Two Cheers for Spheres of Influence

Back in 2014, when Russia invaded parts of Ukraine, Obama Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russia of acting in “19^th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext.” “You just don’t do [that] in the 21^st century,” said a bewildered Kerry. Meanwhile, the other day in The Financial Times, Gideon Rachman lamented that the United States under President Trump was acquiescing in the emergence of a new world order where China and Russia joined forces in a bid for global supremacy, but thankfully, according to Rachman, the Biden administration has reversed Trump’s “America First philosophy” and renewed the idea that it is “America’s mission to support freedom around the world.”

One of history's greatest democratic statesmen, Winston Churchill, also understood the benefit to peace of spheres of influence. As the Second World War was coming to an end, Churchill sensed that his senior partner Franklin Roosevelt, like Woodrow Wilson before him, was placing his hopes for a stable and peaceful world in an international organization, and in the process was making unnecessary concessions to Josef Stalin. In an effort to promote stability and peace based on the balance of power, Churchill famously proposed to Stalin what became known as the "percentages deal." On October 9, 1944, Churchill proposed the following to Stalin: "Let us settle about our affairs in the Balkans. Your armies are in Rumania and Bulgaria. We have interests, missions, and agents there. Don't let us get at cross purposes in small ways. So far as Britain and Russia are concerned, how would it do for you to have ninety percent predominance in Rumania, for us to have ninety percent of the say in Greece, and go fifty-fifty about Yugoslavia?" Churchill, in a handwritten note that Stalin placed check marks on, wrote the following:

Rumania

Russia 90%

the others 10%

Greece 

Great Britain in accord with USA 90%

Russia 10%

Yugoslavia  50/50 %

Hungary    50/50%

Bulgaria    Russia 75%

                    the others 25%

Three days later, Churchill explained the percentages deal to his British colleagues, noting that “quite naturally Soviet Russia has vital interests in the countries bordering on the Black Sea, by one of whom, Rumania, she has been most wantonly attacked . . ., and with the other of whom, Bulgaria, she has ancient ties. Great Britain feels it right to show particular respect to Russian views about these two countries, and to the Soviet desire to take the lead in a practical way in guiding them in the name of the common cause.” Churchill continued: “Similarly, Great Britain has a long tradition of friendship with Greece, and a direct interest as a Mediterranean Power in her future.” Regarding Yugoslavia, Churchill wrote: “the numerical symbol 50-50 is intended to be the foundation of joint action and an agreed policy between the two Powers now closely involved, so as to favor the creation of a united Yugoslavia” and “is intended to prevent . . . armed strife between” the various factions there. Since Soviet armies are “obtaining control of Hungary,” Churchill continued, “it would be natural that a major share of influence should rest with them . . .” Churchill here recognized that respecting spheres of influence can create stability and prevent the outbreak of disastrous wars.

But, some will say, "Ukraine is an independent country, and the United States cannot sit idly by while Russia invades, bullies, or takes control of Ukraine." Let George Kennan respond. "Interventions on moral principle can be formally defensible," Kennan wrote in "Morality and Foreign Policy" (Foreign Affairs, Winter 1985-86), "only if the practices against which they are directed are seriously injurious to our interests, rather than our sensibilities." And he explained further that "[t]he mere fact that a country acquires the trappings of self-government does not automatically mean that the interests of the United States are thereby furthered." Kennan further noted that in some parts of the world, stability is the most important American security interest. And while Russian predominance in Ukraine would be bad, sometimes, as Kennan noted, "the alternatives might be worse." One of those worse alternatives is war – a war that could evolve into a general European conflagration if cooler heads do not prevail.

The irony of Rachman's blaming Trump for the Ukraine crisis and the rapprochement between Russia and China is that Trump tried to establish more cordial relations with Russia – recognizing that better U.S.-Russia relations can work to our advantage in the global competition with China – but was falsely accused of "collusion" and impeached by a Democratic congress intent on driving him from office. And the Trump administration, especially in its last two years, increasingly focused its rhetoric and actions on the Chinese global threat.

Rachman is right to warn about the emerging Sino-Russian bloc, but the blame for this goes back at least to the Clinton administration and its hubristic expansion of NATO eastward. And Bush II, Obama, and some NATO officials only exacerbated the situation by talking about extending NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine, two countries, dare I say, within Russia’s sphere of influence. 

In 1943, as the tide of war was shifting in the Allies' favor, Halford Mackinder wrote in Foreign Affairs that the best outcome of the war would be not universal democracy nor the self-determination of all peoples, but instead peace based upon “a balanced globe of human beings.” Let’s hope the Ukraine crisis follows Mackinder’s prescription.

Francis P. Sempa is the author of Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21^stCentury, America’s Global Role: Essays and Reviews on National Security, Geopolitics and War, and Somewhere in France, Somewhere in Germany: A Combat Soldier’s Journey through the Second World War. He has written lengthy introductions to two of Mahan’s books, and has written on historical and foreign policy topics for The Diplomat, the University Bookman, Joint Force Quarterly, the Asian Review of Books, the New York Journal of Books, the Claremont Review of Books, American Diplomacy, the Washington Times, and other publications. He is an attorney, an adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University, and a contributing editor to American Diplomacy.