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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Some have started writing that Trump, Putin, and Xi are currently going to chart a new Yalta Conference together and partition the world. In a sense, maybe Putin wants that, but the conditions for it simply do not exist. It’s nonsense, and completely so.
In Yalta in 1945 year, people met who clearly understood why they were bargaining with one another. Because in practice they had tested what each of their regimes was worth. In the harshest conditions. As of February 45, the United States already had nuclear weapons and were producing 30–40 strategic bombers per day. Not “mopeds,” there, or “Geraniums,” but huge four-engine bombs capable of carrying tons of bombs across a thousand-plus kilometers. And able to do this every day as long as there were pilots and bombs. Only 8–8 air power, based in Britain, could deploy 2 thousand-strong bombers and 1 thousand escort fighters per one air raid. Every day, from American plants, about 15 B-17, 26 B-24 and 3 B-26 rolled out. Every day. And that’s only the aircraft.
There was also a fleet. One military tanker, or transport, or tug per day. Five submarines per month. One cruiser. One light or heavy aircraft carrier. Four escort carriers. 10 destroyers and 25 escort destroyers. Per month. And all this was not theoretical hardware in a store, but the kind that here and now demonstrated its effectiveness and relevance for modern war. Upgrading on the fly. And, as I said, nuclear weapons that everyone knew about.
The Soviets showed they could devour and export communist revolution around the world. Incidentally, without much effort, as it seemed then. And they could export communist revolution to Britain and the United States as well. And that they could kill their own people and those they had captured by the hundreds of thousands or millions, and it hardly affected the regime’s stability. There were no known coups or regime changes in the USSR at that time. And there were reasons for this. And there was the Military-Industrial Complex as well. Hundreds of planes per day—here, of course, this was mostly fighters and ground-attack aircraft. 50 tanks per day—which now included not only light and medium, but also heavy—2, 3, heavy self-propelled artillery. And already stolen nuclear weapons. About which no one knew.
Britain was the only colonial power that still had substantial influence. British India, a large swath of Africa, Palestine, Sri Lanka. And naturally, Hong Kong, Burma, Brunei, the Maldives, Singapore, and so on—everything the Japanese had captured. And what had already fallen under American spheres of interest, but Britain was still there. And the navy. And the nuclear program, which began earlier than America’s.
Each country put hundreds of thousands into the ground. The Soviets—millions. They all clearly understood who could do what, by when, with what resources, in which domain. They almost understood, because each showed all it could. That’s exactly why they partitioned the world. Because the Soviets knew that the United States could wipe out an entire fleet with a sudden strike, but the American defense industry would build a new and better one in six months to a year. The Soviets knew that in a day American aviation could wipe a mid-sized European city off the face of the planet with conventional weapons. In a week—a major one. And they could do this simultaneously in opposite parts of the world. The Soviets knew Britain could endure a bombing campaign and not break. And the gigantic colonial empire was still strong.
Britain and the United States knew that the Soviets could lose half their country, but not the will to control, kill, and capture. That communist power was taking root around the world like mold, and fighting it would be exceedingly hard. And what had already been captured by communists wasn’t so easy to take back. And the Military-Industrial Complex as well. And smart people said that monopoly on nuclear weapons wouldn’t last long. Especially since the United States planned to use it, meaning it would no longer be secret.
Each of the three understood that the other two could act. And now what? Well, Russia was talking about its “analogues” and frightening half the world. In the end, almost five years have passed during which tens of thousands of people have been buried in pumpkin fields, one fleet has been sunk, and elements of the nuclear triad or early warning cannot be defended against pennies. And no one can say that the Russian army is strong, even with the drone component taken into account. A lot of people in the world say that with such a scale of aggression, the aviation of European countries will shred the Russian group in a couple of weeks. With a broken rear you won’t fight, and Russia has not learned to seize air or suppress air defense. Maybe that’s true, maybe not, no one knows.
So does Russia have a strong army or not? Is the regime stable? You’d say stable. But is Prigozhin there one such figure or is there more? And if they are there, and they will do something, will someone stop them? No. Is the economy and the military-industrial complex stable in the Russian Federation? I don’t know.
The United States spends huge sums on its military. But Iran cannot be bombed into submission, and allies are lost every day. A strong US military? Probably yes. But is it outdated? And can the United States maintain it like that? I don’t know. Is the US regime stable? I don’t know. They’re making films and discussions about civil society, and there was amnesty for the Capitol riot. Maybe the system there is stable, or maybe not.
And is the US economy stable? I don’t know. The AI bubble could burst. In a large-scale conflict, there are questions about how the US economy will fare. And rare earth metals revealed their importance: it turns out that the US economy’s dependence on them is critical.
And what about the stability of the Chinese economy and the Chinese regime—this is a question perhaps even the regime itself cannot answer. Nevertheless, China already faces depopulation and a huge debt crisis. Is China’s army strong? Don’t know; since Vietnam they haven’t tried, and there they lost. Is their economy stable? It certainly has manufacturing, and the weapons industry is solid, but in the USSR, everything was fine too. But how would it fare in a major conflict? What would happen to China if there is no export? Will China have enough food, and how much? Will the New Silk Road be able to feed China?
Trump tells how he eight times defeated Iran, which has lived under sanctions for decades. Mighty Russia has been four years taking the Minor Lug for war with a country that before the war did not have an army. And it lost an entire fleet to a country with no fleet. China moves around Taiwan, but there is no willingness to grab it by the throat. Mao once jumped everywhere at once—in Hainan, Tibet, Xinjiang. Then there was North Korea.
A New Yalta is impossible, because there is not a single objective possibility to understand what each participant can and should expect from others. They know nothing about themselves, and nothing about each other. No one knows how their pressure, desires, or requests will be perceived by other countries of the world.
Can Trump force Zelensky not to bomb Russian pipelines? Can Trump force the EU to lift sanctions on those Trump needs to, or impose them? Can Xi pacify Putin? Is India afraid of China? And Vietnam? Is South Korea an ally of the United States under the current administration? And under the next? There are no answers.
In this case everyone will demand what everyone else is not ready to give. So there will be no Yalta. No one there will be able to make a deal with Putin. First there will be a world war.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Ні з ким там Путін не домовиться. Буде світова війна". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Gordon.
