Sergei Karaganov
Professor Emeritus, Academic Supervisor of the Faculty of World Economy
and International Affairs, Higher School of Economics;
Honorary Chairman of the Presidium,
Council on Foreign and Defense Policy
Musings Before a New Round
Trump’s election has temporarily put our policy towards the West, including
the war it is waging against us in Ukraine, on pause. We did not react fiercely (which
was right) to the Biden administration’s rearguard provocations, while our soldiers
continued their advance, grinding Western mercenaries in Ukraine.
Now everyone is busy talking about a possible compromise and its forms.
Within Russia too, at least in the media, there are some excitedly discussing such
options.
A team of my colleagues is currently working on a major study and situation
analysis regarding recommendations for Russia’s long term policy vis-à-vis the
West. Without trying to preconceive the outcome of our deliberations, let me share
here some of my own preliminary considerations. They may prove handy in paving
the way for a broader discussion.
At this point, the Trump administration has no reason to negotiate with us on
the terms we have set. The war is economically beneficial to the U.S. as it allows it
to rob its allies with renewed vigor, upgrade its military-industrial complex, and
impose its economic interests through systemic sanctions on countries around the
world. And, of course, it allows the U.S. to inflict further damage upon Russia in the
hope of wearing it out and, ideally, crushing or removing Russia as the military-
strategic core of the rising and emancipating World Majority and a powerful
strategic support of America’s main competitor―China. Although this war is
unnecessary and even somewhat harmful for placeholder Trump from the
main―domestic―point of view, the balance of interests is rather conducive to its
continuation.
Let me put ourselves in Trump’s place―an American nationalist having some
features of traditional messianism but devoid of the globalist-liberal scum of the last
three to four decades and Biden’s involvement in Ukrainian corruption schemes.
Only three things can make this placeholder Trump bargain for an agreement that
will suit us. The first one is the threat of Afghanistan-2, that is, a complete defeat
and shameful surrender of the Kiev regime and the obvious failure of the U.S.-led
West. The second thing is Russia’s departure from a de facto alliance with China.
And the third thing is the risk that the hostilities may spread into the U.S. and its
vital assets worldwide with a massive loss of American lives, including the
destruction of military bases.
A complete defeat is necessary, but it will be extremely―if not
prohibitively―costly and claim the lives of many more thousands of our best sons
if is not reinforced by a more active use of nuclear deterrence-intimidation (see about
the nuclear factor below). Russia’s split from China would be absurdly
counterproductive for us: while the first-term Trumpists tried to persuade us to do
so, now they seem to realize that Russia will not agree to that.
The current European elites and European integrators need this war badly not
only for undermining their traditional geopolitical rival and taking revenge for their
defeats over last three centuries, and also because of age- long Russophobia. These
elites and their European bureaucracy are failing almost everywhere. The European
project is bursting at the seams. For more than a decade, they have been portraying
Russia as a bogeyman, and now they present it as a real enemy, as the main means
of legitimizing their project and retaining power.
In addition, “strategic parasitism”―the absence of fear of war―has grown
much stronger in Europe than in the U.S. Not only do they not want, but they are no
longer able to think about what it can mean for them. We have got accustomed
―since Soviet times and based on the experience of working with de Gaulle,
Mitterrand, Brandt, Schroeder, and the like―to view the U.S., not Europeans, as the
main instigator of confrontation and militarization of politics in the West. This was
not quite so, and now it is not so at all. It was Churchill who dragged the U.S. into
the Cold War when it seemed beneficial to him. European strategists (they were still
around back then), not the Americans, incited the missile crisis in the 1970s. There
are many more examples to cite. Today, the European elites are the main sponsors
of the Kiev junta. Having forgotten that their predecessors unleashed two world
wars, they are now pushing Europe and the world towards a third one. While
slaughtering Ukrainian soldiers, they are already preparing more cannon
fodder―Eastern Europeans from several Balkan states, Romania, and Poland. They
have started deploying mobile bases, where they are training potential Landsknechts.
So, they will try to continue the war not only to the last Ukrainian but soon to the
last Eastern European.
Anti-Russian propaganda that is being spread in Europe by NATO and
Brussels has gone far beyond that of Hitler. Even personal ties with Russians are
being systemically severed. Those who advocate normal relations with Russia are
persecuted and fired. Essentially, a totalitarian liberal ideology is being imposed.
Western elites do not even bother to show a modicum of democratism, although they
keep ranting about it. The latest example is the annulment of the results of the
presidential election in Romania, clearly led by a non-pro-Brussels candidate.
