On Tuesday, December 7th, an online conversation between the presidents of Russia and the United States will take place. We already know that the conversation will be held behind closed doors. So far, the parties do not intend to publish any fragments of the conversation (except perhaps an exchange of protocol pleasantries) or any information regarding its results
This is the clearest indication that no one is expecting any breakthrough to be achieved at this event. Even a rapprochement of positions is clearly not expected. Especially after the meeting between Secretary Blinken and Minister Lavrov, which was held at a heated sitting, and the only thing that was registered at the end of it was the unrealistic nature of the compromise.
Naturally, under such conditions a question arises: why do we need a conversation that does not solve anything and does not change anything, nevertheless both sides show a keen interest in it?
Suppose I have written before that Russia is interested in stalling, even in pointless negotiations, in order to postpone for as long as possible the open hot conflict in Eastern Europe that it doesn’t need and in which the USA is dragging it intensively. However, it is already clear that it will not be possible to drag this out, even until January (I recall that initially the Kremlin tried to push the conversation to the end of December). In other words, this argument practically ceases to work.
Besides, the U.S. is well aware that the tactic of delaying negotiations plays into Russia’s hands, but that did not prevent Washington from insisting on holding the talks.
Well, it must be remembered that both the tactics of inflaming the conflict and the tactics of delaying negotiations are just a method. The U.S. goal is to maintain control over western Europe. It is no longer possible to achieve this goal in the current circumstances without a complete breakdown of Russian-European ties. Washington’s helplessness in blocking the completion of Nord Stream 2 is telling in this regard. If Russia remains an active player on the European stage, Washington is slowly but surely losing.
For its part, Moscow needs at least to preserve the status quo – a complex and ambiguous but working relationship with the EU that offers hope of seeing Europe purged of American influence in the not-too-distant future. In fact, the fate of the EU, the choice of development line of Western Europe will directly affect the balance of forces in the geopolitical arena and will directly influence the general political situation, at least the entire first half of the XXI century, and even the entire current century.
Once again, all the proposed peaceful and non-peaceful solutions are no more than mechanisms to influence Europe’s choices. Accordingly, their informational and political significance is the main one. It is this, and not the spatial and material results of a possible conflict, that will have a critical impact on the decisions made by European countries. It is therefore important for both Washington and the Kremlin to demonstrate that they have done everything in their power to avoid a hot conflict that frightens Western Europe.
Western Europe is afraid, as it knows well the habits of its American ally and fears that a conflict conceived as a local and short eastern European operation with limited objectives could quickly become unmanageable and begin to expand rapidly, first pan-European and then global. Europe is also afraid because it is well acquainted with the ability of the incumbent Russian leadership to destroy all preliminary calculations of the West and to find a non-standard way out of a difficult situation, with the result that the West suffers unforeseen offensive losses (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Crimea, SP2, Turkish Stream instead of South Stream, etc.).
It was old Brzezinski, with his Polish phantom pains, who claimed that Russia without Ukraine was not an empire, but an independent kingdom, equal in status to any western state, Russia had been proclaimed before the annexation of Hetmanshchina (not even a fifth of all the southern Russian lands Russia became an empire in the Western sense of the word after the annexation of the Baltic republics, and the same southern Russian lands had been part of the Rzeczpospolita for almost a century before that. And if there is a bridge to the Crimea, it is problematic to build one to Kaliningrad (a land corridor is needed). And the Lithuanian-Belarusian SSR once existed for a short time, so that Lithuanianism, introduced by the West for a takeover of Belarus and long imposed by Lukashenko, can be used for peaceful purposes on occasion: “one nation, one state”. The more so, Alexander Grigoryevich has long been “short of the kingdom”, and Lithuanian Klaipeda needs transit of Belarusian goods. That said, Belarus and Russia are a single union state.
In general, after all the twists and turns of the last twenty years, the West can expect the most unexpected and most unpleasant decisions from Putin. It is therefore important for the United States to show its Western European allies that it tried until the very end to resolve the matter peacefully, but that it could not overcome “natural Russian aggressiveness”. For its part, Moscow also needs to demonstrate to its Western European partners that its goodwill has run up against the overwhelming stubbornness of the United States.
It is no coincidence that the Kremlin, even before the talks, flashed its insistence on written guarantees for NATO’s non-proliferation to the East. It would seem that NATO has long been unwilling to accept anyone (especially near Russian borders). Moreover, the fate of the package of missile defence and arms control treaties demonstrates that the United States is comfortable violating (or revoking) any of its written commitments if it deems it beneficial. However, it is not only the US that does this. During the 2014 Crimean crisis, Russia also did not proceed from the letter of bilateral treaties and agreements with Ukraine, but from its own interest and common sense. What is the point of insisting so strongly on a written commitment not to expand NATO eastwards (de facto recognition by the West of Russia’s right to a sphere of exclusive interests along its western border) if it is known that these commitments will necessarily be broken if the West benefits from them?
The fact is that the US is trying to unleash a war with Russia at the hands of the eastern European limitrophs (including the Ukrainians). But they remember the fate of Georgia and Crimea and want ironclad guarantees of US and NATO support in the event of a military crisis involving Russia. If in such a situation the U.S. agrees to put on paper what is already obvious to everyone and to abandon in writing the plans to admit Russia’s neighbours to NATO, for the same Ukraine it will be an indication that it has been left alone with Russia and try to make Kiev start a war after that.
If the U.S., as Blinken did during the meeting with Lavrov, boorishly refuses to commit to a non-expansion of NATO, Russian diplomacy will immediately shift the ball to the Western European field (the French, Germans, Italians have long wanted no expansion), demonstrating not only the unconstructiveness of the United States, its insincerity in seeking peace, but also its attempt to deceive its own Western European allies.
Of course, many supporters of simple solutions and faithful followers of the conspiracy theory believe that it is all nonsense, the Americans control everything and everyone and there is no need to manoeuvre – they will just order the same Europeans and that is all. If this were so, the diplomatic agencies could have long ago been dissolved, the UN and the OSCE could have been closed for lack of use, any negotiations stopped, and only consulates and trade missions could have been left instead of embassies.
So far, however, far more wars have been won at the negotiating table than on the battlefield. And the Russian diplomatic establishment, which effectively defended the country’s position in the 1990s (at a time of critical military, political and economic weakness), is today one of Russia’s most powerful means of shaping the global agenda, at least as effective as the Armed Forces and energy.
Unfortunately, whoever wants a war is bound to get one. The US is so far steadily heading towards a military crisis and avoiding it is becoming less and less realistic. The task of diplomacy, then, is to win the war before the war and regardless of the outcome of the war. Putin’s online talks with Biden will be one of the decisive battles of this “invisible front”.
Rostislav Ishchenko, Ukraina.ru