We are entering the end stage of the 30-year US neocon debacle in Ukraine. The neocon plan to surround Russia in the Black Sea by NATO has failed. Decisions now by the US and Russia would matter enormously for peace, security and well-being for the entire world.
Four events have shattered neocon hopes for NATO enlargement eastward, to Ukraine, Georgia and beyond.
The first is straightforward. Ukraine has been devastated on the battlefield, with tragic and appalling losses. Russia is winning the war of attrition, an outcome that was predictable from the start but one which the neocons and the mainstream media keep denying.
The second is the collapsing support in Europe for the US neocon strategy. Poland no longer speaks with Ukraine. Hungary has long opposed the neocons. Slovakia has elected an anti-neocon government. EU leaders (Macron, Meloni, Sanchez, Scholz, Sunak and others) have disapproval ratings far higher than their approval ratings.
The third is the cut in US financial support for Ukraine. The Republican Party base, several Republican presidential candidates and a growing number of Republican members of Congress, oppose more spending on Ukraine.
The fourth, and urgent from Ukraine’s point of view, is a likely Russian offensive. Ukraine’s casualties are in the hundreds of thousands, and the nation has burned through its artillery, air defenses, tanks and other heavy weapons. Russia is likely to follow with a massive offensive.
Ukraine is at risk of economic, demographic and military collapse.
What should the US do to face this potential disaster?
Urgently, it should change course. The UK advises the US to escalate, as the UK is stuck with 19th century imperial reveries. US neocons are stuck with imperial bravado. Cooler heads urgently need to prevail.
US President Joe Biden should inform Russian President Vladimir Putin that the US would end NATO enlargement eastward if the US and Russia reach a new agreement on security arrangements. Biden should agree to negotiate a security arrangement of the kind, though not precise details, of Putin’s proposals of Dec. 17, 2021. Biden foolishly refused to negotiate with Putin then. It is time to negotiate now.
There are four keys to an agreement:
First, as part of an agreement Biden should agree that NATO would not enlarge eastward, but not reverse the past NATO enlargement. NATO would not tolerate Russian encroachments on existing NATO states.
Second, the new agreement should cover nuclear weapons. The US unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, placement of AEGIS missiles in Poland and Romania, US unilateral withdrawal from the Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) Agreement in 2019 and Russia’s suspension of the New Start Treaty this year, have gravely raised tensions.
Third, Russia and Ukraine would agree on new borders, with the overwhelmingly ethnic Russian Crimea and heavily ethnic Russian areas of eastern Ukraine remaining part of Russia. Border changes would be accompanied by security guarantees for Ukraine backed unanimously by the UN Security Council and states such as Germany, Turkey and India.
Fourth, the US, Russia and EU would re-establish trade, finance, cultural and tourist relations. It is certainly time once again to hear Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky in US and European concert halls.
If Russia, Ukraine or the US subsequently violated the new agreement, they would be challenging the rest of the world. As former US president John F. Kennedy once observed: “Even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest.”
Neocons carry much blame for undermining Ukraine’s 1991 borders. Russia did not claim Crimea until after the US-backed overthrow of then-Ukranian president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. Nor did Russia annex Donbas after 2014, instead calling on Ukraine to honor the UN-backed Minsk II agreement promising autonomy to Donbas. The neocons preferred to arm Ukraine to forcibly retake Donbas rather than grant Donbas autonomy.
The key to long-term peace in Europe is collective security as called for by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). According to OSCE agreements, OSCE member states “will not strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other States.”
Jeffrey D. Sachs is a university professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, and president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. The views expressed in this column are his own.
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