When the Cold War ended and the first President Bush pronounced Europe to have become “whole and free,” the U.S. and the West should have understood that for Europe to be “whole” Russia must be recognized as fully part of that Europe. That meant that Russia must be included as a full partner in a European-wide security structure to supersede NATO, whose work was done. Russia was willing, and OSCE might have become such a security structure, except that NATO was never allowed to retire in triumph, instead, went on an expansion spree to reach the very borders of Russia. Russia's bid to join NATO was cavalierly dismissed, while other former members of the Warsaw Pact was brought into the NATO umbrella one after another. The attempt to draw Ukraine into NATO and the EU's requirement that association with EU must be accompanied by Ukraine's dissociation from the Russian-led economic sphere were the final straws, well, the latter maybe the penultimate straw, the final straw being the Maidan revolt that carried CIA imprint. If the West insists on such a Manichaean division of the world in which Russia will always be regarded as enemy at worst or adversary or “the other” at best, then Russia needs to protect itself from the encroachment of this West such as it experienced in the Napoleonic and German invasions during the past two centuries. Moreover, Kievan Rus was the source and inspiration of the Russian civilization, so that the histories of Ukraine and Russia have ever been bound up in intimate association. Any attempt to arbitrarily tear up that association whether by other countries or by one segment of the Ukrainian population cannot avoid causing violent reactions. What we have in Ukraine today is the result.



There is no immediate prospect of putting NATO to sleep, but the EU can make a sustained effort to invigorate OSCE with the hope of it eventually superseding NATO. Under a vigorously active OSCE where Russia can feel itself an integral part of a comprehensive European community, Russia may eventually feel it unnecessary to create buffer zones between itself and the West.



References to Russia, China, and Central Asia should call attention to the difference in China's approach. China includes Russia as a full partner both in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and in its New Silk Road projects. Russia can make as much contribution to either as it wants and in that way make itself as indispensable a part of either as it wants. The West plays zero-sum games; China focuses on mutual benefits. Some Russians may resent or envy China's growing influence in Central Asia, but they have no rational grounds for complaint, only incentive to do better themselves. The West clearly can learn from Chinese foreign policy. I fear it will not. The U.S. in particular wants an empty world in which only itself and God counts, except that God ultimately wouldn't count either, because no God worthy of being God will want such a world.