Photo source: Donetsk Regional Military Civil Administration – CC PAR 4.0

I started listening to George Beebe a few years ago when he warned about tensions in Ukraine, the real risk of escalation into nuclear war, and the dangers of groupthink. In 2021, he believed that Russia was likely to invade Ukraine given the combination of the United States’ determination to bring the country into NATO and the fact that it was “now or never” for Moscow to prevent this from happening. Years earlier, the American ambassador to Moscow, and now CIA director, William Burns, had urgently telegraphed Washington to warn that the Russians considered Ukraine “the reddest of red lines”:

“Ukraine’s entry into NATO constitutes the clearest red line for the Russian elite (not just Putin),” Ambassador Burns wrote. “In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from fisticuffs in the dark corners of the Kremlin to Putin’s harshest liberal critiques, I have yet to find anyone who considers Ukraine within NATO as something other than a direct NATO member. challenge to Russian interests.

I mention all this because if we want to avoid the worst for Ukraine, for the whole of Europe and perhaps for all of us, we must forget this very useless word: “unprovoked”.

This prevents what is absolutely essential: in-depth, constructive and continued discussions between Russia and the West to create a security framework for all of Europe that is acceptable to all parties.

Since February 2022, Western propaganda has made people understand that the invasion was “unprovoked”. However, very few people outside the West share this perspective. George Beebe does not support the invasion, believes Russia has many responsibilities, but rejects this kind of simplistic rhetoric as unnecessary and potentially disastrous. He was interviewed last week by Professor Glenn Diesen and Alexander Mercouris on The Duran and, in my opinion, gave a master class in responsible government.

“There was a lot of narrative management, a lot of control of public discourse. » said Beebe. “Anyone suggesting that there might have been an element of provocation influencing Russian decisions on this matter was immediately anathema.”

Beebe says the West has a misconception about the very nature of the conflict. The United States and Europeans framed the Russian invasion as a “deterrence model problem” rather than a “spiral model problem.” In the first case, the adversary is a sort of Hitler who must be stopped at all costs.

“We have internalized this model as a universal truth in international relations. We believe that every problem we face is a deterrence model problem and we cannot negotiate. »

In reality, Beebe says, the conflict conforms to what Robert Jervis defined in the 1970s as a “spiral model problem” – in which a state attempts to strengthen its own security by taking measures (e.g., Ukraine’s membership in NATO) which another state (Russia) considers threatening. You enter into a dynamic of action and reaction that can escalate to the point where you enter into conflict.

“When you try to resolve a spiraling problem by refusing to negotiate, you make the problem worse on both sides. It’s like pouring gasoline on a fire,” Beebe says.

The former head of the CIA’s Russia office says that if we are to emerge from the disaster that is Ukraine, the West must rediscover diplomacy and the ability to negotiate with geostrategic adversaries. American triumphalism after the fall of the Berlin Wall gave, he says, the United States the feeling that it could abandon its policy.

“We no longer felt that we had to engage in normal diplomatic give-and-take, trying to balance interests as well as powers – the kinds of things that statecraft has involved for thousands of years. We thought it wasn’t necessary. Number one: we know we’re right. And second: American power was so disproportionate to that of any other country that we could simply impose our views whether they liked it or not.”

This moment – ​​the unipolar moment – ​​is over and we are now in a multipolar world. There is no clearer confirmation of this shift in the geopolitical landscape than the fact that Russia, by force of arms, has almost certainly foiled US plans to expand NATO into Ukraine.

Russia’s slow and brutal recourse to the war of attrition has paid off: the Eastern Front is crumbling before them and the Ukrainian army, which has put up surprisingly valiant and courageous resistance, is increasingly no longer able to hold the line.

This week, the walled city of Selydove fell without much coverage in the mainstream media. A few weeks ago, Vuhledar, another key part of Ukraine’s defense, fell after months of pressure from the Russians. Every day, villages and towns are collapsing at an accelerating rate. Chasiv Yar, one of the most difficult problems for Russians to solve, is on the verge of collapse. The Russians are closing in on Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub in Donetsk.

Ukrainians face a terrible dilemma. Most seem to realize that the war is lost. However, any attempt to negotiate with the Russians would trigger internal pressures inside Ukraine that could lead to a coup, assassinations or other upheaval. The United States will not want the war to end before President Biden leaves office in January 2025 – and could prolong the agony, loss of life and ceding even more territory to Russia for US domestic reasons rather than Ukraine’s best interests. Where does all this lead?

George Beebe sees three options. NATO is stepping up and getting directly involved in the fighting – an action that could have unspeakable consequences. More likely, Ukraine could experience collapse – a combination of military and political failures while the ability to deploy an effective army on the ground would be lost.

“If I wear my analyst hat, I would say that the most likely scenario is that Ukraine collapses and becomes a sort of dysfunctional ward of the West. So we have more or less a security black hole in the middle of Europe, which poses real problems.”

In the absence of an agreed framework, other hotspots could erupt at any time – including Georgia, Moldova, Belarus and Kaliningrad.

The third option, and clearly the best for Beebe, is for the West to change course and “pick up the phone,” ending its refusal to negotiate.

“The West must recognize that it is important for us to find a negotiated settlement,” Beebe says.

“We can’t just say to the Russians: let’s freeze the conflict in Ukraine and one day we will start talking about European security in a broader sense – ‘trust us’. This won’t work. We will have to indicate that we understand that these issues are important and that it is in our interest to resolve them in a way that takes into account Russia’s fundamental security interests. The Russians will not get everything they want from this. Neither do we. In all of this, both parties will have to protect their most vital interests. It’s a truism in diplomatic agreements.”

And that’s how adults talk.