Perhaps Putin should tell the Russian people and the Russian Army that his interest in resolving the conflict in Ukraine with peace negotiations lies in the possibility that the negotiations could be used to achieve a Great Power Agreement like what he and Lavrov tried to achieve with the West during the winter of 2021-2022 prior to Russia’s forced intervention in Ukraine. A New Yalta in effect. 

Russian foreign affairs commentators have been speaking for some time about the need for a new Yalta agreement.  A few years ago I was asked to address the Russian Academy of Sciences on the subject.  I told them something that they did not want to hear:  that Washington’s claim to hegemony prevented accommodation to Russian sovereignty.

A few thinking people have been perplexed at Putin’s conduct of the conflict in Ukraine. Russia could have ended the war quickly with conquest, but  instead has fought a slow, restrained war that has greatly expanded the war with Putin and Lavrov bleating constantly for “peace negotiations.”

Why has Putin done this despite the protests of the Wagner Group and the Chechnya leader of the Muslim troops fighting in the Ukraine conflict?  The only answer seems to be that he wants a New Yalta Agreement.  If he wins the war, he loses the opportunity. So he drags out the war in the hopes that negotiations will provide a platform for addressing the “root cause of the conflict”–which he sees as the absence of a Great Power Agreement.

One problem Putin’s wishful strategy faces is Washington’s commitment to hegemony.  No American president has repudiated the Wolfowitz Doctrine. Another is that the absence of victory goes down poorly with the Russian nationalists and with the troops themselves.  There are news reports that Russians are suspicious  and resentful of peace negotiations in Ukraine that stop short of victory.

Russian soldiers doing the fighting have told media that as tired as they are and as much as they want to go home, they want to liberate all of the regions that are once again part of Russia so that they don’t have to renew the fight in the future.  As one of the soldiers asked, “Otherwise, have all the guys died in vain?”

Russia’s rescue of the Russian territories assigned to Ukraine by Soviet leaders is important to Putin, but more important is to secure a Great Power Agreement, a New Yalta, that accepts Russia as a member country free of sanctions, overthrow attempts, and conflicts.

Putin is so desirous of this agreement that he has risked the ever-widening of the Ukraine conflict to the point that drone attacks now close all Moscow airports and destroy energy infrastructure deep inside Russia.  When Putin says that peace negotiations must address the “root cause of the conflict,” he means the absence of a Great Power Agreement. 

Putin is not interested in a negotiated end to the conflict in Ukraine.  He is hopeful of using negotiation to achieve a New Yalta.  The problem that Putin faces is that Washington, wrapped up as it is in its assumed hegemony, has no comprehension of another country’s point of view.

Washington’s approach to all negotiations is to use threats, to look for levers of pressure to force other governments to accept Washington’s “solution” to the “problem,” usually a Washington creation.  In other words, Washington doesn’t really negotiate.  It imposes its solutions.

Trump expects the Ukrainian negotiations to fail, and has ensured as much, in order to be able to withdraw money and focus from Ukraine and use the resources to bring into operation

Trump’s goal of an American Middle East colonial empire which began with Trump’s claim of Gaza as an American possession.

This claim is a claim to the undersea gas reserves that run from Gaza’s border with Egypt to northern Syria.  Trump’s visit in Saudi Arabia, the last remaining Arab state, was to enlist the rulers as junior partners in Trump’s American Middle East colonial empire. It seems that with Trump’s domestic agenda blocked by the judiciary, Trump will make us great again with the rise of America’s Middle East Empire.

---

The Lessons of History: 

Putin’s “The New Yalta” versus the Failed 1945 “Spirit of Yalta”

by Michel Chossudovsky 

 

President Vladimir Putin “is hopeful of using negotiation to achieve a New Yalta“.  

“He wants a New Yalta Agreement.  If he wins the war, he loses the opportunity… ” (Paul Craig Roberts)

Some observations below pertaining to the history of the February 1945 Yalta Conference.

The so-called “Spirit of Yalta” was an utter failure, conducive to Cold War I and the Arms Race. 

The February 1945 Yalta Conference was a Failure

Franklin D. Roosevelt was firmly committed to an alliance with the Soviet Union.

I do not regard the Communists as any present or future threat to our country. In fact, I look upon Russia as our strongest ally in the years to come.

