The Grand Bargain: Can Russia and the US rewrite history?

There’s an irony of fate as the old rivals again look for common ground

By Andrey Kortunov

BUT BEFORE WE DIVE INTO WHAT ANDREY KORTUNOV HAS TO SAY, WE NEEED TO REVISIT SOME HISTORY:

THE GAME PLAN...

In 1946 in the famous "Long Telegram" George Kennan, a US diplomat based in Moscow, denounced that the next threat to the existence of the free world would come from the Soviet Union. According to Kennan the combination of ideological elements, namely the Marxist-Leninist thesis of the capitalist encirclement aimed at killing the proletarian revolution, and cultural attitudes, namely the expansionist and imperialistic ambitions inherently part of Russian history, should have pushed the United States to annihilate the Communist threat through a farsighted containment along the Soviet borders.

It is from this moment that, by understanding the importance of the hegemony over Eurasia, the United States decided to enter into the Great Game, since then fought by the British Empire, and to make the control over the Heartland one of its priorities.

[WE HAVE EXPOSED MANY TIMES THAT THIS IS NOT WHEN THIS "PROJECT" STARTED... IT STARTED BACK IN 1917, WHEN THE BRITISH BECAME BROKE FOR FIGHTING WW1 AND AFTER THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF 1017, IN WHICH THE AMERICANS HAD SOLDIERS "FIGHTING FOR THE TSAR AGAINST THE COMMUNISTS"...

[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/forgotten-doughboys-who-died-fighting-russian-civil-war-180971470/: As the Red Army neared, with bayonets fixed on their guns, Mead and his soldiers retreated. They ran through the village, from house to house, “each new dash leaving more of our comrades lying in the cold and snow, never to be seen again,” Mead said. At last, Mead made it to the next village, filled with American soldiers. Of Mead’s 47-man platoon, 25 died that day, and another 15 were injured.

For the 13,000 American troops serving in remote parts of Russia 100 years ago, the attack on Mead’s men was the worst day in one of the United States’ least-remembered military conflicts. When 1919 dawned, the U.S. forces had been in Russia for months. World War I was not yet over for the 5,000 members of the 339th U.S. Army regiment of the American Expeditionary Force deployed near the port city of Archangel, just below the Arctic Circle, nor for the 8,000 troops from the 27th and 31st regiments, who were stationed in the Pacific Ocean port of Vladivostok, 4,000 miles to the east.]

SEE: ALSO https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/43171]

BACK TO THE GAME PLAN:

Gathering the legacy of Sir Halford Mackinder, one of the founding fathers of geopolitics, the focus of Washington's foreign agenda shifted from the control over the "backyard", namely Latin America, to Eurasia. According to Mackinder, Eurasia was different from any other continent, because it was the land of great civilizations, the residence of a large part of the world population, strategically accessible and unattainable with an adequate network of infrastructures, and with an incomparable wealth in terms of natural resources.

Because of these reasons, according to him, the British should have invested more resources not in the maintenance of a thalassocracy but in avoiding the formation of a hegemonic power in Eurasia by means of sabotages, the creation of buffer states, secret diplomacy.

In particular, Mackinder was worried about the possibility of a Russian-German alliance because from the union of the Teutonic industrial potentials with the endless resources offered by the Russian soil it could emerge a lethal power for the British hegemony, which was not only decadent but also anachronistic because founded on the domination of the seas in the era that would have enshrined the rule of land transport.

More than a century after the publication of The Geographical Pivot of History by Mackinder and more than 20 years after the publication of The Big Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the most powerful strategists of the recent US history (strongly influenced by the Mackinderian school), it is easily noticeable how the suggestions about the control over Eurasia have been scrupulously followed by the United States.

Mackinder's theory of Heartland (Source: CA&CC Press AB)

In particular, Brzezinski's recommendations for an "Eurasian strategy" have become a reality: expansion of NATO and the European Union in the Balkans and in the Eastern Europe, removal of Ukraine from the Russian sphere of influence, pressure on the main Asian geostrategic pivots like Caucasus, Turkestan, Turkey, Fertile Crescent and Persian Gulf, to make the continent ungovernable to any wanna-be hegemon.

