How does potential energy describe whole interaction between 2 objects?

Question

I know that potential energy is energy associated with conservative forces. My text book says that "potential energy describes interaction between 2 objects", following that it means potential energy describes whole interaction with non-conservative and conservative forces. Is my understanding about this right ? And how does potential energy describes interaction ?

Answer 1

Potential energy does not describe dissipative interactions. It describes conservative forces because the negative of the gradient of the potential energy is the force.