A new American (wet) dream – “ununite” Russia and China

Trump is a hurry to close out the Ukraine proxy war. The biggest reason is that he wants to fully pivot to China and the Ukraine war is a distraction.

In his recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Trump was blunt – “one of the most stupid things by the Biden administration was to unite Russia and China. I’m going to ununite them.”

Putting aside “ununite” is not a dictionary word like “bigly”, Trump is again in a feverish dream.

Peeling off Russia from China, known as the “reverse Nixon” move, is not a new idea. Imperial strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski warned of the worst geostrategic mistake the US could make – “the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China and Russia, united not by ideology but by shared grievances”, in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard.

Crackpot realist John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago has been advocating to separate Russia and China for years. And this has become a consensus among the neocons and Washington foreign policy elite.

The US design is transparent. It is taking steps to wind down the NATO vs. Russia proxy war fought in Ukraine. Rubio even made noises about US Russia becoming geopolitical and economic partners. Trump raised the prospect of Russia returning to the “G8”.

Will the strategy work? Will Russia take the bait?

Common sense tells you this is just another wishful American dream, another drug-fueled hallucination, and what I call the new American wet dream.

First of all, what can Trump bring to the table that Putin is not getting on the battlefield? Entering a peace negotiation after you have already lost the war gives you zero leverage. What could Hitler offer to Stalin in April 1945 to “peel him off” from FDR? Naming right for his first born?

Second, how stupid does Trump think Putin and Russians are? Will Russia miss the broadcast that you are making nice because you want to focus on China, Russia’s main ally? Will the Russians switch sides when their side is winning?

Third, can Russia trust the US? Have the Russians forgot how the US reneged on “not one inch east” NATO expansion plan? Have the Russians forgot how the US walked away from the ABM and INF treaties, so it is not constrained to threaten Russia? Have the Russians forgot how the US and Europe cheated them about the Minsk agreements? Have the Russians forgiven the US for its shock therapy treatment after 1991 when Russia desperately wanted to be a friend to the west and Yeltsin was a vassal? Russian life expectancy was reduced by 7 years in the decade of the US imposed shock therapy.

Fourth, have the Russians not studied US history before? Don’t they know the US government violated numerous treaties signed with the Cherokees, the Creek Nation, and the Seminoles that led to the Trail of Tears? What is to stop such an “exceptional” nation to renege on another piece of paper? If the Russians haven’t brushed up on US history lesson, can’t they see US behavior today towards its “friends” Canada, Denmark, and Ukraine? Haven’t they heard of Kissinger’s famous throw-away line “to be US’s enemy is dangerous, to be US’s friend is fatal”?

Fifth, what will happen to Russia if it lets itself peeled off from China? Will the US start to treat Russia as an equal partner? Will the US not abandon Russia someday just like it is abandoning Ukraine and Europe right now? Can the US guarantee it won’t interfere in Russian politics and not support terrorists in Russia? Will the US provide security guarantees to Russia against a Europe that is being asked by the US itself to spend 5% GDP on defense and will dwarf Russian military spending and pose a threat to Russia?

Sixth, if China indeed gets weakened, will the US never turn around and deal with Russia again, this time with no inhibitions? Can Russia be assured the US will never plan to break up Russia like Poland and Lithuania have shouted for?

Seventh, will the US admit its guilt for blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines and compensate Russia for its loss? Will the US and Europe return the $300 billion Russian reserve they have stolen? Will they return the assets they have confiscated from ordinary Russian citizens? Will the US and the west stop all the sanctions? Will they now allow Russian cats and Russian athletes to participate in international competitions? Will they now allow Tchaikovsky’s music or Pushkin’s poems again?

Eighth, will the US replace China as Russia’s top trade partner? Russian trade with China was $240 billion last year, 4 times bigger than its next largest trading partner India. Russian trade with the US was less than $3 billion. Will the US import Russian oil, gas and grain? Will the US export semiconductor chips to Russia for military use? Will the US share its AI technology with Russia, like Putin called for AI collaboration with China?

Most Americans don’t know this but most Russians do. In 1949, the US and UK developed a plan called Operation Dropshot. The plan was to drop 300 nuclear bombs and 20,000 tons of conventional bombs on 200 targets in 100 urban areas, including Moscow and Leningrad (St. Peterburg). Will the Russians crave US embrace so much that they will forget all this as water under the way?

In the last 3 years when Russia faced the worst sanctions and isolations a country has ever faced, China stood by it and supported its economy and its military. Will the Russians betray the country that has stood with them in their hardest time so that their historical enemy can weaken it?

Oscar Wilde said, “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without going through civilization”. This really shows in how they think about relationship among nation states and geopolitics - like a decadent barbarian.

The sheer stupidity of the US ruling class is mindboggling. Even the so-called “realist” master John Mearsheimer suffers the same grade school infantile intelligence about how the world works. Unlike what Trump imagines, not every country is a sucker.

It is a wonder how the foremost “democratic” citizens of the Uninformed States elect an 80-year-old strange man with a 7-year-old IQ. A trilateral meeting between Trump, Putin and Xi will be interesting. We’ll see what grand strategy the dimmest bulb in the room comes up with.

Right after Riyad, Lavrov called Wang Yi to debrief and Peskov just confirmed Putin will discuss the Riyad talk with Xi. Maybe US is falling into a Russian Chinese trap to ununite US and NATO😊

At the end of the day, Trump’s master plan to peel off Russia from China will be just another American dream. The only thing Trump will succeed in “ununiting” is the united states.