Russian Crossing of the Rubicon or Birth of a New World

The United States has to accept that after more than 20 years, Russia is going back to history. That is a political reality.

The crisis in Ukraine is far from its resolution, but it is clear that it is the central and most important event at the start of the 21st century, more important than Libya, the Afghanistan invasion, or the question about Iraq’s future. Even Syria cannot measure up to it. Some answers are already looming: Crimea is Russian again. The destiny of the Ukrainian southeast is almost certain — for sure, it won’t be any part of unitary Ukraine, or a Ukraine as a member of the European Union and NATO. There is a revolt underway in the (pro-)Russian population, which articulates its requests in an, for many, unexpected “Russian spring.” “Southeast New Russia” could be a part of a future federal or confederate state of Ukraine, an independent country supported by the Russian Federation — but only as a transitional solution — or an integral part of Russia in the future.

The question about central Ukraine — “Little Russia” and Kiev — has not been answered yet. The future of the Kiev junta is also under question. They are only a temporary solution. For the west, the putschists may be of some useful value if they manage to provoke a war in the Ukrainian outcome. For Ukraine’s western part (Galicia), in any variation of future events, the outlook is a very bleak one. The geopolitical map of Europe and Eurasia is thereby irreversibly changed. Russia achieved that relatively easy. And that’s not the most important thing.

Defend Sevastopol

The first obvious Russian victory is the return of Crimea to Russian sovereignty. About the geopolitical and military significance of the Crimea as the home port of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, it is hardly necessary to speak; we should add the enormous symbolic and historical significance of the Crimean peninsula for Russia: first and foremost, for the Russian Orthodox faith, as the cradle of Russian Christianity, kind of a “Russian Athos.” We should recall that Crimea was annexed to Russia for the first time in 1783, during the reign of Catherine the Great, a few years after the adoption of the American Declaration of Independence, and that military leaders such as Suvorov and Kutuzov fought for it, the latter being victor over Napoleon. Crimea’s significance since then grew to a very important chapter in Russian history. From 1853 to 1856, this was the scene of the Crimean War, when the Western powers Britain and France, with the support of the Piedmont and Ottoman Empire, waged war against Russia, and the scene of the heroic defense of Sevastopol. Sevastopol was defended heroically again in World War II, against the German detachments Wehrmacht and SS; today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is threatening Russia that it will pay for the “annexation of Crimea.” What kind of annexation are we talking about here? According to the Russian point of view, Crimea was undoubtedly Russian, and is more than likely to remain so.

Liberal Fascism

The current crisis in Ukraine has had a long genesis and various aspects, but it can be understood only through the cold prism of geopolitics. That is the last, deepest and most comprehensible level, which encompasses all other dimensions (political, cultural, ideological, historical, religious, ethnic) and places them in the appropriate context. The crisis in Ukraine is a turning point and test for all its stakeholders, and seemingly indifferent or disinterested observers.

First and foremost, for the United States, the outcome of the Ukrainian crisis, among other things, will decide its status as a superpower. The crisis in Ukraine is shaping new alliances and dictating new division lines. This applies not only to the global map and geopolitics of individual countries, but also to a range of very different political and ideological options. Some of these alliances are, on first sight, very unexpected: for example, those who fall into the same faction of anti-Semites and neo-Nazis, together with pro-American liberals and Islamists, Euro fanatics, with the followers of Adolf Hitler and Bandera (Stepan), the most radical chauvinists and Russophobes. This isn’t happening just on the streets of Ukraine, but more or less throughout the European continent. Nazi columns marched on the streets of Riga in Latvia (Latvia is a member of the EU) dressed in SS uniforms. None of the EU officials reacted. Therefore, the appropriate term is “liberal fascism.”

However, this phenomenon is not new; something similar has already happened during the war in the former Yugoslavia, when the U.S. and a series of “liberal,” “independent” intellectuals such as Henri Lévy openly supported primitive ethnic nationalism and Islamic radicalism from Croatia to Kosovo, provided that was directed against the Serb population. Liberals and fascists (in Ukraine, those are the followers of Bandera) could be allies under certain circumstances, same as the liberals and Wahhabi (instances in Bosnia, Kosovo, Caucasus or Syria). The criteria for the alliance is exclusively geopolitical. The U.S. is not in the position to choose its allies; that would be a real luxury [for the U.S.] under the current circumstances. After all, the U.S. has shown that it in fact was never too squeamish in that regard.

21st Century Won’t Be the ‘American Century’

The simple division today is, of course, the one that is irreconcilably opposing Russia to the U.S. with its western satellites. After Syria and Ukraine, it is obvious that the unipolar world, the world where the American hegemony wasn’t questioned, does not exist any longer. The other pole is now Russia. China, India and Brazil (Latin America) are following; the Islamic world is still in a deep flux. But only Russia is strong enough to rival the U.S. (west) in military terms and await the announced economic sanctions in peace.

