Is War Between the U.S. and Russia Inevitable?

Robert W. Merry, editor of The American Conservative, and author of the upcoming book President McKinley: Architect of the American Century, says war between America and Russia is nearly inevitable. The thrust of Merry’s argument is that the U.S. is backing the Russians into a corner from which there is no peaceful escape. Merry continues that, despite his best intentions on a rapprochement with Russia, President Trump has failed to deliver such an agenda. He writes:

War between Russia and the West seems nearly inevitable. No self-respecting nation facing inexorable encirclement by an alliance of hostile neighbors can allow such pressures and forces to continue indefinitely. Eventually it must protect its interests through military action

Western intrusion into traditional Russian spheres of influence, areas under the sway of Moscow for three centuries or more, represents a highly provocative and destabilizing policy. Ukraine was one such Russian sphere of influence. Georgia was another.

Further, the West has offered no expressions indicating what might be the limitations of its encirclement plans.

America’s promiscuous post–Cold War activities in support of regime change—in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen—lend weight to suspicions that it harbors similar views toward Russian president Vladimir Putin

The demonization of Putin by America’s intelligentsia has been nearly unprecedented in peacetime

There is no recognition in any of this that Russians may view themselves, with at least some validity, as a beleaguered nation vis-à-vis America and its allies.

Donald Trump was elected in part to change all that.

Unlike most of the country’s elites, he vowed to seek Moscow’s cooperation on global issues, accepted some U.S. share of blame for the two countries’ sour relations and acknowledged “the right of all nations to put their own interests first.”

Trump’s Russia initiative appears dead. The anti-Russian elites have won the day, whatever the merits of the case or wherever the facts now lead. The president looks hapless on the issue.

It’s difficult to envision where this could lead, short of actual hostilities. Russia’s fundamental national interests, the ones Trump was prepared to accept, will almost certainly render such hostilities inevitable.

Read more here from Robert W. Merry at The National Interest.