Musk likes to talk about various things, and recently gave instructions on world peace, which caused an uproar in global public opinion. A considerable number of people criticized him for being unprofessional. So, are the world's political strategy masters, Huntington , Brzezinsky, and Kissinger, accurate predictions of the Ukrainian issue? Fortunately, they all wrote a lot, and they all came more than ten years ago. The past future is the present. You can feel from the book whether the development of human society is predictable.
Huntington
Huntington's Chinese translations are 5. Among the 4 I have read, " Change of Political Order in Society " is a political theory, "American Politics: Inspiring Between Ideals and Realities" and "Who Is Americans" focus on the United States, and "The Conflict of Civilizations and Reconstructing the World Order" is the most well-known international political work for it.
" Conflict of Civilizations " was published in 1997, and its main point was proposed as early as 1993, and the book is an extension of its views. The writing background is the outlook for the international order in the post-Cold War era after the drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Huntington proposed that the future world will mainly be carried out by cooperation and conflict between several major civilizations such as the West, Russian Orthodox Church, Islam, Greater China and India. Personally, I believe that among the predictions that Huntington has been verified, there are two most typical examples: one is the surge in the population of the Islamic world and the increasing extremism of youth, which will cause internal chaos around 2010. Egypt , Morocco , Syria , Jordan , Iraq is the first to be blasted, and it is accurately verified by the development of reality; the other is the "fault line war", that is, geopolitical conflicts in the border areas of various civilizations will intensify, and local wars will break out in the Caucasus , Balkans, Kashmir , North Africa and other regions, and will also be verified one by one after another.
Huntington mentioned that "defining a boundary in Europe was one of the main challenges facing Western civilization in the post-Cold War era". The west, north and south of Europe are naturally separated by large areas of water (Atlantic Ocean, Baltic Sea , Mediterranean ). The most difficult part is how to draw a boundary in the east. Historically, the historical line that separates Western Christianity from Muslims and Orthodox Church is the most common and convincing answer. This boundary can be traced back to the division of the Roman Empire in the 4th century AD. It started from the north and followed the border between Finnish , Estonia , Latvia , Lithuanian and Russia, crossing south through Ukraine, separating the Catholicism in western Ukraine from the Orthodox Church in eastern, and then crossing south through the Balkans. We see that this dividing line no longer follows the border line from Ukraine, but passes through several countries. The bloody civil war in the Balkans in the 1990s has paid the price until Ukraine in 2022.
Huntington proposed the concept of "at a loss of state". At a loss of state is a culture that dominates a single civilization, but its leaders want to turn to another civilization, that is, the people of these countries know who they are, but which civilization is their civilization is different. Russia, Turkey , Mexico , and Australia belong to this category, and Russia is a typical example. As a huge core country of civilization, Russia has been in a state of at a loss for centuries. For more than 200 years after Peter the Great began Westernization reform, the debate on whether Russia belongs to Europe has not stopped. The Soviet era in the next 70 years was very different from that in Western Europe. Russia after the Cold War, Russia once again stood at a crossroads. The duality of Western- Slavicism is an inseparable feature of the Russian national characteristics.
The European dividing line that divides Ukraine east and west has different ethnic groups, languages and religions on both sides, which has caused serious internal differences since it became an independent country. Ukraine has historically had an inseparable cultural ties with the Russian Empire, and has been part of Russian territory for more than 300 years.After the Cold War, an independent but partially split Ukraine encountered a Russia that hovered left and right between empire expansion and integration into the West. Western Europe and NATO were gradually expanding eastward to restore the borders of the old Europe, making Ukraine the focus of a complex situation.
Huntington's prediction of Ukraine and Russia's relations has three possibilities: First, there will be no violent conflict between Ukraine and Russia, and the leaders of the two countries will cooperate pragmatically. For example, in mid-1994, Ukraine elected a obviously pro-Russian president; Second, Ukraine will be divided into two independent entities, and the eastern Ukraine will merge with Russia, and the separation problem will first begin with Crimea . Huntington stressed that this situation can only happen if relations between the West and Russia seriously deteriorate and become the kind of relationship that was during the Cold War. Third, it is the situation that Huntington believes is the most likely. Ukraine will still be a unified but rifted country. Ukraine and Russia maintain close ties, but economic problems are the most serious in the long run.
