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Window on Eurasia -- New Series: In Third World War Now Going On, ‘Russia has
No Allies,’ Venediktov Says
3 minutes
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Paul Goble
Staunton, April 14 – A third world war has been going on since at
least NATO’s bombing of Belgrade in 1999 and Russia’s intervention in Georgia
in 2008, Aleksey Venediktov says. But it is a very different war than those in
the past, one where the participants are not trying to seize territory but
rather secure influence over other states.
In this conflict, which may go from cold to hot, the editor of
Ekho Moskvy tells Kazan’s Business Gazeta in an interview portions of which
were posted online today, “Russia has no allies” and thus can depend on no one
but itself as events both planned and unplanned unfold
(business-gazeta.ru/article/378902
<https://www.business-gazeta.ru/article/378902> ).
This war or more hopefully conflict “really is a world wide one; it
is simply that certain players like China are not very visible, but they are
taking an active part in it.” The goal in this conflict is different than that
in the past: earlier states sought to gain territory; now, however, they are
seeking not the territorial re-division of the world but rather one of
influence.
Putin, Venediktov continues, constantly refers to the need to
return to the Yalta-Potsdam system in which “every great power has its own
sphere of influence.” But Ronald Reagan in 1987 made clear that there would
never be a Yalta-type system again. That has remained US policy.
But the important thing for Moscow to remember is that “in this
war, Russia does not have any allies,” the Ekho Moskvy editor says. “Putin,”
he continues, “is an extraordinarily careful individual … Therefore, I think,
if he were to sense the chance of a shift of the war into a hot phase, he would
take measures,” knowing the capacities of the Western allies and China.
The danger of escalation even to a nuclear exchange nonetheless
exists because of the possibilities of accidents. When the militaries of
various countries are in one place, their commanders may respond “without
waiting for a call from Moscow or Washington or Jerusalem or Damascus” and then
things can go wrong.
According to Venediktov, the forces of both Russia and the Western
allies “have received orders to avoid any clash. But I am concerned because an
accident is possible,” one that was like the downing of a Russian plane by
Turkey. If something like that happened again, then there is “a high degree of
probability” that it could “lead to an escalation, political at a minimum.”
