Wall and Wars

Introduction

Would the world be a safer place if, at some point in history prior to the meteoric rise of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, western countries would have been more inclusive of Russia? Examining American foreign policy, juxtaposed with the European, NATO, and Russian perspectives[i], there have been several points in history when a more mutually respectful relationship could have been cultivated with Russia creating a safer world order. 

The obvious starting point is the end of World War II.  Western countries selectively forgot that the Soviet Union’s collaboration was essential to ending  WWII. The USSR protected the Eastern front and attacked Manchuria thus diverting Japan from its assault on the United States, ultimately  sustaining significantly more civilian and military casualties than any of the allied forces.

The only recognition Russia received between WWII and 2020 was when President Franklin Roosevelt secured Russia United Nations member nation status and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. Four years later, to protect against a Soviet invasion, Truman quickly united with western Europe to create the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Every year Russia is excluded from the annual Remembrance Day program held on the anniversary of the Invasion of Normandy. In 2019 the Russian Foreign Ministry stated that Normandy “... should of course not be exaggerated. And especially not at the same time as diminishing the Soviet Union's titanic efforts, without which this victory simply would not have happened.

In response, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guerrero in 2020 acknowledged that WWII was “…one of the most epic struggles for freedom and liberation in history,” adding that “its cost was beyond calculation, beyond comprehension: 40 million civilians dead; 20 million soldiers, nearly half of those in the Soviet Union alone[ii].” The United Nations designated May 8 and 9 as an annual International Day of Peace in commemoration of all WWII casualties.

In trying to neutrally recount the truth and examine missed opportunities, “The historian’s task is not to disrupt for the sake of it, but it is to tell what is almost always an uncomfortable story and explain why the discomfort is part of the truth we need to live well and live properly. A well organized society is one in which we know the truth about ourselves collectively, not one in which we tell pleasant lies about ourselves,” stated English historian Tony Judt.

World War II

A paranoid and delusional Adolph Hitler started WWII on 23 August 1939 believing he would ultimately rule the world.

Hitler enticed the Soviet Union to unite by offering a post-war pact dividing Poland and Eastern Europe. But Hitler’s ultimate target was the USSR, which he saw as the center of the “Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy”.

Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill commenced talks with Joseph Stalin, Premier of the Soviet Union, in July of 1940. Talks were suspended until mid-1941 when the United States provided intelligence to the Soviets that the Nazis were on the move to invade the USSR. On June 22, 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The United States declared war.  The U.S.-Soviet alliance was marked by a shared hostility towards Japan. The combined events culminated in a genuine collaboration between the Soviet Union, United States, and Great Britain to destroy Hitler’s Wehrmacht army while simultaneously defeating Japan.

Roosevelt included the Soviet Union, along with the allied forces, in the 1941 Lend-Lease bill, formally titled An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States, which supplied warships, warplanes, and other weaponry, as well as food, oil and materials throughout the WWII.

U.S. government poster showing a friendly Red Army soldier, 1942.

Confident of victory, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met three times - in Yalta, Tehran and Potsdam - to strategize and broker an agreement on how to divvy up a post-WWII Europe. Stalin wanted control over Eastern Europe fearing that the west would invade the Soviet Union[iii].

Churchill, FDR and Stalin, Tehran, 1943. Credit: NYT Photo Archives

When the United Kingdom and the United States invaded northern France in 1944, the Soviets fought on the Eastern Front, ultimately defeating Nazi Germany. Japan, which refused to concede even after the dropping of two catastrophic atomic bombs, conceded eight months later after the Soviets diverted them by invading Manchuria and the Kuril Islands.

Soviet soldiers running through trenches in the ruins of Stalingrad

Without the remarkable efforts of the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front and in the Far East, the allied forces may not have emerged victorious.

The immense heroism of the Soviet troops is indisputable. Soviet soldiers were poorly trained, poorly equipped, poorly fed, poorly paid, dealt with lice, no soap or toothbrush, had almost nonexistent field medical care, and often suffered from venereal diseases. A letter written by one Red Army troop to his family lamented that “We are struggling through villages and forests … [our officers] drive us like cattle … winter has hit us, cold and hunger and typhus.” 

