As a Man Is, So Is His Company

Amid its confrontation with the West, Moscow faces the pressing need to reexamine its approach to alliance-building. This article claims that Russia needs to rearrange its preferential ties based on economic and strategic pragmatism. Given the rising tensions, Russia currently prioritizes resilience to the Western coercion, which largely relies on financial and technological sanctions. Russia’s partners that contribute to its resistance to Western sanctions get preferential treatment even though they may not meet formal alliance criteria. Thus, Moscow has to foster low-profile countersanction alignments. Meanwhile, the prospect of an armed clash with the United States and NATO makes one think about alliances that would strengthen Russia’s conventional deterrence. Formalizing defense commitments with China becomes an important prerequisite for addressing the increasingly reckless Western coercion. The traditional counterarguments against a Russia-China alliance appear obsolete now that the U.S. directly designates Russia and China as adversaries, openly expands its military presence at their borders, gears up military buildup, and mobilizes its allies. For Russia, an alliance with China would diminish reliance on the threat of nuclear retaliation and increase flexibility of its deterrence posture.