Justice for Jake Sullivan

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A Reagan doctrine against Putin

It will be up to historians to say precisely when the Third World War began. In 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea? In 2008, when Russia covertly annexed South Ossetia? In 2020, when Beijing adopted the National Security Law, effectively abolishing Hong Kong’s autonomy? Or even earlier, before the end of the USSR, with the operations orchestrated or taken over by the KGB in Nagorno-Karabakh (1988-1994), Transnistria (1990-1992) and Abkhazia (1992-1993)? It will also be up to them to understand whether the fall of Gorbachev and the end of the USSR constituted a rupture or whether the ‘Yeltsin’ parenthesis should rather be considered in the same way as the use of separatist movements – as part of a wider strategy of Russian revanchist and imperialist power structures and circles.

In this respect, the Asian pivot will be remembered as the most tangible sign of the Obama presidency’s weakness in terms of security and international relations. Not that he failed to recognise the reality of the rise of the People’s Republic of China and the threat it now posed to global security. But, as Andrew A. Michta has said, the emergence of a new main threat does not mean that other threats disappear. Defining Russia as a regional power, as Barack Obama did, was not only diplomatically ill-advised, it also underestimated the persistence of the Russian threat.

With North Korea now directly involved in the conflict and China’s economic, technological and military aid to Russia continuing, albeit discreetly, it is urgent to consider the war in Ukraine in the light of the major threat to global security posed by China. This is a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for understanding Washington’s strategy towards Ukraine, its underlying reasons, its strengths and weaknesses.

Unlike the policy pursued under President Obama, the Biden administration’s strategy is, we believe, in line with a more traditional approach to American diplomacy aimed both at preserving a certain balance between competing powers and neutralising the risks of state disintegration. It was this approach that led President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905, at the end of the Russo-Japanese War, to ensure that Russia did not emerge too weakened from its defeat by Japan ¹, in particular by ensuring that Sakhalin Island did not pass entirely under Japanese control. In 1941, after the breakdown of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, the US Congress rushed to adopt the lend-lease in favour of the USSR (over 11 billion dollars), without which, according to Joseph Stalin himself, the USSR could not have won the war. Concerned about the possible disintegration of the USSR, US President George H. W. Bush condemned ‘suicidal nationalism’ in a speech in Kyiv on 1 August 1991, three weeks before Ukraine declared independence. He defended Gorbachev and advocated the continued existence of a functioning central (Soviet) structure.

If, as we believe, the risk of Russia’s disintegration as a state entity is at the heart of Washington’s strategy, we should question its pertinence. In the space of a hundred years, Russia has witnessed the succession of three regimes: Tsarist, Soviet and mafia-political, all based on a structure that has not seen any real disruption: the secret services. The FSB succeeded the KGB, the NKVD, the Guepeu and the Cheka, themselves successors and continuators of the Tsarist Okhranka. Property rights remained what they had always been: at the whim of the ruler. Unlike in 1917 and 1991, even the possibility of a regime change is extremely unlikely. The backbone of the current regime, the FSB, remains extremely solid and has only one real competitor: the Russian army and its own intelligence service. ²

On the other hand, the risk of an amputation of part of Russian territory by a neighbour does not seem to be at the heart of Washington’s concerns, even though it is, we believe, significant. This brings us directly back to the main threat, the question of the Asian pivot.

It would be simplistic to confine the Asian pivot to Thucydides’ trap, to the threat posed to the United States by China as an emerging power. Imperial ambitions have been a constant in China’s history, a history studded with moments of great expansion followed by implosion and fragmentation. Moreover, the imperialist designs of the People’s Republic of China are part of its totalitarian DNA. This was evident as early as 1950, just one year after the advent of the People’s Republic, with the invasion and annexation of Tibet ordered by Mao Tse-Tung. It was again evident in 1962, when the PRC occupied Aksai Chin. The gradual abolition of Hong Kong’s autonomous status over the decade 2010-2020, in violation of the Sino-British agreements, and the ‘soft’ colonisation of Bhutan ³, also fall into this category.

But for an ambitious imperialist project to be implemented, it needs to be supported and embodied by an undisputed leader. This happened with Xi Jinping’s arrival in power. The abolition of the ‘maximum two terms’ clause at the head of the state and the Communist Party will enable him to free himself from temporal limits on the exercise of power. At the end of his third five-year term in March 2028, he will be 75 years old, and at the end of his fourth term in March 2033, if he manages to hold on to power until then, he will be 80.

All eyes are of course on Taipei. Xi Jinping’s top priority is ‘reunification’ on the basis of the principle of ‘one country, two systems’, despite the fact that this principle has been flouted in the case of Hong Kong. The People’s Liberation Army has been asked to work hard on this goal. Its fleet already exceeds that of the US Navy in terms of tonnage. Impressive military exercises regularly take place around Taiwan.