Although precise numbers of those killed are impossible to tabulate, the death toll exceeded 75 million, more than all other wars in history combined. On a per capita basis, Poland endured greater losses.

But, the Soviet Union suffered the largest absolute number of casualties in with over 35 million troops and civilians killed. Over two-thirds of those who died were civilians. Another four million Soviet soldiers were missing in action. Almost all died with their bodies left where they had fallen.

The Years Immediately After WWII                                                      

While Roosevelt harbored no illusions about Stalin’s Eastern Europe intentions, he hoped that if the United States made a sincere effort to satisfy legitimate Soviet security requirements in Eastern Europe and Northeast Asia, and to integrate the U.S.S.R. into the United Nations, then the Soviets might moderate its authoritarian regime thus becoming an international team player.  The United Nations was to emerge as the new world order.

This was the first time that inclusiveness could have been a path to world that would have been more peaceful. It could have prevented the 28 proxy wars fought and being fought from 1945 to the present.

Unfortunately Roosevelt died in April 1945, less than a month before the end of WWII, leading to the inauguration of Vice-President Harry Truman who abhorred and distrusted Stalin and immediately shifted the trajectory of foreign policy.

Truman focused on hard power rather than diplomacy whereas Stalin engaged in aggressive speeches and threatening gestures directed at Iran and Turkey between 1945 and 1947. It is not possible to say which came first.

On February 22, 1946 George Keenan, charge d’affaires in the Moscow embassy, transmitted the now infamous 'Long Telegram'; an 8,000-word diplomatic telegram to the Department of State. He asserted that the Soviet Union could not foresee “permanent peaceful coexistence” with the with western capitalist countries. Kennan believed the Soviets were actively trying to “weaken power and influence of Western Powers on colonial backward, or dependent peoples” even deploying its military to expand its territorial sphere of influence. The Long Telegram morphed into the policy of containment, which, while vacillating in degree in the decades to come, still influences American foreign policy.

Building on the momentum, Winston Churchill, on March 5, 1946, at a college in Missouri with Truman seated on stage with him, delivered his “Iron Curtain” speech proclaiming that “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” 

Stalin retorted that Churchill's speech was a 'declaration of war' with Churchill’s speech was the first shot fired in a Cold War which persisted through 1989, if not through the present time.

When the Iron Curtain fell, two walls, one literal - the 1961 Berlin Wall - and the other figurative - the 1949 NATO – would be created.

The impact on world order was immediate. 

The Soviets refused United States financial assistance under the 1947 Marshall Plan. To help rebuild its country, the Soviet government obtained limited credits from Britain and Sweden while coercing Soviet-occupied Central and Eastern Europe to supply machinery and raw materials.

Between 1944 and the 1949 establishment of North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO, four proxy wars were fought between the United States and Russia.

NATO, established by The Washington Treaty of April 1949, was ratified by the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Portugal, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. While the alleged primary function of NATO was Article 5’s provision that an attack on one member was an attack on all, it was really premised on a fear of communism.

In 1950, an isolated and angry Soviet Union became a nuclear power leading to a nuclear standoff a state of mutually assured destruction that continued until 1991.

That same year the Soviets attacked Korea prompting an immediate American military response. By the time a 1953 standoff was reached, there was a divided Korean peninsula, an enhanced feared that communism would continue spreading, and 2.5 million casualties.

In 1955 the Soviet Union and Eastern European ratified the Warsaw Pact, an organization rivaling NATO.

During the 10 years following WWII, 13 proxy wars started. Eight are continuing to date.

The Nixon Years

There was little in the way of diplomacy by the western countries with the Soviets until the Nixon administration.

President Richard Nixon’s stated in his January 20, 1969 inaugural address that the United States was prepared to engage in “an era of negotiation” with the Communist world. 

Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev went on to sign the 1970 Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). In 1971 the two leaders convened the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I), followed by the 1972 the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) and the Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, freezing both nuclear powers defensive and offensive strategic weapons stockpiles. In 1974 a mutual ceiling was placed on the number of offensive weapons.  The Soviet Union now had a nuclear arsenal less than or equal to that of the United States

Meanwhile in Europe, the six European Economic Community (EEC)[iv] member nations commissioned The October 27, 1970 Davignon Report. While supporting the slowdown in the U.S.-Soviet arms race, it simultaneously expressed concern that Nixon was jeopardizing the EEC’s political and strategic interests.

NATO’s May 1970 Rome Communiqué confirmed the ECC’s position that the “Allied Governments would continue and intensify their contacts, discussions or negotiations through all appropriate channels, bilateral or multilateral, and that they remained receptive to signs of willingness on the part of the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries to engage in such discussions. Progress, they said, in these discussions and negotiations would help to ensure the success of any eventual conference, in which of course, the North American members of the Alliance would participate, to discuss and negotiate substantial problems of cooperation and security in Europe.”

Brezhnev delivered a December 1972 speech outlining the Soviet’s new, more open approach toward the EEC, culminating in mutual recognition and negotiations intended to foster European détente.

This era is demarcated for the détente, for a shift to towards mutually assured stability, when in reality Nixon’s foreign policy was a continuation of the policy of containments, which Nixon privately viewed as a “means of disciplining Soviet power”.  

The unheralded achievement was the absence of any new proxy wars with Russia.

Impeachment Leads to President Gerald Ford

“A three-year U.S. presidency offers scant time to define an era in international affairs. When the president in question inherits a dominant secretary of state from his much-better-known predecessor and shows little of the command of world politics that would have been needed to wrest foreign policy leadership from the established expert, the likelihood that the presidency will be regarded as a defining moment is low indeed. It is therefore unsurprising that Gerald Ford’s presidency has been largely passed over by those working on the history of U.S.-European relations,” opined Piers Ludlow, Professor, London School of Economics. Professor, London School of Economics.

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger soothed of transatlantic rifts between the United States and the emerging European powers - France, Germany and the United Kingdom – leading to a growing number of multinational agreements.

Touted as the détente’s culmination, after two years of negotiation, thirty-five nations, including the Soviet Union, signed the 1975 Helsinki Accords ratifying Europe’s postwar status quo and creating an obligation to respect human rights. The Soviets violated the agreement post haste.

Carter, Brezhnev and Khrushchev

President Jimmy Carter and Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks or SALT II treaty on June 18, 1979, establishing numerical equality in nuclear weapons delivery systems. SALT II was never ratified as the Soviet’s invaded Afghanistan effectively bringing weapons proliferation talks to a screeching halt. The United States sanctioned the Soviet Union in 1980 for its involvement in Afghanistan by imposing a grain embargo, providing aid to Afghani mujahideen rebels, and boycotting the Moscow Summer Olympics.

Reagan and Gorbachev                                                                   

During President Ronald Reagan’s second term, Cold War tensions and endless proxy wars eased up in 1985 when Mikhail Gorbachev became Chairman of the Soviet Union. 

Gorbachev eased the fear of communism by abandoning the policy of military intervention to support other communist regimes.

He attempted to end an economic period referred to as ‘Brezhnev Stagnation’ by endeavoring to reach the same economic level of its western counterparts. To do so, Gorbachev implemented a dual plank of policy reforms: glasnost and perestroika. Glasnost means openness. He believed that economic and social recovery required the inclusion of people in the political process, requiring democratic reforms. Perestroika translates to a "restructuring" of the Soviet political and economic systems intended to stimulate economic growth while increasing capital investment. Capital investment was essential to overhaul outdated technology and structural economic change. 

Reagan supported Gorbachev’s shift toward a more democratic Soviet Union.

In 1990 Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But, Gorbachev’s shift towards democracy was not economically sustainable, and would prove to be not only his political demise, but that of the Soviet Union.

