On The Attempt To Pull Russia From China's Orbit: A Deep Dive On A "Reverse Kissinger'' Move.

• As discussed yesterday, a faction in Washington still harbors the illusion of weaning Russia away from China.

• A particular strain of thinking in Washington persists in believing that Russia can be pried away from China with a sufficiently enticing diplomatic offer—the “Reverse Kissinger.”

• This idea hinges on the notion that, just as Nixon and Kissinger capitalized on the Sino-Soviet split in the 1970s, the U.S. could today lure Russia away from Beijing by accommodating Moscow’s “legitimate security concerns.”

• The premise is fundamentally flawed.

• Unlike the 1970s, when China and the USSR were already at each other’s throats (culminating in armed border clashes in 1969), today’s Russia-China partnership grows closer by the day.

• Economic ties, military cooperation, and strategic alignment are at levels unseen in history, with Beijing serving as Moscow’s critical economic and technological lifeline post-2022.

• Consequently this “Reverse Kissinger” strategy fails to grasp the structural realities of the current alignment.

• The dependency dynamic is one-sided—Russia needs China far more than China needs Russia, making any pivot away a near impossibility in the foreseeable future.

• The crux of the matter that we shall unpack today is this: the U.S. and the West cannot offer Russia a better deal than what it currently receives from China—economically, militarily, or diplomatically.

Moscow is aware of the risks of becoming China’s vassal - but there are no good alternatives.

• Russian elites (senior security officials/ “Siloviki” faction, economic planners, and members of the oligarch class) recognize the risks of overdependence on China but have no realistic alternative under the current sanctions regime - they lack the leverage to chart an independent course.

• Culturally, many Russian elites remain far closer to Europe than to China.

• Their children attend British boarding schools, their wealth is stored in Swiss banks (or was, before Western asset freezes), and their yachts docked in Monaco, not Shanghai.

• Despite Western sanctions, when forced to pivot, they turned to Dubai and Turkey—not Beijing.

• Even Putin himself has voiced frustrations over China’s hardball tactics in negotiations.

• Russia’s internal security services, as recently as a few years ago, were still arresting scientists accused of passing secrets to China—an implicit acknowledgment of Beijing’s own intelligence ambitions within Russia.

• Needless to say, not how true allies behave at all..

• But none of this changes the fundamental reality: even if Moscow dislikes its dependence on Beijing, it has no convincing alternative.

• The West, and especially the U.S., cannot hope to outbid China in supporting the Russian economy—at least not without reversing every sanction imposed since 2014 and acknowledging Russian territorial gains in Ukraine.

• This is politically and strategically unthinkable.

Russia’s Long-Term Interests: A Multi-Vector Balancer, Not a Vassal.

• These cables have long argued that Russia’s optimal long-term strategy is neither outright alignment with Washington/The West nor subservience to Beijing - but positioning itself as a global “swing power.”

• A Russia that plays both sides, extracting maximum leverage from both Western and Eastern blocs, is far preferable to one locked into a junior partnership with China.

• However, under present conditions, this vision is unattainable.

• The war in Ukraine, Western sanctions, and Russia’s diplomatic isolation have pushed it into China’s orbit with no viable exit ramp.

• Let’s now unpack three major reasons for why this is the case: why Russia cannot be pulled out of China’s orbit anytime soon.