The Fourth Partition of the Russian Empire and Europe's Decline?

T

he course of the Fourth Partition War shows that the U.S. does not intend to launch a new military and economic initiative to support Europe, as it has in the past.

In a move that seems to teach a lesson to those who oppose the repetition of history, the first step in the diplomatic initiative regarding the potential fourth division of the Russian Empire’s geographical legacy in the last 100 years took place in Alaska, which the United States purchased from the Russian Empire in 1867. Donald Trump swiftly made his second move, inviting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House, preventing the process from being put on hold.

European leaders and the president of the European Commission traveled to Washington, D.C., to prevent Zelenskyy from receiving the same poor treatment he received in February. However, upon entering Trump’s Oval Office, they were reduced to mere figures in a diplomatic scheme whose rules were written by the U.S. president and his team. As you read this article, Trump and his team are preparing the third and final act of the “peace show.” The play’s main idea is not so much to end the Ukraine-Russia war as it is to convey that the European Union no longer has any influence at the international level.

The U.S. no longer wants to “save” Europe

We should not forget that Western Europe was saved from being wiped off the map during the last two global wars thanks to the arrival of the United States Army in Europe. Furthermore, without the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine after World War II, Europe would not have been able to reemerge as a political and economic power. The current situation shows that, this time, the United States does not intend to launch a new military and economic initiative to support Europe.

Trump and the changing US establishment must have concluded that supporting Europe leads only to new world wars. Furthermore, the United States is now forming partnerships with countries that it considers to be of similar weight and that dominate rare earth element mining and have relatively noteworthy military capabilities.

Has the root cause of the Ukraine issue been addressed?

The dominance of Russian President Putin and the constant refrain of Russian diplomacy to “address the root cause of the Ukraine issue” were palpable in the talks that began in Alaska and continued in Washington. So, what is the root of the problem? To answer this question, it helps to be familiar with the map of the Russian Empire in 1914, before World War I, when Russia bordered the German and Austro-Hungarian empires to the west.

Today’s Finland and the Baltic countries were entirely within Russian territory. A large part of present-day Poland, including the capital, Warsaw, was also under Russian rule. During that same period, our province of Kars was also part of Russia. This map represented the culmination of a plan shaped by Tsar Peter the Great in the early 18th century. Peter traveled around European shipyards in his youth with the goal of transforming Russia into a global imperialist naval power. This plan was advanced by Empress Catherine II through conspiracies against the Ottoman Empire in Crimea and Morea.

The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the peace treaties the new St. Petersburg regime was forced to sign, and the subsequent civil war that lasted until 1922 reshaped the map of Russia. While Finland and Poland joined the international community as new countries, the Baltic states and Ukraine did not have this opportunity. The so-called Soviet republics, who believed in the Bolsheviks’ “right of peoples to determine their own destiny,” were also absorbed by the new regime.

World War II reshaped this map. It was no surprise that the pact between the foreign ministers of the totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—Molotov and Ribbentrop—targeted Poland first. Similarly, when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, igniting World War II, the Soviet Union, led by Stalin, joined the invasion on September 17. This was followed immediately by the Red Army’s attack on Finland on November 30, 1939. Stalin aimed to reclaim territories lost during Lenin’s and Trotsky’s reign and establish a new Russian imperialism.

The end of World War II surpassed the dreams of Russian imperialism

Under Stalin’s leadership, the Soviet Union achieved results during World War II that surpassed even Peter the Great’s wildest dreams. By the war’s end, the Russian sphere of influence had reached the Berlin-Budapest-Vienna line. However, the European leg of the “Great Game” did not end there. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, the cards were reshuffled. This time, Ukraine and the Baltic states seized the opportunity they had missed in 1922.

NATO and the European Union then began a reckless race to expand eastward toward the northern Black Sea and the Caucasus, incorporating the former Warsaw Pact countries into their fold. The verbal assurances Gorbachev received from the U.S. and NATO when he signed the dissolution of the USSR no longer held any weight. Even the hasty appointment of an intelligence figure to the Russian presidency in 2000 failed to impress Washington and Western capitals.

Furthermore, Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 did not convey Moscow’s seriousness. The course of events, including the annexation of Crimea by the “little green men” in 2014, suggests that Ukraine may become Europe’s “new Berlin Wall” or, as Trump said, a complete buffer zone.