The events unfolding today on the Polish-Belarusian border are compared by many even with the prelude to World War III. Because the organizers of the provocation with the Middle Eastern refugees are maniacally looking for the “casus belli” – reason for the outbreak of war in the form of large-scale hostilities
And this presentiment is very hard to shake off. Especially if one considers the seemingly insurmountable differences between the countries and the high degree of militarization, military psychosis and belligerent hysteria among the initiators of the process. And also the main reason for all this – the intensified struggle not even for the redistribution of the world or the desire for sole world domination, as it was on the eve and during the First and Second World Wars, but for the preservation of this very world domination. And the status of the sole leader and hegemon of the modern world, which the United States long ago assumed as the winner of the Cold War of 1945-1991.
One time is enough.
However, World War III is unlikely to happen after all. The historical and geopolitical context of the approach to war is very similar, but still not the same in the main. If only because all sober-minded decision-makers on the planet (even the ruling political regime of President Vladimir Zelensky in Ukraine, which is simply being pushed into this massacre) understand that such a war could terribly, trivially and irreversibly become the last in human history, if it escalates into a global nuclear conflict.
And the risk of escalation is bound to arise. And because neither the United States nor Russia is willing to concede victory. And because the nuclear capabilities of both countries are enough to destroy the planet several times over. Some are capable of doing it 10 times, some 20 times. But this “competition” – who and how many times can do it – is not that important, because, as you understand, once is enough to destroy life on earth. It’s scary logic, but it both slows down and cools down hotheads. At least it did until 2021…
Bargaining, it turns out, is appropriate.
However, there are, alas, all the prerequisites for a local confrontation in Europe that will culminate in a small war, as all the potential participants believe, which is a victory for them.
In the first place, of course, is the desire of the United States, on the one hand, to fight for Europe and Russia. With one main goal – to unambiguously attract them to its side, to make them allies in confrontation with its new main “enemy” – China. Or at least to secure Europe as the European Union and European members of NATO, while neutralising Russia.
Either by negotiating with it and making some concessions to it in geopolitical bargaining. Or by inflicting a local military defeat on the continent without the use of nuclear arsenals and at any cost putting it at odds with Europe. Close cooperation between Europe and Russia is as much a nightmare for American strategists and tacticians as is cooperation between Europe and China, or between Russia and China.
In this geopolitical “triangle” – Europe, China, Russia – there might be no place for the “hegemonic” United States to cooperate peacefully in their interests. And they can no longer survive without food, even if they wanted to.
So what can the U.S. do in the bidding? Right, to promise Russia to cede to it a part of the post-Soviet space. As a traditional zone of its influence. First and foremost, of course, Belarus and Ukraine, possibly Moldova (given Russian interests in Transnistria). Not to mention the republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia. And even the Baltics as well.
What are the US hoping for in a possible local war? Obviously, that with their help, their own allies would be able to inflict a local defeat on Russia. And, for example, to permanently wrest Ukraine, Belarus and the rest of the post-Soviet space from Russian influence, and then provoke further collapse and disintegration (fragmentation) of Russia, and its complete disappearance as a powerful geopolitical player.
There are no former hegemons
However, all these schemes have very little reality and many purely theoretical conclusions.
Firstly, because hegemons, especially former hegemons, do not give up their monopoly position so easily. Atavistic fits and phantom pains of hegemons will always push them to regain their former status. Proved by Germany’s behaviour during the First and Second World Wars, for example. And this is the main threat to the same Ukraine. The US is unlikely to agree to permanently return it to the Russian zone of influence if it has already tried once to use it as an anti-Russian battering ram and brush.
Secondly, the US has already effectively admitted that the world today is tripolar. This means that China can have its say in these games “for two” because it cannot bear to see anyone divide things up in the world without taking its interests into account. And China’s interests are now present in every corner of the world. Including Europe. And even in Ukraine, where China is its main trading partner from 2019.
And, finally, thirdly, the peaceful redistribution of the world among the most powerful can and always is hindered by third, let’s call them mildly, pretenders to their share of the world pie. Or at least crumbs from it. Especially pretenders from former sufferers of the above-mentioned phantom pains and convulsions of greatness.
The role of the aggrieved
In the current migrant crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border, such, so to say, “the offended of the past” have appeared in their pure form. First of all, of course, it is Poland, which plays for promotion and wants to revive some kind of “Commonwealth of Poland from sea to sea” and take more important position in Europe. Both in NATO and in the EU.
Turkey, which, as we know, is not just delirious about restoration of the “Great Turan” under its aegis, but also making concrete steps to this end. For example, on November 12, 2021 it helped transform the former Cooperation Council of Turkic States (CCTT) into the Organization of Turkic States (OTS). In addition to Turkey, the OTG comprises Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Hungary and Turkmenistan are observers; Ukraine wants to join.
