New Cold War

Exclusively by “Borysfen Intel”

Volodymyr Shevchenko
Andrii Savarets

According to the Nobel laureate, Steven Weinberg, the effort to understand the universe gives human life some of the grace of tragedy.

This article is an attempt to reconstruct an America-centric view on the events of the Russian-Ukrainian war, where American elites act in different decision corridors.

Conclusions from the article are fully consistent with the thought of Steven Weinberg. Especially when you consider that the previous Cold War lasted 45 years.

* * *

American elites are in the complex process of developing the most acceptable solution for themselves regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war and related global changes.

At the moment, the so-called Sullivan-Burns strategy [1] is prevailing.

This strategy is competing in a public and non-public space with the strategy, which can also be conditionally called the Biden-Blinken strategy.

The essence of these strategies can be understood from the statements of many influential American politicians, their practical actions and the reaction of the world centers of power to them.

The Biden-Blinken strategy involves the provision of comprehensive assistance to Ukraine, sufficient to decisively defeat the aggressor’s army, the liberation of all occupied territories, restoration of Ukraine within the 1991 borders, as well as compensation to Ukraine for the damage caused by Russia. This plan found a wide international support, called Ukraine’s Peace Formula, and was enshrined in summing-up documents of many high-level international meetings.

In turn, the Sullivan-Burns strategy implies:

• continuation of the support for Ukraine in repulsing Russia’s aggression;
• constant external impact on Russia with sanctions, not only new, but also tightening control over compliance with the already imposed ones.

At the same time:

• preventing the complete defeat of Russia;
• preventing uncontrolled processes in the Russian Federation and its disintegration;
• maintaining the Russian leadership’s control over nuclear weapons and preventing nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists and separatists.

Behind such a careful, purely bureaucratic approach there lies a geostrategic pragmatic calculation.

A unipolar world implies global responsibility. The Cold War between the two world political systems gave the United States a powerful incentive to development, including due to the proposal of a more attractive image of the future than the system of totalitarianism which the USSR and their allies proposed.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, America lost external incentives for development and prerequisites for global leadership. In turn, global responsibility implied the need to be drawn into all conflicts and led to defocusing of attention and resources.

George Friedman, head of the Stratfor analytical center, the so-called shadow CIA [2], in the book “American Empire. Forecast for 2020–2030” wrote as follows: “The United States did not expect the end of the Cold War and had not planned for it. It was left in an enormously powerful position and was uncertain of what to do about it. In the 1980s, it had been one thing. In 1992, it was a very different thing”.

The United States did not they want the collapse of the Soviet Union, but only its further weakening.

George H. W. Bush, speaking in the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR in Kyiv with a speech, which became known as Chicken Kyiv Speech, urged Ukrainians to remain in the Soviet Union: “Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred”.

In the same way, there are a huge number of facts indicating that today the United States in the person of the dominant political group in the Biden administration do not want the unpredictable collapse of the Russian Federation.

Besides, the preservation of a constant source of World Evil, recognized as such by global institutions, which consolidated international terrorism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism around itself, is the only effective factor that consolidates the Western (Euro-Atlantic) macro-cluster and motivates its accelerated development.

A new, and increasingly consolidated World’s Evil system should inevitably give the collective West a passionary push, which almost exhausted for a relatively prosperous period after the Second World War, and especially after the end of the Cold War.

In fact, we are talking about creating a system of motivation of allies all over the world for consolidation (new passionarity), restarting their defense industry, creating a new global security system, a single economic macro-cluster, and in the future, a new financial system.

The creation of a new multi-level polycentric (network) global security system described in our previous articles arises from this confrontation. And, a new World’s Evil system, unlike the previous one — international terrorism — is much more tangible and large-scaled and includes international terrorism as one of its components.

It will already be difficult for the same Europe to ignore the red arrows drawn on the map of Russia’s alleged attack on NATO countries, since past arrows painted on the map of Ukraine exactly coincided with reality and turned into the horror of the war, unprecedented for the 21^st century.