Dramatic Changes During the Bush Administration

After his inauguration in January 1989, President George H.W. Bush briefly suspended the détente, referred to as the pauza, while establishing his own arms control and Soviet foreign policy.

Major events came in rapid succession forcing western Europe and their NATO allies to rethink the ingrained policy of containment and to rationalize NATO’s continued existence.

The most significant event was the November 9, 1989 toppling of the Berlin Wall. It represented “a shift in the world balance of forces’, journaled Anatoly Chernyaev, a Gorbachev foreign policy advisor, the following day.

The predilection proved partially true. Bush and Gorbachev convened the Malta Summit on December 2, 1989.  One of Gorbachev’s aids later commented that the two leaders had “buried the Cold War at the bottom of the Mediterranean”. Bush’s memoirs stated the rapport built with Gorbachev that memorable day later proved beneficial.

By the summer of 1990 all Soviet satellite states had formed independent democracies. The first issue was a reunified Germany.  With the signing of the October 1990 Treaty on the Final Settlement, Germany was officially reunified.

“There is some evidence that Gorbachev conceded this crucial point inadvertently, when he acceded in May 1990 to President Bush’s suggestion that Germany’s right of self-determination should include the freedom to ‘choose its alliances”’, observed English historian Tony Judt.

Then came the issue of whether former East Germany would accede to NATO member status. The United States said little on this issue believing that the dissolution of NATO would lead to a stronger Europe that would be less dependent on the United States[v]. 

Bush brokered a compromise with Gorbachev who originally opposed unified Germany becoming a NATO member. The carrot was that no NATO troops would be stationed in East Germany; that Soviet troops would have three to four years to withdraw from East Germany; and that Germany would provide economic assistance to the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev continued insisting that NATO troops not be allowed within 300 kilometers of Poland’s eastern border. In February 1990 Secretary of State James Baker verbally acquiesced but it proved no more than an illusory inducement to secure continued Soviet cooperation. Gorbachev also unsuccessfully requested that NATO troops not be deployed the reunified Germany’s borders.

Despite fruitlessly engaging in several proxy wars, as well as conflicts with Estonia, Latvia, Armenia, and Lithuania, on three occasions in 1990 Gorbachev futilely raised the possibility of NATO membership[vi]. 

An unsuccessful August 1991 coup against Gorbachev by Boris Yeltsin sealed the fate of the Soviet Union by diminishing Gorbachev’s power and propelling Yeltsin and the democratic forces to the forefront of Soviet and Russian politics. Gorbachev resigned at the end of 1991 followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The newly created Russian Federation was more democratic, with federal and semi-presidential governance. 

Europe was left uncertain as to whether it should relinquish the protections offered by NATO or to be more inclusive of the new Russian Federation.  As Western Europe had no military, it had no intention on relinquishing the military prowess offered by NATO’s continuance

 Not only would NATO membership remain forever elusive, it has remained a figurative Wall standing Russia and the west. Had Russia gone through the prolonged NATO accession process, western countries would have had inside access to the workings of the Kremlin and could have held it responsible for adherence to democratic principles and the Rule of Law. Retrospectively, it was one, if not the most important missed opportunity for a more peaceful world.

As an entry point for Russia to enter the international dialogue, USAID was used between 1990 and 1992 as soft power to establish functioning democracies based on the principle of laissez faire in 14 Eastern European countries and the Russian Federation. Soft power resources are the assets, usually conditional financial assistance, furthering American interests.

Secretary of State James Baker, on September 4, 1991, articulated five conditions for USAID:

1.      Self-determination consistent with democratic principles;  

2.      Recognition of existing borders;

3.      Support for democracy and the Rule of Law;

4.      The preservation of human rights and that of minorities; and

5.      Respect for international law and obligations.

“Seduction is always more effective than coercion, and many values like democracy, human rights, and individual opportunities are deeply seductive,” wrote Joesph Nye, a political scientist who later served as Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton.

