|
Welcome back to Off the Record, coming to you from Brussels.
Next week, I’ll be sitting down with an icon. They say you should never meet your heroes, but convention is boring. I’ll keep you in suspense for now, but here are two clues: her books often feature a female protagonist in search of purpose in what might otherwise seem mundane, and her latest novel is set in Paris.
Now let’s get into the politics. This week, a story made my jaw hit the floor.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has floated a three-way meeting with Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping to discuss a way out of the war in Ukraine, which he started. Trump seemed to confirm the pitch, without putting a date on it, suggesting it could be good for the world if it included denuclearisation.
If you’re not alarmed by this, you should be.
Putin wants a Yalta 2.0 moment. One that would restore his international stature and present Russia as a great power, much like the three-way summit that helped shape the post-WWII order 81 years ago in the resort city of Yalta.
In 1945, as victory over Nazi Germany drew closer, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin gathered in Yalta to divvy up the post-war world. The conference helped lay the groundwork for spheres of influence across Europe, with the Soviets subsequently cementing their control over practically all of Eastern Europe.
Churchill was an imperfect man, but nonetheless the war hero Great Britain needed at the time. He walked away from the whole affair disenchanted.
He knew the Soviets would engulf half of Europe, leaving the continent divided by an Iron Curtain for decades to come. In the midst of it all, Poland would be sacrificed, alongside the Baltic states, much of Central Europe and parts of the Balkans. And he was right. But he still had to accept the deal.
Yalta dictated the terms of a new world order, but also set the stage for the Cold War. Of course, the echoes of history can be cruel: Yalta has been under Russian occupation since 2014, following Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea.
If you follow that logic, the modern-day triumvirate of Trump, Xi and Putin would get together and split up the world for the next 100 years. One piece for you, another for me — you get the gist of it.
Presumably, the talks would focus on Ukraine and Taiwan. If Yalta 2.0 works anything like the 1945 conference, the three would cut a backroom deal and the rest of the world would have no choice but to go along with it. Putin would emerge as the winner, which explains why he’s pitching it in the first place.
Russia is a nuclear power, but it is no longer a great power. Putin, who once called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” for Russia, has long sought to restore Moscow’s lost sphere of influence. If Trump joins that meeting, he would be handing the Russian leader his biggest strategic victory since the Soviet Union’s collapse.
Along the way, the US President would alienate America’s friends. Trump may not think much of his allies, but they are crucial. Policing the world has brought Washington lucrative deals, enormous influence and military bases that it needs for its own security, whether Trump likes to admit it or not.
A new Yalta without his allies would certify the death of the West as we know it.
|