The rapid end of the war in Ukraine with a decisive defeat of the Russian army and the fall of the Kremlin regime will not give time, and most importantly, sufficient motives for global reconstruction. And the failure to create a new system of international security, with the complete degradation of the old one, would inevitably lead to an unpredictable, and, therefore, poorly controlled consequences from the point of view of the USA.

The formation of a World’s Evil system, with Russia’s conceptual power and leadership in it, automatically assigns leadership in the democratic world to the USA.

From this point of view, it is fair to talk not about a local protracted conflict, but about a new Cold War, in which hot clashes will be dropped into the external contour of global macro-clusters.

Ukrainian analyst Oleksii Kushch rightly remarked that “…the strategic goal of Western democracies is the immediate transition of the confrontation with autocracies to the Cold War regime. Since it is in this format that liberal democracies will be able to use their main competitive advantage in the fight against autocracies: economic potential, the level of technology and the quality of life of the population. After all, it was in this very regime, that the West already defeated the USSR”.

The Director of CIA William Burns in his article wrote about the preservation of the West’s assistance to Ukraine, which “is a relatively modest investment with significant geopolitical returns for the United States and notable returns for American industry”.

If you recall the history, the free unregulated market led the United States to the Great Depression, from which America came out through the Second World War.

George Friedman also wrote: “What did solve the problem, ended the Depression, and finally broke the institutions of the second cycle was war”.

The media heavyweights joined the support to the Sullivan-Burns strategy.

Thrice the Pulitzer laureate Thomas Friedman explained the position of the United States: “We in the West have as much to fear from Putin’s weakness as his strength… You could also get disorder or civil war and the crackup of Russia into warlord/oligarch fiefs…

This is not a defense of Putin. It is an expression of rage at what he did to his country, making it into a ticking time bomb spread across 11 time zones. Putin has taken the whole world hostage”.

The Sullivan-Burns strategy could be offered to American politicians and citizens, as well as the whole world, explaining the failure to provide US assistance to Ukraine, sufficient for its decisive victory, by the desire to avoid escalation of a potential nuclear threat from Russia.

“The Ukrainians are already fighting for their existence. But the United States has a special obligation to avoid a nuclear war that would end all life on Planet Earth forever”, is the most common quotation from high-ranking officials of various levels in the United States, which reflects this position.

That is, according to the logic of the Sullivan-Burns strategy, Russia turns into the leader of the “world cluster of the outcasts” — a constant, visible and tangible threat to all other Western-type democracies.

It is no secret that Russia is a much weaker rival for the United States, which automatically does not allow the latter to lose this confrontation.

The Sullivan-Burns strategy is reflective. It is not in the initiation of these processes, but in non-resistance to them, realizing what the natural course of events will result in.

The aim of a new Cold War is not the defeat of the enemy or its disintegration, but control of its development. There are already plenty means for such control.

And the task of economic sanctions is not the catastrophic collapse of the Russian economy, but the maximum decrease in its profitability.

The plan is a purely bureaucratic, with minimal risks, characterized by a complete absence of a moral component and created in line with the cynical philosophy of Realpolitik.

The following is an analysis of how this plan influenced direct and indirect participants in the conflict, and how they reacted to this plan.

Russia

In previous materials, the authors proposed the theory of the “controlled revolution in Russia”, which, among all existing ones, most fully described the reasons for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, further course of the war, the Russian leadership’s decisions and actions which seem illogical from first sight.

According to the plan of the Russian special services, the aggressive war against Ukraine was supposed to become a trigger launching revolutionary transformation processes, during which the special services should have got undivided power in Russia.

The theory of a controlled revolution in Russia, in addition to explaining current events, was giving the forecast for the future.

Russia was supposed to follow the path of building a totalitarian state, the dominant ideology of which would be Russian national socialism.

In the process of inevitable destabilization, the need to conclude a new social contract (that would be legally enshrined in the new Constitution of Russia) would have been “fed” to the Russian society.

Russia would have become a unitary state, as a result of which some current constituent entities of the Federation (Chechnya, Dagestan) could have fallen off, which would have even been desirable for the central government.

