By DANIEL AARÃO REIS*
The power policy proposed by Donald Trump, once adopted by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, will fall like heavy bombs – symbolic and real – on the countries of the Global South.
What many did not expect has happened: the war in Ukraine has entered its fourth year of horror and destruction. As with all anniversaries, the moment suggests diagnoses and prognoses.
As I have argued in other texts, the war, like any war, did not begin on the first day of fighting: February 24, 2022. It was sparked by two converging processes: on the one hand, Russia’s marginalization from a sphere of security and prosperity, integrating European states and the United States. On the other, the exponential growth of aggressive Russian nationalism.
Let us examine the first process: a sphere of security and prosperity including Russia was possible, it was promised, but it was only attempted in the 1990s and soon abandoned by the governments that followed in the USA and in most European states.
Against the prudent warnings of unsuspected figures such as H. Kissinger and J. Matlock, the last US ambassador to the Soviet Union, among many others, the US and its allies, contrary to established agreements, taking advantage of the atmosphere of cultural and political disintegration that reigned in Moscow since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, brought the revitalized NATO to the borders of Russia.
In the same move, they openly encouraged anti-Russian movements and tendencies in Central European societies and in the former Soviet republics, particularly in the Baltic states, Ukraine and Georgia. These aims were successful, since much of Central Europe and the former Soviet republics were horrified by Russia and Russians, and there were reasons for this. However, instead of appeasing and integrating, the US and its allies preferred to pour gasoline on the fire, exploiting visceral resentments and antipathies. Thus, Ukraine, which could have been a bridge between Europe and Russia, became a hotbed of conflicts that were becoming more radical.
The second process has been underway since the late 1990s. Under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, Russia has managed to overcome an unfavorable situation. A centralist state has re-emerged, taming centrifugal tendencies. Benefiting from the high prices of its main raw materials (gas and oil), Moscow has regained its international prominence. At the same time, radical nationalist tendencies have been given free rein, drawing strength from the resentment caused by the loss of lands and the catastrophic dissolution of the Soviet Union.
In his ambition to remain in power, Vladimir Putin encouraged and became a champion of these tendencies, mercilessly repressed the opposition and became a virtual dictator of the country, converting elections into mere consecration rituals.
The clash of these antagonisms ultimately produced the war, triggered, in military terms, by the invasion of Russian troops into Ukrainian territory.
The invasion was a historic failure. Russia intended to take over all of Ukraine in a short period of time, but was surprised by the resistance of the Ukrainians, with the decisive support of the United States and major European states. The offensive was stopped, but the Ukrainians were unable to expel the Russians from the conquered territories. Crimea, invaded and incorporated in 2014, remains under Moscow's control. In addition, about 20% of Ukrainian territory remains under Russian control to this day.
Once a relative balance of power had been established, instead of seeking to explore the possibilities of a concerted effort, the then Democratic government, led by Joe Biden, and its allies encouraged the Ukrainians to go to war, nurturing unrealistic plans to dismantle Moscow’s power, some even claiming that the conflict should continue until Vladimir Putin was overthrown and arrested. They were prepared to fight… until the last Ukrainian soldier. They also believed in the effectiveness of a severe sanctions policy, designed to suffocate Russia, subjecting it to a strategic defeat.
That's not what happened.
Supported by an “unlimited” alliance with China, and counting on the indifferent neutrality or active sympathy of important states in the so-called Global South, Russia has borne the brunt of sanctions, contained disruptive internal trends, built a war economy, and maintained pressure on Ukraine from the ground. With control of the air, it has destroyed and continues to destroy the country’s basic infrastructure, forcing a considerable part of its population into internal and external exile.
As time went by, the wear and tear of the war took its toll. Russia, with greater demographic and economic reserves, withstood the conflict better. In Ukraine, the nationalist impulse began to wane with the tremendous losses it had suffered. In European states and the United States, public opinion, measured in polls, was shifting away from supporting the Ukrainians.
Authorized by this context, the proposals of the new government of Donald Trump emerged. This is a historic turnaround, in contrast to the policies advocated by the previous government. In the most general sense, it presents, in an open and truculent manner, in the manner of the 1970th century, a return to the politics of power, based on the use and abuse of brute force. In more specific terms, it attempts to drive a wedge into the axis formed by Moscow and Beijing, resuming, in other words, the triangular game undertaken by Henry Kissinger in the early XNUMXs. At the time, the aim was to isolate the USSR. Now, China. Whether or not it will achieve its objectives is a matter of debate among experts.
Those who wanted to turn a blind eye were surprised, as Donald Trump announced, in his electoral campaign, everything he has been doing since he was sworn in as President of the United States last January.
The war, as always, has given rise to extreme polarizations. Since the beginning of the conflict, supporters of the Ukrainian resistance have only denounced Russian aggression, blind to the context of Moscow’s marginalization. Supporters of Russia do not even call the Russian invasion by its name. Vladimir Putin preferred a crude euphemism: “special military operation.” He then criminalized, by law, other names for the process. Some of his acolytes have gone further: they have described the invasion as a “counteroffensive.”
This is, first and foremost, a dirty war. Under the Democratic government, the US and European states encouraged it and watched as Ukraine was almost completely destroyed. Now, Donald Trump and the Republicans are trying to abandon it to its fate, only interested in its mineral resources. On the other side, as has been said, Russian nationalists are eager to recover the territories lost when the Soviet Union dissolved. They are proposing, without compromise, even the use of nuclear weapons, if necessary.
The sad thing is to see a large part of the left-wing intelligentsia, including in Brazil, taking sides with Vladimir Putin's Russia, openly or covertly, without even criticizing Russian repression and dictatorship. They do not care about the ongoing moral catastrophe, present in all wars. Not a word about the massacres and traumas endured by Ukrainians and Russians. They reason like supposed experts in international geopolitics, observing the scenario like chess players, from above and from afar.
They apparently do not realize that the power policy proposed by Donald Trump, once adopted by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, will fall like heavy bombs – symbolic and real – on the countries of the Global South. When and if the time for repentance comes, it will already be too late.
*Daniel Aaron Reis is a professor of contemporary history at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF). Author, among other books, of The Revolution that Changed the World – Russia, 1917 (Company of Letters). [https://amzn.to/3QBroUD]
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