Moreover, because the “reset” is an American, rather than a mutual, construct, even the tactical areas of cooperation that exist today could prove fleeting. Astute observers have noted that there will be fewer areas upon which Moscow and Washington can cooperate in the years ahead—most conspicuously, with the end of war in Afghanistan in 2014. As a result, disagreements are likely to become more prominent and the bilateral relationship as a whole more acrimonious. ¹⁴

Indeed, ties between Moscow and Washington already appear to be fraying. A particular flash point has been the so-called Magnitsky Act passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in late 2012. The legislation, named after the Russian lawyer who died of medical complications in a Russian prison in 2009 after exposing massive government corruption, blacklists a number of Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky’s death from traveling to the United States and accessing the U.S. banking system. ¹⁵The bill has riled Moscow, which has responded with its own legislation, the Dima Yakovlev Law, which bans Americans from adopting Russian children. ¹⁶

As a result, policymakers in Washington are actively rethinking America’s relationship with the Russian Federation—and downgrading it. “The divergence of the United States’ and Russia’s core foreign policy objectives has left the White House with two strategic options,” Leon Aron of the influential American Enterprise Institute has written. ¹⁷The first amounts to a resetting of the “reset” policy on Washington’s part—a quest for more, and new, areas of commonality between the United States and the Russian Federation that might prove more durable than the current batch of issues under bilateral discussion.

The second, however, is the idea of a “strategic pause” in relations with Moscow, and a reevaluation of U.S. priorities in the relationship. ¹⁸Increasingly, official Washington appears to be pursuing the latter course. Despite ongoing diplomatic contacts between the two countries, mounting anecdotal evidence suggests that the Obama administration, having unsuccessfully tried engagement with the Putin regime, is now content to ignore it altogether. ¹⁹

American policy may currently be in flux, but the direction it ultimately takes will be informed by a fundamental reality: the Russian Federation is in the throes of a monumental transformation, the results of which will determine whether Russia emerges as a true partner of the West—or a mortal danger to it.

FUTURE IMPERFECT

Tucked away in a busy corner of the Pentagon is a little-known bureau known as the Office of Net Assessment (ONA). Headed by Andrew W. Marshall, the legendary nonagenarian strategist who has advised every American president since Richard Nixon, it serves as the U.S. military’s in-house think tank on a broad range of foreign policy and defense issues. ONA’s specialty, however, is a very specific discipline: the study of “alternative futures,” the different ways in which countries might respond to external and internal changes in an increasingly complex geopolitical environment. ²⁰

Russia is a country ripe for exactly this kind of study. Although the trend lines highlighted in the preceding pages may not be immediately apparent to casual observers of Russian politics, they are already exerting an inexorable pull on the country’s political direction. And while it is impossible to predict with certainty exactly how Russia will evolve in the years to come, several scenarios are plausible.

A STRENGTHENED IMPERIAL IMPULSE

Today the quest for renewed national greatness continues to preoccupy Kremlin elites and ordinary Russians alike. As a result, Vladimir Putin’s ongoing efforts to rebuild Russia’s geopolitical status (through military modernization, regional hegemony, and a nurturing of anti-Americanism) on balance have proven popular at home, at least for the time being. But the Kremlin’s current, “post-modern empire”—a web of influence and strategic dependencies extending throughout the former Soviet Union, into Europe and beyond—can go only so far. As depopulation ensues in earnest in the coming decades, the Russian government will be compelled to adopt an even more aggressive policy toward its former territorial holdings in the post-Soviet space, the Baltics, and Eastern Europe. This is likely to lead to new territorial conflicts along Russia’s periphery, as Moscow increasingly seeks to replace its current virtual empire with a tangible one and thereby prevent, or at least delay, its demographic collapse.

A CHINESE FAR EAST

Russia’s drive to absorb its former Soviet republics will be reinforced by its receding presence in the Far East. The area (which serves as a key part of the Kremlin’s energy strategy and the centerpiece of its Asia policy) is already being transformed by China’s relentless rise. Observers in Moscow note that China’s strategy is not one of outright conflict and that as a result, Beijing is not likely to go to war over the Far East after the expiration of its 2001 territorial treaty with Russia some eight years hence. ²¹

But even absent outright conflict, the PRC’s growing political and economic influence in the area will make Chinese dominance there a political reality long before it becomes a formal one. This advance is nearly inexorable, driven as it is by China’s internal economic imperatives—unless, that is, Russia is willing to fight for control of the territory. But, at least for the moment, the Kremlin does not appear to be prepared to do so. And because it is not, Moscow’s grip over the country’s distant east will continue to weaken over time, until it disappears altogether.

RUSSIA HEADS WEST (TERRITORIALLY)

The demographic trends now predominant in both “European” Russia and in the country’s distant east mean that the current territorial boundaries of the Russian Federation are not sustainable in the long run. Internally, a massive migration is already beginning to occur. Ordinary Russians—once constrained by Soviet authorities in where they could live—are taking advantage of their newfound, post-Soviet freedom of mobility to move westward, and are doing so en masse. The inhabitants of the inhospitable Far East are moving across the Urals to “European” Russia, where greater economic opportunity (and more temperate climates) exist. Those in the country’s west, meanwhile, are departing the nation altogether. As a result, several decades from now, the country known as Russia is likely to control a smaller territory overall, and its land mass is likely to be situated farther west.

ONE, TWO, MANY CHECHNYAS

A decade ago, it was still possible for the Kremlin to dismiss the Islamist insurgency raging in the North Caucasus as a distant and contained phenomenon. Today, it is not—because the conflict is spreading quickly. Russia is witnessing the beginning of a confrontation between a radicalizing Muslim population and the Russian state writ large. It is, moreover, an insurgency that will inevitably gain in strength in the years to come unless the Kremlin can craft a real, meaningful counterterrorism strategy.

So far, it has not. Instead, Russia’s leaders have engaged in a hard-power campaign against Islamic radicalism, hoping that overwhelming force will pacify the country’s restive republics. The failure of that approach is evident in rising Islamist violence in places like Tatarstan and in the proliferation of extreme Islam throughout the Eurasian heartland. This phenomenon will pose a growing challenge to the stability and legitimacy of the Russian state in the years ahead—a challenge complicated by Moscow’s counterproductive and Shi’a-centric policy in the Muslim world, which will serve as yet another source of grievance for the country’s growing Sunni minority.