Let's Give Peace A Chance

And stop tilting at windmills

The Trump 2.0 administration has struck like a sledgehammer, letting loose Elon and DOGE to break down the entrenched powers in Washington, a much bigger change has happened regarding the world. Multipolarity is back!

Looking back at the bad choice in the early 90s.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, a multipolar world should have developed. Americans didn’t support being the World’s Policeman and did not support becoming the world’s hegemon.

While post-Soviet Russia was a mess, to same the least, it wanted inclusion in the West. Russia was not a threat to Europe or America or anyone else. The country was largely controlled by mafia-like oligarchs, who mostly gained their wealth through nefarious means.

Europe was no longer divided. German was reunified. The Warsaw Pact was done. There was a lot of talk of creating the United State of Europe, free of American control of domination. Even without that, Germany was potentially a regional power. France was an important economic power with substantial colonial connections in Africa. The UK still had the Commonwealth and connections and industry. Europe, either united or merely allied, had the potential to become its own pole, free from extremely control and domination.

Japan in the 1980s and 1990s was threatening to become the economic powerhouse of the world. While it remained allied to the US, its economic prowess disrupted the US economy and some Japanese leaders began to think about greater independence.

China was big, but was not the economic powerhouse it is today. It was potential, more than anything else. There was as much potential for China to grow to become a great power as for it to become dominated and fractured. Savvy leadership and helpful outside hands would be needed to bring China to the forefront.

India was a big mess and barely a regional force. Pakistan was its peer and source of conflict. India was not anywhere near great power status.

The Middle East was a mess, like always, but there were a lot of autocrats and most did not want to be invaded. There was wealth to extract, not great power status.

So, in short, the world after the Cold War was one where the US could have reduced its worldwide control and focus more on interior development. Whatever regional issues that developed had ample other players who could have intervened, if necessary. Or the conflicts could have just played out, until money and weapons dried up. It just was not important for the US to exert hegemony over the world. It was only important to those who sought money and power.

Rules-Based International Order

Instead, Bush and Clinton created the New World Order, giving America 30 years as the world’s dominant country. There was not peace much during this time. Conflicts occurred around the world, governments were overthrown, and all manner of deaths and suffering occurred.

However, to some, the Rules-Based International Order, as it came to be called by the end of the Obama years, was never really rules-based. It was the US doing whatever it wanted, ignoring international law.

During the same time, the US pushed China to the front of the world economically, instead of isolating Communist China. It was an odd outcome as it made its own greatest competitor, a peer economic powerhouse. But by the end of the Obama presidency, fear of China and its rise lead to a series of treaties and proposals to isolate and contain China. Created might have been able to develop economic without outside forces, but it is unlikely it would have advanced so fast. China sold the West the rope it will use to hang the West.

Russia just wanted to be included in the Western club. Instead NATO, not necessary except to keep Europe dependent and under American control, kept expanding. Putin, who was picked by Kissinger and Clinton to rule Russia, finally told the West to stop expanding in 2007. Ukraine and Georgia were just too much. And besides, an anti-Soviet alliance has no need to exist.

The problem was two-fold for the West. First, they had no respect for Russia. It was just a gas station with nukes. Too many Western policymakers could not get past what Russia was in the 90s. They had no fear of Russia. Second, they really wanted to break up Russia like they had the Soviet Union. Long standing hostility from key policymakers, many of whom had heritage in Tsarist Russia, wanted to break up Russia and make it easier to rule and exploit. Their greed was just too much.

The Maidan project was a key factor in this anti-Russia effort. For a good summary of what all that was about, read this piece by Aaron Mate which provides a well-written summary with lots of details. The funny thing about the project, is that it might have worked, if not for Trump 1.0. I funny believe that the Ukraine War would have started under President Hillary in 2017 or 2018. At the time, Russia was not nearly as ready as it was in 2022, so the entire project might have worked.

Trump 1.0 disruption

Trump 1.0 tossed aside the Rules-Base Order and picked a much more confrontational route. China screamed about Trump violating the Rules-Based Order. But he also treated China as a peer, something previous leaders never really did. As such, he showed respect to the dragon. Trump also treated Putin in greater respect, just like he should respect to the Saudis, North Korea, and India.

Trump, for all his bluster, is a peacemaker and a dealmaker. He believes in making America great, but he also believes strongly in letting countries be sovereign. Trump wanted the end of the US hegemony and to bring about an American government that worked for Americans.

Trump was not prepared for the pushback by the forces of the Empire. He had no conception of the FBI and CIA corruption. Even though he had some idea that Hillary deserved to be in jail, he really did not understand the full extent. Trump was opposed by every side and with only limited support by the running class. They unleashed every dirty trick and corrupt practice they could to break him, and made sure he did not win in 2020.

