The prominent American politician Henry Kissinger stole the spotlight, publishing his “peace plan” for Ukraine in The Spectator. Rumor has it Kissinger's ideas are disguised proposals from Washington.
The former U.S. Secretary of State proposes holding a new referendum on Crimea and coming to terms with NATO's approach.
Man of Most Fair Rules
Henry Kissinger, 99, is a famous American politician and came into big politics as a Rockefeller clan man.
Many media outlets and experts call Kissinger a political heavyweight, but it is more accurate to say that he is a retired authoritative politician. That is, Kissinger is indeed an authority among the political experts, but in practical U.S. politics his influence is already very tentative.
Heinz Alfred Kissinger was born May 27, 1923, in Fürth, in one of the richest German provinces of Bavaria. Having fled Germany from the Nazis because the Kissinger family was Jewish, he took the Americanized name Henry Kissinger in the United States.
In the United States, he made a truly distinguished career, becoming the first man to hold two key foreign policy posts simultaneously: national security adviser to the president of the United States (from 1969 to 1975) and secretary of state (from 1973 to 1977). He was succeeded by Cyrus Vance at the head of the U.S. Department of State in 1977.
According to the legend, after Richard Nixon's scandalous resignation in 1974, his successor, Gerald Ford, wanted to fire Kissinger, but he did not venture to do so. It turns out that Kissinger is involved in so many working groups, discussion panels and all kinds of committees of the State Department that his departure would simply bring the work of the U.S. Foreign Ministry in strategic areas to a halt.
Kissinger as head of the foreign policy wing of the White House has a policy of “détente” between the United States and the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s, the peace treaty between the U.S. and Vietnam, which ended the Vietnam War (1965 - 1975), the establishment of relations between the United States and the PRC in the 1970s.
However, one should not think that Kissinger is a “peacemaker” and a “lamb of God.” It was when Kissinger was at the helm of U.S. foreign policy that Washington staged the bloody coup in Chile with the assassination of the legitimate President Salvador Allende, and the CIA coordinated Operation Condor, when “death squads” kidnapped, tortured and killed opponents of American policies and Latin American dictatorships across Latin America. Because of Kissinger's possible involvement in shady CIA activities, Latin American prosecutors periodically call him in for questioning, but he avoids them in every way possible, as a democratic politician should.
In all Humility
It should be said that it is not the first time Kissinger has offered his proposals for how to end the conflict in Ukraine. The previous idea was voiced by the former Secretary of State at Davos in May of this year. Kissinger titled his new article ‘How to avoid another world war.’ It is clear that with the tag the push for peace, Kissinger wants to raise the status of his text.
The ex-Secretary of State starts far back, with World War I, which, in his version, might have ended two years earlier (i.e. in 1916, not 1918) if the United States had decided so. Yes, the European leaders themselves could not stop the war, so they turned to America as an intermediary for help. Kissinger makes it clear from the start that the modern world is dominated by the United States, so Washington should have the last word in the Ukrainian crisis.
No doubt, it is very important that Kissinger is in favor of peace talks on Ukraine. Another question is what does he propose for this?
In Kissinger's view, a peace settlement must be based on the fact that there are strategic changes that have already taken place. What kind of “strategic changes” are these? According to Kissinger, “Ukraine has become a major state in Central Europe for the first time in modern history.”
And if so, Kissinger suggests that for a peaceful settlement, Ukraine should be admitted to NATO.
“Ukraine has acquired one of the largest and most effective land armies in Europe, equipped by America and its allies. A peace process should. A peace process should link Ukraine to NATO, however expressed. The alternative of neutrality is no longer meaningful, especially after Finland and Sweden joined NATO,” Kissinger writes.
It is clearly that the starting point is a cease-fire. In formulating his peace proposals, Kissinger is relying upon the territorial approach:
- the new regions; he suggests that Russia give them up and withdraw its troops behind the line of demarcation by Feb. 24;
- the future of Donbass and Crimea is put up for negotiation;
- if no agreement can be reached, then “Internationally supervised referendums concerning self-determination could be applied to particularly divisive territories which have changed hands repeatedly over the centuries.”
According to Kissinger, “the peace process must have a dual purpose: to confirm Ukraine's freedom and to establish a new international structure, especially for Central and Eastern Europe. Ultimately, Russia must find its place in this order.”
Let's add oil to Fire
So what is the bottom line? Kissinger proposes that Russia withdraw its army beyond the line of demarcation that had been in place before February 24, 2022, give up the new regions, and agree to a new wave of NATO expansion with an official withdrawal to the borders of the Russian Federation.
According to Kissinger, Ukraine's accession to NATO is a done deal. In return, he proposes the creation of a new international structure in Central and Eastern Europe.
Do you know what the problem is? Kissinger's “peace plan” does not fit in with what Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia's top leadership said about the Ukrainian crisis.
Recall that during a live broadcast nationwide phone-in on June 30, 2021, Putin said he was concerned about the “military development” of the territory of Ukraine.
“I am concerned about another, more fundamental thing, namely the beginning of the military development of Ukrainian territory,” the Russian President said. Since 2015, NATO, through a comprehensive support plan and a series of Ukraine-NATO programs, has actually been using Ukrainian territory for its own purposes.
