Why American strategic interests do not include Ukraine

 

 Why American strategic interests do not include Ukraine, commented the American isolationist magazine The National Interest.

Successful foreign policy is based on a framework in which the main strategic interests of the country are inscribed. This structure is not necessarily complicated. During the period of international domination of Great Britain, it has only two principles: to maintain supremacy at sea and not to allow anyone to rise in continental Europe.

 When the Cold War ended, the United States was unable to formulate such principles. Instead, they squandered their unipolar moment on arbitrary measures against individual crises (Somalia, Kosovo) and quixotic attempts to reshape the world in their own image and likeness (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya). It all ended in almost complete failure: the fate of these countries became even more difficult, countless people died or were maimed, the United States itself wasted trillions of dollars, and the international system became unstable and unreliable.

 We are now witnessing perhaps the most dangerous attempt to continue this glorious path and present Ukraine as a vital national interest of the United States and a potential member of NATO for which the United States is even ready to go to war.

If US foreign policy had strategic principles, what would they look like and how would Ukraine fit into them?

According to the author, the United States has three main strategic interests.

First, create a more stable international system. Stability is most beneficial to those at the top, and today this position is held by the United States.

 Second, avoid opposition in the form of a Sino-Russian alliance. The benefits for the United States that a second nuclear superpower and a second economic superpower will not oppose them in an alliance are obvious. If one of Henry Kissinger's greatest foreign policy triumphs was the return to China, which eliminated the threat of a Sino-Soviet alliance, how can one assess the American policy that, on the contrary, led to its re-creation?

 Finally, third, reducing the risk of nuclear war. To do this, it is necessary to avoid armed conflict with another nuclear power in a situation where its vital interests are at stake, but its own American ones are not at stake.

Ukraine, like any other country, wants to survive and prosper as an independent state. But her position, both internal and external, is unenviable. The economy is woven of corruption and mired in corruption, and the authorities must deal with the Russian minority, intrusively and bitterly. It has a common, albeit often contradictory, history with neighboring Russia - which is much richer and also has nuclear weapons.

 Ukraine essentially has to choose between one of two options: either to learn to exist in some way with Russia, satisfying the basic interests of both countries, or to form a strategic alliance with another force and challenge its strong neighbor. The only ones who are suitable for this role are the United States. And that is what Ukraine is striving for - and America is encouraging it in every way possible.

 Why Ukraine prefers this option is not difficult to understand. It wants to follow in the footsteps of its Baltic and Eastern European neighbors, for whom NATO and EU membership have strengthened national independence. However, based on US strategic interests, it is difficult to imagine a worse choice. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, if not earlier, it became clear that a stable international system needed legitimacy and that it was possible only in the absence of dissatisfied forces.

 Russia's dissatisfaction with the current international order has grown amid NATO enlargement and has reached a tipping point. Creating a more stable international system requires taking into account the vital interests of both Russia and Ukraine. Helping Kiev to balance its longing for closer ties with Europe with the need to build acceptable relations with Russia means strengthening the core interests of both Ukraine itself and the United States. This will help Ukraine avoid a possible national tragedy. And Russia - to establish more fruitful relations with the West, to reduce the temptation of a military alliance with China and to reduce the threat of a conventional armed conflict that threatens to grow into a nuclear one.