America’s Russia policy has failed

By any number of measures, Washington’s Russia policy has failed. According to Western media, while ostensibly suffering from diplomatic and economic isolation under a U.S.-led international sanctions regime, Moscow has succeeded in challenging a wide range of American interests.

Coming up with a new approach on Russia should therefore be a top priority for either President Hillary Clinton or President Donald Trump soon after Jan. 20, 2017. So far, however, neither candidate has offered a vision that goes beyond the failed tropes of the past, with Clinton painting Russian President Vladimir Putin as a cartoonish villain and Trump viewing Moscow as an ally in-waiting, American magazine Foreign Policy writes.

This approach reflects the United States' policy towards Russia across three decades, author of the article believes: Washington depended either on the hope that Moscow can be fully defeated or that it can become a friend. But Russia is a major power on the world stage, and the next president needs to accept that Moscow cannot simply be defeated or contained in the emerging multipolar, globalized world order. It must be engaged through a comprehensive balance of cooperation and competition.

The next president will have to persuade Moscow to cooperate where cooperation is needed like preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. 

"But above all, rather than setting out to defeat or transform Russia, a new U.S. approach should deal with Russia as it really is," the article concludes.