Attempting a "reverse Kissinger" will fail

As you’ve likely seen by now, the US and Russia conducted bilateral negotiations over Ukraine in Saudi Arabia, all without any European participation – including from Ukraine. According to the Washington Post, today the US has also voted with Russia, North Korea, Belarus, and 14 other Moscow-friendly countries Monday on a resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and calling for its occupied territory to be returned that passed overwhelmingly in the U.N. General Assembly on Monday.”

It’s not clear what the strategy is. Some are wondering if the Trump administration is attempting a “reverse Kissinger,” whereby the U.S. creates a wedge in the China-Russia axis by extending sanctions relief and other measures to Moscow, detaching it from Beijing.

This approach is highly unlikely to succeed in driving a wedge between Moscow and Beijing, at least in any meaningful way, and will alienate US allies and friends across Europe and beyond.

Why a reverse Kissinger won’t work

The US won’t be able to detach Russia from China. The convergence between Moscow and Beijing is real, primarily motivated by politics, and only weakly tied to economics.

Economic fundamentals have not deterred Russia from rupturing ties with the West. Russia’s economic and cultural center of gravity are all in “European Russia,” or west of the Ural Mountains. About 75% of Russians live west of the Ural Mountains, while EU member states accounted for 57% of Russian exports and 46.5% of Russian imports in 2013, before Putin’s illegal annexation of Crimea damaged Western-Russia trade. While Russia has a complicated historical relationship with the West, to say the least, it was nevertheless recently a part of various European cultural institutions such as Eurovision, the European division for World Cup qualification, and more. Until very recently, Russian elites like Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Peskov sent their children to study or live in Europe. Despite the straightforward economic logic of bolstering trade and investment with Europe, not to mention deep and longstanding cultural ties, Moscow has utterly rejected the West.

While Moscow and Beijing benefit from stable borders, energy trade, and diplomatic alignment, their partnership is primarily driven by mutual hostility toward the West, especially the U.S. Indeed, Moscow’s anti-Western antipathy is perhaps even more pronounced than Beijing’s, as revealed by its willingness to adopt junior status in the partnership with China.

While Russian leaders have traditionally prized autonomy and sovereignty, Russia economic ...