According to a Feb. 5 announcement by the United States European Command (EUCOM) in Germany, the U.S. and Russia have agreed to re-establish high-level military-to-military dialogue. What this means exactly was not explained. 

Whether this renewed exchange will be deemed successful or not will depend on the expectations we set and the way in which we conduct it. I predict it will not be as helpful as we hope. But it will be better than not talking at all. 

As a specialist in the Soviet and later Russian military, while serving for 30 years in the U.S. Army, I participated in many such exchanges with Russian military counterparts — some confrontational and some cooperative. The back-and-forth is primarily an exchange of intelligence about strategic and operational capabilities and intentions. 

The Washington-Moscow military relationship is almost as old as the U.S. itself. But the historical record suggests we should be conservative in our expectations for positive outcomes.

In 1855, for example, the U.S. War Department sent a group of officers, including future Union Commanding General George McClellan, to Russia to gather information about the Crimean War, which Russia ultimately lost to Britain, France and Turkey. Having arrived in St. Petersburg, the officers waited months for permission to travel to the war zone before eventually being denied. Nevertheless, they observed Russian training and came back with Russian military texts on war-fighting, which were valuable for training America’s still young military. 

Of course, there was significant cooperation and dialogue during World War II, when both the U.S. and the then-U.S.S.R. were working to defeat a common enemy — Nazi Germany. But a lack of direct military-to-military communication between forces near the end of the war nearly cost American soldiers their lives. As the two sides approached the German town of Torgau on the Elbe River, Russian forces erroneously fired from across the river on the Americans. U.S. Lieutenant William Robertson of the 69th........

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