The Coordinated Authoritarian Eurasian Superpower Challenge - Quadrology

United States Strategy in Europe during the Cold War and at this Stage.

 

After the Second World War, the USSR created deep buffers for its defense. The Baltic States, Belarus, and Ukraine were in the first line of defense. Its other defensive level consisted of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. Moreover, the USSR moved the buffers forward to the center of Germany on the north German plain. Given the history, the USSR needed to create such deep buffers as possible, which effectively prevented an attack on the USSR.

The United States, in turn, placed forces in West Germany in the framework of a military alliance. This alliance was likely insufficient to fend off a Soviet attack. The United States promised to send additional troops in case of war, and if it was needed, it was prepared to use nuclear weapons to stop a Soviet attack. The concept for America's posture here was similar to the country's actions in the two world wars: maintain the balance of power with minimal American exposure. If the symmetry was broken, the United States was prepared to send significantly more troops. In the worst case, the United States claimed to be prepared to use decisive force. The critical thing to note is that the United States retained the ability to enhance and use nuclear weapons. In part, the Soviet Union never attacked because they did not need it when they were not in danger and partly because the risk of an attack was too high.

Thus, the United States followed a consistent strategy in World Wars and during the Cold War. One avoided overexposure in that it limited its presence to the minimum required. The United States was not present in world wars until very late. During WWII, the United States' presence in peripheral activities consisted of a relatively low cost. During the Cold War, the United States in Europe placed a force sufficient to convince the Russians about the American intent, but always under control and always ready for full intervention at the last minute with minimal losses in an active military framework alliance.

The dissolution of the USSR and the emergence of new states in the post-Soviet area peeled away the buffers that the USSR had created in the Second World War. Russia's strategic position was now worse than before the war, even since 1700. If the internal buffer, the Baltic States, Belarus, and Ukraine, would become hostile and part of the Western alliance system, the threat to Russia is to be overwhelming. The Baltics were adopted to NATO, and the alliance was now less than 160 miles from St. Petersburg. If Ukraine and Belarus took the same route, then would Smolensk, once deep in the USSR and the Russian Empire, be a border town, and the distance from Moscow to NATO-territory would be 400 km. The extenuating circumstances were that NATO was weak and divided. But it was not much of a consolation for Russians who previously had seen Germany transformed from a weak and divided country in 1932 to a continental military power in 1938. An industrial base military capability can develop rapidly, and intentions can change overnight. Therefore, as recent events demonstrated, Russia needs to prevent the Western alliance from sucking up Ukraine.

The American strategy in Europe is still the same as in 1914: letting the European balances of power take care of itself. The United States found it comfortable with weak European powers as long as the Russians were also weak. There was no threat of a dominant force. The American strategy was to intervene with all the support needed to maintain balance, even militarily intervention with a strong alliance in the crucial moment, and not before.

After the dissolution of the USSR, a guide was added for the American defense in the form of the Wolfowitz doctrine79. The text is so raw in its cynicism towards the outside world that it may be appropriate to recall what it is about, even in theory. We have seen enough of the practical application of this doctrine over the years.

"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, which poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. It is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy. It requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power."

This document was heavily criticized for its imperialist endeavors. The revised and rewritten versions do not hide the message that the United States wants to prevent other states from threatening its superpower status

From Kosovo to Libya

When the USSR was disintegrated in 1992, Russia went against a chaotic time. It became a victim of a "let go liberalism" experiment during Boris Yeltsin’s time, which resulted in many Russians becoming impoverished and completely losing everything they owned. 1998 the Asian crisis afflicted Russia hard. NATO expanded to Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary in 1999, even though the United States, in connection with Germany's reunification, promised Russia that NATO would not expand even "One Inch Eastward." After that occurred the war in Kosovo (March 24 through 10 June 1999) when the Western powers in violation of international law attacked Yugoslavia's sovereign state, Kosovo was split from Serbia without a referendum was done. One obvious offense under the International Court of Justice was accepted without murmurings by the West for the sake of purpose to offend Russia in the Balkans and that the United States could get access to its now most extensive European military base Camp Bondsteel located right in Kosovo.

The war was not quite as good as presented in the mass media in the West. United States got two F-117 stealth planes downed some drones, aircraft, helicopters. Hungary refused to let NATO use its territory for a possible ground attack against Serbia out of fear of its Serbian minority.

Later this year, Russian President Boris Yeltsin announced his resignation and notified that he wished to be succeeded by the 47-year-old relatively unknown Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin, a trained lawyer in international law with a knowledge of economics and background in the KGB80, took office in 2000. In rocket speed, relations with Europe, mainly Germany was developed. It was tied to critical personal contacts with politicians and businesspeople, but primarily long-term business relationships were tied primarily in the energy sector. Some gas/oil pipelines were built through the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea.

During this period, border disputes were solved with China, becoming Russia's key strategic partner ahead. Then, on September 11, 2001, the attack on the World Trade Center in New York occurred. The US focus shifted from Russia to combat terrorism, which meant that Russia had many years to quietly strengthen its vulnerable western border by building a strategic economic partnership with West countries, particularly Germany. This country had been the main problem in the two world wars. As a result, SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) was developed, and both permanent observer and dialogue members were adopted.

During Putin's second term in 2004-2008, a collaborative organization, BRIC, was initiated with Brazil, Russia, India, and China as members who later became BRICS when South Africa also came to be included. It is worth noting that all BRICS members consist of a former colonial victim of the West's previous rampage during the colonial times. The only country that has not been colonized is just Russia. But several have tried to ingest or simply destroy Russia as a state. For example, the Mongols captured Kievan Rus in the 1200s and controlled Russia for about two hundred years.

Nevertheless, the Russian prince Alexander Nevsky stopped the Teutonic Order at the Neva in the mid-1200s. In the 1812 Patriotic War against Napoleon, Russia won, and last but not least, in the Great Patriotic War against Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. The USSR had to pay an extremely high price to save Europe from Nazism.

2003 United States attacked Iraq without UN approval under the pretext of weapons of mass destruction. These were never recovered, but Saddam Hussein was executed. Some analysts argued that the real reason was that Saddam Hussein wanted to abandon the US dollar as a trading currency.

In 2011, the United States / NATO attacked Libya just as in Iraq without approval from the UN veto powers since Russia and China abstained. NATO went beyond UN resolution 1973 by allowing the rebels to execute Muammar Gaddafi with the USA's good blessing.

The Unipolar World Order is Broken

 

Russia, in principle, agreed on the Western line when it abstained during the vote in the Security Council Resolution 1973 relating to the no-fly zone over Libya. In this Russian decision, Medvedev, Russia's president, and Prime Minister Putin could be sensed the internal contradictions and power struggles between the two leading political clans, Civiliki and Siloviki, in Russia. These clans have been involved in the almost constant competition for power over the last eight years. The clans also had different solutions to the development of the Russian economy, which was in dire need of reinforcement after being struck by the global financial crisis that erupted in September after the war in Georgia in 2008.

The two main factions within the Kremlin were then the Sechin clan, led by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, and the Surkov clan chaired by President Dmitry Medvedev's first deputy chief of staff, Vladislav Surkov.

Igor Sechin has its base in the...