For the second day in a row, US Secretary of State James Byrnes spoke at one of the conferences held in Paris in 1946 about certain "principles." A representative of the Soviet delegation started a conversation with Chip Bohlen, the future US ambassador to the USSR, wondering what exactly was being discussed in such lofty tones — after all, Americans are considered good traders: "We need to stop talking about principles, get down to business, and start bargaining". Especially since the experience of successful trading took place back at the Moscow Conference in 1944, where Churchill offered Stalin the division of some European territories in percentages, and then in Yalta. And such language was understandable to Stalin.
"Diplomacy" in Khaki
This was the division of spheres of influence. Putin thinks in the same vein. He measures his power in territories and buffer zones marking the boundaries of his dominions, possibly only temporary. Soft power is not as important as iron power — and in this sense, he could ironically repeat Stalin's question: "How many divisions does the Pope have?" Putin believes in military power on the external contour and the might of the secret police within the bristling "Nutcracker" country. And still does not believe, for example, in the "green" energy transition, although the Putin model of oil and gas rent is collapsing before our eyes, albeit more due to sanctions.
In the logic of division and kickbacks, in the genre of real estate deals, the current American administration is ready to act. This is yours, this is ours, in exchange for division (Ukraine is very much in the way) ready to "kickback" with projects in the Arctic, on rare earth metals, etc. That is why Trump acts as a "Putin-understander": the point here is not that he "supports" the Kremlin resident (which has already become a common place, like the mantra "Putin only understands the language of force"), but that he sees him as a rational partner in a deal.
However, the partner, outwardly showing elements of rationality, behaves irrationally, taking an uncompromising position in negotiations on Ukraine and preferring to spend money and people to "liberate" spheres of influence by military means. Moreover, he enjoys the role of commander-in-chief, clad in khaki and moving divisions, of which he has more than the Pope. How can one deny oneself the pleasure of being a military leader?
The American side, and Trump himself, have long begun to doubt Putin's rationality (note that at the beginning of the "special operation" many in 2022 did not believe it, because they considered the Kremlin's master a rational cynic, but he turned out to be a fanatical adherent of Russian messianism, not refusing, however, from cynicism and self-interest). But they are not ready to take a step towards a complete break in relations with Putin. Therefore, "negotiations" continue between real estate market and investment banking specialists, and not between politicians or diplomats. However, what do diplomats have to do with it — the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has long lost political subjectivity in the system cast from the granite of the Putin vertical.
Give Another Globe
The US national security strategy, which implies a return to "strategic stability" with Russia, and — in its supposed secret part — the formation of a new world order with the "core" five players (Core 5), the United States, Russia, China, India, Japan, quite suits the Kremlin dreamers. But such a model of the world is as imaginary as Putin's "empire," which restores its greatness with fire and sword (while not a sword, but a ball is on the side of the West, as the Russian autocrat noted during a direct line). The Central Asian five, which is economically growing two to three times faster than the stagnating due to the SVO Putinomics, is forced to imitate closeness to Putin's Russia due to geographical proximity and the need to maneuver between Russia, China, and Western partners.
But there should be no illusions here — everyone has their own interest and calculation, not "friendship," measured by lavish receptions and street closures during the passage of limousines with the top leadership.
So far, we are talking about a virtual entity — a new world order in minds. And the American Strategy itself, with all its chaos, carries traces of former US foreign policy concepts. Not only the Monroe Doctrine ("America for Americans") or Nixon's Guam Doctrine:
"...Our experience of the 1960s emphasized that abroad we should not do more than what is approved by the public opinion of our country. But we cannot allow the pendulum to swing in the other direction, leading us to isolationism..."
...but also the Truman Doctrine, still implying the protection of a certain set of values, institutions, and, of course, spheres of influence. Which was already expressed in recent days in the conflict with Venezuela and the "anti-terrorist operation" in Syria. True, the Strategy mainly implies some abstract form of American expansionism in the field of re-educating Europe by returning it to "Western identity" and "civilizational self-confidence" (civilizational self-confidence).
But what does this change in the real world, which has broken away from the motherboard of 1945 and 1989 (the institutions of the post-war order and the "end of history"), but has not yet found in the chaos of trade and non-trade wars a replacement for the previous rules of conduct, principles, and institutions? Trump will leave, Europe will not go anywhere as long as the safety mechanisms of democratic power change operate in it, Russia is unlikely to "wake up from sleep," but will remain not so much a global player as a spoiler and threat generator. The advent of autocrats, far left, far right, the globalization of direct-action anti-Semitism, China, India, migration waves, Africa, Latin America. Give another globe...
Once Stalin's foreign policy (and the communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948 as the last straw) caused the emergence of the North Atlantic alliance. Decades later, NATO expanded eastward because the new (or renewed) states of the former Eastern bloc needed clear anchors of Western post-communist identity and protection from external threats. In 1993, Estonian President Lennart Meri, in a conversation with Strobe Talbott, then a close aide to Bill Clinton, motivating the need for Estonia to join NATO, expressed in the sense that now Boris Yeltsin is in power in Russia, but where is the guarantee that after him an autocrat of the national-imperial type will not come? As Michael McFaul wrote back in 1995, an authoritarian imperial Russia with a thriving market economy was a nightmare of American national security. And here it materialized, and then strengthened and bristled. However, as the same Strobe Talbott insightfully wrote, "if NATO takes anti-Russian sentiments as the basis for accepting new members, Russia's political balance may shift precisely in the direction that we — along with Meri, Walesa, and Havel, not to mention the majority of Russians themselves, — fear the most". In their own way, both Lennart Meri and Strobe Talbott (whose logic was fully shared by Bill Clinton, who in turn to a certain extent understood Boris Yeltsin's concerns) were right.
Strategic Deadlock
This is an unconditional strategic deadlock, where Putin, without hesitation, responds to the application of pressure and force with even greater escalation, and pre-negotiations run into the same immovable points of disagreement over territories, security guarantees, the line of contact, the legitimacy of the (non)negotiating parties, and other irremovable "root causes."
And this deadlock, from which Trump was supposed to find a way out — according to universal expectations — flows almost unchanged from 2025 into 2026, which has no more chances to become the "year of great change." Even if "The Lord, who is with us and who will never leave Russia" (V. V. Putin) allows the conclusion of a peace treaty and people stop dying, this will not remove the issue of forming a new order and will not turn Putin's Russia into a democratic state without imperial ambitions and resentment.
George Kennan, Donald Trump
In February 2026, it will be 80 years since George Kennan's "long telegram." Decades have passed — everything has changed and nothing has changed. To "decode" Putin, it is enough to reread the telegram that "decoded" Stalin and previous brutal tsars, to whom monuments are now being erected:
"...They find justification for their instinctive fear of the outside world, the dictatorship without which they do not know how to govern, the cruelties from which they do not dare to refrain, the sacrifices they are forced to demand <...> At the heart of the Kremlin's neurotic perception of world events lies the traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity <...> On this <...> was superimposed the fear of more competent, more powerful, more highly organized communities <...> they have always feared foreign penetration, feared direct contact of the Western world with their own <...> they have been accustomed to seeking security not in alliance or mutual compromises with a rival power, but in patient but deadly struggle for its complete destruction..."
Interesting, did Trump read Kennan?
* Andrey Kolesnikov is considered a "foreign agent" by the Russian Ministry of Justice.
Photo: US / Reuters.