Legvold Summary

Both Dmitri Trenin and Robert Legvold offer intriguing perspectives into the relationship that the U.S shares with Russia. This weeks reading of Return to the Cold war takes a decidedly more disparaging look at the state of affairs between Russia and the United States. In his book Legvold asserts that tensions between the U.S and the breakdown of relations, that culminated through the crisis in Ukraine has led to a “new cold war” between the two countries. Legvold notes that there are five key components that are still very much at play regarding relations between the two counties.

Legvold understands however, that the use of cold war terminology is sometimes not particularly useful which is why he frames his argument based on five components. …show more content…
I do certainly feel that many of the statements he made are based on solid reasoning. Yet I do not feel as if his work is the best explanation of the state of affairs for our two countries. Throughout this week's readings I could not help but make comparisons to the work of Mr. Trenin in his book: “Should We Fear Russia?” Trenin’s argument is that whilst tensions between the U.S and Russia are unusually high at this time we should not make the mistake of leading ourselves to believe that this is another cold war. Trenin notes that at the core our two nations are much more likely to cooperate today as many of the fundamental differences and a complete intolerance for the opposing party's ideology does not exist. Furthermore I believe that Trenin’s argument is better able to account for the globalization and shift in power that has occurred since the Cold War. It is obvious to many that a comparison between the U.S and Russia is much more unbalanced than the comparison between the U.S and the Soviet Union. In fact I believe that much of Trenin’s analysis of Russian actions is spot on because he accounts for the lack of power that Russia poses on the world