The annexation of Taiwan by the PRC would be tantamount to turning the Taiwan Strait into a Chinese domestic sea. It is a place through which more than 20% of the world’s maritime trade passes, worth around 2.45 trillion dollars. Japan uses the strait for 25% of its exports and 32% of its imports, worth almost 444 billion dollars, South Korea for 23% of its exports and 30% of its imports, worth around 357 billion dollars, and Australia for almost 27% of its exports, or 109 billion dollars.

Furthermore, annexation would mean Taiwan’s semiconductor (microchip) producers, which currently account for more than 60% of world production, including 90% of the most sophisticated products, coming under the control of a totalitarian regime.

However, everything indicates that an invasion of Taiwan by the PRC remains a particularly difficult challenge. In addition to the strong resistance that the Taiwanese army and population would inevitably put up to an attempted invasion, such a scenario would very probably involve the United States, Japan, Australia, even South Korea, Great Britain and other democracies joining the Taiwanese in the war. Unlike the Normandy landings, Beijing would first have to secure control of the waters around the island, which is more than 130 kilometres from the PRC. It would therefore have to neutralise not only the American and Taiwanese fleets but also the formidable Japanese and South Korean navies. These difficulties do not seem to have escaped the PRC’s military leadership.

If we set aside Beijing’s military objectives in the East China Sea and that of the Japanese islands of Senkaku (Diaoyu for the Chinese), which, although symbolically important, have a much more limited strategic value, and if we consider that Xi Jinping is now bound by a duty to achieve results given his ambitions for imperial restoration, the question arises as to what might be an alternative imperial objective to that of Taiwan?

Part of historic Manchuria, the cradle of the Qing dynasty that ruled the Chinese empire from 1644 until its fall in 1911, a window onto the Sea of Japan, Outer Manchuria was annexed by Russia, following the Treaty of Aigun in 1858 and the Beijing Convention in 1860. These treaties are still held by the Chinese to be unequal. With a surface area of around one million square kilometres, the region has a population of 4.5 million. On the Chinese side, the former Inner Manchuria is part of the Donbei, the north-eastern region of the PRC. This region covers almost 800,000 square kilometres and has a population of some 100 million.

The part of Outer Manchuria that borders the Sea of Japan stretches 130 kilometres from Vladivostok to the small town of Chasan, on the border with North Korea. A few dozen kilometres wide, sometimes less than 20 kilometres, it is 1,300 kilometres from Beijing and more than 5,400 kilometres from Moscow.

Although Sino-Russian relations may seem excellent today, there is little doubt that for the Russian General Staff, defending this strip of land is seen as a challenge. Russian generals also remember the 1969 border conflict between the PRC and the Soviet Union: in March around Damansky-Zhenbao Island on the Amur River; and in August along the Sino-Soviet border at Terekti, in Yumin county in East Turkestan (Xinjiang), not far from Kazakhstan. The backdrop to this undeclared war between two nuclear powers was the breakdown of Sino-Soviet relations and Chinese denunciation of the ‘unequal treaties’. This conflict, which was largely covered up by Beijing and Moscow, pitted some 800,000 Chinese troops against 650,000 Soviet troops. It resulted in the deaths of several dozen soldiers according to Moscow, 8,000 according to Beijing, and more than 20,000 according to the CIA.

Of course, it cannot be ruled out that Jack Sullivan, the US National Security Advisor, had this scenario in mind when he declared, even before his nomination, that the next President’s biggest task was ‘not to let the relationship with Russia completely collapse’, because that would lead to the ‘unthinkable’.

But events since 22 February 2022 seem to indicate that for the then Security Adviser ‘in pectore’, the ‘unthinkable’ was a reference to something else. The risk of a nuclear confrontation? This may well have interfered with the US administration’s thinking because of a very probable underestimation by the American intelligence services of the screening capabilities of a regime known for its enormous know-how in hybrid warfare. While it is common knowledge that the Russian regime has invested enormous resources in buying sympathy in the milieus of Western politics, journalism, business and academia, it is hard to imagine that this same regime has not invested significant resources in manipulating the Western intelligence services by means of fabricated telephone conversations between Russian generals who have been bugged by the American services, or by instructing double agents to relay alarmist messages.

But Russia simply cannot use nuclear weapons. It would expose it to a devastating conventional response from the United States, it would alienate the support it still has in the so-called Third World, it would lead to a further drastic tightening of Western sanctions, it would have no significant military effect and, last but not least, it would lead to a profound deterioration in its relations with a China anxious to be able to conduct military operations in the future without the risk of escalation. 

The ‘unthinkable’ to which the National Security Advisor refers is, we believe, still the same as that of George H.W. Bush: the implosion of the Russian regime and the disintegration of Russia. The ‘unthinkable’, which the Biden Administration does not seem to have thought enough about: a weakening of Russia to such an extent that it calls into question the balance in the Far East between China, Japan and Russia, creating at the same time conditions for the predation of parts of Russian territory.

Aid to Ukraine that was too slow, qualitatively and quantitatively insufficient, and red lines that were not very relevant – clearly these factors would not send the right signal to all those in the Russian military, economic and political establishment who could have and still do constitute an alternative to the war clan embodied by Vladimir Putin. By extending the duration of the conflict, the US administration has helped to create a situation where the Russian army, weakened and soon to be deprived of the immense arms reserves of the Soviet era, will be less and less able to defend its Far Eastern borders, thereby increasing the likelihood of conflict.

