The substantial fusion between the American political system and the rules-based international system has always generated special rents for the United States and its allies in terms of privileges, prerogatives, and authority. However, the tenability of an international order whose benefits are so unevenly distributed is being called into question, not only by a resurgent Russia, but also by the broader coalition of rising powers.

The US National Intelligence Council (NIC) acknowledges that the relative decline of the West, and the growing fortunes of the emerging powers, will pose a challenge as to how to accompany these transformations. Up until now, the United States has viewed this challenge in terms not so much of negotiating peaceful decline, but of preserving its position as the system-forming power and obtaining the acquiescence and cooperation of rising powers in addressing problems affecting its interests.

While there are perplexities about the long-term sustainability of the emerging economies, and differing assessments as to how the United States should react to the ongoing transformations, these perplexities turn to skepticism in the case of Russia. According to the NIC, the country is sapped by overdependence on energy revenues, slow progress on modernization, and a rapidly aging workforce. Western academic and policy communities seem to question even Moscow's status as a rising power. Moreover, further to the fall in oil prices and imposition of international sanctions, Russia entered a recession in December 2014.

As in the case of other rising states, Washington's preferred approach to Russia boils down to the question of how to make the country a responsible stakeholder in a US-led international order. The report of the 2009 Commission on US Policy Toward Russia illustrates with some clarity how this was the rationale for the Obama administration's Reset policy. A wait-and-see persuasion prevails as to the utility of more far-reaching accommodation, which appears to have given way to status denial, as underlying frictions have come into the open. Nonetheless, US leaders also realize that without Russia's participation, they cannot address some of the crucial challenges of the twenty-first century, including drug trafficking, energy, European security, Islamic fundamentalism and international terrorism, strategic arms reduction and non-proliferation, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, and China.

Although Russia partly builds its strength on the broader emerging powers movement, it also needs to ensure it is not left out in the ongoing renegotiation of power.