SO much has already been written and said about the disastrous White House meeting between Trump, Vance and Zelensky that you might think there’s nothing more to add. But two important points may have been missed by most of the supposed ‘experts’ and various talking heads.
Point 1: The US is playing ‘The Great Game’
The Europeans are squabbling and doing the headless chicken dance while panicking about how to stop Putin and punish him for the Ukraine invasion. But for America, Ukraine is as Trump said ‘separated from America by a big beautiful ocean’. Most Americans (and probably most Europeans) didn’t even know where Ukraine was until Russia invaded. And the fate of faraway, insignificant Ukraine is not of any strategic importance to the US. Instead, America’s key strategic challenge is curbing the rise of a militaristic, increasingly aggressive China. America may be playing the 21st century’s version of ‘the Great Game’.
This was a rivalry between the 19th-century British and Russian empires over influence in Central Asia, primarily in Afghanistan, Persia and Tibet. But, I believe, the expression can also be used more generally to describe the major powers jostling with each other for control of countries and resources. In the 20th century, ‘the Great Game’ was primarily the worldwide conflict between the West and the Soviet Union. This spread throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa and South America as the West’s and Soviet Union’s proxies fought local wars.
In the 21st century, ‘the Great Game’ will be played mainly between the US and an increasingly hungry and belligerent China. The Chinese are not just a threat to American power, they are also colonising many other countries such as Australia and New Zealand and large parts of Africa. Moreover, China is a threat to Russia’s resource-rich, underpopulated Far East. What the Trump administration may have realised is that China not Russia is the real enemy and that, as Russians may have more in common with the US than with the Chinese, now is the time to loosen Russia’s ties with (subordination to?) China and recruit Russia into the anti-Chinese camp.
One way of doing this is to encourage Russia to reconnect with the West. If that means reopening trade links with Russia and largely abandoning Ukraine, then so be it. That’s realpolitik.
The sensitive pearl-clutchers will shout and scream that Putin is a kleptocrat, tyrant and murderous dictator who should not be rewarded for his aggression. But during WWll, the West made an alliance with Stalin who had killed 20million to 30million innocents including around 4million Ukrainians in the Holodomor.
And between February 21 and 28, 1972, US President Richard Nixon travelled to Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai. Almost as soon as the American president arrived in the Chinese capital, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong beckoned him for a meeting. Mao’s policies were responsible for a vast number of deaths, with estimates ranging from 40million to 80million victims of starvation, persecution, prison labour and mass executions. Compared with Stalin and Mao, Putin is a mere amateur. Yet at different times the West entered alliances with both Stalin and Mao.
Point 2: The ‘Sunk Cost’ fallacy
The Ukrainian and European political leaders are taking a politician’s approach – Putin is a horrible person who has done lots of nasty things and so must be stopped and punished. The Americans are taking a businessman’s view – we are where we are, the clock cannot be turned back, so what’s the best solution as we look to move on?
In economics and business decision-making, a Sunk Cost (also known as retrospective cost) has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. The Sunk Cost Fallacy is our tendency to continue with something we’ve invested money, effort, or time into – even if the current costs outweigh the benefits. For example, a company has invested a few hundred million in a factory to produce electric vehicles and then finds there is insufficient consumer demand. A company falling for the Sunk Cost Fallacy would continue investing on the basis that so much has already been spent it might as well continue the project and complete it. A company which accepted that sunk costs can never be recovered might seek alternative solutions for the factory even if that meant selling it at a loss.
The Ukrainians and Europeans have fallen for the Sunk Cost Fallacy – we have invested so much in the Ukraine war we cannot afford to stop and reward Russia for its aggression. The US sees all that has happened as a ‘sunk cost’ and is looking for the best way to move forward. For America, that means bringing Russia back in from isolation to ally with the US against China.
I suspect that Zelensky and European leaders have not understood these two fundamental principles behind America’s current strategy and that’s why there’s so much misunderstanding between them.
