Why there is a strong strain in the West that blames the West for our enemies is beyond me. But here we go again.
Remember after 9/11 when some on the left asked "Why do they hate us?" Their answers to why jihadis flew planes into our buildings almost uniformly assumed that America did something to deserve the hate and murder. The impulse to blame America for our enemies is still strong in some circles.
Fortunately, the emerging Sino-Soviet split widened in the late 1960s to the point where their respective armies clashed near the Ussuri River in 1969. President Richard Nixon took geopolitical advantage of that development to forge the opening to China while simultaneously pursuing detente with the Soviet Union, further driving a wedge between the two Eurasian communist giants. Every administration after Nixon’s recognized the wisdom of preventing a reconciliation between Soviet Russia and China during the endgame of the Cold War.
Since 1993, U.S. foreign policy has, wittingly or unwittingly, worked in the opposite direction — financially fueling China’s rise while antagonizing a defeated Russia by repeatedly expanding NATO eastward.
The old split was because China feared the USSR more than it feared America and we helped China defend itself against a Soviet Russian invasion.
Right now, Russia needs to fear China will invade--overtly or in influence--former Chinese Far East territory. But Russia is in official denial.
So that option is closed for now.
The only way for the West to "split" Russia from China is to offer up victims to one or the other--most likely the weaker Russians who are more desperate for help--to get them to ally with the West. Which is what the claim that NATO expansion "caused" Russia to get paranoid and aggressive is based on.
Russia's leadership is living in a fantasy world. FFS, on top of seeing Nazis and NATO under every bed in Ukraine, Russia claims it is fighting Satan there. No Western concession can alleviate that level of paranoia.
And such an alliance is both morally repugnant and doomed to fail because whoever we "bought" will soon enough demand more victims to remain bought. And our best and brightest will insist that "we" pay the higher price, since we've already established what we are.
We did not create Russia and China as they are now. This belief denies agency to anybody but America which it is alleged ultimately bears responsibility for everything by what we do or fail to do.
Explain how our policies that tried to welcome and advance China in the global economy were somehow part of driving China into Russia's arms.
Our policy of helping Russia after the collapse of the USSR and disarming NATO even as former victims of the USSR sought the paper protection of NATO somehow was legitimately viewed by Russia as a military threat and led Russia to demonize the West?
No. Russian and Chinese aggression is on them. Going along with their aggression will not sate their territorial appetites.
That initial author thinks history is kind of rhyming with the divisions into military blocs the way Europeans divided up before World War I. I am open to the rhyming history approach. But the strategic conditions that led to World War I expanding rapidly as countries feared the worst don't really apply now. Who is the modern "Germany" with a two-front war strategy that required a rapid defeat of France--which wasn't in the initial Balkans crisis--before it mobilized before turning to face a mobilizing Russia?
Arguably that role of Germany would be Russia trying to subdue Ukraine and in the process neuter NATO before pivoting to face China. But Russia laughably insists they are best buddies with China. Perhaps a Russian defeat in Ukraine will be the big hit with the clue bat that Russia desperately needs to end that delusion.
Yeah, I'm a pretty optimistic sort of fellow.
And sadly, the author's preferred policy of splitting Russia from China by rewarding Russian aggression may be rhyming with the pre-World War II Western approach to aggressors.
There will be no peace for out time with that approach now.
NOTE: Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
