The Stakes of the Conflict
To understand the Russian-American proxy war in Ukraine, we need to know the background and the stakes. The war in Ukraine did not begin in February 2022, but in October 1853 with the Crimean War, when a coalition led by Great Britain opposed Russian expansionism. This rivalry between a maritime and a continental empire was exacerbated in 1904, when the British geographer Halford Mackinder postulated that the railway would strengthen Russian power to the detriment of the British Empire. The United States, which supplanted the British Empire in 1945, adopted the British vision. It implied the de facto subjugation of the Soviet Union. This rivalry had no reason to exist. The railroad that so worried Halford Mackinder could also be a link between the United States and Russia, as William Gilpin explained in his 1890 book The Cosmopolitan Railway. [The Schiller Institute took up this concept at a conference in September 2007 entitled “Eurasia-North America multimodal transport”]. Such a railway would benefit both nations. He was not listened to. Henry Wallace, Vice-President of the United States during the Second World War, shared this vision, to which Franklin Roosevelt was not insensitive. As fate would have it, Roosevelt died too soon, and the Democratic convention preferred Harry Truman to Henry Wallace.
What does Vladimir Putin Want?
On February 22, 2022, the day the Special Military Operation was launched, Vladimir Putin took care to state its objectives: demilitarization, denazification and neutrality of Ukraine. He specified them on June 14, 2024: withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, the Zaporozhia and Kherson regions, neutrality, denuclearization, demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. The strategic objectives underlying these proposals lie at the heart of the Russian-American dispute. They are present in the draft treaty for a European security architecture that Putin sent to Washington on December 17, 2021. The Americans turned him down on January 26.
This draft treaty architecture is based on the principle of the indivisibility of security, which stipulates that the security of one nation cannot be achieved at the expense of another—a principle enshrined in the 1999 Istanbul and 2010 Astana Declarations signed by the members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, including the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Great Britain, France, Germany, etc. The United States opposes this principle with another, that of the “open door,” which gives any nation the right to ally itself with any other nation regardless of the impact of such an alliance on one or more other nations—a principle enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris for a New Europe. [The Open Door Policy, the brainchild of Secretary of State John Hay, was designed to open China’s door to the United States in the late 19th century, treating all nations equally so that none would have total control of the country]. These antinomic positions do not augur well for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
Putin’s goal is to have a missile-free geographic area of security around Russia—similar to that enjoyed by the USA, with Canada to the north, Mexico to the south, the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. The media have distorted his words, implying that his goal is the domination of Europe. This is not true. His security objective is legitimate. The head of the German Navy, Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach, recognized this. Schönbach’s outspokenness prompted his resignation. It is in this sense that we should understand Putin’s remark about the fall of the Soviet Union, which he described as the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century because it upset the balance of power that ensured peace. His remark had nothing to do with ideological or childish regret, as the Western media suggested—a sentiment, incidentally, foreign to this rational leader, who is not prone to mood swings—but was a reminder of a truth known to geopoliticians.
A Poorly-Tailored Agreement that Satisfies No One
In the absence of a security architecture, Putin could content himself with a botched agreement to end a war that is costing him dearly, by being satisfied with the annexation of Donbass and the neutrality of Ukraine. This would be a mistake. This neutrality would be a facade. The United States would pursue its objective of dismantling Russia through a latent guerrilla war in Ukraine, or even inside Russia—the CIA has a great deal of experience in this area—which would sooner or later force Putin to invade Ukraine. For his part, Donald Trump could choose to make peace on terms that are not optimum, but satisfactory to Russia in order to carry out his MAGA program, but the American security apparatus (Foreign Ministry, military-industrial complex, intelligence agencies, etc.) would not accept such a peace.
This agreement, if it even exists, will have to settle the thorny issues of the Bank of Russia’s currency reserves frozen on Washington’s orders, the lifting of sanctions, the reopening of gas pipelines, the expropriation of Gazprom’s infrastructure in Germany, and the San Francisco consulate building, etc. Issues that should be addressed at the Trump-Putin summit, much talked about in the media. While it is clearly in both parties’ interests to meet, how much trust can Putin place in a nation that has so often deceived, and in a leader who wants to annex Canada, the Panama Canal and Greenland? Projects inconceivable in a rational, humane world, but possible in a world where might is right—the world we now we live in.
An Apocalyptic War
This war is partly beyond the control of the protagonists. From the Russian point of view, the war in Ukraine is an existential war. Defeat would mean the dismemberment of Russia and its disappearance from the planisphere. After the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan, defeat in Ukraine would be a disaster for the American empire. The conflict in Ukraine sounds the death knell for American ambitions, and puts an end to the West’s role in world affairs since the 16th century. Boris Johnson declared on April 12, 2024: “If Ukraine loses the war, it will be the end of Western hegemony.” It is a war that neither side can win or lose.
In 1946, Albert Einstein declared that the atom had changed everything except our way of thinking, and that we were therefore heading for an unprecedented catastrophe. Our leaders have probably forgotten this. John Kennedy declared, in his commencement address at American University on June 10, 1963: “For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.” The time has come to change our thinking so that we can continue to cherish our children.
