Henry Kissinger’s prophetic warning ‘would have helped the West stop Putin’s war’

Ukraine’s military says they conducted an operation in Crimea The West could have helped prevent Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine if it followed Henry Kissinger’s prophetic hidden message, a top historian told Daily Express US. An insight buried deep in the 1,400-plus page memoirs of the US Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon ‘contains a lot of wisdom’. Dr Sergey Radchenko, the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told Daily Express US it could have even helped prevent the Ukraine war if it was listened to. The passage from the White House Years book, published in the 1970s, reads: ‘All experience teaches that Soviet military moves, which usually begin as tentative, must begin resisted early, unequivocally and in a fashion that gives Soviet leaders justification for withdrawal. ‘If this moment is to pass, the commitment grows too large to be dismantled short of a major crisis.’ For all the latest on news, politics, sports, and showbiz from the USA, go to Daily Express US READ MORE Images show Putin’s obliterated war gear as US calls on Russia to leave Ukraine A passage from Kissingers’ memoirs could have ‘helped stop the Ukraine war’, says a top historian According to Dr Radchenko, this suggests the Russians ‘always back off when faced with superior force’. He said: ‘In the memoir, Kissinger argues that a more decisive reaction by the West against Soviet encroachment would have signalled to the Soviets that they could not go on, and they would back off. This particular episode relates to the Middle East (1970), but I think it is applicable more generally. ‘Kennan in his Long Telegram argued something along these lines when he referred to Moscow’s foreign policy as being opportunistic in nature: that they always back off when faced with superior force.’ Dr Radchenko claimed that if the West had this logic in mind and responded more strongly to Russia’s illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014, Vladimir Putin’s troops may never have been sent barreling across the border just eight years later. He said: ‘But, as Kissinger also notes in his 1957 book (about the Concert of Vienna), it’s sometimes very difficult to know whether your adversary’s moves aim at merely improving their position within the existing order of things, or whether they are aiming at overturning the existing order. Putin annexed Crimea in 2014 ‘This was our problem with Ukraine. Perhaps if we reacted more decisively back in 2014, we would have avoided all that followed. But it would have been difficult to build up public support for decisive action.’ Critics say little was done to prevent Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, the seizure of which had its roots in a long history between the two former Soviet states. On March 21 2014, Putin signed a law that completed the process of absorbing Crimea into Russia, going against Western leaders who have since been slammed for going too soft on the Russian invasion. Now, Ukraine is scrambling to re-take the territory in a major counteroffensive operation. SUBSCRIBE Invalid email We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info Trending