The Bear and the Eagle
Through 250 years of good times, and bad
When Europeans today express shock at any U.S.–Russian rapprochement, as if the United States had betrayed a sacred order or “special relationship,” it is worth remembering that friendly terms are not an aberration but part of a much longer tradition of pragmatic cooperation.For over two centuries, the United States and Russia have often found themselves on the same side of history.
Periods of tension — the Cold War, and Afghanistan most obviously — were real, but framed in ideological rather than deeply historical terms, and even then, détente and cooperation occurred at crucial points.
What shocks many elites in Europe most, is not a single summit itself, but that it unmasks a continuity — the fact that Washington and Moscow, despite rhetoric, have a long record of practical cooperation in diplomacy, trade, exploration, science, and culture.
A few highlights from the first 250 years:
- The American Revolution (1776–83), Russia refused to aid Britain and helped frustrate British naval supremacy, indirectly supporting the US war of independence. Russia under Catherine the Great refused british requests to support Britain militarily and even spearheaded the League of Armed Neutrality, which hindered Britain’s blockade and naval power, thus indirectly helping the American cause.
- During the Napoleonic Wars (1812–14), while Britain fought Napoleon in Europe, it also invaded the young United States - then far less populous than the UK - and burned Washington in 1814, hardly the act of a timeless “protector.” Russia, meanwhile, was not hostile, and relations with the young republic remained friendly. Both nations saw Britain as a hostile power.
- Arctic cooperation: Throughout the 19th century, American whalers and Russian traders interacted in the Pacific and Arctic.
- Crimean War (1853–56): The U.S. stood apart from Britain and France’s attack on Russia. U.S. press and public opinion strongly favored Russia against Britain and France. Washington welcomed Russian warships into American ports, and Russian fleets wintered in New York and San Francisco during the war, signaling sympathy for Russia’s position.
- During the American Civil War (1861–65), Russia sent naval squadrons to New York and San Francisco in 1863, an act widely interpreted as support for the Union - and long remembered with gratitude.
- Alaska Purchase (1867): The U.S. bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. It remains a major example of pragmatic, peaceful cooperation and transfer of territory.
- Russian literature in America: U.S. readers have embraced Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, who influenced American writers, from Hemingway to Faulkner.
- In the First World War, both Russia and the U.S. entered on the allied side against Germany and Austria-Hungary, until Russia’s exit after 1917.
- Famine relief (1921–23): During the Russian famine, Herbert Hoover’s American Relief Administration fed millions in Soviet Russia. This is one of the largest humanitarian aid efforts in history.
- In the Second World War, the Soviet Union bore the main burden of defeating Hitler on land, while the U.S. provided enormous industrial and military support through the Lend-Lease program bringing the USSR trucks, planes, food, and raw materials, this cooperation was decisive.
- Jazz diplomacy (1950s–60s): Jazz musicians like Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman toured the USSR, and Soviet musicians admired American jazz and musical developments.
- Academic exchanges: Even at the height of the Cold War, programs like the Fulbright exchanges and Soviet-American student exchanges existed.
- Space cooperation (1975 onwards): the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (1975), where American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts docked in orbit and shook hands. This set the stage for decades of cooperation, where the U.S. bought amongst else rocket engines from Russia.
- Grain Deals (1970s–80s): During the Cold War, the U.S. became one of the Soviet Union’s largest suppliers of wheat and corn. This was vital to Soviet food security, and symbolized a pragmatic “grain détente.”
- Energy cooperation (1990s–2000s): After the Soviet collapse, U.S. oil companies invested in Russian projects, e.g., Sakhalin Island.
- International Space Station (ISS): Since the 1990s, Russia and the U.S., even when political tensions spiked, astronauts and cosmonauts continued working side by side.
These are not isolated incidents. They show that the “natural” enmity often assumed between Russia and America is in fact recent and contingent, largely an inheritance of the relatively short Cold War, which ended some 35 years ago.
It’s complicated..
By contrast, U.S. - European relations have often been more complicated than today’s narrative suggests. Britain twice fought the United States in the early republic, including the burning of Washington in 1814. France’s role in North America ended in the Napoleonic Wars, and French and U.S. policies clashed repeatedly in the 19th century. The U.S. and the UK were allies in two world wars, at a high cost - in Britain’s darkest hours, – by signing the Atlantic Charter in 1941 – Britain had little choice but to opening up to principles of free trade, effectively dooming its empire and global status. U.S. - European relations in the 20th century were marked by rivalry over vaning European empires, trade, and global influence.
Europe’s Recurring Warlike Impulse
If we look at the other side of the ledger, a different continuity emerges: the recurring role of continental European powers as instigators of massive conflicts.
- Napoleon launched wars that engulfed Europe and spread destruction from Lisbon to Moscow. His campaigns were cloaked in the rhetoric of liberty, but they left millions dead, and a continent in ruins.
- The British Empire claimed to serve its subjects’ needs, but held an increasingly resented grip on the economy and development of a quarter of the world..
- Wilhelm II’s Germany sought its “place in the sun” and plunged Europe into First World War - a war of empire, pride, and arms races that cost tens of millions of lives.
- Hitler carried this war-making impulse to its most horrifying conclusion, unleashing genocide and a war of annihilation that devastated Europe and much of the world.
- Even today, the EU, though cloaked in the language of peace and morality, has not entirely shaken off this impulse. Instead of acting as a bridge, it agitates for confrontation, through economic sanctions, military posturing, or ideological liberal crusades. What unites past and present eras is the recurring European habit of masking universalistic power politics as idealistic missions.
Napoleon claimed to bring liberty, The British empire law and trade, Wilhelm claimed to defend Germany and european high culture, Hitler promised a new order, a Neuropa, and today Brussels speaks of “European values” and propagate liberal democracy. The rhetoric changes, but the pattern is old: a self-appointed mission to reorder the world, which too often results in exporting disorder.
The Question of Moral Superiority
When Europe claims the mantle of moral superiority - and paints US–Russia cooperation as betrayal - history raises uncomfortable questions.
Was the Opium War moral? Was the partition of Africa? Verdun? Auschwitz?
These were all products of a supposedly civilized and advanced Europe.
This does not mean Europe is uniquely evil; rather, it suggests humility is needed before Europeans lecture others about morality. The continent’s history is one of brilliant culture but also of colonialism and catastrophic wars - both often rationalized as civilizing missions or moral crusades.
That is precisely why the global majority are skeptical to today’s rhetoric of European values.
Conclusion
If there is a lesson, it is this: U.S.–Russian talks recently revived in Alaska are not aberrations, but part of a long tradition of cooperation against Europe’s recurrent habit of plunging itself and the world into war.
To imagine the United States only as Europe’s shield, and Russia only as Europe’s foe, is to forget both America’s own history of conflicts with Europe, and the times when Washington and Moscow stood together to defeat the true madmen, who came not from Moscow or Washington, but from within the heart of Europe itself. Defeats for which Europe - and the world - ought to be grateful, not outraged or disappointed.