WASHINGTON, April 23. /TASS/. The United States and its allies should prepare an acceptable blueprint for engaging with Russia after the end of the conflict in Ukraine, Gerald Hyman, the senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in the article posted in The National Interest magazine.
Statements made by politicians regarding the rejection of ties with Russia are a serious mistake not merely because of inherent properties of Russia but also because of its relations with other countries, Hyman said. "International ostracism does not provide a judicious prescription for relations particularly for a country as large and important as Russia," the expert said. "True statecraft requires a sagacious perspective on long-term as well as immediate-term policies," Hyman noted.
Policymakers should not forget that Russia in reality is "an expansive country with extensive human and natural resources; a federation of republics, the largest country in the world spanning eleven time zones; really, a kind of empire in its own right," Hyman noted. The expert reminded about the history of Russia, its armed forces, nuclear weapons and systems of its delivery. "In addition, even if Russia could be ostracized from the West, it cannot be sequestered from the rest of the world, and although it would pay an enormous price were it to be isolated by the West, so too would the countries attempting the isolation," the expert said. "Finally, it cannot be in the US interest to see Russia pushed into the arms of China and thus find itself confronting two colossi rolled into one challenger. Russia is not some barely inhabited Pacific atoll, and it would be both foolhardy and arrogant, even self-defeating, to try treating it as one," Hyman added.
The expert suggested persuading the Russian leaders "to negotiate a tolerable resolution, and to provide clear benefits for doing so." A return to global commerce and an end to sanctions can be among benefits of this kind. Instead of having no relations, Russia "should be integrated as far as practicable into the European family not as a supplicant seeking the forbearance of its superiors," Hyman stressed.