The institution of presidency would have been eroded to purely formal functions, and power would have been transferred to the “Corps of Guardians of the Russian Revolution”, as in Iran, and would have been enshrined in the Constitution.

The new Russian rulers would have gained such a desired sovereignty. That is, a way out of the legal and economic international arbitration. And, despite the sanctions and breaking up with international institutions (primarily European), Russia would have had the opportunity to build a rigid and stable structure, again as in Iran.

Predicted locomotive of destabilization — military failures and indignation from the so-called turbo-patriots, that is, the most aggressive Russian nationalists supported by the Russian Orthodox Church.

After the occupation of Bakhmut and Soledar through the colossal losses, Wagner got the reputation of the most popular military unit among the people: capable of resolving the problem, “caring about a soldier” and not afraid to criticize the leadership.

On another flank, the ultra-rationalists, led by Strelkov-Girkin as an ideologist of the nationalist movement, deployed regional structures of the Club of Angry Patriots.

According to our theory, those were different manifestations of the same game of special services as part of an attempt to gain the full power and achieve transformation of Russia.

The apotheosis of those events was the armed rebellion of the leader of the PMC “Wagner” Prigozhin.

However!

Despite the first triumphal 24 hours of rebellion and opening broad prospects (the power vertical was falling apart, and no one was ready to defend it), the rebellion was promptly curtailed.

Guarantees from Putin and (for some unknown reason) Lukashenko allegedly became a reason for its curtailing.

There began a sharp “rewind” of the launched processes.

Prigozhin, despite the guarantees from Putin, was killed.

Girkin was luckier (his Chekist past and present did work) — he was demonstratively imprisoned for 4 years.

Nationalist ideology became subject to criticism. The emphasis on the dominance of the Russian ethnic group has sharply shifted to the so-called multinationalism — obvious support for the process of Islamization and flirting with national republics. There ceased the wave of media reports which described crimes against ethnic Russians committed by persons of non-Russian nationality (representatives of both the indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation and diasporas from Central Asia).

In previous publications on the topic of a controlled revolution in the Russian Federation, the authors made an important reservation!

“We cannot say with absolute certainty that the organizers of the bloody “madneZZ” will succeed in accordance with their cannibalistic plan. Perhaps the process will stop at some intermediate stage and give birth to another monster.

However, it is safe to say what is being formed on our north-eastern borders in the near future — a dangerous monster.

Under these circumstances, the most rational behavior for the entire democratic world will be creation of a powerful military, information and physical security belt separating the modern world from the archaic “Russian world”.

History has decreed that the guardians of this “fortress” will be a number of nations of the Baltic-Black Sea region, but the most effective will be Ukraine”.

What Prevented the Implementation of This Plan?

The plan of the Russian special services through destabilization, possible exit of some republics from the Russian Federation, the change in the Constitution, consolidating the unitarity and reformatting the power vertical was supposed to lead to the concentration of power in the hands of those special services.

But this plan bumped into a more powerful plan. A priori it could only be a plan from the outside, from one of the two centers of power significant for Russia.

Moreover, at the first stage of the full-scale invasion, the interests of three actors coincided: Ukraine’s — to repulse the attack; the USA’s — to prevent Russia from achieving significant success; Russian special services’ — to discredit the Russian army. But already at the point of Prigozhin’s rebellion, those visions diverged from the Sullivan-Burns strategy.

In November 2022, The Wall Street Journal wrote that Sullivan over the past months confidentially communicated with the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia Nikolai Patrushev and Putin’s adviser Yuri Ushakov. According to sources, the goal of non-public negotiations was to prevent the risk of escalation of the war in Ukraine, including the threat of a nuclear attack, and maintaining communication channels.

Sullivan himself did not deny his contacts with the Kremlin. Speaking at a public event in New York in November 2022, Sullivan said that it is “in the interests” of the United States to maintain contact with the Kremlin, BBC reports. But, according to him, officials were “clear-eyed about who we are dealing with”.

That is, during the Kherson operation (early November 2022), the general configuration of the Sullivan-Burns strategy had already developed.

The internal power configuration, which had developed at that time in Russia, reflected the Sullivan-Burns strategy.

