According to Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, an attempt to look at the world objectively inevitably takes on the characteristics of tragedy.
This article is an attempt to reconstruct an American-centric view of the events of the Russian-Ukrainian war, where American elites act in different decision corridors.
The conclusions from it are quite consistent with Weinberg's thought. Especially considering that the previous Cold War lasted 45 years.
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The American power elites are in the difficult process of developing the most acceptable solution for themselves regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war and the global changes associated with it.
In the public and non-public space, two strategies fought, which can be roughly dubbed: the “Biden-Blinken strategy” and the “Sullivan-Burns strategy.”
*Anthony Blinken – US Secretary of State; Jake Sullivan – National Security Advisor to the President of the United States; William Burns - Director of the CIA.
The essence of these strategies can be judged by the statements of many influential American politicians, by their practical actions and by the reaction of world centers of power to them.
The “Biden-Blinken Strategy” involves providing comprehensive assistance to Ukraine for the decisive defeat of the aggressor army, the liberation of all occupied territories, Ukraine’s access to the 1991 borders, and compensation for damage caused by Russia. This plan was reflected in the “Ukrainian Peace Formula” and was recorded in the results of many high-level international meetings.
In turn, the “Sullivan-Burns Strategy” implies:
- continued support for Ukraine in repelling Russian aggression;
- constant external influence on Russia through sanctions, not only new ones, but also tightening control over compliance with those already imposed.
In the same time:
- preventing the complete defeat of Russia;
- preventing the start of uncontrolled processes in the Russian Federation and its disintegration;
- maintaining Russian control over nuclear weapons and preventing nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists and separatists.
For now, the Sullivan-Burns strategy has prevailed.
Behind such a cautious, purely bureaucratic approach lies a geostrategic, pragmatic calculation.
A unipolar world implies global responsibility. The Cold War between two world political systems gave the United States a powerful incentive for development, including by offering a more attractive image of the future than was offered by the totalitarian system represented by the USSR and its allies.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, America lost external incentives for development and the prerequisites for global leadership. In turn, global responsibility implied the need to be drawn into all conflicts and a lack of focus of attention and resources.
George Friedman, head of the Stratfor think tank, in the book “American Empire. Forecast 2020–2030.” wrote: “ The United States did not expect the Cold War to end, and did not prepare for its end. As a result, after the war the country remained in a position of strength and did not know what to do with this strength. In the 1980s, reality was the same; in 1992, it completely changed.”
The United States did not want the collapse of the Soviet Union, but only its maximum weakening.
George Bush Sr., speaking at the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR in Kiev with a speech that became known as the “Chicken Kiev speech,” called on Ukrainians to remain part of the Union: “The Americans will not support those who strive for independence in order to replace distant tyranny with local despotism. They will not help those who promote suicidal nationalism based on ethnic hatred.”
In the same way, there are a huge number of facts indicating that today the United States, represented by the dominant political group in the Biden administration, does not want the unpredictable collapse of the Russian Federation.
In addition, the preservation of a constant source of World Evil, recognized as such by world institutions, is the only effective factor consolidating the Western (Euro-Atlantic) macrocluster and motivating its accelerated development.
The new and increasingly consolidated System of World Evil must inevitably give the collective West a passionate impulse, which was practically exhausted during the relatively prosperous period after the Second World War, and especially after the end of the Cold War.
In essence, we are talking about creating a system for motivating allies around the world to consolidate (new passionarity), restart their military-industrial complex, create a new global security system, a single economic macrocluster, and in the future, a new financial system.
The creation of a new multi-level polycentric (network) system of global security, which we described in previous articles , arises from this confrontation. And, the new systemic World Evil, unlike the previous one - international terrorism - is much more tangible and large-scale and includes international terrorism as one of its components.
It will be difficult for Europe to ignore the red arrows drawn on the map of Russia’s alleged attack on NATO countries, since the previous arrows drawn on the map of Ukraine coincided exactly with reality and turned into the horror of a war unprecedented for the 21st century.
The quick end of the war in Ukraine with the decisive defeat of the Russian army and the fall of the Kremlin regime did not provide time, and most importantly, sufficient motives for global reconstruction. And the failure to create a new international security system, with the complete degradation of the old one, would inevitably lead to unpredictable and, therefore, poorly controllable, from the US point of view, consequences.
The formation of the System of World Evil, the conceptual power and leadership of Russia in it automatically gives the States leadership in the democratic world.
From this point of view, it is fair to talk not about a local protracted conflict, but about a new Cold War, in which hot clashes will be thrown into the outer contour of global macroclusters.
Ukrainian analyst Alexei Kushch rightly noted that “the strategic goal of Western democracies is to immediately transition the confrontation with autocracies into the Cold War regime. Since it is in this format that liberal democracies will be able to use their main competitive advantage in the fight against autocracies: economic potential, level of technology and quality of life of the population. After all, it was precisely in this regime that the West already defeated the USSR.”
