Henry Kissinger talks about Russia

Venerable foreign policy fixture Henry Kissinger was the guest on last week's Fareed Zakaria GPS, and as you would expect from Kissinger the interview covered a lot of ground.

What I found most interesting was Kissinger's views on US-Russia relations. He argued that US interests and far more aligned with Russian interests than most people assume, and that there should be greater cooperation between the two countries. For example, he noted (correctly) that between them the US and Russia hold about 95% of the world's nuclear weapons, therefore any plan to reduce nuclear stockpiles worldwide should be a joint effort (makes sense). Kissinger also talked about the long borders Russia shares with both China and the Islamic world - two regions where the United States has its share of issues today.

I agree with Henry on this one - there should be far more of a strategic partnership between the US and Russia. For example, Russia has strong economic ties with Iran, which means they have some real economic clout with them, so Russia should be a natural ally in efforts to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

But the US has been bungling our relationship with Russia for years now by taking policy positions that unnecessarily provoke Russia. The proposed missile shield in the Czech Republic and Poland is one, pushing for NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia is another. Russia is dead set against both, yet the US keeps pushing for them to happen. In diplomatic terms it’s poking a thumb in Russia's eye.

And it’s for no good reason that I can see. It’s questionable whether the missile shield would even work, and even if for a second you assume it will, it doesn't defend against any legitimate threat. The only country that it could be used against is Iran - a country that has neither nuclear weapons nor missiles able to reach the US. As for Georgia, I've talked about their tense relations with Russia in other posts but the bottom line question is why is a close relationship with Georgia worth more than one with Russia? Frankly it’s not.

Yet US foreign policy has been to pursue these efforts that will do nothing to benefit the country at the expense of a useful partnership with Russia.

I'm sure that makes sense to someone in Washington DC.