Here we come face to face with another limitation of the Biden administration’s Ukrainian policy. Jake Sullivan’s problematic ‘relationship with Russia’ is well worth examining. Which Russia are we talking about? In the event of a Ukrainian victory, the war party embodied by Putin, Bortnikov, Patrushev, Shoïgu, Naryshkin, Medvedev, Peskov, Lavrov and a few others would undoubtedly suffer a crushing defeat. But could the same be said of Russia? With the possible exception of the still-delayed return of the Kuril Islands of Iturup, Kunashir, Chikotan and Habomai to Japan, its territory would remain as it has been since 1991. Freed from any imperial ambitions, which are extremely costly in terms of human and material resources, the anti-catastrophe party could finally set about developing the immense territories and populations of the distant provinces, which have been left to their own devices for decades. This is a job for three generations.

For a significant part of the Russian leadership to understand that there is no alternative to sidelining the war party, the West as a whole must abandon its pretence that it is up to the Ukrainians themselves to define the conditions for peace with Russia. The West must articulate its interests and political objectives precisely – in other words get Russia to abandon its colonialist dream and put an end to the territorial expansion equivalent to a surface area of the Netherlands each year ⁴ during the 300 years of the tsarist empire.

In addition to the return of Ukraine’s sovereignty to its 1991 borders, lasting security on the European continent requires the withdrawal of Russian forces from Transnistria and the full reintegration of this region into the Republic of Moldova; the withdrawal of Russian forces from Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the reintegration of these regions into the Republic of Georgia, with their border areas with Russia coming under the direct control of Tbilisi; and the organisation, under close international supervision, of new elections in Belarus. For the Russians, NATO membership for Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia is also the best antidote to any new imperial temptation, and it is essential for the security of these countries and of Europe as a whole.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is right to suggest that Ukraine should postpone any peace negotiations with Russia. More than ever, the West must supply Ukraine, in quantity and quality, with all the armaments it needs to defend itself and to recover the territories currently occupied by Russia. There may be some reluctance on the part of the frontline countries – Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland – to disarm their armies too much for the benefit of the Ukrainian army. However, the countries in the second line – Germany, the Czech Republic, Romania – and, even more so, the countries in the third or fourth lines, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, etc, have no excuse. They face no imminent threat. The substantial military failure of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, Moscow’s recent debacle in Syria and an increasingly difficult economic situation are sufficient proof that, as things stand, Moscow is in no position to wage another conventional war in Europe. The objective of Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia is the best investment Europeans can make in the defence of the continent. This means overcoming the resistance of their general staffs and drawing on the – modern – armaments stocks of their respective armies to transfer them to Ukraine.

In such a scenario, there would be no need for European countries to outbid each other – 3%, 3.5%, 4% – on future defence spending in the hope of appeasing the next American president. With a defence budget of 2% or 2.5% of their GDP, European NATO members could easily provide for the defence of Europe and jointly carry out certain research and development projects, particularly in the field of missile defence and defence against hybrid threats. This would enable the United States to limit its contribution to European security to the integrated command and nuclear deterrence and concentrate most of its resources on the Asian threat.

Unfortunately, by declaring that he was ‘against strikes on Russia with American long-range missiles, because that only makes the situation worse’, Donald Trump seems to be following Jake Sullivan’s line, in his own style, which is to preserve the relationship with Putin and the war clan. It is an approach shared, in essence, by those who, like President Emmanuel Macron and Italian defence minister Guido Crosetto, say they are ready to send peacekeeping forces to Ukraine and thereby ratify Russia’s de facto annexation of parts of Ukrainian territory. Xi Jinping has every reason to rejoice: Trump and, with him, Macron, are developing the jurisprudence that will allow him to annex territories in outer Manchuria with impunity, and even, by way of a starter course, the Scarborough reefs in the Philippines. Until it is Taiwan’s turn.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, the rouble continues to fall, the labour shortage is becoming more acute, the huge stocks of Soviet armaments are close to drying up, inflation is approaching 9%, sanctions are making access to foreign markets increasingly difficult, financial reserves are running out, discontent is growing in economic circles, and criticism, although still veiled, is growing.

Any ‘deal’ involving the de facto annexation of parts of Ukrainian territory and a veto on Ukraine’s future membership of NATO, a fortiori sanctioned by the presence of European military contingents on the front line, would represent a strategic turning point for the entire West. The countdown to the implementation of Xi Jinping’s imperial project would begin.

The year 2025 will be crucial. And money, more than ever, will be the sinews of war. As Ronald Reagan did in 1983 with the announcement of the launch of the Strategic Defence Initiative (the anti-missile shield), the West as a whole, or in its absence, the most determined European countries, have no alternative but to double down by urgently creating the financial mechanisms to provide Ukraine with €200 billion in military aid for 2025 and 2026.

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