AP Photo

The tension between the United States and Russia over post-Soviet Eurasia1 has significantly undermined the prospects for mutual trust and cooperation on global security issues between Washington and Moscow, as well as stunting the region’s development. Much of the rancor is rooted not in an inevitable clash of interests, however, but rather in the way the two governments conduct their policies in the region. Both U.S and Russian modi operandi, or at least the aspects that cause trouble, flow in large part from certain habits that have proven extremely hard to break.

Russian political elites can’t seem to help but treat bilateral relationships in the region of the former Soviet space differently from those it has with other countries; proximity, economic links...