The European Union (EU) was created by the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. Under the restrictive terms of the Treaty the newly liberated countries of eastern Europe were preempted from joining the EU as neither their fragile democracies and adherence to the Rule of Law nor their convalescent economies complied with the EU’s strict membership requirements.

Advances Made by Clinton and Yeltsin

Despite exclusion from NATO and the EU, Clinton backed Yeltsin who he believed was essential to Russian stability and market reform, conditions precedents for democratic nation building. Clinton wanted Russia to become a democratic country fully integrated into Western institutions.

Initially he left management of the “ancient hatreds and new plagues” to Strobe Talbott, a journalist and Russian expert, whom Clinton appointed regional Ambassador-at-Large and then, in February 1994, Deputy Secretary of State. Talbott later recalled that, “By the spring of his first year in office, Clinton had become the U.S. government’s principal Russia hand, and so he remained for the duration of his presidency.”

             Political and Financial Assistance to Russia

During the seven years both were in office, “Bill and Boris” met eighteen time. “We’ll build4 the partnership on the basis of our friendship, yours and mine, and we’ll do so for the sake of world peace”[1] “I understand your point Bill, and I will act as you suggest I should, especially since this is part of past practice established between you and me, and it has never failed us in the past,” replied Yeltsin. 

Clinton used his political capital to help Yeltsin during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, and during the close 1996 presidential election.  Clinton was repaid several times over. Clinton negotiated the exit of Russian troops from the Baltic Republics of Estonia and Latvia in 1994; convinced Yeltsin to limit Russia’s sphere of influence in its “near abroad”;  stopped Russian from trading nuclear technology with Iran and India; expanded democracy and security in East-Central Europe; and managed the conflict in the former republic of Yugoslavia.

But Russia’s move to western capitalism was causing financial hemorrhaging and disenfranchising the masses whose support was critical to creating a sustainable democracy. Hence came the September 1993 $2.5 billion in aid via the Russia in Aid Bill to stabilize the economy, house decommissioned military officers, and employ nuclear scientists. More than 250,000 Russian entrepreneurs received U.S. training, consulting services or loans. The effects are still being felt today with 70 percent of the Russian economy privatized.

Source: William J. Clinton Presidential Library).

In June 1997, at Clinton’s request, Russia became a G–8 member. Russia’s foray into the Asia-Pacific occurred when Russia joined APEC in 1998[vii]. In 1998 Clinton convinced the International Monetary Fund to extend billions of dollars in loans to Russia[viii]. The assumption was that the country would slowly socialize into the norms of the organizations but assimilation was uneven and came without the scrutiny EU or NATO membership would have offered.

Clinton scaffolded on the monetary aid to the stockpiles of weapons. But many strategic long-range and theater intermediate range nuclear weapons were located outside of Russia in Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.  Following two years of negotiations, beginning in November 1994 the United States convinced the four former Soviet republics to assume Soviet obligations under three agreements: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) of 1987, and the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks Treaty of 1991 (START I). 

Working through the provisions of the Nunn-Lugar Act, also known as the 1986 Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program, the Clinton administration provided extensive technical assistance and funding to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan on safeguarding of nuclear power plants and dismantling of nuclear weapons. The CTR website states that, "…the purpose of the CTR Program is to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction and their associated infrastructure in former Soviet Union states."

Under the agreements post-Soviet successor states transferred or destroyed remaining weapons to Russia.

Clinton and Yeltsin continued the bilateral cooperation to manage the most tangible, and terrifying, relics of the Cold War. Together they deactivated/dismantled over 1,700 nuclear warheads, 300 missile launchers, 425 ICBM and SLBMs; strengthened security and accounting of nuclear materials; purchased 500 metric tons of weapons-grade uranium; and reached agreement for the safe, transparent and irreversible destruction of 68 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium.

