THE US-RUSSIA RELATIONS UNDER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

Abstract

The current study analyses the bilateral relationship between the US and Russia under the Trump administration. It is hypothesized that the US-Russia relations under the Trump administration deteriorated further because this relationship has always been the victim of narratives generated by domestic political discourse, media hysteria, historical inter-subjective interactions and actors' perceptions about themselves and others. Soviet foreign policy has been defined as driven by; its interaction with other states, a factor of externalization- in which fear of the external enemy was used to justify internal policy centralization, the USSR perception of self as the vanguard of Socialism and New Soviet Man identity (NSM). The US foreign policy on the other hand was driven by; a negative perception of communist ideology, the USSR's intentions, and the US perception of self and grand strategy as enacted in Truman doctrine- to support free people around the globe. Foreign policies of both states are defined as a function of social reality shaped by inters subjective interactions. The constructivist framework is used to find if the roles of ideas are crucial to understanding political behaviour, the construction of reality and its impact on thinking, belief and interdependence of states with other nations. The theory also purports the real world as a never-ending phenomenon of social construct. The analysis of foreign policies of the US and Moscow has been carried out to trace how historical events, inter-subjective interactions, and perception of self as “who I am” and “what other is to me” shaped reality, identity and interest of both states. Both actors are defined not as rational actors who are compelled by security needs but by ideas that triggered Cold War. The researcher adopted a qualitative method to carry out this study. This study aims to understand why the iv change of mind under Trump did not improve relations between Moscow and the US. It tries to answer the questions by gauging interactions, foreign policy priorities, and deep distrust engrained by media hysteria and Soviet reality entrenched in the domestic political discourse of the US that shaped Moscow as an anti-capitalist state. All these factors underline perception-of-self guided by historic norms create identity behaviour. The process thus institutionalizes norms, assumptions and habits of behaviour. Thus how this identity and interest defined relative to others hindered Trump's efforts to set thaw in relation.