The United States of America and the Russian Federation: geostrategy of relations

The key aspects of the relations between the USA and Russia in the period since the end of the Cold War to the present have been considered. It is underlined that in the earlyyears of the post-Cold-War period, the Russian Federation took the course of rapprochement with the United States to resolve a number of security issues, primarily the reduction of strategic weapons. Washington and Moscow signed the documents declaring that the parties no longer consider each other as opponents. To this end, the parties established a strategic partnership to face the challenges of a new world order, in particular international terrorism. It is outlined that at in the early 2000s, a number of contradictions related to the expansion of NATO to the east and the deployment of the US missile defense system in Eastern Europe and the Far East arose between the parties. The European MDS (missile defense system) is capable of leveling Russia’s strategic nuclear forces throughout the European part of Russia to the Urals and breaking the existing balance of strategic weapons in favor of the United States. Later on, the fifth and the sixth NATO expansion took place. These were marked by admittance of the Baltic countries in particular. The situation grew even more complicated after the clash of geostrategic interests between the USA and Russia on the post-Soviet territory happened. It took its climax when Russia infringed Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014