NATO’s Partnership for Peace

NATO tried appeasing Russia in November 1994 by establishing the Partnership for Peace (PfP). Clinton characterized the PfP as a "track that will lead to NATO membership" and that "does not draw another line dividing Europe a few hundred miles to the east." The PfP aimed at building trust between NATO, other European countries and Russia. Yeltsin recognized “the readiness exhibited by the NATO countries, despite … difficulties, to reach an agreement with Russia and take into account our interests.”

Clinton was instrumental in creating the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council (PJC) to provide a Russia an official consultative mechanism to influence NATO policy, especially as the alliance expanded. As Russia could raise issues, but was deprived of any voting rights, the PJC faded into obscurity[ix].

Issues threatening to undermine bilateral relations arose over Russian military aggression in former Soviet satellite states. Clinton objected to the Russia’s involvement in the First Chechnya War, in the autonomous region of Chechnya, which raged between 1994 and 1996, during which Russia seized control of Grozny.  Russia’s actions caused the west to question its commitment to democracy.

During 1995, in Bosnia, part of the former Yugoslavia, a massive Srebrenica genocide was underway. When the United Nations Security Council refused to act, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, along with NATO, independently intervened. Yeltsin initially objected, but ultimately participated in the Bosnian international peacekeeping mission. 

The Dayton Agreement, which ended the Bosnian War in December, and the Khasavyurt Accord, which ended the First Chechen War in August 1996, heightened tensions.

At NATO’s July 1997 Madrid meeting three former Soviet satellite states — Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic — were invited to commence the protracted NATO accession process.

Less than two weeks later, NATO began bombing Serbia, Russia’s ally, in an effort to end its Kosovo military operations. Yeltsin’s objected. Clinton responded by including Russian troops in NATO’s Balkans mission leading to the 1999 end of the Serbian-Kosovo war.

Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic acceded to NATO in 1999 leading to a precipitous decline in U.S.-Russian relationships even though Clinton promised Yeltsin that neither nuclear weapons nor large numbers of troops would be placed in Eastern Europe. 

Although each initiatives had individual worth they never added up to a “a clear, convincing, and overarching purpose for the Atlantic Alliance,” wrote the European Commission in 1999 following a 50 year anniversary conference.

NATO had buttressed its permanent wall precluding a mutually respectful and trusting relationship between the NATO countries and Russia NATO’s exclusory expansion was perceived as an act of aggression by Russia.

“For fifty years, the main raison d’être of the Atlantic Alliance was, as NATO’s first Secretary General Lord Ismay so perceptively stated, “to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down,” continued the European Commission.

NATO’s exclusory expansion, which would only continue, was and is still perceived as an act of aggression by Russia.

The Rise of Vladimir Putin

Yeltsin suddenly resigned from office on December 31, 1999. He was replaced by his Prime Minister of three months and former KGB agent Vladimir Putin. Clinton’s initial reaction was “Of course, we have also had our differences, but the starting point for our relationship has always been how Russia and America can work together to advance our common interests”. That never happened.

“The Russian Federation, when examined as the antagonist, views itself as having been left disconnected from post-World War Two Europe. Russia believes itself to be irrevocably tied to Europe dating back to the Byzantine Era. When the Cold War ended Russia expected to be accepted by the West. This never fully materialized, leaving Russian President Vladimir Putin feeling dismembered. With heightening geopolitical tensions, especially in the European Union, it is critical to understand Mr. Putin’s long term strategy. When events over the last three years are examined together, not only does there exists a threat of conflict on European soil and cyberwar but, there also exists a very real threat to the Western world of another new genre of warfare: economic warfare.” (Lardner, 2018).

Based on centuries of history, Putin’s view is that Russia’s role is to protect all people of Russian descent no matter where they live, including across national borders. Putin felt that having once been part of the Soviet Union, that they had been wrongfully lost from their motherland. Putin has been effectively rebuilding lost relationships irrespective of NATO, the EU or the larger international community.

The pinnacle was the 2014 Russian invasion of the Donbass region in the Ukraine and the illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula causing international outcry; meaningless given that Russia holds a permanent seat on the UNSC, the place of last resort for international foul play and decisions of international tribunals (Lardner, 2016). The 2014 and 2015 Minsk Protocols, intended to resolve these conflicts, were flagrantly ignored by Putin.