Until 1991 Turkey was the only independent Turkish country that remained after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1922. But phantom pains of the Ottoman Porte, as we can see, have caught up with President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan. And it keeps on catching up: Erdogan is ready to interfere into the migrant crisis, threatening the EU with new descendants of migrants from the south. If they don’t give money again. Plus, of course, the influence in Europe, for which the Turkish president is also fighting.
And what is going on in the UK, which is in a feverish revival of its former imperial grandeur, lost, incidentally, after the Second World War? London is even ready to take direct part in the war between Poland and Belarus, for which purpose it sent 600 of its best paratroopers to the area of cross-border migrant conflict. In addition, the UK has been inciting Turkey, Poland, the Baltic States and Ukraine to take more decisive action, stopping short of telling them what to do or giving them military assistance (especially to Ukraine).
The point is that London, too, is hoping in this local war to pull chestnuts out of the fire at the hands of others’ servile and deceived limiters (from Poland, eager to become regional leaders, to the Baltics and Ukraine, about whose insignificance I do not want to repeat different words), to help the US and thus raise its stakes in the big game as well. Or even to regain the status of a more or less independent player. Also, I repeat, the phantom pains of an empire where, you know, the sun never sets.
It is these third forces, who crave satisfaction from modernity for past offences, that can push both Belarus and especially Ukraine to war today, which is generally intimidated by the fact that the migrant crisis is only a distraction from Russia’s invasion of Ukrainian lands. And in Ukraine, alas, there are forces ready to fight. And the only thing that seems to save Ukraine is that they are not ready to go to war alone, because they are scared. But they are waiting for unhappy allies.
Prerequisites for compromise
And the migrant crisis in Europe continues. Moreover, those who are interested in its continuation are prepared to exacerbate it with new migrant flows from the south of the continent – from Libya, Syria, Yemen or from the zone of possible conflict between Morocco and Algeria.
But there are also preconditions that the sides are ready to negotiate. Belarus is ready, for example, to transport all migrants to Germany, where the majority of migrant refugees want to go. In Germany, where according to its own laws, the migrant quota of 90 thousand has not been chosen, there are already lands and cities that are ready to receive those few thousands of refugees that have become the instigators of calmness and can turn into a “casus belli”. Iraq is ready to take back all those who wish to return home from Belarus. Iraq and Turkey are stopping flights to deliver migrants to Belarus.
Moreover, even in the Black Sea basin, which the US has agitated to the extreme by sending warships there for NATO exercises. The USS Porter was the first to arrive there with a cargo of Tomahawk cruise missiles, followed by the staff ship USS Mount Whitney, escorted by the supply ship USNS John Lenthall. They poked around Bulgarian, Romanian and Georgian ports, raising the hopes of Sofia, Bucharest and Tbilisi (another lovers and seekers of American freeloading in exchange for geopolitical aid) for no good reason, conducted exercises, and now headed for home. At any rate, the Mount Whitney began its crossing from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean today. The ship, according to an official statement of the US Sixth Fleet, “is leaving the Black Sea region after the completion of exercises with North Atlantic Alliance partners”.
Russia is also trying not to escalate tensions in any way. President Vladimir Putin, for example, did not agree to hold a reciprocal Russian naval exercise in the Black Sea. To avoid additional escalation. However, the NATO exercises were held under the close scrutiny of the Russian naval grouping, which outnumbered the groups of all the other Black Sea states there, who simply missed this fact of Moscow’s build-up of its force in the Black Sea.
And, of course, Russia does not need war. Not in Europe and not in the world. Not for Europe and not for the world. Neither local, nor – all the more so! – A nuclear war of annihilation. Because Putin, back in 2018, made a maxim about a nuclear possible war: “For mankind it would be a global catastrophe. For the planet it would be a global catastrophe too. But I, as a citizen of our country and as the head of the Russian state, in this case I want to ask one question: ‘Why do we need such a world if we don’t have Russia in it?'”
And the migrant crisis, aggravating the situation in the world and threatening with war, already has two peculiar symbols. The first is Russophobia and the terrible and cynical lies that accompany this crisis. It is when heavily armed Polish military officers in Russian language accuse of brutality the Belarusian border guards, who have opened the way for migrants to reach their dream – to Germany via Poland. Hatred blinds the eyes and puts the conscience to sleep, and in such a situation anything is possible.
Second: In the midst of the crisis in Europe, the Islamist Taliban movement, which took power in Afghanistan after the US and its allies fled the country, held a military parade in Kabul. And it involved hijacked US-made armoured vehicles and Russian helicopters. So when two strong men fight each other, a third may win. And this is not always good for the first two and for everyone else. Peace be upon the world, as they say.
Vladimir Skachko, Ukraina.ru