At this, the concept of the “controlled revolution in the Russian Federation”, implemented by the Patrushev group, lost to another concept, simpler and more understandable, as a result of which Russia was supposed to lead the pole of world outcasts and scumbags.

This second concept was supported by the military, representatives and curators of the Russian defense industry, regional leaders, and, it seems, the oligarchs.

Outwardly, this also manifested itself in another change of the commander of the so-called SMO — on the night of January 10, 2023, a mini military coup took place in the Kremlin. Head of the General Staff Gerasimov was again appointed as the head of the so-called SMO, while Surovikin — Prigozhin’s protégé — was reduced to the deputy commander of the special operation.

This was an apparatus defeat of special services, their positions were very shaken, and special services could only roll back this situation in case of a major failure at the fronts. What, as we know, unfortunately, did not happen.

Against the background of the actually not very successful Ukrainian counterattack, Prigozhin’s rebellion looked like the last chance for the Patrushev group to turn the situation for its benefit. Despite the fact that the rebellion was promptly curtailed, and the “controlled revolution” was postponed, an objective interest in achieving its ultimate goal for the organizers within the Russian regime was still there.

It should be noted that individual elements of intentional destabilization are still manifested, but already in the form of small and medium sabotage. Starting with the launch of rumors that Putin died and lies in the refrigerator among frozen vegetables; releasing the obituary on the ninth day of “Putin’s death” by Patrushev, dressed in mourning clothes; repeated red herrings in the media about the need to change the Russian Constitution; show of president’s doubles; Boris Nadezhdin’s election campaign, which is destabilizing for the regime; and ending with Putin’s scandalous and vast interview with Tucker Carlson.

At this, all the prerequisites (economic, psychological, interethnic) have been created in order for the revolution to happen for objective reasons. And these processes continue to develop.

Ukraine

After the de-occupation of Izium and Kherson, the supply of weapons really decreased significantly, and the arms nomenclature did not allow to conduct a large-scale offensive.

The F-16 aircrafts, promised by the time the counteroffensive began, were never supplied, which was confirmed at the NATO Vilnius Summit on July 11–12, 2023.

The invaders immediately after leaving Kherson began to build the so-called Surovikin Line — a network of powerful fortifications — and go into strategic defense.

Despite the heroism even in such difficult conditions, the Armed Forces of Ukraine failed to completely break through the Surovikin Line and reach Tokmak, which would have given control over all the enemy railway logistics in the South of Ukraine.

The allies did not transfer long-range missiles that could have destroyed the Crimean bridge.

The main problem is that Ukraine has not yet responded to the Sullivan-Burns strategy.

Europe

Judging by certain signals in Western media, Europe has realized the fact that:

a) Russia’s threat is real and has a long-term strategic nature;

b) in the light of Trump’s possible coming to power, Europe should think about how to ensure its own safety.

The New York Times reports that Minister of Defense of Germany Boris Pistorius “has begun warning Germans that they should prepare for decades of confrontation with Russia — and that they must speedily rebuild the country’s military in case Vladimir Putin does not plan to stop at the border with Ukraine”.

The prospect of Trump’s re-election forced German officials and many of their NATO colleagues unofficially to think whether the almost 75-year-old Alliance, whose anniversary they plan to celebrate in Washington this year, can survive without the United States.

The countries of the European Union will increase military budgets, restart the defense industry, and build up combat capability.

The United Kingdom

The UK can safely write down in its asset its reaction to these processes.

On January 12, 2024, the President of Ukraine and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom signed an agreement on security cooperation.

It is assumed that the United Kingdom will provide Ukraine with constant and comprehensive assistance over the next decade, although the UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said that “…we are taking the first giant step towards a century long partnership”.

The Russian-Ukrainian war allowed the United Kingdom to return to a global game. Especially in the Black Sea region.

With the help of the United Kingdom, the Ukrainian Navy made almost impossible — 24 warships and boats were sunk, including the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet of Russia, the Moscow missile cruiser, as well as one submarine.

All Ukrainian-British projects are implemented as part of the developed and approved “Global Britain” strategy.

