Moscow-centrism of American establishment

If we draw all aspects of the current war and international relations on one big sheet of paper and then look for the narrowest point on which everything depends (the 'bottleneck,' the key limitation of the system according to Goldratt's theory), we will eventually find it.

This will be the Moscow-centrism of the American establishment.

For a number of reasons, Americans look exclusively to Moscow for the keys to understanding the past, present, and future of the USSR and Russia. Considering the one-dimensional model of “power in Moscow consolidates - power in Moscow collapses,” they see no other scenarios, only these two. Collapse is more frightening than Stalinization and the continuation of the war. This means that in the face of the threat of a Russian collapse, the United States will be more likely to lean toward strengthening the Kremlin regime, which is seen as the lesser evil.

Prigozhin shortened the time considerably, sharpening the understanding that Putin's regime was really weak. We came close to a critical point.

“Our allies want our victory, but at the same time they are afraid of it. After all, they see our victory only as the collapse of Russia, and this is unacceptable. That is why they are looking for a middle ground where Russia has not completely lost and we have not completely won. That is why they are limiting supplies so that Russia's defeat is not complete. It doesn't matter how many Ukrainians die because of this. The war will return later, but it will be later. The main thing for them now is to prevent a collapse.”

Firstly, it's a path to nowhere.

Secondly, it's a mistake. This is the same mistake that was made in 1991, when the United States tried with all its might to preserve the USSR, which was no longer possible to preserve. If you don't remember 1991, look up Chicken Kyiv Speech. And in 1917, the Entente tried to preserve the unity of Russia, which was one of the two reasons for the defeat.

The FSB managed to mislead everyone into thinking that there were no peoples, that everyone had long since disappeared and been Russified, that there were no national elites and no aspirations for freedom. It was easy to deceive the Americans because they were already Moscow-centered, but they also managed to deceive a significant part of Ukrainians.

“Using a one-dimensional model, Americans see only two bad scenarios. They overlook the third scenario of decolonization/de-imperialization because it does not fit into their worldview. And they are not ready to give up their worldview, no matter how many lives it costs.”

The worst thing for the Americans is that in both scenarios they see (Stalinization and collapse), China wins. As if they did everything right, and their main geopolitical rival wins in all scenarios? This means that something is wrong with the basic assumptions.

The fate of the Russian Federation will not be decided in Moscow, just as it was in 1991.

What to do? Use every chance to explain to Americans the fallacy of Moscow-centrism and the inadmissibility of repeating the mistakes of 1917 and 1991. First and foremost, Ukraine must have a strategy for Russia, and then convince our allies of its correctness.

In order to win, you don't have to drag history to your side. We just need to take the side of history, to ride the inevitable trends.

We are hampered by our false stereotypes and our inability to think strategically over the long term.

This time, Ukraine is paying a price that it simply cannot afford to lose.

Source

About the author. Valeriy Pekar, lecturer at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

The editors don't always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.