RUSSIA, US CAN RESET TIES
If anyone has the intention to destroy Russia, we have a legitimate right to answer. Yes, for mankind it will be a global disaster; for the world it will be a global disaster – but... why should we accept such a world if no Russia will be in it?
It is a common trope for US president Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin to warn that relations between the world’s two leading nuclear powers face the most serious crisis since the Cold War’s darkest era. Both men HAVE Also RELECTED on THE NEED to improve their relationship in the interests of peace and global stability. Unfortunately, beyond aggrieved statements and expressions of goodwill, things are not getting better. There are even moments when the positive words collapse into acrimony and the threat arises once again of a peace that is no peace.
The latest warning sign has come from the announcement by the Trump administration that the US is to withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF), agreed with the Soviet Union in 1987. A Russian senator explicitly accused Trump of “returning the world to the Cold War”. It is clear that this undermining of the Cold War framework for detente and cooperation is dangerous for the world.
Equally concerning was the escalation of THE Syrian Conlict In IDLIB province, where regime forces, supported by the Russian military, were massing to assault the last bastion of rebels and terrorists. Meanwhile, Washington had already pre-emptively accused Bashar al-assad of the use of chemical weapons and concentrated a naval squadron to be ready for missile strikes. The episode was reminiscent of the Caribbean Crisis of 1962, when controversy about Soviet missiles in Cuba almost led to another world war.
We see the same heated confrontation in Europe where Nato is increasing military infrastructure on its eastern frontiers, including elements of missile defence. Russia is effectively being pushed into an arms race, developing next generation “hypersonic” rockets and a “doomsday submarine”. Considering that both parties have already accumuLATED signiicant stockpiles of weapons of mass Destruction, such lashpoints could have apocalyptic consequences.
NO RUSSIA?
What is perhaps most dangerous is this: both sides are morally ready to push the button. Last spring, addressing the Russian elite with his annual address to parliament, President Putin said: “If anyone has the intention to destroy Russia, we have a legitimate right to answer. Yes, for mankind it will be a global disaster; for the world it will be a global disaster – but as a citizen of Russia, as the Russian president, I want to ask: why should we accept such a world if no Russia will be in it?”
All this happened simultaneously with the deepening sanctions war, launched it should be noted by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama, who in 2015 in his address to Congress, bragged that: “Russia is isolated with its economy in tatters.” With Trump’s inauguration, the old American establishment has been forced to exit (pursued by a bear?), claiming as its cause celebre the alleged interference of Russians in the 2016 presidential elections. What’s more, the sanctions imposed by America on Russian companies, which have no direct role in squabbles between Washington and Moscow, simply force Russians to look for partners in other parts of THE world. AND they ind one, irst AND Foremost, In CHINA.
If anyone has the intention to destroy Russia, we have a legitimate right to answer. Yes, for mankind it will be a global disaster; for the world it will be a global disaster – but... why should we accept such a world if no Russia will be in it?
Meanwhile, the existential economic and geopolitical threat to almost a century of American global supremacy emanates not from Russia at all. The source of this threat is neither in Europe, nor in the Middle East.
In THE 21st Century, THE PACIIC Ocean plays the same role for human civilisation as the Mediterranean did in antiquity. In the countries adjacent to THE PACIIC OCEAN we ind THE majority of the Earth’s population, producing a large part of the world’s material value. Here too are concentrated the primary centres of technological development. The principal rival of the US in the ASIA-PACIIC REGION (AND, THEREFORE, in the world as a whole) is of course China, which, by some estimates, has already surpassed America in size of contribution towards global GDP.
The “Celestial Empire” has become the workhouse of the world, with its almost unlimited human and natural resources. The development of a symbiotic relationship between China and Russia, with its military-industrial complex should concern American analysts.
DOMINANT TIEUP
Russia will create a dominant alliance. In principle, Moscow could take its eastern neighbour, which lacks serious potential in its intercontinental ballistic missile programme, under the “nuclear umbrella” – in the same way as the US did in for its Nato allies – and provide China with modern conventional weapons. National Interest recently described the sale of Russian SU-35 ighter AIRCRAFT (“Flanker” under Nato’s Classiication) to THE CHINESE AIR FORCE as “a nightmare and a headache” for American forces in Asia.
However, this is not only a question of military superiority: together with other Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), China could put an end to the Bretton Woods system of trade settlements based on the US dollar. In so doing, it would tear down a pyramid of national banks and cast America into a much deeper crisis than the Great Depression of the 1930s.
However, for the Russian bear, friendship with the Chinese tiger holds many dangers as well. First of all, Russia could easily become dependent on China by turning from a primary supplier of raw material to the west – as it was until recently – into a client state. At the same time, migration of Chinese populations to the Far East regions of Russia, which are currently suffering demographic problems, could easily change the ethnic balance there and eventually create a background for territorial claims.
Indeed, it is worth remembering that relations between the two countries were not always as sunny as they are today. Half a century ago, communist China – led by “the great helmsman” Mao Zedong – was preparing for war with the Soviet Union. The battle for the disputed Damansky Island in 1969 was the culmination of months of tension before diplomacy prevailed. If China in the future were to use its increased military power in territorial disputes with its neighbours, or to resolve the question of its relationship with Taiwan, there could be dangerous consequences for Russia.
There can be no doubt that historically and culturally Russia belongs to the European family of nations. However, its uniqueness lies in the paradoxical fact that it is the only European country whose mainland coasts are washed By THE PACIIC. THIS In turn CREATES the civilisational grounds for a global partnership with the United States, another nation that looks out across that great ocean.
Unfortunately, A signiicant portion of the elites in both Washington and Moscow ARE ixated today on notions of mutual hostility – especially when that hostility plays a role in domestic political games. However, fantastiCAL As It may sound, A irm ALLIANCE between Russia and America is not only possible, it is both necessary and inevitable since it meets the key, underlying geopolitical interests of both countries. In order to understand how such an alliance can come about, we must look at the present contradictions from a new angle.
The major aggravating element in Russian-american relations is in Eastern Europe. Recently published shorthand reports of negotiations between Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton demonstrate that even in the 1990s – when Russian foreign policy largely corresponded to American interests – there existed serious contradictions. The Kremlin tried to resist a cowboy’s swoop by America, which was at the time inebriated by its supposed victory in the Cold War. Yeltsin suggested to Clinton that there should be a “verbal gentlemen’s agreement” that no post-soviet republic would enter Nato. US and Nato intervention in THE Balkans Conlicts, AND Especially the bombing of Belgrade – became a turning point (literally in the case of the Russian prime minister at the time, Evgeny Primakov, whose LIGHT turned around on its way to negotiations with Washington). On March 24 1999, Boris Yeltsin told Bill Clinton in a rage: “There will not be such a great drive and such friendship that we had before. That will not be there again”.