While I do not believe in Communism, Russia under Communism is better than under the tsars. Stalin is a great leader, and although I despise some of his methods, it is the only way he can safeguard his government. (Democratic Party Convention, 1936)

[on Joseph Stalin] I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing from him in return, ‘noblesse oblige’, he won’t try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace.

***

I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of man. Harry [Hopkins] says he’s not and that he doesn’t want anything except security for his own country, and I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace. (Response to advice from Ambassador William C. Bullitt to pursue a containment policy against the Soviet Union (1943))

Yalta Conference: Churchill, F. F. Roosevelt, Stalin

Following the passing of Franklin D Roosevelt in April 1945, the alliance with the Soviet Union was abandoned. Truman and Churchill laid the foundations of the Cold War against America’s  former “Soviet Ally”

“The Spirit of Yalta” was Dumped

Roosevelt had firmly endorsed the Spirit of Yalta, with a  commitment to supporting the US-Soviet alliance.

There was a complete shift in Washington’s relationship to Moscow following FDR’s untimely death followed by the accession of President Harry Truman. 

The Yalta Conference was a failure largely due to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s passing and the rise of Truman and the Truman era foreign policy doctrine (Kennan)

The Potsdam conference  from July 17 to August 2, 1945. was attended by Winston Churchill,  Stalin, and Harry Truman, it’s official intent was “to allow the three leading Allies to plan the postwar peace”. In fact what occurred were bilateral talks between Truman and Churchill.

 

Truman was Instrumental in Undermining “The Spirit of Yalta” as well as the Legacy of FDR

Hiroshima was bombed 4 days after the Potsdam Conference. (July 17- August 2, 1945). Barely a few days later Harry Truman confirmed the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a historic radio address:

“The World will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians..”(President Harry S. Truman in a radio address to the Nation, August 9, 1945, starts at 05.15).

In the words of President Harry Truman in his Diary (emphasis added):

“We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark…. This weapon is to be used against Japan … [We] will use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children.

Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new. …  The target will be a purely military one… It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful.”

Those are the Lies contained in his Diary. The Truth is that Truman is a Criminal.

The Truth is “Crimes against Humanity” Committed by President Truman (“Ruthless, Merciless, Fanatic”)

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were described by the War Department as a dress rehearsal with a view to formulating a detailed nuclear war against the Soviet Union

Harry Truman and his Secretary of State, James Byrnes, in coordination with Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson (image right) had already decided to wage nuclear war against the Soviet Union.

“Stimson was not invited by Truman to attend the Potsdam Conference — his rivals, like Byrnes, appear to have gotten him excluded — but the “old man” showed up anyway, with this defiant look on his face. Truman would tell him that he was glad, as Stimson was Truman’s primary conduit of information about the Trinity test and the atomic bomb.”

And that decision was taken prior to the end of World War II. It eventually laid the foundations of the “Cold War agenda” and the Nuclear Arms Race. 

The Truman administration had not only endorsed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ordered by the War Department in coordination with the Manhattan Project, the intent to wage a nuclear war against the Soviet Union was confirmed by secret classified documents of the War Department dated September 15, 1945.

For further details see my article entitled. “Preemptive Nuclear War”: The Historic Battle for Peace and Democracy. A Third World War Threatens the Future of Humanity

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were described by the US War Department as a dress rehearsal.

The plan consisted in the bombing of 66 urban areas of the Soviet Union with approximately 200 atomic bombs. (See War Department Map below)

\

*

And now we are at the height of Cold War II, which has the features of a “Hot War”. “Nuclear weapons are heralded as safe for civilians because the exposition is underground”

The NeoCon agenda, as formulated by the PNAC (2000) follows in the footsteps of The Cold War “Truman Doctrine” In the words of George Kennan:

“The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better”

The NeoCons (see image below) are not intent upon “Winning the War”. They follow in the footsteps of the Truman Doctrine.  

Their agenda is to “Destroy Countries”.

It is a profit-driven agenda: “Destruction” leads to “Reconstruction”. 

 

Click the share button below to email/forward this article. Follow us on Instagram and X and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost Global Research articles with proper attribution.

Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

 

 

Featured image source

 

---

Global Research is a reader-funded media. We do not accept any funding from corporations or governments. Help us stay afloat. Click the image below to make a one-time or recurring donation.