Systematic Development of Economic Diplomacy (On the Example of Relations Between the Russian Federation and the USA)
Authors:   Institute for Economic Strategies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Savoysky Alexander G. 
Published: February 2023

This article covers Russian-American relations during the presidency of Vladimir Putin and Joseph Biden. It seems that the worst (“bottom” and “freezing point”) in the development of bilateral relations, as well as the “witch hunt” in the United States (unidentified hackers who allegedly committed cyber attacks on state's and party's structures), was left behind. However, numerous (energy, monetary, diplomatic, cultural, and civilizational) crises have re-emerged between Russia and the United States. Only economic diplomacy and the political will of those who determine and implement the state course can solve them. Economic diplomacy presents today a certain interest and a scientific problem at the same time. The lack of a strictly scientific interpretation of economic diplomacy and the difference in the perception of its essence are explained by the different approaches of scientists to the goal-setting in the study. The most advanced direction in the methodology of political sciences was the epistemological and systematic approach to the description of economic diplomacy. This is largely facilitated by the study of economic diplomacy on the example of modern Russia and the United States - two world powers as centers of strength and influence, indicators of international life, and some kind of dependent antipodes in balancing economic policies in favor of America. The undeniable facts of our time show that trade or commercial diplomacy is only one type of economic diplomacy, among others; that the diplomacy of the dollar as a world currency is rapidly losing its former position in the attempts of the United States to launch the electronic world economy; that political decision-making on economic diplomacy must necessarily be in the realm of its theory and practice, and not in the field of economic policy and political economy (as the influence of domestic and world business on the country's policy and its state course, as well as the politicization of international economic relations, respectively). International life, world order, geopolitics, and the world economy today are in the forming stage of a new system of international relations and other mechanisms of coordinated interaction between the countries of the world. The scientific hypothesis of the article is related to the statement that economic diplomacy is an alternative to the obsolete model of liberal capitalism (with its crises, sanctions, the excessively long stagnation of the world economy, the decline of national economies, regional conflicts, epidemics, the pandemic, and all the ensuing consequences) and that the parallel development of the Western and Eastern systems of international relations in the future is possible. The article provides a comparative analysis of certain aspects of the 2021 national security strategies of the Russian Federation and the USA. The concept of the modern theory of economic diplomacy on the basis of its systemic nature was outlined, which was the main research issue.