How Could A Rapprochement With Russia Help The US Advance Its Goals Vis-à-vis China?

Russia could provide the US with reliable access to the critical resource supply chains that might be established on its territory, which the US requires for “outcompeting” or at least keeping pace with China, in exchange for the US reforming the European security architecture in partnership with Russia.

The Eurasian dimension of the Biden Administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS) focused on “Out-Competing China and Constraining Russia”, yet Trump 2.0’s newly unveiled one implies a rapprochement with Russia upon “expeditiously” ending the Ukrainian Conflict and then managing its ties with Europe. This revised grand strategy was earlier hinted at in the US’ leaked 28-point Russian-Ukrainian peace deal framework and the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) report detailing envisaged joint projects with Russia.

The question nevertheless remains of exactly how a rapprochement with Russia could help the US advance its goal of outcompeting China. To arrive at the answer, one must recall the attention that Trump 2.0’s NSS pays to minerals, secure access to which is listed among their top priorities. Under the “Ultimate Economic Stakes” in the Asian section, the document calls for ending “Threats against our supply chains that risk U.S. access to critical resources, including minerals and rare earth elements.”

Accordingly, a core part of Trump 2.0’s NSS is the accelerated reduction and eventual elimination of US dependence on China’s critical resource supply chains, which joint “multibillion-dollar rare-earth” megaprojects with Russia of the sort that the WSJ detailed could achieve. It would take time to extract them and build the requisite processing facilities, but it’s easier to source them from a stable and reliable Russia than an unstable collection of Global South states prone to coups, rebellions, and terrorism.

Western critics might scoff that the US would just be replacing dependence on China with Russia, while non-Western ones might worry that Russia risks embondaging itself to the US, but that’s over-simplistic. Both scenarios are possible in theory, but much more plausible is the one that the creation of complex strategic interdependence between them through these means resolves the long-running Russian-US security dilemma that’s at the core of the Ukrainian Conflict. Here’s how that could realistically work.

In exchange for Russia providing the US with reliable access to the critical resource supply chains that could be established on its territory, which ipso facto denies these deposits to China, the US can reform the European security architecture in partial conformance with Russia’s requests from December 2021. If Russia violates their deal by threatening NATO, the US would revert to containing it; likewise, if the US reverts to containing Russia without provocation, Russia would cut off its critical resource supply chains.

The US’ reported plan for “Europe to take over the majority of NATO’s conventional defense capabilities, from intelligence to missiles, by 2027” could facilitate a US-brokered NATO-Russian Non-Aggression Pact along the lines of what was detailed here, here, here, and here. The aforesaid sequence aligns with the goals of the NSS’ European section about “expeditiously ceasing hostilities in Ukraine”, “preventing unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablishing strategic stability with Russia”.

In that event, neither Russia nor the US would have a reason to violate their deal, thus granting the US a greater chance to “outcompete China” while enabling Russia to balance between China and the US for avoiding dependence on either and profiting from both. If the US passes up this opportunity or NATO ruins it, then the US will struggle to “outcompete” or at least keep pace with China, especially if Russia becomes China’s raw materials appendage for turbocharging its superpower trajectory like the US fears.