Opinion Sur
In this article, I propose a thesis that some will label daring. In today’s world, we are witnessing not one but two cold wars. The first one, which is the largest, is still in the making and involves the United States and China. I will deal with it in another article. The second one has not been as widely commented as the first but it has manifested itself in the last months and involves Russia and the West in the European stage. The latter can be characterized as a degraded copy of the cold war that took place in XX century. At the same time, it is a carbon copy and an original copy. In the following lines, I will try to explain its characteristics and implications.
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In this article, I will refer to four games: football (Latin America’s favorite), chess (Russia’s favorite), French billiards,[1] and Go[2] (practiced in China).
Russia is a country that lags behind in terms of its economic, social, and political dimensions. However, it is not behind in terms of its geopolitical standing. With this variable, we can say that Russia is a country destined to (or if you prefer, condemned to) being a great power.
In geopolitics, the position in the map and the geographic dimension are fundamental; as well as population and natural resources. In this sense, it does not matter so much if the Russian gross domestic product is inferior to the Italian, nor that the living conditions of its population leave much to be desired in comparison to any other in the West nor that its political system is despotic and non-democratic. Those weaknesses have a long tradition in Russia[3], but they are not fatal in terms of resilience. The historical drag of despotism and poverty throughput centuries has not eroded its “glories” as a power. It always had a seat at the table of the big players of the planet.
We could add another dimension to these considerations: brute force. From Napoleon to Hitler, Russia could defeat the most powerful armed forces on earth. She did it with two vectors; first, territorial extension and climate rigors, which gave her what is called “strategic depth[4]” in geopolitics and, second, a capacity for suffering of its population. For those who need convincing, reading Tolstoy (War and Peace) for the XIX century does the trick, or watching documentaries on the battle of Stalingrad in the “patriotic war” for the XX century. As an illustrative example of this, I will point out that Russian casualties in WWII were 20 million people. The most powerful and best trained army in the world—the German Wehrmacht—saw with astonishment and terror how wave after wave of Russian planes and tanks were destroyed but were always replaced by many more, and the same happened with their soldiers. 130 years before, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia with the following result: out of the 614,000 soldiers that went to the front, only 50,000 returned. The Russians suffered more than 400,000 casualties, but they did not make a dent on the country’s resolve. I will add another datum that is not speculative but rather the product of experience, such as economic weakness does not prevent a fierce regime to arm themselves up to the teeth. One example will suffice to prove it, North Korea.
All this is well known by the autocrat on call in Russia, Vladimir Putin, who is the equivalent of a chess master in terms of geopolitics. At the same time, he has a clear long-term strategy and has already given proofs of his tactical agility. This allows him a precise and devious diplomacy, which was left in the hands of the eminent player and foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. Both Russian leaders have dribbled successfully five American presidents and their delegates[5].
Putin’s long-term strategy is restoring the symmetry that Russia lost at the end of the Cold War, when the Soviet regime collapsed. The difference between Cold War bipolarity and the one Putin wants to establish with United States is that the latter would be a circumscribed bipolarity (as it would take place in a multipolar world) between two decadent powers, with diminishing sovereignty (none of them can do as they please in their sphere of influence as they once did). In summary: symmetry to which Putin aspires is a degraded symmetry.
If my previous appreciation is fair, then the Russians would be acting (consciously or unconsciously) as an Adelantado[6] of a future Chinese world predominance, that might result as the final beneficiary. In fact, China is the only rising power in front of the two declining ones. I will explain myself: first, I must clarify what is a degraded symmetry and then I will explain what we can call “Chinese billiard shot” in the geopolitical game.
In the 90s, United States and NATO made Russia eliminate its military bases in Eastern Europe, Germany, and the Baltic States. In 2022, Putin wants the United States to do the same in a symmetric and opposite form. According to expert Fiona Hill[7], Putin wants to alter the whole architecture of the European defense excluding USA. He thinks that the US is in a similar weakness position, as was the Soviet Union in 1990. According to this opinion, Ukraine is just a convenient hostage for negotiating such Western retreat. The Russian (and former Soviet) leader thinks that without the American presence and military guarantee, NATO is a paper tiger and Europe will have to compromise with Russia as its main geopolitical interlocutor. In such position, the Russian leader mixes elements from reality with ancient tactical mistakes made by the West prior to the Cold War, with fantasies regarding its own blackmailing and intimidation abilities. However, he counts on the sociopolitical disorder inside United States and the various disagreements among countries within the European Union.
This mistake could lead him to escalate the challenge, as once he obtains a response (maybe vague and ambiguous) to his semi-ultimatum from the Americans and Europeans, and in response to the severe sanctions that they would probably prepare, Russia is capable of following through on its threats regarding the introduction of Russian hypersonic missiles both in Cuba and Venezuela. In such case, Putin could end up trapped in his own tit-for-tat. His boldness seems a degraded copy of 1962 missiles crisis, but with a huge difference. Instead of the all-or-nothing gambling of a thermonuclear conflict in such crisis on the edge of an abyss, now the result would be only to grant the United States two easy targets in its own hemisphere to counter-balance an incursion in Ukraine, or an attack on the Baltic region.
