Tectonic Geopolitical Shift? The China-Russia-US Strategic Triangle in the Trump Era

Lyle Goldstein, Associate Professor, US Naval War College

Vitaly Kozyrev, Associate Professor of Political Science, Endicott College, Beverly, MA

 

Resurgent China-Russia relations have formed a new and major factor in global politics over the last decade and especially in the last few years.  The current world order has come to resemble in some disturbing respects the two distinct and hostile camps that characterized the early Cold War period.  Indeed, accelerating cooperation between Moscow and Beijing in the military, diplomatic, and economic spheres has been widely seen as a major threat to US national security.  While scholars have actively debated whether these steps toward enhanced strategic cooperation are merely symbolic and paper over major differences, few have challenged the basic premise that Middle Kingdom’s financial heft taken together with the Kremlin’s agile diplomatic maneuvers could form a significant challenge to the West.  However, the surprise election of Donald Trump may appear to disrupt the unfolding logic described above.  Undoubtedly, a rapprochement between Washington and Moscow that mitigates or even eradicates the sense of a “New Cold War” would impact on the other key lattices of the classic strategic triangle:  both Russia-China relations as well as the all-important US-China relationship.  This talk will draw on unique Chinese and Russian source material to evaluate the prospects for such a major tectonic geopolitical shift.