Decades of successful post-Cold war neo-containment have resulted in a favourable situation for the United States, but the events could still change in favour of Russia because of the emerging of China.

In fact, on the one hand the United States show interest in the deepening of the neo-containment begun after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, on the other hand the emphasis given to the War on Terror and Russia has allowed China to emerge as an economic major power whose planetary ambitions are threatening the stability of the American empire.

And it is precisely in this complicated context that the Trump administration strategy has been developed with the aim of lowering the risks of the imperial overextension by means of strategic withdrawals in places of secondary or declining importance (Syria, Afghanistan), compromise agreements wherever is possible to avoid escalations that would steal precious resources (North Korea), and make tailored traps to get the best result at the lowest cost.

Apart from some appreciation of Vladimir Putin and signal of openness, the Trump administration is being working very hard to bring Russia to the implosion: new agreements for military supply and deployment of new military, sale of heavy weapons to Ukraine, new rounds of sanctions, withdrawal from the INF treaty, on the background of a general sabotage of the Russian agenda for the Middle East.

Ronald Reagan docet and Trump learnt the lesson: sanctions to make pressure on the Russian economy and the prospect of a new arms race to push Russia (and China) in. The context is also similar: it is no longer Afghanistan, but Syria and Ukraine. The strategy can work: indeed the Russian economy continues to be dependent on the export of weapons and energy resources, while there are no farsighted plans for real and efficient diversification, but the budget of the world's largest state can not continue to depend only on two revenues.

It is true that Trump has occasionally shown a willingness to improve relations with Russia, but always dictating his own rules. There are ongoing talks about a possible future recognition by the United States of Crimea as a territory under Russian sovereignty. Trump himself said he left the possibility open. But it is an event that will take place according to the rules set by Washington. And in the United States, strategists know very well what to ask in exchange: China, ie they will try to push Russia out from Chinese orbit in order to avoid the birth of an alliance extremely dangerous for the creaky American-centric unipolar order.

It won't be easy to make the strategy work but the White House already knows what to do: exploiting the creeping and existing fears in the Kremlin about a Chinese-run Eurasia which would doom Moscow to play a peripheral role. The strategy could work because it has already successfully tested in the past, namely when the divisions within the international Communist bloc were cleverly exploited by Henry Kissinger to bring China out of the Soviet orbit.

This time the game would take advantage of what Kennan called the "traditional Russian insecurity" in order to turn two collaborative partners into two competitive rivals. Thanks to the withdrawal from the INF treaty, the military threats along the national borders, the economic pressure and the need to compete against the United States and China, Russia would probably implode in the same way of the Soviet Union. At this point, Washington could finally focus its efforts against the true target of this century: Beijing.

But the US strategy for Eurasia will work only if Russia and China will respond to pressures and threats as planned and until now Putin and Xi Jinping seem to have understood the American intentions and are deepening the strategic bilateral partnership in every important sector. Also, Russia does not seem interested in taking part in a new arms race and the economic pressures could be relieved with a strengthening of the Eurasian Economic Union.

The last point is the German question. Both Mackinder and Brzezinski feared the emergence of a possible Moscow-Berlin axis. Until now, thanks also to the underground economic warfare waged by the United States against Germany, Chancellor Merkel has satisfied every US directive, even freezing profitable energetic projects such as the Nord Stream 2.

But if Macron and Merkel's plan for a new Europe more autonomous from Washington come true, there could take place also a reevaluation of their current positions about Russia.

In any case, Russia can not have trust in the European Union, because it acts on the basis of contingent interests and defends American agenda in every possible sector even when against its own interests. The only way to deal with the neverending containment is to read Mackinder and Brzezinski and understand the importance of having a counter-strategy for hegemony over the Heartland.

Emanuel Pietrobon

See more at http://www.pravdareport.com/opinion/142317-usa_russia_containment/

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SO BACK TO TODAY'S EVENTS:

The Grand Bargain: Can Russia and the US rewrite history?

