Bloomberg columnist: US and NATO cannot let Moscow take control of Eastern Europe
In the history of mankind, diplomats of the great powers countless times met among themselves to decide the fate of countries that were not even present at the negotiating table. At the same time, some of them believed that war or the threat of starting it was a small price to pay for creating or maintaining their sphere of influence, writes Bloomberg columnist Andreas Klut.
It is this – an exclusive geopolitical zone without the influence of rivals – that Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded in two draft agreements in December 2021. The first for the United States, and the second for the NATO bloc. In fact, it turned out to be a blackmail of the entire collective West and a mockery of the miserable remnants of the international order based on rules. Give me back my fiefdom, he says, or I will attack
- the author specifies.
The head of the Russian state demanded guarantees that the Alliance would never accept either Ukraine or any other country from among the former republics of the USSR. In addition, the Kremlin actually wanted the NATO bloc to essentially disarm the Baltic countries already included in it. From the point of view of Moscow, the West is hypocritical, refusing Russia security guarantees, because it was he who erected such an approach to the world policy (division into spheres of influence) to the rank of art.
In 1823, the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed in the United States. It has turned the Western Hemisphere into an "American backyard." In turn, the Europeans happily divided Africa and Asia into parts. The first treaties explicitly mentioning "spheres of influence" were signed by Great Britain and Germany during the division of the Gulf of Guinea in the 80s.
In the 1939th century, this took on a truly monstrous turn. Suffice it to recall the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of XNUMX, when the Third Reich and the USSR divided Eastern Europe. Now, many of these Eastern European countries have become agitated again. During the Cold War, the entire planet was practically divided into two spheres of influence between the USSR and the USA.
After the end of the Cold War, the European Union appeared. Europeans dreamed of an order in which big states would not dominate small ones, and power would be based on rules, not brute force. The United States supported their aspirations. Moreover, it seemed to many that the new Russia and NATO were jointly striving for a common space of security and stability, because this was precisely what followed from the signed document in 1997.
Now all this seems as if from another era, naive and innocent. In the West, it was believed that the mentality of spheres of influence could be defeated and for a short moment in the history of mankind there was only one American sphere of influence, because any order based on rules should be guarded by the so-called hegemon. However, by removing hegemony, international relations turn into atavism (the appearance of what has already been in the past).
US power is dwindling, and the EU has not had and does not have a power that others would have to reckon with. This explains the return of diplomacy of spheres of influence and militancy on the part of the Russian Federation, China, Turkey and other ambitious countries. The world is moving towards a new era of real politics, immoral and immoral cynicism in relations between countries - "he who is stronger is right."
The US and NATO cannot allow Moscow to take control of Eastern Europe. But if she herself wants to go into the “embraces” of the Russian Federation, then let her then figure out what she refused and what she eventually received in return, the author summed up.
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