After a friendly start, relations between the Trump administration and Russia soon soured. Will this relationship remain strained?

Whatever Trump or Putin might want, US-Russia relations are set to deteriorate, as the forces pulling the two countries apart are stronger than those holding them together.

On August 2, U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.” With Trump-Putin relations agitated and China and the U.S. still lacking cooperation on the issue of North Korea, who will be the biggest loser amidst the superpowers? Who will benefit from the sanctions?

Soft power can reach goals through attraction and persuasion rather than threats of coercion or offers of payment. Information warfare can be used offensively to disempower rivals, and this could be considered “negative soft power.” By attacking the values of others, one can reduce their attractiveness and thus their relative soft power.

Successful conflict management calls for establishing a peaceful way of doing business. That approach emphasizes inducements, which may stimulate talks and reciprocal concessions; use of all three levels of diplomacy—official, nonofficial, and people-to-people; and actions on the ground that, by reducing tensions, reverse the momentum for conflict.

During his time in office, President Trump will relax and possibly abolish sanctions against Russia and mend the relationship between the US and Russia considerably. But the sense that Russia is a major threat and strategic opponent of the US, which needs to be contained, enjoys bipartisan consensus and represents mainstream opinion in US society. Trump must develop relations with Russia slowly and can only go so far; otherwise, his position will become untenable.

Unlike in the confrontation 1970s, China and Russia have established a comprehensive strategic partnership and see eye-to-eye on key international issues. The US and Russia, meanwhile, have many strategic conflicts and are unlikely to develop a close relationship, despite President-elect Trump’s possible wishful thinking.

Many factors will impede efforts by the incoming US president to create a warmer relationship with Moscow. But even if U.S.-Russia détente is around the corner, a reversed version of the “Nixon moment” — in which the U.S. holds hands with Russia to balance China — is not a logical outcome of this triangular balance of power. How China and U.S. deal with challenges in their bilateral relationship, from trade to the South China Sea, will shape China-U.S. relations in the next stage.

Trump could improve trust between Washington and Moscow by persuading NATO to slow the pace of its expansion or withdrawing troops from the Russian border, but even Russia does not imagine the new US government will abandon NATO expansion in a hurry. Nor will Moscow embrace the US at the expense of its relationship with Beijing. China, meanwhile, will continue to pursue a new type of great-power relationship with the US while seeking to work more closely with Russia, and look for more areas where their interests converge.

If big powers show courage and set aside their differences, and work together in a just, balanced intervention under the framework international law, they will not only help the Syrians out of hardship and avoid long-term instability in the region, they may also find a new way to prevent similar armed conflicts in the future.