There’s an irony of fate as the old rivals again look for common ground

By Andrey Kortunov

For years, Russian-American relations seemed to be in an irreversible coma. Diplomacy was dead, overtaken by hostility, sanctions, and a growing risk of military confrontation. Many insisted that nothing could break this trajectory — Moscow and the Washington were locked into an unchangeable course of conflict.

Yet today, the pace of change is astonishing. The recent high-level meeting between Russian and American officials in Riyadh, followed by Donald Trump’s latest statements, suggests that nothing in geopolitics is predetermined.

This turn of events brings to mind an iconic scene from Terminator 2, in which Sarah Connor carves “No fate” into a wooden table. Her son, John, expands on the thought: “There is no fate except the one we make for ourselves.” The message is clear — our future is shaped by choices, not by destiny.

For years, analysts and politicians in both Russia and the West insisted that the US-Russia standoff was inevitable. Some American strategists viewed Russia as an irredeemable adversary, while Russia’s “turbo-patriots” warned that any engagement with Washington would be a trap. The more extreme voices on both sides even suggested that the confrontation could only end in nuclear catastrophe.

But the events unfolding now suggest otherwise. If there is no fate but what we make, then the choices before Moscow and Washington today are of historic significance.

The Riyadh talks have already begun to dismantle long-standing assumptions about the supposed unity of the “collective West.” For years, Russian policymakers believed that global politics were controlled by a single, centralized “Anglo-American” power structure, operating seamlessly from Washington to Brussels. The reality, as the Trump era has repeatedly demonstrated, is far more fragmented.

Trump’s America is not Joe Biden’s America. Even within Washington, deep divisions are evident. Meanwhile, Western Europe — long assumed to be unwaveringly aligned with the US — now finds itself struggling with internal disagreements and resentment over American pressure.

For Russia, this fragmentation is an opportunity. The unraveling of transatlantic consensus presents openings that did not exist even a year ago.

Of course, skepticism remains. Critics will argue that any agreement with Washington is a trap — that the US will make grand promises only to renege on them later, as it has in the past. That once Russia lets its guard down, the West will revert to its old habits of betrayal and broken deals.

This is not an unfounded concern. History has taught Russia to be cautious. But diplomacy is not about guarantees — it is about opportunities. There is no such thing as an ironclad agreement in geopolitics. Every deal can be broken, every promise can be reversed. The real question is whether Russia is prepared to seize the moment when a rare opportunity presents itself.

And this moment may be precisely that.

Even if Trump’s envoys — Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, and Steve Witkoff — are skilled negotiators, it is difficult to imagine that they possess a superior grasp of diplomacy than figures like Sergey Lavrov or Yury Ushakov. Russia has experienced diplomats who have spent decades navigating the complexities of global power politics. If the US team believes it can outmaneuver Moscow, it is sorely mistaken.

The road ahead is uncertain, and there will be voices insisting that Russia should reject any engagement with Washington outright. But refusing to negotiate out of fear would be a mistake. Russia is not in the position it was in the 1990s — it is stronger, more self-sufficient, and recognized as a global power. This time, Moscow enters negotiations not as a supplicant but as an equal.

Opportunities in diplomacy are rare. It is easy to let them slip away; far harder to seize them. If Russia and the US can move toward a reasonable compromise — one that secures Moscow’s core interests while de-escalating tensions — it may be the moment that reshapes the geopolitical landscape for years to come.

There is no fate — only the choices we make.

This article was first published by Kommersant, and was translated and edited by the RT team.

https://www.rt.com/news/613131-grand-bargain-russia-us-rewrite-history/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

THOUGH ONE DOES NOT KNOW IF DONALD TRUMP IS AWARE OF THIS HISTORY, HE KNOWS THAT IN ORDER TO AVOID  WW3 AND A COMPLETE NUCLEAR ANNIHILATION, RUSSIA AND THE USA (AND CHINA) NEED TO MAKE PEACE... THE ONLY PATHWAY TO PEACE IS BY DESTROYING THE GAME PLAN (OF THE DEEP STATE)...

OUR WESTERN MEDIA ON THIS SUBJECT IS IGNORAMUS SHITTUS... AND THIS INCLUDE MANY LEFTY COMEDIANS SUCH AS STEPHEN COLBERT, et al.....