For at least three reasons Vladimir Putin may consider jumping on Donald Trump’s bandwagon to jointly forge a United States-Russian Federation (US-RF) supremacy over the international arena. Both you and I may not like it but should it materialize in an optimal mode, the world could probably have a less chaotic order for, say, four years.
Ideologically speaking, in the wake of Trump’s selection of billionaires one after one to join his cabinet, the U.S. President-elect appears to be giving prominence to the commercial interests rather than placing emphases on human rights, liberty, equality and alike. As we all know, when a ‘problem’ can be solved by money, it is no longer a problem.
Assuming Trump tends to be narrowing down or even putting aside the decades-long ideological divide between Washington and Moscow, the threat of provoking color revolution would subside, the criticism of human rights in Syria would fade, the spats over the civil rights in Ukraine, Bulgaria and Hungary would vanish ……
All these would open the gates on all fronts for the U.S. and Russia to hammer out numerous deals on regulating and reshaping the dynamics of world politics in accordance with their common wills and interests instead of the idealistic universal values for the whole mankind.
They may talk about a new generation of nuclear arms race [Note 1] but it simply means that these two nations’ military domination over the world would be further solidified rather than relaxed (nuclear warheads in Russia said to be 7,300, whereas in US 6,970, France 300, China 260), and that a nuclear war remains an empty talk.
Down to earth, when we talk about geopolitics in respect of their own primary sphere of influence, it so happens that there is no overlap between these two superpowers since Russia’s first zone of apprehension is its ‘near abroad’ comprising the former Soviet states whereas the Western Hemisphere is the United States’ backyard.
If the next White House master is willing to lessen the pushes for liberal democratization in the zones surrounding Russia, or soften the interference into eastern Ukraine which is deemed to be the heartland of the Kievan Rus’, or refrain from challenging the Rossiyane community (ethnic Russians and Russian speakers), then the horizon for the US-RF co-operation could be wider than anyone expected.
Although confrontations between them do happen in the Middle East, they have a common enemy, namely, the ISIL. Both superpowers have their own motivations to scale down, if not possible to completely eliminate, the impacts of these extremists, and they would perhaps become more prepared to apply out-of-the-box tactics or even inhumane approaches to have their missions accomplished in the name of protecting the Christians from the ‘terrorists’ and for the sake of safeguarding their strategic interests in this region respectively.
One possible scenario for fostering such a dream team is to achieve compromises on drawing lines between them. By accepting, for example, Bashar al-Assad’s authority over Syria and endorsing the P5+1 Iran nuclear deal, Trump may trade for a Kurdish state in addition to deeper consolidation of the American power in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If it works, their closer joint military operations there would at least minimize bloodshed in the Middle East even though total peace and stability could not be restored. Many other nations can benefit from this teamwork as the American allies in Europe can be relieved of the refugee problems whereas Iran, Russia’s ally, could continue its journey to sustain economic growth.
Oil politics is the third subject area that Trump would be trying to induce Putin to yield a joint supremacy. Picking ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who was awarded the ‘Order of Friendship’ by Putin in 2013, is not just a prelude to a great philharmonic performance among the eight white powers — U.S., Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden and, of course, Russia — in the Arctic Council, but also a sign of forming an exclusive US-RF coterie to manipulate the globe’s energy sector.
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and other crude producers, OPEC members or not, will be subjected to more taming controls by the time these two superpowers could have coordinated together to fiddle political as well as financial exertions. Nevertheless, the global economy may benefit from the relatively stable energy prices and supplies thereafter.
Despite the ‘dislikes’ by millions of people worldwide, be they socialists, liberalists, human rights defenders, anti-racism idealists or anarchists, this supremacy co-partnered by two Caesar-like charismatic leaders could function well to put the world order under control, thus bringing forth some sort of peace, so long as it is operating in its optimal condition. Backfire would take place, however, once it has gone too far.
Examples of bad moves are unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, establishment of a Kurdish state by eating into Turkey’s territory, haughty shredding of the One-China policy, or upsetting Saudi Arabia by hasty annexation of the West Bank by Israel (as advocated by Trump’s ambassador nominee to Israel: David Friedman).
China, India, Brazil and some other developing countries are emerging powers, yet they are undeniably far from being capable of challenging the US-led NATO and alliance in Australasia as well as the RF-led Commonwealth of Independent States in terms of natural endowment, technologies, military might and intelligence. These peoples would be fools if they dared to activate real combats against the two superpowers for the time being.
It is uncertain how long such a US-RF partnership could last but the mankind on earth, either willingly or reluctantly, have to accept it by rereading Nietzsche’s ‘will to power’ concept instead of Locke’s dream for equality, and hopefully have a breath of peaceful air for several years.
Keith K C Hui, The 4th Media
[Note 1]
ABC News, “Putin responds to Trump’s Nuclear Comments”, Dec 23, 2016.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/putin-responds-trumps-nuclear-comments/story?id=44367657