The bottom line is to turn the United Kingdom into a global power that will play a leading role in the world in the 21^st century.

The strategy was developed by the Government of the United Kingdom after a referendum on membership in the European Union in 2016, which led to the UK’s exit from the EU.

At the same time, the United Kingdom clearly responded to the Sullivan-Burns strategy and the narrative of a new Cold War.

Delivering on January 15, 2024, in Lancaster House in London his speech “Defending Britain from a more dangerous world”, the UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said: “We have come full circle. Moving from a post-war to a pre-war world. An age of idealism has been replaced by a period of hard-headed realism”.

Thus, the United Kingdom returns to a geostrategic game. Britain at one time was able to partially level the consequences of the collapse of the British Empire, and now wants to further strengthen its position in the world.

For this, Britain offers its functionality:

• leadership in the Commonwealth of Nations — 54 countries; total GDP in the amount of 10.8 trillion US dollars (12 % of the global); 2.5 billion population (30 % of the global); 32.8 million square kilometres of total territory (25 % of the area of the land of the world);
• an increasing military budget (up to 50 billion pounds), a modern defense industry and high technologies;
• the United Kingdom with the help of Ukraine becomes the strongest player in the Black Sea region, as well as with the help of Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) — in the Baltic Sea region, and with the help of other alliances — in the Indo-Pacific region;
• Britain offers itself as a mentor and a guide of Ukraine and India, which is facilitated by the signing of a bilateral agreement on security cooperation with Ukraine and the election of ethnic Indian Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister of the UK.

The ambitious “Global Britain” strategy looks quite realistic, and the healthy competition between the centers of Western civilization (USA, the Commonwealth of Nations under the leadership of Britain and the European Union under the leadership of Germany and France) will contribute to the accelerated formation of a single political and economic cluster.

China

The United States has achieved tangible results precisely in the implementation of the “not-defeating Russia” strategy:

• did not let Ukraine fall;
• having beaten the theme of the risk of nuclear escalation, and reducing the volume of weapons supply to Ukraine, ensured the not-defeating of the Russian army and the safety of the Putin regime;
• changed the situation from the confrontation between the authoritarian (and striving for totalitarianism) Russian regime and the Ukrainian state striving for democracy, into the confrontation of the global system of terrorism/totalitarianism and the global system, based on the values of freedom, human rights and democracy.

At this, for China — the main geopolitical competitor of the United States — is disadvantageous both the position of supporting Russia and the position of the complete distancing from it.

* * *

Such a view on the events fits the Russian-Ukrainian war and the plan for the controlled revolution of the Russian special services into a wider context of the transformation of the entire system of international relations.

If this view is true, then Steven Weinberg’s thought, made as an epigraph, is quite appropriate here.

Ukraine, even purely geographically, will stay on the front line of confrontation with the World’s Evil system for many years with all the ensuing consequences.

In This Situation Ukraine Should

1. Realize the tragic reality.
2. Integrate as much as possible into a real and future international security system.
3. Using the emerging multi-level (network) global security system, transform the war into high-tech, reducing our human losses as much as possible.
4. Develop the country as the most technological. Focus on defense technologies, which, in principle, make further territorial seizures impossible.
5. Effectively interact with economic, scientific, technical, military and diplomatic potential of Western countries seeking to help Ukraine.
6. Build a European democratic state with the rule of law.
7. Improve the diplomatic school. Actively cooperate with the international legal system. Achieve sentences (albeit in absentia) to Russian military criminals in international courts and seek compensation at the expense of Russian assets.

Notes:

[1] Antony Blinken — US Secretary of State; Jake Sullivan — National Security Advisor to US President Joe Biden; William Burns — Director of the CIA.

[2] Strategic Forecasting Inc. (commonly known as Stratfor) — an American private strategic intelligence company. Sometimes it is called the “shadow CIA”. It was founded in 1996 by American political scientist George Friedman, who still leads it.

About the Authors:
	Volodymyr Shevchenko, the former aide to the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Doctor of Philosophy
	Andrii Savarets, Chairman of the Center for Digital Economy Development