The Role of Diplomacy in International Relations: The Case of America and Russia

Introduction

Diplomacy is the art and practice through which states conduct official negotiations and maintain bilateral relationships spearheaded by authorized representatives. International relations allow world nations to live harmoniously with each other despite differences by ensuring that conflicts are resolved before escalating to war. There are numerous types of diplomacy, but the United States and Russia use about six, namely; coercive, science, cyber, appeasement, track II, and public diplomacy. Events like the first and second world wars were caused by serious breakdowns in international relations, as was the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States of America after World War II. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russia Republic took the mantle of regional leadership in far and near East, becoming a bitter rival of the United States. That bitterness has lasted to this day with aggressions and defiant stunts at the world stage, especially the United Nations. In this essay, we shall evaluate the role of diplomacy in relations between America and Russia. We recognize that diplomatic relations between Russia and the US are greatly affected by the MAD (mutually assured destruction) scenario born out of the arms race during the cold war. Moreover, the US and Russia are in a constant state of war and are occasionally involved in proxy wars.

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Coercive diplomacy

Coercive diplomacy exists as a tenet of diplomacy stratagem where a country uses their power to force other countries to do as they wish. Countries that have a certain sort of economic leverage against others often use coercive diplomacy to force their rivals to tow the time. According to Jaeger (2015), sanctions are some of the most important tools in coercive diplomacy. The United States is the world's most powerful military and economic power. It also enjoys a glorified position of the world superpower, holding great sway with world organizations like the United Nations Security Council, NATO, among others. The United States' UN mandate and veto power are attenuated by Russia's possession of the same, making it impossible for the country to use its position at the UN to subdue Russia (Blank, 2012). All the same, the United States has been able to use her power of persuasion and influence to punish Russia for their perceived crimes against humanity, especially in the annexation of Crimea, which was opposed by the international community.

Sanctions by the United States against Russia have seriously affected the economy of the latter by making it harder for her to conduct trade with world super economies like Britain, France, and their close allies. The beauty or true power of coercive diplomacy is that the economic sanctions imposed on a country affect the citizens of that country in a significant enough manner to induce internal pressure on the country to comply so that the sanctions can be lifted and the situation improved (Jaeger, 2015). Therefore, in a way, coercive diplomacy brings into play the merits of public diplomacy, which is a tad bit more effective, is getting the rival country to listen. Some pundits have even gone as far as calling coercive diplomacy gunboat diplomacy, but with a twist that involves the threat of financial ruin rather than military destruction (Kron, 2015).

Russia's lack of economic leverage on the United States makes it hard for her to use coercive diplomacy to pursue its foreign policies that are contrary to US interests. According to Shapiro (2017), the only tool Russia uses against the United States economy is imposing tariffs and harsh regulations against US imports to the country. Russia's main source of economic leverage is oil. As a major oil producer and one of the most influential member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Russia plays a critical part in determining the prices of oil in the world, and ultimately the state of the economy as many industrialized countries depend on oil and petroleum products to produce (Basil, 2011).

The other type of diplomacy that involves a country using their power to get concessions from other countries is gunboat diplomacy, which uses military power. According to Kron (2015), gunboat diplomacy seeks to achieve foreign policy objectives through conspicuous displays of military power and the subtle threat of annihilation should a country's conditions not be adhered to. Conventional gunboat diplomacy cannot work with relations between Russia and America because both countries possess enough munitions and nuclear weapons to ensure complete mutual destruction. Therefore, the countries focus on flexing their military muscles in their close allies and protectorate states, like Ukraine, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Syria among others.

According to Kron (2015), Russia also uses gunboat diplomacy against the United States to pursue its national agenda. As mentioned above, Russia and America would mutually destroy each other were they to be directly involved in a conflict. Therefore, the country uses underhand methods to undermine the United States' peace-keeping efforts in the Middle East region. The countries caught in the middle of these diplomatic disagreements may either benefit from military and financial aid or be sent into a downward spiral of violence and bloodshed that have lasted for decades in some cases. Ultimately, actions taken with the intention of gaining an upper hand in the international scene for Russia and maintaining their position as the most influential country in the world for America will probably never be resolved (Blank, 2012). Realignments are possible, seeing as Germany was America's bitterest rival in the first and second world wars, but as long as the countries remain opposed to each other, their actions at the international level are likely to be met with automatic opposition among the rival's camps.