CIA Director William Burns argued in his article that maintaining Western aid to Ukraine is a relatively modest investment, but at the same time brings significant geopolitical returns for the United States and significant benefits for American industry.
If we look back at history, the free, unregulated market led the United States to the Great Depression, from which America emerged through World War II.
George Friedman also wrote: “The force that solved this problem, brought about the end of the Great Depression, and ultimately destroyed the institutions of the second cycle, was war . ”
Journalist heavyweights joined in supporting the “Sullivan-Burns strategy.”
Three-time Pulitzer winner Thomas Friedman explained the US position this way : “In the West, Putin’s weakness should be feared no less than his strength. You may also get unrest or civil war and the breakup of Russia into fiefs of warlords/oligarchs.
This is not a defense of Putin. It is an expression of rage at what he has done to his country, turning it into a ticking time bomb spread across 11 time zones. “Putin has taken the whole world hostage.”
The “Sullivan-Burns Strategy” could be proposed to American politicians and citizens, as well as the whole world, by explaining the failure to provide sufficient American assistance to Ukraine for its decisive victory as a reluctance to escalate in the face of a potential nuclear threat from Russia.
“ Ukrainians are fighting for their existence. But the United States has a special obligation to avoid nuclear war, which would end life on planet Earth forever,” is the most common quote from senior officials at various levels in the United States that reflects this position.
That is, according to the logic of the “Sullivan-Burns strategy,” Russia is turning into the leader of the “world cluster of outcasts” - a constant, visible and tangible threat to all other Western-style democracies.
At the same time, it is no secret that Russia is a much weaker rival for the United States, which automatically does not allow them to lose this confrontation.
The Sullivan-Burns strategy is reflexive. It does not consist in initiating these processes, but in non-resistance to them, understanding what will happen as a result of the natural course of events.
The goal of the new Cold War is not to defeat the enemy or disintegrate him, but to control his development. A great variety of means for such management have already been developed.
And the task of economic sanctions is not the catastrophic collapse of the Russian economy, but the maximum reduction in its profitability.
The plan is purely bureaucratic, minimizing risks, characterized by a complete absence of a moral component and created in line with the cynical philosophy of “realpolitik”.
Below is an analysis of how this plan influenced direct and indirect participants in the conflict, and how they reflected on this plan.
Russia
In previous materials, the authors proposed the theory of “Controlled Revolution in Russia”, which, among all existing ones, most fully described the reasons for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the further course of the war, the decisions and actions of the Russian leadership that were illogical at first glance...
The plan of the Russian special services through destabilization, the possible secession of some republics from the Russian Federation, changes to the Constitution, consolidation of unitarity and reformatting of the power structure should have led to the concentration of power in the hands of these same special services.
But this plan collided with a more powerful plan. A priori, such a plan could only be a plan from the outside, one of the two centers of power significant for Russia.
Moreover, at the first stage of a full-scale invasion, the interests of three actors coincided: Ukraine – to repel the attack; The USA – to prevent Russia from achieving significant successes, the Russian special services – to discredit the Russian Army.
But already at the point of Prigozhin’s armed rebellion, these visions diverged greatly from the Sullivan-Burns strategy.
In November 2022, The Wall Street Journal wrote that Sullivan had been confidentially communicating with Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and Putin adviser Yuri Ushakov in recent months. The purpose of the non-public talks was to avoid the risk of an escalation of the war in Ukraine, including the threat of a nuclear attack, and to preserve communication channels, the sources said.
Sullivan himself did not deny his contacts with the Kremlin. Speaking at a public event in New York in November 2022, Sullivan said it was “in the interests” of the United States to maintain contact with the Kremlin, the BBC reported . But, he said, officials are “clear about who we are dealing with.”
That is, already during the Kherson operation (early November 2022), the general design of the Sullivan-Burns plan had already taken shape.
The internal power configuration that had developed in Russia at that time reflected the Sullivan-Burns plan.
At the same time, the concept of a “Managed Revolution”, implemented by Patrushev’s group, lost to another concept, simpler and more understandable, as a result of which Russia was supposed to lead the pole of world outcasts and scumbags.
This second concept was supported by the leadership of the Russian Army, representatives and curators of the Russian military-industrial complex, regional leaders, and it seems that the oligarchs.
Outwardly, this also manifested itself in the next change of the head of the so-called. NWO - on the night of January 9-10, a mini military coup took place in the Kremlin. Head of the so-called The head of the General Staff, Gerasimov, was reappointed to the SVO, and Surovikin, a protégé of Prigozhin, was demoted to deputy commander of the special operation.
This was a hardware defeat for the special services, their positions were greatly shaken, and the special services could only overcome this situation in the event of a major failure on the fronts. Which, as we know, unfortunately, did not happen.
Against the backdrop of an essentially not very successful Ukrainian counter-offensive, the Prigozhin riot looked like the last opportunity for Patrushev’s group to turn the situation in its favor.
