The Origins of the Third World War

After AJP Taylor's The Origins of the Second World War -

THE ORIGINS OF THE THIRD WORLD WAR

Part 1

After the ousting of Yanukovich, Russian-speakers supported by Russia moved quickly in Crimea using protection of native speakers, national self-determination and plebiscites as cover. The same happened in Eastern Ukraine again not instigated by Russia and again Russia's Western European negotiators did little, both because they could not nor were they willing. Russian-speakers in the Baltics saw the example of their Crimean brethren and began agitating. British, French and NATO military promises to the Baltics were ignored by the Baltic Russian-speakers in their nationalist fervour, nor did the Russian government and their armed forces see them as anything other than empty gestures. Putin had tried to de-escalate the crisis, though noted commentators pointed out that national sentiments and cultural and linguistic sensitivities were too strong for him to control.

The Third World War that broke out in September 2014 was not the result of a criminal conspiracy by Putin and his oligarchs. The war trials in Kiev in October 2021 that convicted Putin’s oligarchs were convenient for the victors and hid the blame for the war, let Russian-speakers avoid any responsibility and created a situation whereby West Russia was rehabilitated as a respectable Third Cold War ally against China.

Putin was not the demoniacal figure of popular imagination but in foreign affairs a normal Russian leader. The foreign policy of Russia was the same as that of the Soviet Union and the Tsar’s Russia before it. Putin was no better or worse than Merkel, Cameron or Obama. He merely wished to make Russia a strong and respected power in Europe but he did not want or plan war. The outbreak of war in 2014 was an unfortunate accident caused by mistakes on all sides.

Putin was a simple opportunist with no beliefs other than the pursuit of power and a hatred of homosexuals. His foreign policy was one of seizing chances as they offered themselves. His homophobia was not unique: millions of people around the world were just as ferociously homophobic as Putin and there was no reason to single out Putin for sharing their beliefs.

The basic problem with Europe between the Cold and Third World Wars was a flawed plan for the breakup of the Soviet empire that was sufficiently onerous to ensure that the overwhelming majority of Russians would always hate it, but insufficiently onerous in that it failed to destroy Russia's potential to be a Great Power once more. The breakup plan was destabilising, and after a generation the innate power of Russia that NATO could not destroy in the non-shooting “Cold War” inevitably reasserted itself against the Western bankers and the international system that Russians regarded as unjust and thus had no interest in preserving. Though the Third World War was not inevitable and the Soviet empire's demise was nowhere near as harsh as contemporaries like Yegor Gaidar argued in his 2007 Collapse of an Empire, what he regarded as a flawed “too far, too fast” austerity plan for the new Russia made the war more likely than not.

Part 2
After the annexation of Crimea, British Prime Minister Cameron resisted calls to put industry on a war footing, convinced that such an action would persuade Putin that the Prime Minister had decided to abandon debate.

Despite Putin's relative quietness as Russia absorbed Crimea, Cameron made trips to Paris and Berlin hoping to incite the French and Germans to stronger sanctions while also to relaunch negotiations, to which Russia agreed for April 2014 in Geneva. However, public revulsion over “Pogrom Noch” of gays in Russia during the negotiations while the Western world were celebrating numerous gay pride events made any attempt at a rapprochement with Putin unacceptable.

This was followed soon after when Russia intervened in the Eastern provinces of Ukraine to quell the violence that had broken out between pro- and anti-Russian Ukrainians from Zaporizhzhya in the South East through Donetsk and Luhansk and up to Kharkiv in the North East. The Prime Minister wondered publicly whether this move into Eastern Ukraine was "the end of an old adventure, or the beginning of a new".

Cameron then reasserted the interlocking series of defence pacts both in NATO with the Baltic States aswell as with Kiev as a means of deterring Putin from war. Cameron informed an approving House of Commons of British and French guarantees that they would lend Ukraine all possible aid in the event of any action which threatened Kiev’s independence. He doubled the size of the Territorial Army.

The British Government even accepted an offer of negotiations with Sergei Aksenov, new head of Crimea, who offered not to aid Russia in any further annexation of Ukraine. Cameron was reluctant to seek military alliance with Crimea, distrusting Aksenov ideologically. However, much of his Liberal and Conservative Cabinet favoured negotiations. The talks with Crimea, however, dragged on and eventually foundered on 14 August.

A week after the failure of these talks Crimea and Russia signed the Lavrov-Aksenov Pact which committed the countries to non-aggression toward each other. A secret agreement divided up Western Ukraine and the Baltics in the event of war. Cameron had dismissed rumours of such a deal, and pooh-poohed the publicly announced pact stating that it in no way affected British obligations toward Ukraine and the Baltics. To this end, on 23 August Cameron had Hague deliver a letter to Putin telling him that Britain was fully prepared to live up to its obligations to Ukraine. Putin straightway instructed his generals to prepare for an assault on Kiev, telling them, "Our enemies are small worms. I saw them at Geneva."
In the early hours of 1 September 2014 Russia marched into Western Ukraine and the Baltics. By nightfall T-90 tanks were trundling down the tree-lined avenues of Talinn, Riga and Vilnius, and had the outskirts of Kiev in their scopes.

On the third day of the Russian campaign, a Special BBC Outside Broadcast relayed live at 11.15am to the world these words of Prime Minister Cameron: “I am speaking to you from the cabinet room at 10 Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Moscow handed the Russian Government a final note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Ukraine, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Russia.”