The European elites are not only explicitly preparing their populations and
countries for war. They even name approximate dates when they might be ready to
start it.
How can the insane be stopped? What is to be done to stop sliding towards
the Third World War, at least in Europe, and end the ongoing war?
All talk of compromise and truce boils down to freezing the conflict along the
line of engagement. This will give them time to rearm the remnants of the Ukrainian
army, and, reinforcing it with troops from other countries, start a new round of
hostilities. So, we will have to fight again, but this time from less advantageous
political positions. If the worse comes to the worst, we can and should present such
a compromise as victory. However, this will be a quasi victory, and, frankly
speaking, the West’s victory. This is how it will be seen around the world and by
many in our country, too.
I will not name all the ways of avoiding such a scenario. I will only name
some of the most important ones. First of all, we must finally tell ourselves, the
world and our opponents the obvious: Europe is the source of all the main troubles
for humankind, two world wars, numerous acts of genocide, anti-human ideologies,
colonialism, racism, Nazism, and so on. A senior European official’s metaphor about
Europe as a “blooming garden” would sound much more realistic if we call it a field
overgrown with fatty weeds, blooming on the humus of hundreds of millions of
killed, robbed, and enslaved, with a garden growing from the ruins of suppressed
and robbed civilizations and peoples around it.
Europe must be called what it actually deserves to be called in order to make
the threat of the use of nuclear weapons against it more convincing and justified.
Secondly, we must state another obvious truth that any war between Russia
and NATO/EU will inevitably turn into a nuclear one or escalate to the nuclear level
if the West keeps fighting us in Ukraine. This needs to be stated, among other things,
in order to curb the unfolding arms race. It is pointless to build huge arsenals of
conventional weapons because the armies equipped with them and the countries that
have sent these armies will inevitably be swept away by a nuclear tornado.
Thirdly, we need to advance further for several more months, destroying the
enemy. But we must say, the sooner the better, that we will soon run out of patience
and willingness to sacrifice our men to defeat this scum and we will announce the
price: for every Russian soldier killed, a thousand Europeans will die if they do not
stop indulging their rulers who are waging a war against Russia. We must tell the
Europeans straightforwardly that their elites will turn them into the next portion of
cannon fodder and that if the war escalates to the nuclear level, we will not be able
to protect civilians as we are trying to do in Ukraine. We will warn them in advance,
as Vladimir Putin has promised, but nuclear weapons are even less selective than
conventional weapons. Naturally, it must be made clear to the European elites that
they and the places where the concentrate will be the first targets for nuclear
retaliation. They will not be able to sit it out.
We must also tell the Americans that if they continue to throw firewood into
the blaze of the conflict in Ukraine, we will cross the nuclear Rubicon in a few steps,
strike their allies, and if there is a non-nuclear response, as they have threatened, we
will retaliate with a nuclear strike on their bases in Europe and around the world.
Fourthly, we must continue to strengthen our military capabilities needed in
an extremely turbulent and crisis-ridden world. But at the same time, we must not
only alter our nuclear doctrine, which, thank God, we have already started to do, but
also resume, if the Americans and their henchmen refuse to negotiate, a decisive
movement up the nuclear escalation ladder in order to improve the effectiveness of
our nuclear deterrence-retaliation forces. Oreshnik is a great weapon, praise be to its
creators and customers, but it cannot replace nuclear weapons. It is just another
effective step on the escalation ladder.
Fifthly, we must tell the Americans through various channels that we do not
want them to suffer humiliation and are ready to help ensure their dignified exit from
the Ukrainian catastrophe, where they were dragged into by liberal globalists and
Europeans.
But most importantly, we must understand that we cannot and have no right
to show indecision before our country, our people, and the world. At stake is the fate
of not only our own country but also of human civilization in its current form,
imperfect as it is.
If and when the Americans withdraw, Ukraine will be defeated quite quickly.
Its eastern and southern regions will go to Russia. The central and western parts of
present-day Ukraine should become a neutral, demilitarized state with a no-fly zone
above it, where everyone who does not want to be with Russia and obey our laws
can come and live. A truce will be concluded.
After the truce, we will have to join forces with our friends from the World
Majority in order to address problems facing humanity, even with the Americans, if
they come to their senses at last. At the same time, it will be absolutely necessary to
keep Europe away from solving world problems for a while as it is once again
becoming the main threat to itself and the world.
Peace in Europe can only be established only when its back is broken again,
as we did in the past by defeating Napoleon and Hitler, and when the current
generation of its elites changes, not even in the narrow European―it is a thing of
the past now―but Eurasian context.
//This article was originally published in Russian in magazine ‘Profile’ on 21.01.2025