Overall, Huntington's prediction on the Ukraine issue was wrong. He believed that relying on the affinity between civilizations, the pragmatic and economic ties between the leaders of the two countries, the relationship between the two countries, just like the French-German relationship to Western Europe, has become the cornerstone of the entire Orthodox civilization. The worst case is that the Ukrainian region merges with Russia, and there will be no war in this process. So why did Huntington predict errors? I think there are roughly the following reasons: First, it underestimated Russia's independence and empire tendencies, and overestimated its intention to integrate into the West. This is understandable. After all, in the Yeltsin era, Russia's comprehensive westernization policy was extremely obvious; second, it underestimated the impact of economic factors. The prosperity of the Western economy and the relative decline of the Russian economy made a new generation of young people in Ukraine yearn for the West more. The continuous eastward expansion of the EU and NATO also provided imagination space for them to turn to the West; third, it overestimated the power of military deterrence and the fear of the remnant of Russia's military power, and the reduction of military deterrence is related to economic globalization and the rise of Internet media, which Huntington could not predict as a political scholar.
Brzezinski
If Huntington is a scholar and still mainly researched on the desk, then Brzezinski and Kissinger, who are as famous as international political strategists, came to practice in person. There is a saying that it was the close cooperation between these two Jews who buried the Soviet Union. I have read Brzezinski's " big chess game " and "Strategic Vision", both of which stand on the American standpoint and study how to maintain its global hegemony. Interestingly, "The Big Chess Game" was published in 1997 and "Strategic Vision" was published in 2011. In the blink of an eye, Brzezinsky's view of the world seemed to have changed a lot.
is different from Huntington's relatively pure analysis and prediction. In "The Big Chess Game", Brzezinski's suggestion based on realistic analysis is not what will happen in the future, but what should happen in the future.
In "The Big Chess Game", Brzezinski quoted Harold McKinder's concept of "world island", that is, Eurasian is the world island, whoever rules the world island will rule the world. In the post-Cold War era, as the only global power, the United States' main strategic task is to recognize the distribution of power in the Eurasian continent, avoid the emergence of superpowers through offshore checks and balances , and then maintain hegemony. Brzez believes that in the World Island game, there are five strategic players who have the ability and willingness to change the geopolitical situation and threaten the interests of the United States, namely France, Germany, Russia, China and India. There are five geopolitical support countries, namely Ukraine, Azerbaijan, , South Korea, Turkey and Iran. Geopolitical support countries can have an impact on chess players due to their sensitive geographical location and potential vulnerability.
站在美国的立场上，在欧亚大陆的主要挑战可以总结为五个问题，分别是：（一）美国应该要一个什么样的欧洲？ （二）什么样的俄罗斯符合美国的利益？ （三）怎样做才能避免欧亚大陆中部出现新的“巴尔干”？ （四）中国发挥什么作用，对美国和日本意味着什么？ （五）可能出现那些新的欧亚国家联盟，哪种对美国威胁最大？不难看出，乌克兰是解决问题一和问题二的关键所在。
In the real world before 1997, the United States' attitude towards the EU has been unclear. Although it verbally supports the EU to become an equal partner with the United States, in reality, the policy tendency of one meritorious country and multiple minion countries is still adopted on key issues such as whether to support European union, who will lead the EU, where the EU expands its borders, and the relationship between the EU and NATO. Brzezinski suggested that the United States should fully support the EU, and the United States should support Germany rather than France to become EU leaders, support the growth of power over the EU under the NATO framework (the relative weakening of US power), and the United States and Russia should resolve the border issue of the EU's eastward expansion.
布热津斯基认为，俄罗斯丢掉了乌克兰是其地缘政治中最麻烦的事。 Losing Ukraine not only means losing 52 million people, fertile land in Eastern European plains, and the main port of the Black Sea. More importantly, Ukraine's independence will tend to separate minorities and non-Orthodox residents in Russia, and also make Europe's color in Russia, the traditional Eurasian empire, fade.
布热津斯基总结俄罗斯会采取的三种战略设想：一是与美国共管全球；二是建立莫斯科主导的联盟；三是建立和参与一个反美联盟。而其在书中针对这三种战略设想一一予以反驳，指出俄罗斯未来只有唯一真正的选择，那就是加入西方成为欧洲的一部分。 One of the strong arguments is that Ukraine will definitely seek to join the EU and NATO in the future. If Ukraine turns to the West and Russia does not have it, it will inevitably be a geopolitical disaster for Russia.
