President Joe Biden is on the verge of ending what many see as a terrible presidency. His departure from the White House could dramatically change the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and three decades of ill-conceived Western policies that have led to Russia's isolation and the collapse of its democratic role. But that depends on President Donald Trump's ability to avoid repeating the mistakes of his predecessors.
It was Russian President Vladimir Putin who decided to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but the basis for this conflict was prepared by US securocrats in the 1990s. At that time, Russia had just emerged from the collapse of the USSR in a very weak and confused state, while the Russian leadership, rational and careless as it was at the time, operated under the assumption that full integration with the West was inevitable.
The decisions made at the time led to tensions between Russia and the West that reached their peak during the Biden presidency.
The problem was not the eastern enlargement of NATO – the defense alliance that was created to control the Soviet Union – and the European Union on the leg, but the exclusion of Russia from this process.
Most importantly, this strategy positioned Ukraine at a time of Euro-Atlantic integration where Russia was blocked – creating a conflict between two countries with close historical, economic and diplomatic ties. It also undermined Russia's security and backed away from democracy under Putin.
This was not planned and it took a lot of effort by the American securocrats to achieve it.
One of the lost opportunities for a different approach was the Partnership for Peace program, which was officially established by the Clinton administration in 1994. It was designed to match the desire of the former Warsaw Pact countries to join NATO with the important goal of keeping Russia – as a major nuclear power and a new democracy with a clear pro-Western government.
Russia joined but, as the American historian Mary Sarotte writes in her book Not One Inch, this useful framework was undermined at its inception by a few securocrats in Washington.
He talks in particular about the “pro-expansion troika”, made up of Daniel Fried, Alexander Vershbow, and Richard Holbrooke, who pushed for an aggressive expansion of NATO, ignoring protests from Moscow.
Sarotte also cites John Herbst as the author of a later report on NATO's illegitimate promises of non-enlargement made to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev which, he says, created a US policy of ignoring Russian complaints about NATO expanding to its borders. many years to come.
The subtle arrogance and success that these securocrats have can also be seen in Biden who was once a popular member of Congress. In a 1997 moviehe mocked Moscow's protests against NATO expansion by saying that Russia would have to accept China and Iran if it continued to disobey. He clearly thought it was a futile and illogical event at the time – believing, perhaps, that Russia had no choice but to remain in the Western orbit. But it turned out to be exactly what he thought was a clever joke.
In his Russian politics, Biden found a willing ally in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It is no coincidence that Zelenskyy's intense relationship with Russia began when Biden took office.
The Ukrainian president was elected on a promise to end the conflict that began with Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. He met with Putin in Paris in December 2019 and the two agreed to end the conflict in the Donbas region, which they both agreed to. the parties were very respectful, reducing the number of people who died to zero.
But when Mr. Biden set foot in the White House, Zelenskyy ordered the destruction of his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Medvedchuk, while simultaneously launching a campaign to promote Ukraine's NATO membership, the return of Crimea, and the disruption of the Russo-German Nord Stream 2. gas pipeline project.
There are two factors that led to Zelenskyy's decision. Azerbaijan's victory in the Russian-backed Armenian war at the end of 2020, which was largely due to Turkey's Bayraktar drones, gave hope that the advanced war against Russia could be won. Another thing was that in December 2020, the polls showed Medvedchuk's party ahead of Zelenskyy.
A few days after Biden's inauguration, Zelenskyy gave an interview to the American Axios where he asked his US counterpart: “Why is Ukraine not in NATO?” This was followed by an op-ed with the same question on the topic of the foreign minister of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, published by the Atlantic Council – a think tank that receives a lot of money from the US government and Pentagon contractors.
Unsurprisingly, some of the same people who shaped US Russia policy in the 1990s also encouraged the Biden administration to pursue the same brutal policies that led to the attack.
On March 5, Fried, Vershbow and Herbst, along with three others, published a report in the Atlantic Council and a list of Biden's views on Ukraine and Russia. This continued to pressure Putin on further developments – from offering Ukraine a NATO membership plan to disrupting Nord Stream 2 and “enhancing security” in the Black Sea.
Three weeks after the announcement, Putin began sending troops to Ukraine's border, beginning a hair-raising 11 months. This period saw the British warship HMS Defender entering what Russia declared its territorial waters off the coast of Crimea in June, the US launching secret weapons in Ukraine in September and finally the US and Ukraine announcing an agreement in November – a. a move that was like a casus belli in the eyes of the Kremlin wolves.
It was at that time that Putin began preparing for the attack in earnest before launching it in February 2022. The war that followed is now approaching its third year.
Despite the support of many Europeans, Ukraine lost a lot and gained nothing by challenging Putin to fight. The war has brought Ukraine to its breaking point, leading to a massive refugee crisis, economic collapse, social dislocation and a high death toll.
If peace in Ukraine is achieved this year, it will probably be in accordance with the failed Istanbul agreements of 2022, which envisages a Ukraine called Austria, which has limits on the size of its army. Russia will likely insist on keeping the large territory it gained as punishment for Ukraine's disobedience. This will create a defeat for Ukraine, but it will be a clear victory for the people of Ukraine, who have faced great hardships in this war, and for the whole world.
It will also be a major defeat for the securocratic group that has been pushing for a new confrontation with Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The aggressive pursuit of aggressively expanding Russia has clearly failed as a strategy. It's time for Western policy makers to seriously look into how to turn things around and begin a gradual return to rapprochement with Moscow.
This is not about freeing the Putin government from accountability for crimes and war crimes committed by the Russian military. It is about removing the factors that led to Russia's transformation into a totalitarian state and ending the conflict that will continue to support Putin's regime for a long time.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect Al Jazeera's influence.