Russia and American warships have rubbed again recently. Russia claimed to have expelled a U.S. destroyer that entered Russian territorial waters, while the United States claimed that the ship was sailing in international waters and had not been expelled from the territorial waters of any country.
The recent official withdrawal of the U.S. government from the Open Skies Treaty, while negatively treating the renewal of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and also has friction with Russia at sea, reflecting the trend of intensification of the military game between the two countries. Russian and American analysts believe that from the standpoint of U.S. President-elect Biden and his team, the future of Russian-American relations, which continues to hover at freezing points, is not optimistic.
Constant friction
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on the 24th that the USS John McCain entered the waters near Peter the Great Bay in Russian territorial waters on the same day and crossed the Russian territorial waters for “two kilometers”. The Russian anti-submarine destroyer Admiral Vinogradov warned John McCain and said that it might collide with her. John McCain then left Russian territorial waters.
The 7th U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet said in a statement on the 24th that John McCain was conducting “operation free navigation” in international waters and was not expelled from the territorial waters of any country. According to the U.S. media, this U.S. Navy’s operation in Peter the Great Bay is very rare.
Admiral Kravchenko, the former Chief of General Staff of the Russian Navy, believes that John McCain is obviously carrying out reconnaissance activities. Sivkov, president of the Russian Institute of Geopolitical Issues, said that John McCain may try to induce Russia to target her in order to spy on the operation of the Russian ship.
The Russian and American armies have been in constant friction in recent years. Military vehicles of the two sides collided in northeast Syria in August this year, injuring four American personnel. In December 2018, the USS McC Campbell sailed into the waters near the Gulf of Peter the Great, which Russia called “provoking and demonstrational”.
Historic low
Military friction reflects the tense relationship between Russia and the United States. Relations between the two countries have been deadlocked since US President Trump came to power. According to Russian officials, the current Russian-American relations are at an all-time low, and the high-level dialogue between the two sides has in fact been interrupted.
Koltunov, director of the think tank Russian Council for International Affairs, said that Trump’s promise to repair relations between the two countries has never been fulfilled, and the four years since 2016 have been the four years since the sharp deterioration of Russian-US relations.
Just on the 22nd of this month, the U.S. government announced its official withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty, which is signed by the United States, Russia and most NATO countries. Since the 1970s, the arms control treaty has been the core pillar of the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union and the United States and Russia, and the Open Sky Treaty is a success story of “cooperative monitoring” in the field of arms control. The withdrawal of the United States from the treaty is seen as another blow to the already fragile relationship between the United States and Russia.
As the U.S. government is about to change its term, analysts from the United States and Russia expect that the relationship between the two countries will remain difficult to improve in the future. U.S. analysts generally believe that President-elect Biden will take a tough stance on Russia after taking office, and tensions between the two countries will continue. Biden himself said in an interview with CBS in October that Russia’s destruction of the U.S. security and alliance system is the “greatest threat” to the United States at present.
Anthony Broncoln, Biden’s announced Secretary of State, has repeatedly criticized Trump’s “too weak” against Putin and advocated a tough stance against Russia, while Jack Sullivan, Biden’s announced assistant to the President’s national security affairs, has supported the supply of anti-tank missiles to Ukraine in response to Russia during the Ukrainian crisis. Rose.
Russian officials and scholars are not generally optimistic about the trend of Russian-US relations after Biden took office. Slutsky, chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Russian State Duma (Lower House of Parliament), believes that Russia-US relations will not improve after Biden takes office, because it will be those who have served in the Obama administration who regard Russia as the enemy of the United States to determine U.S. foreign policy at that time.
Former Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov said that there are many people in Russia who worry that Biden may take a tougher stand against Russia and expand the now-strict sanctions against Russia.
