The Follies of the Victors

Francis P. Sempa

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In the first chapter of The Gathering Storm, the first volume of his history of the Second World War, Winston Churchill lamented that the war resulted not only from the actions of the aggressor nations of Germany, Italy, and Japan, but also because of the “follies of the victors” of the First World War. If, God forbid, the current war in Ukraine and the rising tensions in the western Pacific escalate into a Third World War, future historians may, like Churchill, blame not only the aggressor nations of Russia and China but also the “follies of the victors” of the Cold War.

After the First World War, the victorious powers blamed Germany for the war, imposed economic reparations that Churchill called “malignant and silly” and “futile,” and “imposed upon the Germans all the long-sought ideals of the liberal nations of the West” which large segments of the German people “regarded as an imposition of the enemy.” And the victorious powers disarmed even as the two pariah nations--Germany and the Soviet Union--secretly rearmed, and as Japan sought to construct an Asia-western Pacific empire.

After the Cold War, the victorious powers, led by the United States, in a fit of victor’s hubris responded to the collapse of the defeated Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact alliance by broadly and relentlessly expanding NATO to virtually the entire western border of Russia and thereby fueling the resentment among Russians of an imposed peace and igniting the worst aspects of Russian nationalist and imperialist tendencies. Meanwhile, those same Western victorious powers financially invested in China, helping to fuel China’s economic and military growth. And perhaps forgetting that the West’s victory in the Cold War rested in part on exploiting the Sino-Soviet rift, the victorious powers watched and did nothing as China and Russia formed a “strategic partnership” that effectively undid nearly three decades of triangular diplomacy begun by the Nixon administration and continued by Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush 41. What Churchill wrote in The Gathering Storm echoes in today’s precarious world situation: “[B]oth in Europe and in Asia, conditions were swiftly created by the victorious Allies which, in the name of peace, cleared the way for the renewal of war.”

As the Russia-Ukraine War enters its second year, instead of looking for ways to end what is still a regional conflict, the U.S. and NATO have repeatedly declared that they will continue aiding Ukraine for as long as it takes for Ukraine to prevail. NATO Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg during his recent visit to Kyiv also proclaimed that “Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO.” Stoltenberg noted that NATO has provided more than $165 billion in aid, and “are now delivering more jets, tanks, and armored vehicles” to Ukrainian forces. “NATO stands with you today, tomorrow and for as long as it takes,” Stoltenberg told Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Biden administration also announced that it would provide $325 million more in security assistance to Ukraine, which will include ammunition for High Mobile Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), TOW missiles, small arms ammunition, precision aerial munitions, and other military equipment.

As NATO increases its involvement in the war, the alliance continues to expand, with Finland becoming the newest member and Sweden not far behind. But for some Western observers NATO’s current make-up and aid to Ukraine thus far is not enough. Timothy Garton Ash writing on the Foreign Affairs website envisions NATO and the EU as a “postimperial empire” that should include Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and even Belarus. Ash’s vision is: “the EU as a postimperial empire, in strategic partnership with an American postimperial empire, to prevent the comeback of a declining Russian empire and constrain a rising Chinese one.” Talk about hubris.

Perhaps Ash missed the significance of the visits of German Chancellor Scholz to China last November, and the more recent visits of the French and EU presidents to China which exposed divisions within NATO over the gathering storm in the western Pacific. The notion that NATO will help constrain China is a fantasy. And the further expansion of NATO to include Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and Belarus is tempting fate that a nuclear-armed Russia will just sit back and let it happen without broadening the war in an effort to prevent an ever-expanding enemy alliance at its doorstep.

The great American diplomat and historian George Kennan wrote about the “fateful alliance” in the late 19th century that unraveled Bismarck’s structure of European peace and eventually led to the First World War--what Kennan called the “seminal catastrophe” of the 20th century. If we are not careful, NATO--because of the “follies of the victors”--may become the “fateful alliance” that leads to World War III; and this time there will be nuclear weapons on both sides.