Foreign Relations & Acrimonious Divorce

Europe is acting like a jilted spouse who would rather spend a fortune on divorce attorneys than bury the hatchet.

About 25 years ago I got to be pals with a retired CIA analyst named John Mapother who was stationed in Germany and then in Austria between 1947 and 1955. I met him a few times for dinner in Washington D.C. (he lived in Maryland) and we had many long and fascinating conversations about U.S. foreign policy.

As he explained it, the people who drive U.S. foreign policy have a very hard time putting themselves in the shoes of America’s adversaries. In the case of post Cold War Russia, the prevailing mentality seemed to be that Russia was so thoroughly defeated that it was no longer in a position to make claims of having its own national and security interests. If the proud Russians were unwilling to accept their vassalage to the United States and NATO, well, that was just tough s..t for the Russians.

Since Vladimir Putin came to power in 1999, the American inability to see things as Russians see them has hardened into the presumption that the Russians simply have no standing to make any national security claims, even on its Ukrainian border a few hundred miles from Moscow.

This mentality completely ignores one of the central tenets of foreign relations, which is frequently called the Balance of Power doctrine. Underlying this doctrine is the recognition that—regardless of how benevolent and altruistic people declare themselves to be—when it comes to a dispute over material and strategic interests, the more powerful party can be relied upon to press any advantage he has gained.

To understand this basic reality of all human affairs, consider how few agreements involving substantial interests are consummated on the basis of a handshake instead of legal documents drafted by attorneys. Even partnerships that begin on the friendliest of terms may go sour, resulting in one partner trying to press an advantage against the other. This essential flaw of human nature has been greatly amplified in our Era of Virtue Signaling, in which the most extravagant expressions of virtue are made by the most ruthless people.

In 1823, President James Monroe declared that the United States would not tolerate any European military alliance anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. As he put it in his seventh annual message to Congress on December 2, 1823, the European powers were obligated to respect the Western Hemisphere as the United States' sphere of interest.

Sphere of interest is a privilege that the U.S. government claims for itself as a given. However, when some other power such as Russia declares a sphere of interest in its own front yard, a few hundred miles from Moscow, the U.S. foreign policy establishment acts perfectly outraged. How dare Vladimir Putin declare a sphere of influence!

How would these same people react if Russia announced a military alliance with Cuba that involved placing sophisticated Russian weaponry and a large signals intelligence infrastructure in Cuba?

President Donald Trump is apparently the first president since 1990 to understand the folly of this mentality and to recognize that Russia is a legitimate nation with legitimate national security interests. Trump appears to understand that the Russian psyche was badly scarred by Napoleon’s invasion in 1812 and especially by Hitler’s in 1941.

For personal reasons, he understands that the Russians could not trust the Biden administration. For equally personal reasons, he understands the folly of blindly trusting the Ukrainian regime. Consider that Zelensky, who is no longer an elected leader of Ukraine, campaigned for Joe Biden.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a British film producer who asked me why the subject of my first book—an Austrian writer and serial killer named Jack Unterweger—was, for a time, the darling of Austria’s leftwing literati before he was exposed as a serial killer.

I pointed out to the producer that the less people know about a person or a situation, the more room they have to project their own fantasies and notions onto the person or situation. Austria’s literati feted Jack Unterweger without knowing a single thing about him or his criminal past. He was a perfect projection screen for their own silly fantasies.

It’s a conspicuous fact about Russia and Ukraine that Americans know absolutely nothing about either country. Although I lived in Austria for fifteen years and speak German, I still don’t presume to understand fully Austrian politics. The only thing Americans know about Russia and Ukraine is what they are presented with in the media, which lies all the time about everything.

Now the Europeans are butt-hurt because President Trump is tired of the killing, destruction, and sending money and weapons into the black hole of Kiev and wants to end it.

The European heads of state remind me of the jilted wife of a rich man who would rather spend millions on attorneys fees in a drawn out divorce instead of obtaining a decent settlement and moving on with her life. While nursing anger and resentment and blowing money on lawyers may satisfy a desire for revenge, it doesn’t achieve anything constructive.