By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 8/30/23
The NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine has been trending towards a stalemate since the beginning of the year after Moscow’s growing edge in the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” ensured that it won’t be defeated. NATO is unlikely to be defeated either, however, since it’ll probably intervene directly – whether as a whole or via a Polish–led mission that draws in the bloc via Article 5 – to freeze the Line of Contact in the event that Russia achieves a breakthrough and threatens to sweep through Ukraine.
The counteroffensive’s spectacular failure and the subsequently vicious blame game between the US and Ukraine strongly suggest that talks with Russia will resume by year’s end for freezing the conflict. Ahead of that happening, these wartime allies are frenziedly trying to convince their respective people that the other is responsible for this debacle simultaneously with formulating an attractive post-conflict vision of the future. The first is served by their vicious blame game while the second will now be discussed.
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who’s now polling third after winning last week’s debate and had earlier attracted enormous media attention for his outspokenness on sensitive issues, just published his “Viable Realism & Revival Doctrine” in an article for The American Conservative. Of relevance to this piece is his plan for ending the NATO-Russian proxy war. Liberal–globalist policymakers and their media allies responded with fury, and it’s not difficult to see why.
Ramaswamy describes the conflict as a “no-win war” that’s needlessly depleted Western stockpiles to China’s benefit. With a view towards more effectively containing the People’s Republic in the Asia-Pacific, he therefore suggests extricating the US from its proxy war with Russia as soon as possible. To that end, he proposes recognizing the new ground realities in Eastern Europe, ending NATO expansion, refusing to admit Ukraine to the bloc, lifting sanctions, and having Europe shoulder the burden for its own security.
The explicit goal is to “get Putin to dump Xi”, and that’s why he says that the quid pro quo is “Russia exiting its military alliance with China.” Ramaswamy is convinced that his plan will “elevate Russia as a strategic check on China’s designs in East Asia” if it’s implemented into practice, but the problem is that no such “military alliance” exists between those two. Moreover, it’s unrealistic to imagine that the US will “get Putin to dump Xi” since they’re good friends and their countries are strategic partners.
Having said clarified that, this plan does have its merits. From the Russian side, it ensures that country’s objective national security interests and gives it the chance to rely on the EU for preemptively averting potentially disproportionate economic dependence on China upon the lifting of sanctions. On the home front, Ramaswamy’s plan appeals to the pragmatic policymaking faction whose influence is on the rise as proven by the success over the summer of their policy towards India that was detailed here.
The timing couldn’t have been better. The US is looking for a “face-saving” way to resume peace talks like was previously explained, and the rising influence of pragmatic policymakers could lead to them overruling the liberal-globalists’ objections to this, though their rivals could still try to sabotage this. The enormous media attention that Ramaswamy has already generated, not to mention what he’s now receiving as a result of his proposal, could reshape the national discourse on the proxy war’s endgame.
Americans are becoming fatigued with this conflict but no one had yet articulated an attractive post-conflict vision of the future until now. Irrespective of Ramaswamy’s political future, his plan serves to spark a wider conversation at all levels about the pragmatism of compromising with Russia in order to free the US up for more effectively containing China in the Asia-Pacific. This can in turn facilitate the resumption of talks with Russia, especially if it emboldens pragmatic US policymakers.
The vicious blame game between the US and Ukraine over the counteroffensive’s failure leads to the inevitable one over who’s responsible for losing this proxy war, with all of this preceding America’s formulation of an attractive post-conflict vision of the future for its people and policymakers alike. The first dynamic is continually intensifying and making more headlines by the day, while the second is also presently unfolding but mostly in silence, and it’s this dynamic that Ramaswamy’s plan contributes to.
Accepting the impossibility of Russia abandoning its mutually beneficial cooperation with China and acknowledging that lifting the sanctions likely won’t happen either, the rest of his proposals could form the parameters of a potential Russian-American deal for ending their proxy war in Ukraine. That former Soviet Republic wouldn’t join NATO, nor would that bloc expand any further, and the West would de facto recognize the new ground realities in Eastern Europe while the EU bears the burden for its security.
Russia would obviously have to agree to some regional compromises too in that scenario, such as Ukraine’s privileged post-conflict relationship with NATO and the hard security guarantees that the Anglo-American Axis will likely provide, but these could be acceptable if its other interests are met. If there’s any movement in this direction, then it shouldn’t be maliciously spun as Russia conspiring to facilitating the US’ containment of China, but seen for what it truly is: Russia putting its interests first.