Science diplomacy

According to Sher (2014), science diplomacy is the only area where the United States and Russia currently have very strong and non-confrontational relations. The International Space Station is a joint partnership between America's NASA and Russia's Roscosmos. However, the harmonious relationship has not always been friendly and cooperative. In fact, space exploration traces its roots to a period of intense tensions between the two countries- during the Cold War. The space race was one of the areas where the Soviet Union (Russia's forbearer) and America went toe to toe, funding expensive space programs to try to outdo each other in achieving feats of supremacy in spaceflight capabilities. The Soviet Union was first to launch the first artificial satellite to space, at which point the rivalry turned to a race for the moon, with both countries working to land men there throughout the 1960s. The United States won that bragging right by landing Neil Armstrong there in 1969. Soon enough, the highly developed technologies created for sending rockets into sustained orbital flight in the outer reaches of the atmosphere were modified for use as weapons to create long-range missiles and satellite-guided atomic warheads. The space race was a time of scientific rivalry, after which tensions cooled with the breaking up of the Soviet Union.

Afterward, science diplomacy emerged as one of the areas through which the United States and Russia enjoy close ties. Government-funded research into basic issues like health, agricultural sustainability, global warming, and other issues provided a platform through which policymakers could dialogue on key issues at the government level and substantially reduced tensions (Campbell, 2018). Such collaborations as in the signing of the Agreement on Enhancing International Arctic Scientific Cooperation in 2017 opened up new areas for cooperation between the two countries, adding to the International Space Station efforts where US scientists regularly travel to space onboard Russian Soyuz capsules (Berkman, et al., 2017). While cooperation in science does not do much to ease tensions at the economic and defense level, it contributes somewhat to the mutual coexistence of the two countries. The agreement indicates that issues of mutual interest, like the arctic region, can be used to bring the countries closer together, as its enforcement will require further collaboration and executive action for top-ranking diplomats and state financial institutions to fund the scientific collaborations. It also shows that possible compromises can be achieved between the two countries to end their decades-long rivalry.

Cyber diplomacy

In the past few decades, a new frontier in militaristic confrontations has emerged. It has been brought about by advances in internet communication and applications, giving countries the opportunity to further their foreign policy ideas without committing huge chunks of the budget to military and diplomatic officers. According to Gady and Austin (2010), the digital world is faced by serious threats of cyber espionage and warfare, an area where huge numbers of people and critical infrastructures like traffic lights, power grids, and security installations would be susceptible to attack. The seriousness of the cyber threat is that anyone can use hand-held devices and, given the power, do much damage to millions of people at the same time, or plunge large sections of the country into chaos.

Like science diplomacy, cyber experts from Russia have met consistently with their American counterparts to keep each other in check on cyberspace security (Grisby, 2018). A point of serious debate between the two countries is the very definition of cyber conflict, which Russia defines in a more militaristic way that the US. For example, the recent cyber manipulation of the electorate in America through misinformation, fake news, and trolling that is frowned upon by the US as a form of cyber violation is considered a matter of intelligence gathering by Russia.

Former President of the United States Barrack Obama cited lack of security for cyber installations and digital infrastructure for America's drive to enhance good relations with other countries in the cybersphere. Thus was born a new form of international relations called cyber diplomacy, an avenue through which governments can share ideas on improving cybersecurity and share intelligence on potentially harmful cyber intrusions from common rivals. Some collaborative efforts in cyber diplomacy include working together to create a United Nations resolution on bilateral efforts to improve cybersecurity. Furthermore, cyber diplomacy seeks to bring about seamless world internet connectivity (Gady & Austin, 2010). With their hands full dealing with physical threats to their territory and ground they protect, Russia and America would be overwhelmed with having to deal with the more debilitating and hard to defend cyber warfare that might otherwise erupt without safety measures. The two countries thus equally benefit from cyber peace.

However, efforts at cyber diplomacy have not stopped exploitation in a similar fashion to gunboat diplomacy- to further the interests of one country at the expense of the other. Russia is America's fiercest rival in cyber espionage, an area where, unlike open military confrontation, the aspect of Mutually Assured Destruction is avoided. It is easier to cause harm and manipulate a country's policies without showing one's hands, as was the case in the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 general election in America. The suspected 2016 Russian interference in the US presidential election further alienated the two rivals as Russia indicated a clear malicious intent to interfere with the democratic process of elections in America. The mishap has...