after Trump took office, the conditions may finally be in place to start the nineteenth-century-style “great power” talks that Russia has always hoped the United States would finally engage in.

Let’s dispense with any talk that U.S.-Russia relations are on the verge of any reset. Yes, there were smiles when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and then with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Russia’s de facto southern capital of Sochi. There was the usual invocation of restarting channels of communication and seeking improvement in U.S.-Russia relations. But the meeting in Sochi achieved as much of substance as the first Ronald Reagan-Mikhail Gorbachev summit in 1985: that is to say, nothing. Now, as then, the only result is the promise of continuing to talk. Of course, as Winston Churchill once quipped, jaw-jaw is better than war-war. But it shows how far relations between both countries have deteriorated that simply agreeing to continue talking is seen as a breakthrough.

How the meeting was situated by the Russian side also speaks volumes. Pompeo had to join the queue. Lavrov received Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif in Moscow last week, and, speaking of U.S. policy, declared, “Opting for a single approach of imposing one’s position onto everyone and everything is counterproductive.” Putin chose to receive in Sochi Chinese foreign minister Yang Wi ahead of the Pompeo visit—conveying symbolic equality of the visits of both China’s and America’s chief diplomats. Then Putin decided to fly to the Chkalov test center near Astrakhan accompanied by a squad of Russian stealth fighters to inspect new weapons systems, before making his way back for a meeting with Pompeo on his own schedule.

The underlying message is clear: Russia is not awed or intimidated by U.S. threats—and having seen growing gaps between statements and deeds (as well as contradictions in the messages presented by senior U.S. officials seemingly walked back or diluted by the president), Putin doesn’t appear to be worried that he continues to oppose U.S. preferences for Venezuela, Ukraine and the Middle East.