And now Kissinger to resolve the Ukrainian crisis proposes to accept Ukraine into NATO, in one moment creating a common border in the area of about 2,000 km?
Europe already has a major military and political bloc in the form of NATO, and the policy of the United States, Britain and other NATO countries is precisely to bring their military bases and infrastructure closer to the borders of Russia.
Or, for example, negotiations on the fate of Donbass and Crimea. Who will lead these negotiations? Kiev and Moscow or Washington and Moscow? There is a big difference. And will London disrupt the agreements?
By the way, Kissinger does not write that “the cease-fire line along the borders that existed before February 24” is a line defined by the Minsk agreements. Yes, the very same Minsk agreements that, as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted the other day, no one was going to implement. A very eloquent parallel, don't you think?
In return, Kissinger writes that he disagrees with those who advocate a scenario where Russia will become exhausted as a result of war because “the dissolution of Russia or destroying its ability for strategic policy could turn its territory encompassing 11 time zones into a contested vacuum.” This is exacerbated by the fact that one of the largest arsenals of strategic and tactical nuclear weapons is located on its territory.
However, Kissinger does not explain why Russia will suddenly disintegrate. Apparently, they decided so in Washington, but forgot to tell everyone.
How to Understand Kissinger's Article
No doubt, against the background of politicians demanding more war, blood and destruction, it is very dignified of Kissinger to speak openly in favor of a peaceful settlement.
But how to interpret his plan? Is it the leisure reflections of a retired politician or...? Rather, it is a veiled proposal from the White House, which offers the Kremlin such starting conditions for bargaining on Ukraine. Involving retired politicians is an old Anglo-Saxon method. Remember that Churchill gave his Fulton speech on the declaration of the Cold War on March 5, 1946, in the status of a former British prime minister. That is, if the plan is not accepted, there will be no questions for President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. “They're not there.” If the Kremlin is interested, the details will be still negotiated by Biden and other members of the American elite.
Why would Washington need it? The American military-industrial complex is loaded with orders for years to come, so it is possible to lock in profits and switch to other tasks. All the more so because the situation in the Pacific region, where Washington competes with Beijing, is acute.
Of course, the former Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel did some serious damage by saying, very inappropriately, that the previous peace plan for Ukraine, called the Minsk agreements, was not going to be implemented from the beginning. The wave of indignation from Putin, Lukashenko and other politicians can be described by the short phrase “What can be negotiated with them?” Therefore, the “Kissinger plan” did not appear at a very good time. The Kremlin was not interested in it either. Dmitry Peskov was throwing out compliments on Kissinger the very same day when asked by journalists, but with regard to his peace proposals he replied briefly that “there was no such opportunity.”
So, that is that on that.
“Kissinger is a very clever bastard,” said Pavel Danilin, a political scientist. “He understands perfectly well that if we agree now, the costs will be minimal. But the further away, the less chance there is of reaching an agreement in a way that suits the United States. This key is the preservation of the Ukrainian state. After all, if Ukraine, despite the fact that the U.S. has bent over “the entire civilized world” to please the Bandera bastards, collapses, then the U.S., after the shame of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, will once again prove that those who hoped in them have only chance as exploited immigrants. This is precisely the sign that will destroy this whole Pax Americana, all the more likely because it is already swinging.”
“Kissinger wrote in his article that if Ukraine and Russia are unable to reach a resolution to the conflict through military action or negotiations, then referendums on self-determination under international supervision should be held on the disputed territories,” said Marat Bashirov, the author of the Politgeoistik Telegram channel. “However, the same mechanism can be launched in the western regions of Ukraine about joining the same Poland and Hungary. So much for the division of the country! Russia gets the East and possibly everything as far south as Odessa and the Crimea. The western regions fall back to the West and join de facto and de jure NATO, as Kissinger wrote. The central part of Ukraine becomes the new demilitarized country.”
“With all due attention to the course of the discussion, you have to understand that we are talking about the opinion of a famous and status-oriented, but still an expert who has not had direct influence on political decision-making since 1977,” said Alexei Makarkin, the author of the Bunin & Co Telegram Channel. “Moreover, as a liberal Republican, he is a far cry from the Democrats, the conservative Reagan Republicans, and the Trumpists.
“Kissinger, both as a researcher and as a practitioner, was concerned with global equilibrium problems. And his task as an expert is to give advice on how to maintain a balance of interests, keeping in mind not so much current challenges as the distant future. During crises, politicians are forced to think weeks and months ahead, while experts have the opportunity to calculate more distant options, having much more free time and not being responsible for the decisions they make.
“The most interesting part of Kissinger's text is the recognition of the impossibility of Ukraine's non-aligned status. Not because of the originality of this thesis, but, on the contrary, because of its consensual nature for the Western expert mainstream, which Kissinger has also joined. Previously, his unconditional priority was to prevent Russia from getting too close to China (which is also important in the context of his own experience as a creator of the so called Chinese U.S. policy in the 1970s, when the U.S. went into dialogue with Mao Zedong and revised its course to recognize Chiang Kai-shek as China's legitimate leader). Now the situation has changed, including for Kissinger. It is the conflict in Ukraine that has become the key one.”