The United States and its Unipolar Delusion: Implications for US-Russia Relations

Who would have predicted that 10 years after the disappearance of the Soviet Union, US defense spending would remain at levels characteristic of the Cold War? Or that the United States would lead a campaign to push the borders of the military alliance designed to fight the Cold War, NATO, ever closer to Russia's borders? Or that the energy reserves of Central Asia and the Caucasus, and the routes by which they reach Western markets, would be understood by Washington as strategic assets that should be denied to Moscow, for fear of Russia's growing influence on Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan? Or that the United States would relentlessly pursue the deployment of ballistic missile defense, despite the opposition of not only China and Russia, but also its own NATO allies? How can we explain this Cold War behavior in the absence of a Cold War enemy? […]

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