An Intriguing Moment

Edward Lozansky discusses whether the U.S. will agree to Russia’s security guarantee proposals

On Jan. 10, the Russian Federation and the United States began negotiating about how to emerge from a current and very serious crisis that could have significant consequences. However, this news does not gt much attention in U.S. mainstream media. Americans are more interested in resolving a long list of domestic problems, such as inflation, crime, chaos at the southern border, new waves of COVID-19 generating more than 1 million infections every day, and the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol and its consequences. Some politicians say the events of Jan. 6 confirm that domestic terrorism exists in the United States.

Public opinion polls indicate that an overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens want the government to resolve these domestic issues, while no more than 10% think that the U.S. should make foreign policy a priority.

However, American foreign policy decision-makers are not interested in public opinion. The elite use democracy, Western values and international law as a smokescreen to serve their own interests, which have very little in common with what voters want. If voters’ interests interfere with achieving real goals, they can be neglected, even if America’s closest allies suffer the consequences, as was the case with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

America’s mission of unconditional world leadership is not a secret. NATO, 750 U.S. military bases in 80 countries, plus an enormous military budget, which exceeds the total budget of the next 10 countries the U.S. has military plans for, are the power tools it uses to achieve this goal. Supporters of unipolarity ascended the world's Olympus (the top of the world) after the collapse of the Soviet Union and since then, have refused to admit that the era of this short historical phenomenon has passed. Countries that disagree with this view are marked by the U.S. as dictatorships or autocracies, and those countries daring to claim the right to defend their own security interests are subject to sanctions.

In Russia’s case, in addition to imposition of economic restrictions, the U.S. supports internal dissent and color revolutions in states bordering the Russian Federation. The integration of former Soviet countries into NATO has been the most painful issue for Russia, but until recently, Moscow did not express ay opposition aside from engaging in sober rhetoric, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech in Munich on Feb. 10, 2007. However, after Georgia was promised membership in NATO in 2008, something that drove Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to conduct an armed attack on South Ossetia, Russia made its first move, and replaced words with military force.

Russia’s next step was in 2014, after the coup d'état in Ukraine that was openly supported by the U.S. and the European Union. Russia responded by invading Crimea and supporting the population of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic. However, the geopolitical chess match did not end there.

The third round has now begun and may prove decisive in the broad sense of things. Conversations about a third world war and the end of the world are taking place in underground subgroups and cults, communities of experts and among mainstream media. Noted political scientists are not only analyzing the course of events taking place, but also quoting passages from the Bible.

The Washington Times reported that professors at the Catholic University of America in Washington, and their colleagues are trying to initiate a leadership forum through the Vatican, summoning religious leaders of different faiths to find a way out of the crisis in areas where politicians have been unsuccessful. On the eve of Putin’s meeting with President Joe Biden in Geneva, hard-liners criticized Biden for agreeing to the negotiations, claiming that Russia’s security guarantee proposals are an ultimatum and demanding that the U.S. reject them before negotiations began.

Twenty-five government officials, mostly former representatives who support the unipolar world view, published a justification for their position on the website of the Atlantic Council, an organization the Russian Federation considers undesirable.

Other, more reasonable voices agreed with many points outlined in Russia’s proposals and called for compromise. They sent a letter signed by 15 well known nongovernmental organizations pleading their case to Biden, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Jan. 8.

Unfortunately, judging by Blinken’s rhetoric, he is leaning more toward the first group. And although U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman was more restrained in her comments after meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Sergey Ryabkov, it is already obvious we shouldn’t wait for the West to agree to all the provisions outlined in Russia’s proposals.

Considering the positions of NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, we should not expect any progress there either. Big politics lost former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had the authority and the opportunity to change the situation. French President Emmanuel Macron has so many domestic issues to deal with that he is not equipped to replace the retired chancellor.

In short, we can say with high certainty that since it is unlikely that statements made by Putin, Ryabkov and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov regarding the possibility of a military-technical response were unfounded, the biggest intrigue today revolves around what the response actually means. We will know the answer very soon. But I would like to believe that it will not come to that.