Here’s why a Russia-U.S. alliance makes sense – a memo to President-elect Trump

A US-Russia alliance stretching from Seattle to Vladivostok would be a win-win for both the United States and Russia as well as all the countries of Europe.

We now have a House of Representatives Resolution 758 which declares Russia to be America’s enemy. Resolution 758 was passed on December 4, 2014, with only 10 votes against. Such a Resolution, passed in connection to recent events in Ukraine, makes no sense compared to the much bigger challenges that face both the US and Russia.

ISIS terrorism is a danger to both the US and Russia. Both countries share common enemies. Over the last 13 years US policy in the Middle East has been an unmitigated disaster, with no end in sight and with thousands of lives and trillions of dollars lost.

According to former US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, Saudi Arabia is the US’s main ally in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is the diametric opposite to the sort of democracy the US claims to want to see in the world. Fifteen of the twenty  9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the prime sponsor of the radical Muslim Wahhabi sect, with which Jihadist terrorism – including ISIS – is associated. 

China  is a challenge to the United States. China is still a Communist country. Moreover, it is close to surpassing the US as the world’s biggest economy. China competes directly with the US for world energy and mineral resources, which Russia does not, since its vast energy and mineral resources make it self-sufficient. China has also taken millions of US manufacturing jobs, whereas Russia has taken none.   

China also thinks of itself in terms of the ancient ‘Middle Kingdom’ destined to control the world. Russia does not, though understandably enough it does want to influence countries on its border as does the US.

Military conflict between the US and Russia is unthinkable. No one in their right mind in either country would contemplate nuclear war. As for a conventional war, Russia clearly can defend itself.

Who in fact would attack Russia alongside the US? Certainly not Germany and France. Both of these countries have previously attacked Russia and both were badly defeated. Germany and its allies during the Second World War lost 4 million troops fighting the Red Army on the eastern front. That means the Germans and their allies were losing more men fighting the Russians each week than the US has lost in the Middle East in 13 years of war. 

There is no way Germany and France will go to war with Russia again for the sake of the US.

The US and Russia need to get past their previous antagonisms and live in peace with each other. The US should invite Russia to join NATO and do so without delay. Why not? Russians and Americans are both culturally Europeans. Russia is a Christian nation as is the United States. Russians have abandoned communism and have adopted democratic principles.

The US has fought wars with many  countries: Britain, Mexico, Spain, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany and Italy – the list is endless. However it has NEVER fought a war with Russia.

The United States and Russia have fought common enemies together like Japan and Germany. The fighting the Russians did during the Second World War in Europe saved millions of American lives.

Russia has been on the US’s side throughout much of its history.

During the American Revolution the British King asked his allies in Germany to supply Hessians to fight against the Americans, which they did. He also asked the Russian Tsar for Cossacks to fight the Americans. That was not surprising since the Cossacks had the reputation of being the best fighters in Europe. In the war of 1812 between France and Russia, Napoleon labelled the Cossacks “a disgrace to the human race” because of their bravery in fighting and defeating the French army – supposedly the best in Europe. 

The Tsar, however, refused the British King’s request.

During the American Civil War, the Russians sent ships to New York harbour and to San Francisco to support the Union. The British supported the Confederacy in an attempt to split the US.

In 1867 Russia sold Alaska (about 660,000 square miles) to the U.S. for $6,500,000. That’s $10 per square mile or  less than 2 cents per acre.

In the 20^th century the US and Russia were fighting common enemies: Germany in the First and Second World Wars, and Japan also in the Second.   

This brings us to the present  tensions relating to the Ukraine, which began when President Victor Yanukovych – Ukraine’s elected leader – refused to sign an association agreement with the EU. Victoria Nuland (Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs) arranged the coup which overthrew him, being caught in a recorded phone conversation with the US ambassador to the Ukraine deciding who the new Ukrainian Prime Minister should be (“Yats” i.e. Arseny Yatsenyuk) and famously  saying “f..k the EU”.

The US established a “putsch” regime in Ukraine much as it has done so often in Latin America in the past.  Nuland even publicly admitted that the US spent $5 billion dollars to influence events in Ukraine and to prepare the ground for the coup.

The crisis in Ukraine comes from the fact that the US leveraged into power a small group of extremists originating mainly in the province of Galicia in western Ukraine, and a bunch of oligarchs who want to control Ukraine in their own selfish interests.

During the Second World War, under the leadership of Stephen Bandera, some Galicians  collaborated with the Nazis and were actively involved in the Nazi programme to exterminate the Jews and the Poles. The present day radicals in Ukraine look upon Bandera as a national hero. Are those the sort of people the US should support?

The majority of Ukrainians want a peaceful relationship with Russia.  Why does the US support fanatical neo-Nazi extremists and not the ordinary citizens?

Why shouldn’t the US be friends with Russia?  What problem is the US solving  by confronting Russia? 

If the focus is Ukraine, then Russia and Ukraine have been neighbours for over a 1,000 years and originated from the same cradle. They will be neighbours forever and in time friends again. What does the US gain by trying to stop this? 

If we are talking about nuclear weapons, the US and Russia have between them 95% of the world’s nuclear stockpiles. Why is it a good thing to have them pointed at each other? Does it not make more sense to stop doing so? 

Surely it makes far better sense, and is far more in the US’s interests to have Russia as a friend and ally, bringing it into the West rather than have it join the East, where because of US hostility it is already forming alliances with China through BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in opposition to the US.

There is an old joke that one can divide people into two categories. First there are those who wear suits and those those who don’t.  Well Americans and Russians both wear suits.  Then there are those who drink their liquor straight, and those who drink it mixed. Russians unlike Americans drink their vodka straight.

Is that a significant enough difference or reason to make them enemies?