21.01.2025 08:01
Breaking the Back of Europe: What Should Russia's Policy Be Towards the West
Sergey Karaganov
©TAISIYA VORONTSOVA/RIA NOVOSTI
Trump's election temporarily put our policy towards the West, including its war in Ukraine, on hold. We did not react too strongly
(which is right) to the rearguard provocations of the Bidenites, but our warriors continued their offensive operations and grinding
down Western mercenary troops in Ukraine.
Now, from all sides, they are talking about the possibility of a compromise, about its contours. And here, at least in the media, they
have begun to briskly discuss such options.
Now, together with my colleagues, we are preparing a large-scale study and situational analysis dedicated to developing
recommendations regarding Russian policy in the Western direction. I will not predict the results of the discussion, but will simply
share some preliminary considerations. They may be useful during the period while the report is being prepared, and are intended to
create the basis for a broader discussion.
News
1/30/25, 10:15 PM Breaking the Back of Europe: What Should Russia's Policy Be Towards the West
https://profile.ru/abroad/slomat-hrebet-evrope-kakoj-dolzhna-byt-politika-rossii-v-otnoshenii-zapada-1651213/ 1/22
The Trump administration has no serious reasons to negotiate with us on the terms we have set. War is economically advantageous for
the US, since it allows it to rob its allies with redoubled energy, renew its military-industrial complex, and impose its economic
interests through systemic sanctions on dozens of countries around the world. And, of course, to continue to damage Russia in the
hope of wearing it down, and in the best case scenario for the US, to bring it down or eliminate it from the game as a military-
strategic core of the rising and liberating World Majority, a powerful strategic support for its main competitor, China. Although this
war is not needed and even a little harmful from the main point of view for a hypothetical Trump - domestic politics, the balance of
interests is more likely to be in favor of continuing it.
I will put myself in Trump's shoes - an American nationalist with elements of traditional messianism, but without the globalist-liberal
scum of the last three or four decades and Biden's involvement in Ukrainian corruption schemes. This hypothetical Trump can only be
moved to agreements that suit us by three things. The first is the threat of Afghanistan 2, the complete defeat and shameful flight of
the Kyiv regime and the demonstrative failure of the West led by America. The second is Russia's withdrawal from its de facto alliance
with China. And the third is the threat of military action spilling over into the US territory and its vital possessions, which will be
accompanied by mass deaths of Americans (including the destruction of military bases).
A complete defeat is necessary, but without a much more active use of the nuclear deterrent factor, it will be extremely – if not
prohibitively – expensive, and will require the death of thousands and thousands more of our fatherland's best sons. Surrendering
China is absurdly counterproductive for us. If the first-term Trumpists tried to persuade us to do this, now they seem to understand
that Russia will not agree to this. More on the nuclear factor later.
For the current Euro-elites, Euro-integrators, war is urgently needed. Not only because of the hope to undermine the traditional
geopolitical rival, to take revenge for the defeats of the last three centuries, but also because of Russophobia. These elites, their Euro-
bureaucracy are failing in almost all directions. The Euro-project is bursting at the seams.
The use of Russia as a bugbear, and now a real enemy, which has been going on for over a decade, is the main instrument for
legitimizing their project and maintaining power by the Euro-elites. In addition, “strategic parasitism” – the lack of fear of war – has
News
1/30/25, 10:15 PM Breaking the Back of Europe: What Should Russia's Policy Be Towards the West
https://profile.ru/abroad/slomat-hrebet-evrope-kakoj-dolzhna-byt-politika-rossii-v-otnoshenii-zapada-1651213/ 2/22
grown much stronger in Europe than in the US. Not only do Europeans not want to think about what it could mean for them, but they
also no longer know how to think about it. Since Soviet times and based on the experience of working with de Gaulle, Mitterrand,
Brandt, Schroeder and the like, we have become accustomed to considering the Americans to be the main instigators of confrontation
and the militarization of politics in the West. This is not entirely true, and now it is not true at all. It was Churchill who, when it seemed
advantageous to him, drew the US into the Cold War. It was European strategists (they still existed then), and not the Americans, who
initiated the missile crisis of the 1970s. The list of examples is long. Now the Euro-elites are the main sponsors of the Kyiv junta. They,
having forgotten that it was their predecessors who unleashed two world wars, are pushing Europe and the world towards a third.
Sending Ukrainian cannon fodder to the slaughter, they are preparing new ones – Eastern Europeans from a number of Balkan states,
Romania and Poland. They have begun to deploy mobile bases where they are training contingents of potential landsknechts. They
will try to continue the war not only until the “last Ukrainian”, but soon until the “last Eastern European”.
NATO and Brussels anti-Russian propaganda already surpasses Hitler's. Even personal human ties with Russia are systematically
severed. Those who advocate normal relations are poisoned and fired from their jobs. A totalitarian liberal ideology is essentially being
imposed. They even forget about their pretensions to democracy, although they continue to squeal about it. The latest example is the
annulment of the results of the presidential elections in Romania, which were not won by the Brussels candidate.
European elites are not only clearly preparing their populations and countries for war. They even name approximate dates when they
might be ready to unleash it.
How can we stop the madmen? Stop the slide towards World War III at least in Europe? Achieve an end to the war?