Although the book "The Big Chess Game" shows that China is the biggest threat to the United States, I personally believe that the focus of this book is still on Russia, and Chapter 4 is also the most exciting part of this book, showing a deep understanding of the old opponent. 14 years later, "Strategic Vision" truly took China as its core, and set the tone of the decline of the West and the disappearance of the American dream, which is in a huge contrast to the shout that the United States is the most powerful country in human history in "The Big Chess Game". In "Strategic Vision", Brzezinski continued to call for the establishment of a Great Western Alliance of "US + Europe + Russia", and proposed eight geopolitical most endangered countries and regions, including Ukraine. The original text is:
Finally, if the United States declines, Europe will respond passively to Russia's absorption of Belarusian , not to mention that Russia's earlier successful use of force to intimidate Georgian , which will induce Russian leaders to try more open and unified actions at some point. But this will be a very complex task, and may require the use of force, at least to artificially create an economic crisis within Ukraine, making the formal alliance with Russia, which is more economically resilient, more enjoyable to the Ukrainians.俄罗斯仍会继续冒险挑起姗姗来迟的民族主义反应，尤其是在这个国家讲乌克兰语的中部和西部。但随着时间流逝，乌克兰作为民族国家会赢得更年轻一代人——无论是讲乌克兰语还是讲俄语的人——更深刻的情感认同。他们越来越认为乌克兰的国家地位是正常的，是其身份的一部分。 Therefore, time may be detrimental to Kiev 's obedience to Moscow, but the pressure exerted by impatient Russia to achieve this goal and the indifference of the West may cause potential explosive situations around the EU.
The West's passive response to Russia's expansion will greatly accelerate Russia's decision-making pace, but unification of Ukraine will be very complex and difficult, economic means and war are possible, the nationalist response in western Ukraine and the identity of young people growing over time will greatly hinder Russia from realizing its intentions, and Ukraine will have an explosive situation. The optimism about Ukraine in "The Big Chess Game" turned to pessimism in "Strategic Vision", and reality was not only hit by its prophecy, but also more tragic and extreme.
Overall, Brzezinski is a realistic strategist who "can see the truth of life, but still has expectations for life". The overall analysis framework of "The Big Chess Game" is classic, but his expectations for the world are too optimistic. To be honest, he understands the whole world but does not understand the United States. More than ten years after the publication of "The Big Chess Game", the United States made almost all the mistakes he thought the United States should avoid. He suggested that the United States fully support European integrated , while in reality, Britain and the United States are still playing the balance of power in the mainland; he suggested that the United States make substantial concessions to win Russia to the West, while in reality, the United States' step-by-step pressing of Russia's geospace is becoming increasingly rampant; he suggested that the United States did not avoid falling into a "Balkan"-style dispute, and in reality, the United States personally fought two wars. Before we could realize Brzezinsky's grand plan, the United States had begun to decline.
seems to be able to use Brzezinsky's suggestions as a reverse indicator to predict the future. The United States, Europe, and Russia have all come to the opposite of his suggestions, and his suggestions on the future direction of China and the United States in "Strategic Vision" now seem chilling.
Kissinger
For me Chinese, Kissinger may be the only person who lives in history books and reality at the same time. He has only read his "World Order". His language is plain and his thoughts are vast. Overall, he gives people a sense of master who has entered the realm of great ingenuity. Of course, this is just my own opinion. There are many people who oppose him, especially in the United States. In addition to writing books, Kissinger spoke more in the media, such as this article in March 2014, which was popular on the Chinese Internet,
In the article, he criticized all parties who caused the Crimean crisis. Russia's attempt to annex and conquer Ukraine will inevitably return to the self-circle of confrontation with the West; the West must understand the special significance of Ukraine to Russia; bureaucracy and tendency to obsess over internal affairs within the EU have led to the ineffectiveness of diplomatic means; the Ukrainian leaders did not base themselves on reality to promote reconciliation between the East and West factions, but fell into a curse cycle where one side overwhelmed the other and lacked political wisdom. The solution he proposed is: Ukraine can join the EU but cannot join NATO, Russia cannot annex Crimea, Ukraine and Russia each take a step back, giving Krinia higher autonomy, and the United States and Russia cannot fall into a new Cold War.
Go back further. In September 2008, in response to the Georgian conflict, Kissinger published an article "Looking for Commons" in International Herald Leader . The article mentioned that "the existence of the Russian army in a new country independent of the old Soviet empire will inevitably create a shock after the collapse of the Soviet Union." The condemnation and sanctions that the West will inevitably lead to confrontation, which is extremely inappropriate. It is neither advisable nor feasible to isolate Russia from the world and to isolate such a population and area of major powers. The article quotes the policy of "condemnation and contact" adopted by President Reagan, after the Soviet Union shot down a South Korean civil aviation aircraft in 1983, in order to criticize Western isolation sanctions. The article continues to oppose Georgia and Ukraine's accession to NATO, and the reason for opposition is not to recognize that this is Russia's sphere of influence, but to solve its security issues under a larger framework. It is unwise to mechanically push the NATO border eastward. The article also advises Russia's policy orientation, and uses force to solve problems inappropriately and not worth the loss.
Overall, Kissinger did not predict the future development of Ukraine, but only provided solutions to all parties, but the reality is going to the opposite side, and everyone has chosen the worst path.
Human stupidity is indeed beyond imagination.