On 18 April 2014 Putin justified the annexation of the Crimea by stressing the humiliation Russia sustained after so many broken promises by the West, especially statements that NATO would not enlarge a reunited Germany, with an emphasis on Eastern Europe and former Soviet satellite states. The decades of being denied NATO membership – or maybe the Russians even contemplated its dissolution - and the broken promises of not enlarging NATO eastward is deeply embedded Russia’s identity and objectives.

When the United States and European Union sanctioned Russia Federation for its annexation of Crimea it simply expanded its sphere of influence elsewhere by creating new allies in Eastern Europe, Asia and MENA, engaged in propaganda wars against any country having free and fair democratic elections, weakened democracies in eastern Europe countries which are flagrantly violating EU and NATO requirements, engages in endless proxy wars and has intensified cyberwarfare. The commotion created by the Trump administration and Brexit only made things easier for Putin. There is seemingly no end to the Russian playbook.

Putin not only touches a responsive chord among his constituents, who in recent years has earned him an average 67% approval rating.  In Eastern European countries, malcontent with EU and NATO demands, Putin’s relationships with heads of states strengthen with those citizens also giving him an approval rating that only continues to rise.

Conclusion    

Russia is more isolated than ever, with Putin knowing no limit to destabilizing Europe and undermining democracy there and in the United States. There are credible threats to the Baltic states, the Baltics and Eastern Europe looming large. Lithuania has even sent tens of thousands of booklets to citizens detailing how to spot a suspicious person and what to do in case of a Russia invasion.

NATO has renewed purpose given the threat posed by Russia.

Thirteen proxy wars are being waged around the world.

The existing world is not safe place.

But, maybe, just maybe, it could have been more secure place.

About the Author

American journalist Cynthia Flujt Lardner has published almost 70 articles on geopolitics, always standing for democracy, with an emphasis on Russia and China’s negative impact on global stability and security. This article was prompted upon reflecting upon if and when our unstable world might have evolved into a safer, more secure place.

#Russia #Soviet #Roosevelt #FDR #WWII #UnitedNations #AlliedForces #NATO #Geopolitics #ProxyWars #USSR #Churchill #Truman #Detente #MutualAssuredDestruction #MutualAssuredStability #NuclearProliferation #NuclearDisarmarmament #Breshnev #Gorbachev #Yeltsin #Clinton #Bush #Japan #Nixon #UNSC #Putin #UnitedNations #Historical #retrospective #CynthiaLardner

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[i] Individual countries each have their own version of what transpired in World War II. Many countries are trying to reconcile their versions of history to create one version. For instance, in Europe, “EUROCLIO is an International NGO that actively functions as a European wide facilitator for innovation and progress in History Education.”  https://ishainternational.wordpress.com/partners/euroclio/.

[ii] While there is no certain death count most resources found that there were at least 75 million casualties, of which sustaining 35,700,000 military and civilian casualities.

[iii] Paradoxically, NATO emerged four years after WWII for dichotomous reasons. 

[iv]  The EEC was created in 1957 followed by the European Union in 1993.

[v] Decades later, President Trump’s threatening attitude toward NATO validated this theory as Europe became stronger and more independent.

[vi] Boris Yeltsin later announced that Russia’s NATO membership was a “long-term political aim,” with even Vladimir Putin asking Bill Clinton and Lord Robertson when the Russian Federation was going to accede to NATO.

[vii] Membership had been blocked by Japan due a continuing post WWII dispute over islands in the north Pacific.

[viii]  By 1999, there was mounting evidence that much of the borrowed IMF loans were stolen by an organized criminal syndicate, including members of Yeltsin's own family.

[ix] Bosnia was the first time the doctrine, later known as the Responsibility to Protect or R2P, meaning that sovereigns must protect their citizens, was used to justify outside intervention.