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The US-Russia relations are in a deep hole but neither side is interested in escalation, says Robert Legvold, Marshall D. Shulman Professor at Columbia University and former Director of the Soviet Studies Project at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in the interview to Panorama.am.

Commenting on the relationship between the US and Russia Dr. Legvold noted that they are today worse than they were during the Obama administration, contrary to President Trump’s initial assurances. The relationship has been stumbling into a deep hole over a range of issues, one of the major reasons for it being the recent US airstrike on Syria in response to alleged use of chemical weapons by President Assad.

“The real problem is not that the sides do not both want to see tensions eased and relations normalized, but that it is difficult to do this because of the nature of the issues that set them apart – conflict over Ukraine, the violation of the INF agreement by Russia as asserted by the United States, and now Syria and the confrontation over the chemical attack; these issues are hard to resolve”, – he said.

Dr. Legvold at the same time criticized the way the current stage of US-Russia relations has been portrayed in the US media. In reporting on recent events, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s Moscow visit, major newspapers (such as New York Times, Washington Post) and TV channels stress the negative – how bad relations are and how limited the prospects for the future. In contrast, lately parts of Russian media, particularly the main TV channels, he says, have adopted a more positive tone, noting not only the negative aspects, but also the emphasis Tillerson and Lavrov put on limiting the further “degradation of the relationship”.

Both sides, Legvold commented, seem to be saying, “We’re in a deep hole, and we need to stop digging; we need to figure out the way to begin digging out.” 

To the question as to whether the US strike on Syria was a single act or whether this was the start of the US military campaign with a final goal of removing Assad, as was the case with Saddam Hussein in Iraq (given that Pentagon recently awarded a contract to United Airlines for forcible removal of President Assad), Dr. Legvold answered that the strike was to punish Syria for using chemical weapons and to serve as a deterrent against their further use, not  a step to engage the US in the war either to remove Assad or to tilt the balance in the war as such. He believes that further US military actions designed to force the removal of Assad are not on the US agenda at the moment.

“The US position in its nuanced form, as Tillerson tried to express it in Moscow, is that we don’t believe there can be a stable future in Syria that includes Assad and his leadership. If there is going to be any kind of political settlement and peace, he has to go. But this is not to say that the US policy is going to be designed to impose or force that outcome. It is quite clear that the central players on the Syrian strategy Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis and General McMaster are very much eager to avoid an escalating US involvement in the war”, – Dr. Legvold noted.

He further stressed that neither Russia nor the US at this point want an escalation or military confrontation over Syria or anywhere else. However at the same time he does not rule out the possibility of greater US involvement in the conflict, despite their desires.

“For instance in case the Syrian side retaliates in some fashion against the American forces that are on the ground in Syria or if there is a combat incident between the air forces of US and Russia, that can lead to an escalation. When the Americans feel compelled to respond, the two sides begin climbing the ladder of escalation, whether they wish to be there or not. That is the risk”, – he noted. He recalled also that last year Sergey Lavrov and John Kerry tried to find common ground on Syria and a path to a ceasefire and then toward a political settlement. They failed, but Legvold thinks that it was not out of the question that the two sides could at some point try again.

As for the EU-Russia relationship and the prospects of greater EU involvement with post-Soviet countries Dr. Legvold believes that, if Russia and the EU tried to solve the issues constructively, in an ideal scenario they would try to reconcile the “duelling integration projects” of the EU and the Eurasian Union in a way allowing the post-Soviet countries to benefit from both organizations. 

“There relationships with both organizations that would make it possible for Ukraine,  Armenia, and Georgia to get benefits from both, rather than the current situation in which these countries feel it necessary to balance against the one or the other integration project. The tragedy in the Ukrainian case, which has pushed Russia and the West over the cliff and into a new Cold War, is that neither Moscow nor Brussels pursued this objective, at least not seriously enough. Both sides, however, may be slowly realizing that that duelling integration projects are not in the interests of Russia or the EU and certainly not in the interests of the countries that are caught in between”, – the analyst noted. 

Commenting on the foreign policy of Trump administration towards the South Caucasus, Professor Legvold said that because currently the attention of the administration is focused on China, Russia, Syria and Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia haven’t yet captured their attention. According to him Trump’s policy towards the South Caucasus will most likely not be much different from that of Obama administration. It will remain a function of US-Russia relations, so he thinks Armenia’s relationship with the United States (and no less with Russia) would be easier and more productive if the US-Russia cold war is eased.