I have explained in a separate analysis that joint strategic resource investments after the end of the Ukrainian Conflict, particularly in energy and critical minerals, can assist the US in economically competing with China.
This vision aligns with the focus of the new National Security Strategy on securing critical resource supply chains, and it can prospectively be expanded to aid the United States’ allies, further advancing US goals.
After all, the bulk of the strategy documents Asian section isn’t about the US military competition with China (though a subsection details efforts to deter it in Taiwan and the South China Sea). It’s more about their economic competition and the ways in which America’s allies can help the West keep pace with the People’s Republic.
It even proposes joint cooperation “with regard to critical minerals in Africa” for gradually reducing and ultimately eliminating collective dependence on China’s associated supply chains.
Given Russia’s richness in critical minerals deposits, the central role that their development is expected to play in the “new détente” and the importance of these investments for advancing Washington’s NSS goals vis-à-vis China, it’s possible that associated projects could include Asian allies of the US. This could take the form of the US providing sectoral secondary sanctions waivers to India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and others as rewards for Russia’s compliance with a Ukrainian peace deal to incentivize joint investments.
Not only would this help the US and its Asian allies reduce their collective dependence on China’s critical minerals supply chains, but it would also help avert the scenario of Russia becoming disproportionately dependent on China, thus serving both sides’ interests vis-à-vis China. Furthermore, the proposed sectoral secondary sanctions waivers could expand to include energy and tech, which would unlock their access to Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 megaproject while also reducing Russia’s dependence on Chinese chips.
The resultant complex strategic interdependence would be mutually beneficial. US pressure along Russia’s flanks to the west (Europe), north (Arctic), east (East Asia), and potentially also south (South Caucasus and Central Asia, as proposed here) would be greatly reduced due to Russia’s newfound national security significance, brought about by its irreplaceable strategic resource and associated supply chain roles.
Russia has wanted this for decades, and it might finally be within reach.
Likewise, Russia would be incentivized to comply with a US-brokered Ukrainian peace deal in order to maintain this outcome, which also averts the scenario of its becoming disproportionately dependent on China – all while bringing tangible economic benefits..
The US and its Asian allies would essentially be paying Russia to comply with that deal and turn its de facto entente with China, in which it might one day become the junior partner, into just one of several near-equal strategic partnerships.
Through these means, the renascent Russia-US new détente could revolutionize the global economic architecture by removing China’s centricity therein, which would help the US and its Asian allies better compete with it, per their shared goal, through the help that Russia would be providing.
Significantly, Russia would also move from its present place on the periphery of the global economic architecture towards the core of that architecture, due to the importance of Russian strategic resources in this paradigm – thus reaching Russia’s grand economic goal.
