(02-05-2017, 05:09 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: And again you edit while I am responding.I don't see it as sound. Russia is an ally of Iran. Trump has said hostile things about Iran and has surrounded himself with advisors who want war with Iran. A war with Iran is nutty, but so was a war with Iraq, and we now know this was something the last Republican president discussed internally in their first weeks in office. I see no reason to disbelieve the speculation that the Trump administration is contemplating war with Iran.
I have been arguing with John about this, Russia and China HAVE been cooperating, and while there are certainly good historical/geopolitical for friction between the two, they have been making a good faith effort to set those aside, at least for the moment. However, the US can accomodate Russia's desire for a sphere of influence in the FSU and selected places abroad (Tartus, for one) much more easily than it can afford to accommodate Chinese desire for parity. Making an effort to do so with the former is unlikely to bring Russia on line to support the US bid to maintain hegemony directly, but it could buy neutrality and an end to distractions from the "pivot to Asia", and at the very least help to prevent active Russian assistance of China if things turn south.
Russia doesn't really like US hegemony, but I doubt it would like Chinese hegemony any more (and quite possibly a whole lot less).
So, like I said, I see it as a very sound geopolitical move, one I happen to support.
It seems to be that Chinese hegemony would be much more acceptable to the Russian than American hegemony. Recall that the hegemonic powers in the M&T scheme have been maritime powers. Typically they benefitted from a "flank" location that limited their vulnerability to direct attack. The Netherlands had a series of defensive waterways and fortifications that conferred great defensive strength, Britain is an island, and the US had a hemisphere as its sphere of interest.
China borders Russia, a land-based great power with an enormous nuclear arsenal, and India, with a population roughly similar it is own. China does not have the luxury of friendly neighbors allowing them to focus on power projection. They will have to remain a considerable land power. Thus they will need probably twice the military potential to match the US as a hegemon and are a long way from being able to act with strength in the Atlantic, or even the Indian Ocean. Russia, with its enormous size can source most raw materials internally and has internal lines of transport with most of Eurasia, and with its Iranian ally, with the rest of Asia and Africa. It need not fear Chinese hegemony. One the other hand, US hegemony was more of a problem for them because of Western Europe and Japan, which surrounded Russia with a majority of the world's military potential allied with its principal adversary.