Talk of compromises and truces revolves around freezing the current confrontation. This will allow the remnants of the Ukrainians to
be rearmed and, having supplemented them with contingents from other countries, to begin a new round of military operations. We
will have to fight again. And from less advantageous political positions. It will be possible and necessary, if it really comes to that, to
present such a compromise as a victory. But this will be a partial victory, and, frankly speaking, a victory for the West. This is how it will
be perceived throughout the world. And in many ways here too.
I will not list all the tools for avoiding such a scenario. I will only name the most important ones. First, we must finally tell ourselves, the
world, and our opponents the obvious. Europe is the source of all the main ills of humanity, two world wars, genocides, anti-human
ideologies, colonialism, racism, Nazism, and so on down the list. The metaphor of a well-known European official about Europe as a
“blooming garden” sounds much more realistic if we call it a field overgrown with fat weeds, blooming on the humus of hundreds of
millions of killed, robbed, enslaved. And around it rises a garden of ruins of oppressed and robbed civilizations and peoples. Europe
must be called what it deserves, in order to make the threat of using nuclear weapons against it more convincing and justified.
Secondly, to point out another obvious truth – any war between Russia and NATO/EU will inevitably acquire a nuclear character or
escalate to a nuclear level if the West continues to fight against us in Ukraine. This indication is necessary, among other things, to limit
the unfolding arms race. There is no point in stockpiling huge arsenals of conventional weapons if the armies equipped with them,
and the countries themselves that sent these armies, will inevitably be swept away by a nuclear whirlwind.
News
1/30/25, 10:15 PM Breaking the Back of Europe: What Should Russia's Policy Be Towards the West
https://profile.ru/abroad/slomat-hrebet-evrope-kakoj-dolzhna-byt-politika-rossii-v-otnoshenii-zapada-1651213/ 3/22
Thirdly, we need to continue to advance for several more months, grinding down the enemy. But the sooner, the better, we need to
announce that our patience, our readiness to sacrifice our men for the sake of victory over this bastard, will soon run out and we will
announce the price - for every killed Russian soldier, a thousand Europeans will die if they do not stop indulging their rulers who are
waging war against Russia. We need to tell the Europeans directly: your elites will make the next portion of cannon fodder out of you,
and if the war goes nuclear, we will not be able to protect the civilian population of Europe, as we are trying to do in Ukraine. We will
warn of strikes, as Vladimir Putin promised, but nuclear weapons are even less selective than conventional weapons. Of course, the
European elites must be presented with a fact: they and their places of residence will become the first targets for nuclear retaliation
strikes. They will not be able to sit it out.
And the Americans simply need to be told that if they continue to add fuel to the fire of the Ukrainian conflict, 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, there will be a
nuclear strike on their bases in Europe and around the world. If they decide to respond nuclearly, they will receive a nuclear strike on
their own territory.
Fourth, we must continue our military reinforcement, which is necessary in the conditions of a super-turbulent and crisis-ridden world.
But at the same time, we must not only change the nuclear doctrine, which, thank God, has already begun, but also, in the event of the
Americans and their lackeys’ unwillingness to negotiate, we must resume a decisive move up the ladder of nuclear escalation, to
increase the effectiveness of our nuclear deterrence-retaliation forces. The “Nut” is a magnificent weapon, praise be to its customers
and creators, but it is not a replacement for nuclear weapons, but simply another effective step on the ladder of escalation.
Fifthly, we need to convey to the US through various channels that we do not want their humiliation and are ready to help ensure their
dignified exit from the Ukrainian catastrophe, into which the Americans were dragged by liberal globalists and Europeans.
But the main thing is to understand that we cannot and do not have the right to show indecision before the country, our people and
humanity. At stake is not only the fate of Russia, but also of human civilization in its current form.
If and when the Americans retreat, Ukraine will be destroyed fairly quickly. Its east and south will go to Russia. In the center and west
of today's Ukraine, a demilitarized, neutral state with a no-fly zone over it should be formed, where all those who do not want to live
in Russia and obey our laws can come. A truce will be concluded.
Well, after the truce, it will be necessary to move towards a joint solution to the problems facing humanity, with friends from the
World Majority. And even with the Americans, if they come to their senses. At the same time, it is urgently necessary to push Europe
away from solving world problems for a while. Once again, it itself is becoming the main threat to itself and to the world.
News
1/30/25, 10:15 PM Breaking the Back of Europe: What Should Russia's Policy Be Towards the West
https://profile.ru/abroad/slomat-hrebet-evrope-kakoj-dolzhna-byt-politika-rossii-v-otnoshenii-zapada-1651213/ 4/22
Vereshchagin's painting "Retreat. Flight on the High Road", which depicts Napoleon with the remnants of his army leaving Russia
STATE HISTORICAL MUSEUM, MOSCOW/CBW/VOSTOCK PHOTO
Peace on the subcontinent can be established only when Europe's back is broken once again, as happened as a result of our victories
over Napoleon and Hitler, when a change of generation of the current elites occurs. And even then, not in a narrowly European
context - it is a thing of the past, but in a Eurasian context.
The author is an emeritus professor, academic director of the Faculty of World Economy and World Politics at the National
Research University Higher School of Economics; honorary chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy