Fyodor Lukyanov: Ukraine, Russia, and the West’s deadly miscalculation – INA NEWS
It’s all the time simple to really feel prescient in hindsight. I recall conversations from 15 or 20 years in the past with Western interlocutors – who are actually from unfriendly nations – on NATO enlargement. The discussions all the time started in a comparatively solemn method. From our aspect, we politely requested, why are you doing this? The bloc was creeping ever nearer to Russia’s borders, regardless of assurances that it was not an anti-Russian undertaking. Their response was equally well mannered: What are you speaking about? This isn’t directed in opposition to Russia. It is best to welcome having steady, democratic neighbors below NATO’s watchful eye.
After an hour, particularly in casual settings, the actual opinions started to floor. We warned, when you preserve pushing, you’ll finally attain Ukraine – and that’s inconceivable. That’s the pink line.
The response? Come on! You objected to Poland and Hungary, and you then accepted it. You had been offended in regards to the Baltics, and nothing occurred. What’s the distinction with Ukraine? You’ll get used to it identical to earlier than.
Our objections – “No, you don’t perceive! Ukraine is solely completely different! This is not going to be the identical; this may finish badly!” – had been met with amused smiles and condescending nods. We perceive your issues, however don’t fear, we’ll deal with it, their expressions appeared to say.
A Foretold Disaster
We had been proper. They had been fallacious. However that reality doesn’t make right this moment’s actuality any simpler. The drive to drag Ukraine into NATO – an irresistible prize for the Atlantic bloc – was not some last-minute maneuver. US State Division paperwork from the Nineteen Nineties present that Ukraine’s future membership in NATO was mentioned even because the Soviet Union collapsed. It was not a direct purpose, nevertheless it was a logical consequence of the West’s Chilly Struggle victory. Any objections that contradicted this logic had been dismissed outright.
The geostrategic miscalculations and vanity that outlined the so-called liberal world order are one factor. However what’s extra fascinating is why Ukraine really turned out to be very completely different. Why did these for whom Ukraine was simply one other chess piece in a grand geopolitical recreation fail to know its distinctive place? Or did they perceive however merely not care?
One interpretation is that the Ukrainian query is inseparable from the Russian query. The 2 are intertwined in an internet of historical past, geography, faith, tradition, and mythology. The battle between inextricable symbiosis and determined separation isn’t a contradiction – it’s a dialectic. Each try and outline one with out the opposite leads to instability. And every time outsiders tried to govern this steadiness for their very own ends, the end result was disastrous.
Western strategists have lengthy obsessed over the Russian query, all the time in search of methods to reduce Moscow’s affect. The collapse of the USSR offered a novel alternative to include Russia’s resurgence. What adopted was an try and reshape Jap Europe to the West’s benefit, with no regard for the implications.
A Fantasy of Nation-Constructing
All nation-building is a form of fantasy – a technique of self-invention. The land that’s now Ukraine has all the time been an area the place competing nationwide myths collided. And traditionally, these clashes led to bloodshed.
Every time, the battle resulted in a short lived steadiness, which lasted for a historic cycle earlier than collapsing once more. What we’re witnessing right this moment is just historical past repeating itself, however at an accelerated tempo. Three many years after the emergence of contemporary Russia and Ukraine, we’re reliving a condensed model of centuries of rivalry and realignment.
For years after 2014, Russia tried to persuade the West that its notion of Ukraine was not a product of propaganda however fairly a basically completely different cultural and historic expertise. Ukraine was not simply one other nation that might be absorbed into NATO with out consequence. However these arguments had been brushed apart. Western officers would nod sympathetically, however their expressions made it clear: that is simply one other case of Russian imperial nostalgia. You’ll recover from it.
The Street to Struggle
The true tragedy is that this battle was all the time going to be fought in Ukraine. Many had hoped to keep away from direct army confrontation. Maybe that will have been attainable if your complete world system had not fallen into dysfunction. This battle isn’t merely about Ukraine and even about Russia – it’s the results of the broader collapse of the liberal world order.
Because the post-Chilly Struggle worldwide system grew to become unstable, rising powers from completely different cultural and historic spheres – significantly in Asia – challenged Western dominance. The West responded by making an attempt to reassert its ideological and army hegemony. In the meantime, Russia, feeling cornered, noticed itself pushed to its limits. The battlefield of this battle grew to become Ukraine.
Two geopolitical crises have now merged into one. On the one hand, there may be the long-standing challenge of European safety, inherited from the Chilly Struggle. On the opposite, there may be the query of Russian and Ukrainian self-determination, which predates the existence of contemporary nation-states. Both of those points alone could be immensely complicated. Collectively, they type an unsolvable puzzle.
The battle that started in 2022 was supposed to resolve the primary challenge: the query of European safety. However because it progressed, the second challenge – the deep and inescapable Russian-Ukrainian entanglement – grew to become simply as central.
No Winners in a Draw
The way forward for the world order is not going to be selected the battlefields of Ukraine – until, in fact, occasions spiral right into a nuclear disaster, a situation that can not be solely dominated out. The world is far bigger than the confrontation between Russia and the West. That’s the reason the International South and far of Asia stay largely detached to this battle, watching from the sidelines as they pursue their very own pursuits.
However for Russia, Ukraine, and the West, there is no such thing as a escaping this battle. The end result of this battle will decide the longer term relationship between Russia and its neighbors, in addition to Russia’s function within the worldwide system. And one factor is definite: nobody is considering a draw.
This text was first printed by Kommersant, and was translated and edited by the RT workforce.
Fyodor Lukyanov: Ukraine, Russia, and the West’s deadly miscalculation
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