Despite the fact that the rebellion was promptly curtailed and the controlled revolution was postponed, the objective interest in achieving its ultimate goal for the organizers within the Russian regime has not gone away.
It should be noted that individual elements of deliberate destabilization still appear, but in the form of small and medium sabotage. Starting from the launch of rumors that Putin had died and was lying in the refrigerator among frozen vegetables; the reading of the obituary on the ninth day of “Putin’s death” by Patrushev, dressed in mourning clothes; periodic rumors about the need to change the Russian Constitution; presidential doubles show; and ending with Putin’s scandalous and disastrous interview with Tucker Carlson.
At the same time, all the prerequisites (economic, psychological, interethnic) have been created for the revolution to happen for objective reasons. And these processes continue to develop.
In their previous publications on the topic of controlled revolution in the Russian Federation, the authors made important reservations :
- perhaps the process will stop at some intermediate stage and give birth to another freak;
- what is being formed on our northeastern borders will be a dangerous monster in the near future;
- the most rational behavior for the entire democratic world will be the creation of a powerful military, information and physical protective belt-fortress;
“The guardians of this “fortress” will be a number of nations of the Baltic-Black Sea region, but the most effective will be Ukraine.”
Ukraine
After the de-occupation of Izyum and Kherson, the supply of weapons actually decreased significantly, and the range of weapons did not allow a large-scale offensive to be carried out.
The F-16 aircraft promised at the start of the counteroffensive were never delivered, as reported at the Vilnius NATO summit on July 11–12, 2023.
The occupiers, immediately after leaving Kherson, began to build the so-called “Surovikin Line” - a network of powerful fortifications and go into strategic defense.
Despite the heroism shown even in such difficult conditions, the Ukrainian Armed Forces were unable to completely break through the Surovikin line and reach Tokmak, which would have given control over the entire enemy’s railway logistics in southern Ukraine.
The Allies never delivered long-range missiles that could have been used to destroy the Crimean Bridge.
The main problem is that Ukraine has not yet reflected on the Sullivan-Burns strategy.
Europe
Judging by certain signals in the Western media, Europe has come to an important realization that:
a) the Russian threat is real and has a long-term strategic nature;
b) in light of Trump’s possible rise to power, Europe needs to think about how to ensure its security.
The New York Times reports that German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has begun warning Germans that they must prepare for decades of confrontation with Russia. Germany needs to quickly rebuild the country's armed forces in case Vladimir Putin does not stop at the border with Ukraine.
The prospect of Trump's re-election has German officials and many of their NATO colleagues informally speculating whether the nearly 75-year-old alliance structure, which they plan to celebrate in Washington this year, can survive without the United States.
The leading countries of the European Union will increase military budgets, restart the military-industrial complex, and increase combat power.
Great Britain
The United Kingdom clearly reflected the Sullivan-Burns plan and the mood of the new Cold War.
Speaking at Lancaster House in London on 15 January 2024 , Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said: “The world is moving from a post-war to a pre-war state. The era of idealism gave way to a period of harsh realism . "
The UK is consistently implementing the “Global Britain” project, to which the authors devoted a separate material .
China
The United States has achieved tangible results precisely in implementing the “non-defeat to Russia” strategy:
- they did not let Ukraine fall;
- by playing up the theme of the risk of nuclear escalation and reducing the pace of arms supplies to Ukraine, they ensured the non-defeat of the Russian army and the preservation of the Putin regime;
- transferred the situation from a confrontation between the authoritarian (and striving for totalitarianism) Russian regime and the Ukrainian striving for democracy, into a confrontation between the world system of terrorism-totalitarianism and the world system based on the values of freedom, individual rights and democracy.
At the same time, for China, the main geopolitical competitor of the United States, both the position of supporting Russia and the position of completely distancing itself from it are unprofitable.
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Such a view of events fits the Russian-Ukrainian war, and the plan of the Russian special services for a controlled revolution, into the broader context of the transformation of the entire system of international relations.
If such a view corresponds to reality, then S. Weinberg’s thought, presented as an epigraph, is quite appropriate here.
Ukraine, even purely geographically, finds itself on the front line of contact in the World System of Evil for many years with all the ensuing consequences.
What should Ukraine do in this situation?
- Realize the tragic reality.
- Integrate into the current and future international security system as much as possible.
- With the help of the emerging network system of international security, transform the war into a high-tech one, minimizing our human losses.
- Develop the country as technologically advanced as possible. Concentrate on defense technologies that make further territorial seizures basically impossible.
- Effectively interact with the economic, scientific, technical, military and diplomatic potential of Western countries seeking to provide assistance to Ukraine.
- Build a European legal democratic state.
- Improve the diplomatic school. Be as active as possible in the international legal space. Seek verdicts (even if in absentia for now) for Russian war criminals in international courts and seek compensation from Russian assets.
Authors:
Vladimir Shevchenko , political scientist, Doctor of Philosophy
Andrey Savarets , analyst, lawyer, author of telegrams for the “ Minority Opinion ”