The 21st century, contrary to the projections of U.S. strategists, will not be the “American century.” The American political elite is not able to understand that. The transition to a multipolar order is not painless. It takes place through a series of artificially induced crisis, wars directed always from the same center (for now, wars of local character, but far-reaching in their significance), or even threats that weapons will be used. From the aspect of American interests, however, the Kiev coup on Feb. 22, and in particular what then followed — a deliberate tactical response from Russia — was a mistake. Even a new Cold War with Russia and the possible attempt to exhaust it economically is not an adequate answer. Whatever happens in the future, the changes will be tectonic, and the world at the very base will look different.

Global Re-alignment

It is now left to the other, less important, actors to learn from this and to start, quietly, to re-align at the global scene. In addition, it should be noted that the alliance with U.S. no longer provides security. Only Russia (no longer the United States, much less the weak EU) can guarantee territorial integrity to the republics of the former Soviet Union; this is the first lesson of the Ukrainian crisis. Further, the U.S. can no longer guarantee the safety of even its European allies because the order in the world is no longer unipolar or America-centric. The United States, from now and into the future, can no longer dictate the rules or prescribe what is allowed and what is not. Those who talk about the dangers of “advancing Russian imperialism” should be reminded of the difficult history of the last two and a half decades, from the first Gulf War, and its bloody chapters written in the former Yugoslavia, in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and then again in Iraq. Thousands and thousands of dead and crippled, the destruction of many countries, a long list of U.S. interventions around the world, with napalm and depleted uranium, provoking civil war and the incitement of ethnic cleansing throughout the world: That is the balance of U.S. global hegemony, which is now nearing its inevitable end. It would be good for Washington strategists to understand that sooner than later.

The EU, regardless of the results, is to become the biggest loser in the outcome of the Ukrainian crisis, simply because European leaders are unable to clearly define their position in these new circumstances, while continuing to following orders from Washington under inertia. This is pushing Europe deeper into the crisis. The first, and perhaps the smallest, price that the EU will have to pay will be, in all likelihood, economic, caused by sanctions against Russia, which will be, although reluctantly, accepted by Brussels under the dictate of Washington. It should be noted that the countries in Eastern Europe that just passively follow Brussels without their own foreign policy, hoping to one day join the EU, will find themselves in an even more difficult position.

Henry Kissinger, “a classic of American policy,” recently chimed in with The Washington Post on the events in Ukraine. His “programmed text about Ukraine” was nothing more than a repetition of old Cold War and Russophobe theses; however, those were now spoken in Aesopian language, with great caution and restraint. We should here recall one of Kissinger’s earlier and very honest assessments, which he presented with less diplomatic tact, “To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.” In the shadow of the Ukrainian crisis, this recognition, it sounds far more ominous.

Dead-End Politics

In 2008, with a short war with Georgia, Russia left the frames that were imposed unto it in 1991 with the fall of the Soviet Union, approximately the borders of the Russian Federation. In a way, Russia’s reaction at that time was squeezed. A simple scenario of the Georgian crisis was previously tried in the former Yugoslavia. Moscow’s response to Georgia’s version of Operation Storm, however, was effective, and the role that Russia has played was constructive, regardless of Georgia’s portrayal as a victim in the western media: Russian military intervention prevented the genocide in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Georgia wasn’t turned into a scene of ethnic conflict that would have destabilized the region long afterward.

In parallel, Moscow penciled several far-reaching moves, one of which is undoubtedly the most important decision to establish a Eurasian customs union (tomorrow’s Eurasian Economic Union). Hillary Clinton said then that this was an attempt by Russia to rebuild the Soviet Union, and that the U.S. will do everything to thwart the attempt, but that “everything,” as it now appears, wasn’t enough. Soon after, it was Syria’s turn, as a more serious examination for the growing Russian forces than the one in Georgia. There is no doubt that the U.S. was then determined to intervene, with an air campaign, since the U.S. military is no longer able to carry out a ground invasion (as it was the case in 1999, during the 78-day war against Yugoslavia).

President Putin’s consistent position and toughness to threats and hard rhetoric from Washington, and very concrete support to Damascus (as opposed to Medvedev’s lukewarm reaction during the Libyan crisis), made Washington strategists change their minds and seek a way out of the dead end where the short-sighted U.S. policy ended up.

Crossing the Rubicon

Russia went outside of its borders in 2008, for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union; in 2014, President Putin crossed his Rubicon by sending the military to Crimea, thereby making a Russian withdrawal no longer an option. NATO, despite its illegal and secret promotion of distinct units in the Ukraine, apparently is lacking in will and power to intervene, which means that the junta is now on its own. Support from the west looked to be ambiguous anyway. A period of terror against the Russian population will probably begin in southeastern Ukraine, which will executed neither by the Ukrainian Army, nor by the internal army (the structure of the Ukrainian state in the southeast has already fallen apart), but by militant gangs from the right wing and Svoboda, disguised as the National Guard of Ukraine, possibly aided by NATO units. These are the only assets the junta of Kiev can still count on.

In these conditions, the new Russian state in the southeast is built: “New Russia,” which will link Russia, including Crimea, with Transnistria. The west won’t be sitting with its arms crossed, but this is just a new geopolitical reality: America has to accept that after more than 20 years, Russia went back into history. That is a political reality.