Project Syndicate

The problem between Russia and the West is really a problem among Westerners themselves. If there is a new cold war, it is only because established elites have not come to terms with reality: the balance of military, political, economic, and moral power has shifted too far away from the West to be reversed.

MOSCOW – More than 18 months after former President Viktor Yanukovych was driven from power (and into exile), the crisis in Ukraine is at a stalemate. Crimea has been reabsorbed by Russia (in what many consider an annexation); much of eastern Ukraine is held by pro-Russia rebels; and relations between the West and Russia are more tense than at any time.

MOSCOW – The atmospherics surrounding Xi Jinping’s coming trip to Russia – his first visit to a foreign country as China’s new president – remind me of a slogan from my early childhood in the late 1950’s: “Russia-China, Friendship Forever.” The irony is that, even in that slogan’s heyday, Sino-Russian relations were deteriorating fast, culminating in spasms of combat along the Amur River in Siberia less than a decade later.

MOSCOW – During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and, in a milder way, the United States imposed external limits on the activities of states and societies, causing longstanding conflicts among smaller countries to be “frozen.” Following the Soviet Union’s collapse in the 1990’s, those conflicts began to “unfreeze.” With interethnic tensions already on the rise, Yugoslavia was the first country to dissolve into conflict.

What makes Project Siberia so efficient is that it benefits everyone. Russia would maintain effective sovereignty over the eastern territories while creating a new platform for development. China, Asia, and the world would get a new resource and food-supply base, easing emerging shortages.

I firmly doubt the need to dispense with deterrence. After all, it worked successfully for decades: the unprecedented geostrategic, military, and ideological confrontation of the Cold War never escalated into open, head-to-head warfare. The existence of nuclear weapons also curbed the conventional arms race.