Total nonsense. Russia is not going to stab China in the back. They have established a partnership that serves their mutual interests. The world is undergoing a shift from a unipolar world order ruled by US hegemony (1991-2021) to a new multipolar world ruled by the “Global South,” which includes the rest of the world outside the US, Canada, Europe/EU, Australia and Japan. This is going to be a long, drawn-out process, and it will be messy. Such tectonic shifts in world power always are. What the new world order will look like cannot be known exactly at this time. We just have to hope that the world survives the upheaval, given the backdrop of the unfolding climate collapse and the ever present threat of nuclear conflagration. These are dangerous times.
How delusional you are Vivek are. The major players who have not shown any interest in such a plan are Ukraine and Russia. Especially Russia would not be interested in giving up so much of their strategic advantage and interests while having to put trust in the United States government. They are not fools, but looking like you and Vivek are if you are serious about such a deal.
How does freeing up Bliden to contain China help the European nations that we have weakened and robbed of their military hardware?
Sergey Lavrov (UNSC – April 24, 2023): “…no one allowed the Western minority to speak on behalf of all humankind.”
Here are some options for Putin in late 2021:
1) Completely ignore Russian history, strategic imperatives, military and economic security;
2) Demand billions in payoffs from Western criminals pillaging Russia society and resources;
3) Surrender unconditionally;
4) Abject grovelling in piss soaked pants.
I’m sure there are other ridiculous, unreasonably remote possibilities that received no consideration from President Putin. He chose restrained measures to return Eastern Europe to peaceful prosperity. Fortunately for Russians and Russia, China, and the Global South, they now have the opportunity to repudiate colonial history and abuse completely.
It’s typical of Putin critics to completely ignore the options US-NAYOYO had to avoid war and improve the world’s security and peaceful progress. First of all, would be honouring free and fair Ukrainian elections, and the will of their citizens for peaceful negotiations with Russia and an end to corruption.
Nelson Mandela : “Your duty is to work with human beings because they are human beings, not because you think they are angels.”
As for negotiations, Russia and China won’t even pick up the phone. Russia is seriously considering completely severing all diplomatic contact with Little Britain and Canada after their brutally stupid support of Zelenskiy’s Nazi war crimes, including the supply of monstrous DU anti-tank rounds to the AFU, attacks on the Zaporozhye NPP, and the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam. After TWO ABORTED peace deals were flushed minutes after agreement they see no point. Russia will now present the White West with a fait accompli, and wait for them to acknowledge reality.
George Orwell: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
The persistent lies of the Nazi Guardian are unbelievable. Russia launched its SMO in self-defence after US-NAYOYO had their monsters slaughter Donbass Russians with artillery and Einsatzgruppen death squads. They saw and heard Nazis planning an invasion to complete Bandera’s long-loved genocide. In fact, it was Zelenskiy’s stupid boast nuclear weapons would be acquired that made Biden’s War inevitable.
John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873): “I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally conservative.”
Describing Russia’s actions as aggressive crime are contemptible. Westerners should get the facts correct: by 988 Kiev was the founding source of Russian Orthodox Christianity, and a seminal root of Russian identity and nation. Catherine the Great added Crimea and everything else north and east to the Russian Empire in 1783. Since then Crimea has been a critical, strategic military asset of the Russian nation. The vast eastern and southern areas bordering the Black Sea will always be Russian.
GFW Hegel (The Philosophy of History): “What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
As we are going back to 1783, let’s see America give everything west of the Appalachians back to the First Nations and pay reparations for slavery. Haiti recently finished paying 90 million gold francs to France for freeing themselves from slavery in 1791. The UK won’t return looted Parthenon marbles. Like every other European Imperialist country, British “nobility” made noble fortunes from genocide, colonialism, piracy, drug-dealing, theft and slavery. The Golden Billion’s crimes stretch back hundreds of years.
Homer: “Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.”
The problem is not within the details of Ramaswamy’s plans, it’s in the spirit….Why should Russia trust the US – just to mention a few that I can think of since 2001 – it’s the withdrawal from the nuclear arms control agreements, ABM, INF and Open Skies, the failure of the West to live up to the Minsk Agreements and having numerous political leaders later admit that the Agreements weren’t taken seriously and only a tactic to buy time to arm Ukraine, finally most notably, the Trump Administration’s withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal, a framework negotiated by the Obama Administration….The US’ failure to live up to its agreements goes back for centuries to treaties with Native Americans. Simply put, the US lacks street creds with Russia and the rest of the world.
As Putin has stated, there is no reason to trust the war-mongers seeking to destroy Russia. Why would you trust someone with a dagger in their hand?