In this sense, current cold war between Russia and the West will be a trial balloon to promote the development of a confrontation in another cold war in the making, between the United States and China. The “give and take[8]”in Ukraine would be something like a rehearsal of an “Off-Broadway” theatre play to perform it later in a bigger theatre. The Ukrainian crisis is being observed carefully by the Chinese communist party. From its outcome, it will extract conclusions to apply to its strategy in regards to Taiwan and in the China Sea. This double game is what I call “the Chinese billiard shot[9].” However, the Beijing game is more patient than a billiard match. It is about winning spaces in a systematic way, as in a long game of Go.
In response to Putin’s provocation (up to now only verbal and theatrical), the United States (thinking that it could do it without taking any risks) could make devastating focused attacks to those Latin American countries that agree to play the Russian game (and indirectly also the Chinese), decapitating their command and control centers as well as their leaderships (in Cuba, Venezuela, or Nicaragua). It is expected that none of it will happen and that the Russians will de-escalate their aggression. Nevertheless, the situation both in Europe and in the Far East does not exempt the Latin Americans from the pretty old and accurate African saying, “when elephants fight, what suffers is the grass.”
In sum, in a multipolar world politically affected by the virus of reactionary nationalism and its variations, the tensions between the largest powers are very dangerous, especially for the smaller ones and in any of the five continents. For our Latin America—that is not able to unite—the difficult equilibrium that it must manage to avoid being the elephants’ grass is unfortunately in the hands of each country. I must confirm that most of them, of very different political and ideological color, will have serious difficulties in maintaining an active abstention and a prudent foreign policy. Without regional solidarity, each of them will have a juggler’s destiny.
Here, I would like to call on the formation of a Latin American study forum for the present geopolitical situation among those who have the knowledge of the causes and access to opinion makers and respective leaderships to diagnose the tendencies and propose harmless positions and strategies.
Without knowing the details of the day-to-day political dynamics, I will give an example that might be instructive. The recent presidential elections in Chile resulted in a decisive victory of a young candidate and his team, which the dominant media in the West qualified too hastily and with malice afterthought as “extreme left.” However, the centripetal force of Chilean politics and its historical dragging move the system to build a new coordination of diverse parties as a guarantee of a democracy capable of combining maintainability (understood as preservation of economic growth over time) with sustainability (understood as paying particular attention to social justice)[10]. From such combination, provided it is achieved, can emerge a foreign policy of reasonable equilibrium in the middle of new cold and hot wars that threaten to break out in the planet[11]. This model could guide other countries of the region. Hopefully, that will happen.
[1] . TN: also known as Carom billiard or carambola
[2] . For those who do not know how to play this Chinese game, its dynamic consists on taking turns for placing white and black stones in the intersections of the board. Before start, each player is assigned a color (blacks start) and once a stone is placed, it cannot be moved. However, it is possible to capture a stone or a bunch of stones and eliminate them from the board if they are completely surrounded by the stones of the opposing color. The objective of the game is to control more than 50% of the board surface, which consists of a 19×19 grid. To control an area, it is necessary to create a perimeter using the stones of the same color.
[3] . Sociologists called this condition “path dependency.” I prefer the term “historical dragging.”
[4] . Strategic depth is a concept from military literature that refers to the distances between front lines or battle sectors and central areas of combatants, capital cities, heart and other population or military production centers.
[5] . I use a football slang on purpose, as in the early 80s I could appreciate Lavrov’s game as a center forward in friendly matches that we played in Central Park in Manhattan with various UN young delegates—Soviets, Africans, and Europeans, plus a meddling Argentinean. In my opinion, Lavrov is a modern Talleyrand.
[6] . During America’s conquest, the “adelantado” was a high ranked Spaniard dignitary who carried out a public endeavor by service mandate (T.N. military caudillo in the colonies with powers similar as a governor granted by the Spanish crown).
[7] . https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/opinion/russia-ukraine-putin-biden.html
[8] . TN: Part of a classic card game in Buenos Aires. It refers to betting and raising the original bet. For more information: https://turismo.buenosaires.gob.ar/en/article/get-tricks-%E2%80%9Ctruco%E2%80%9D
[9] . In the French billiard, the game is developed by using one pool cue and three balls on a billiard table (pool table without pockets). The purpose of the game is using the assigned ball to the specific player (in this case the Russian) to hit with it the other two balls and make a carambola.
[10] . Curiously, this distinction does not exist in the English language; we tend to use the sable word “sustainability” for the two very different dimensions.
[11] . As an illustrative example of the managerial quality, I present the following data regarding the cabinet of Chilean president Boric: 100% are professionals, 9 come from different professions, 24% are engineers, only 3 out of 17 are lawyers, 53% have graduate titles, 35% have foreign experience, 59% are women, 29% are independent and the average age is 49 years. Provisional data gather by politicians Feredico Zapata and Ana Maria Mustapic.
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