By Anjan Roy
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has already achieved a very big objective of his diplomacy — isolating Europe from the United States. Now with the US President’s latest statement from his clubhouse, Donald Trump seems to have dumped the traditional diplomatic tie up between Western Europe and America.
India must take lesson — don’t trust your allies. For fighting your war and for your existence, pursue relentlessly national military capabilities. Today, America might be paying India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi compliments – tomorrow they might just as well supply the most lethal weapons to Pakistan to teach a lesson. The world is now a sort of place, very much like a state of nature of Rousseau.
In pursuit of its avowed aim of bringing the Ukraine war to an immediate end, America is going alone to the negotiating table with Russia, without taking the Europeans. This has given the Europeans the jolt they badly needed. After all, they had outsourced their defence to the Americans and now the chickens are coming home to roost.
Donald Trump has now accused Ukraine of having started the war, and said that after three years it is still fighting the war instead of reaching some “deal” with the Russian president Putin. The American position must be under close examination of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and he must be feeling happy that he might also reach a deal with Trump isolating Taiwan.
If the war comes to end on the basis of present negotiating stance of the principal interlocutors (Russia and America), this will usher in a completely new world order. This will establish might is right rather than the former global regime which was based on rule of law and respect for sovereignty of nation states, whatever might be its limitations.
While the fate of Ukraine is being decided at the negotiations hosted by Saudi Arabia, the country itself is absent and far away from any of the talks. Russia is seeking to bamboozle its viewpoint in the negotiations, if only for the vanity of the new US president. Donald Trump had promised to end the Ukraine war immediately on resuming office.
The high representatives of the United States and Russia met in the Saudi Arabian capital Ritadh on Monday and set up committees for follow up negotiations. However, Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasili Nebenzya, has laid out conditions which are blatantly unacceptable to Ukraine.
His first condition is that the European Union and United Kingdom should have nothing to do with the talks for ending war in Ukraine. The Russian envoy has stated that the EU and UK have an attitude of “primitive Russophobia” and therefore could not be part of any talks.
Nebenzya has set out that the Ukrainian president, Volodomyr Zelensky, must resign and should not have anything to do with Ukraine after the end of the war or in the negotiations. Thirdly, Ukraine must cede more territories to Russia which are already under Russian control, namely, the four regions of Ukraine where Russia have captured on an average 75% of the land of the region.
Lastly, Russia is inviting that Ukraine should be “demilitarised” and should not be part of NATO alliance. This was not acceptable to Ukraine or the European Union. But Trump has already said that Ukraine President should forget about his NATO membership. Any agreement accepting Russian conditions would not be acceptable to Ukraine or its present day allies, namely, EU and UK. America has gone out of the way to force a agreement to end the war principally on its own calculations and diplomatic targets.
There is one report that the USA is keen to lay its hands on vast resources lying untapped in Ukraine and end of the war should enable it to lay its hands on these untapped minerals and resources. Trump’s big business friends are waiting for the opportunity, the same way Trump is talking of Gaza resettlement as a real estate paradise through the investment of the leading developers of the world. Trump’s own family business is based on real estate development.
The underlying objective of the United States in coming to the negotiating table is primarily to re-open the clogged lines of communications and diplomatic channels between America and Russia.
In an opening statement, the US representatives at the negotiations said that the end of war in Ukraine could open up huge opportunities of co-operation and collaboration between Russia and America. There could be “geo-political” opportunities for both countries across the globe.
All these developments are taking place without the European Union not being in the picture at all. Even the United Kingdom is now where to be seen, although the latter had always claimed a “special relationship” between UK and USA ever since the end of the Second World War. EU is desperately seeking to remain relevant in the talks as many of the EU Commissioners have articulated. (IPA Service)
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