Even so, the seeds were set. And Trump does not give up. He is extremely stubborn and bull-headed and does his best when he gets to counterpunch.

Biden’s disaster

I never thought I would witness a president as bad a Jimmy Carter again, let alone worse than Carter. Biden was far worse, but he really made few choices and decisions. He was a mere front-man for the collection of folks that wanted to push forward their agendas. They thought they knew better.

Nuland and company jumped right back in to pushing for the Ukraine War.

Afghanistan ended in complete disaster.

US economy was devastated by the Green New Deal disguised as an anti-inflation measure. The lying press covered for the Biden incompetence and corruption.

Every where around the world, the US looked like a weakened and dying empire.

Then the Ukraine War broke out. To those who don’t think Ukraine (and NATO) caused the war, just remember that weeks prior to the war starting Kamala addressed the Munich Security Conference and stated that Ukraine would be a NATO member.

Back in 1941, FDR engaged in a series of provocative acts to try and get either Japan or Germany to attack. While some might claim that it was all Japan’s fault that the war started, the reality is that Pearl Harbor was act of despair and desperation. The prior acts against Japan over the course of 1941 pushed Japan to lash out, in attempt to prevent the US from doing what it did.

Likewise, Putin sent in only 100,000 lightly armed troops into Ukraine. He avoided the 250,000 heavily armed and fortified troops in the Donbas, and instead secured vast undefended areas. Putin was hoping for a quick conflict, not a conquest of Ukraine. Putin did not understand the depth of NATO control over Ukraine. Once he secured a peace treaty, the Istanbul Communique, he withdrew from Kiev.

Then Ukraine pushed back in the north and south, and Russia retreated to more defensible lines.

Jake Sullivan has said recently that he was very proud of what was done with Ukraine. Either he is stupid or lying. He got the war he and the Neocons wanted, but what did it give them besides a huge opportunity at corruption.

Ukraine was not pushing Russia back anymore. Russia entrenched and solidified its gains and prepared for the 2023 counterattack. Russia prepared so well that it was an utter failure. Then Russia slowly but surely pushed Ukraine back, and did so in spite of the massive technological support of NATO.

Without the arms, the tech, and the “mercs”, Ukraine would have lost more. Perhaps Jake is happy that Russia did not take the entire country.

While the propaganda of Ukraine still able to withstand Russia continues, the reality is that a withdrawal of US tech support alone would leave Ukraine vulnerable to a rapid fall.

Meanwhile, Biden’s stupidity has broken US economic domination over the world. The sanctions regime, the seizing of assets, etc. has given rise to BRICS growth. It is not perfect, but it provides an alternative system, a system out of US control. This empowered the rest of the world, leaving only a small fraction of the world on board with the US hegemony.

The repeated use of sanctions may do more long-term harm than even the stupid war itself.

Trump 2.0

Trump is back and more disruptive than ever. And the world will never be the same. The unipolar moment is over. Multipolarity is back. Sovereignty and law will guide the interactions of countries more than “rules”.

And it is not just Ukraine. Trump is looking to rest the entire world politics. And it looks like Europe will be drawing the short straw unless it can jump off from its Davos policies and adapt.

Ukraine is done. Russia will likely end the war with full control of all the Russian areas of Ukraine, which would be the areas in the below maps in blue in the south and east of Ukraine. The remaining parts of Ukraine would still make it a large country, but one without the Donbas or Crimea or any Black Sea Coast.

After the war is over, likely by the end of the year, NATO may also be done, in not officially. Europe will need to wake up from history and develop some level of power of its own.

Likewise, regional peace will occur as the various great powers around the world secure control over conflicts in their region. The US will no longer be invading around the world. Sovereignty means respecting that others are different and do not need to be under US control. China is a Power. Japan is Power. India is a Power. Saudi Arabia is a Power. Brazil is a Power. Russia is a Power. Maybe Germany can become a power. The world is changing and Trump is right to give up the unipolar moment.

Give Peace a Chance.

Multipolarity is often more stable than unipolar systems. Instead of having one hegemon trying to force everyone else to obey, the various powers will keep others in line, with a changing balance of power. It one country becomes too powerful, the others will gang up on it and pressure it.

For America, this means no longer being engaged around the world, hurting its own citizens at home, and enriching the few. It is opportunity for economic growth and broad-based prosperity. The cost of maintaining an empire is one of the key factors in the end of empire. Empire is rarely good for those at home, as the home becomes just another province to dominate and use the same tools to control abroad at home.

I had hoped that multipolarity would have broken out in the early 90s. I went to graduate school at the time with a goal of better understanding such systems from the past and intending to help navigate the present. I was especially bothered by so many “national security specialists” unable to see past a bipolar system and wanting to create a new enemy to oppose. When you go searching for dragons, even windmills look like dragons.