US: Divide and Conquer?

To the north of Chinese Manchuria lies the Russian Far East, a forested region twice the size of Europe that contains immense natural resources. It has only 6.7 million inhabitants and is in a process of a true decline in population. On the other side of the border, however, live 100 million Chinese. This area was a focal point of friction between China and the Soviet Union. By 1969, the Soviet army had deployed 53 divisions there, to which Mao responded by transferring a million soldiers to the region.

The two greatest successes of Nixon’s foreign policy were the result of Moscow and Beijing’s need to lessen tensions, with the United States focusing its attention on this critical friction point. Both the policy of lowering tensions with the Soviet Union and the Beijing-Washington rapprochement originated in this reality.

Robert Kaplan, U.S. secretary of defense between 2009 and 2011, made a statement of great significance in his recent book (“The Revenge of Geography,” New York, 2013). In it he suggests a strategic alliance between the United States and Russia to make common cause against China. That, in his opinion, would force Beijing to withdraw its attention from the maritime dispute in the Pacific to focus on this immense land border with Russia. This suggestion is significant not only because it comes from somebody who until recently occupied a key position in the Department of Defense, but because it is consistent with the China containment policy in the Asia-Pacific region promoted by Obama. This policy is described by some specialists as the most ambitious since the United States set the containment doctrine against the Soviet Union after World War II.

The alliance suggested by Kaplan could have been possible if the preceding history had been different. In 2001, after the events of 9/11, Putin gave Washington unconditional support in the fight against terrorism. It reached the point of agreeing to the establishment of American military bases in Central Asian countries under its sphere of influence. In spite of the above, NATO, under American initiative, continued incorporating into its ranks the countries of the former Soviet orbit. That not only surrounded Russia with hostile forces, but also violated the guarantees given by Washington to Gorbachev before the dismemberment of the Soviet Union. Putin, like his predecessor Yeltsin, felt betrayed by the United States. The attempt to pull Ukraine toward the West was the last straw.

The antagonism between the United States and China, given the obvious interference of the former in the maritime disagreements of the latter, comes on top of the confrontation that separates Washington and Moscow. Contrary to Nixon, who knew how to make the most of the friction between Moscow and Beijing, nowadays the United States has become the main promoter of a Moscow-Beijing axis. This is the antithesis of the traditional formula, which is to divide and conquer.