The much reviled geo-political maestro, Henry Kissinger aimed to prise China away from Russia.
His negotiations in 1971 were a prequel to President Richard Nixon's visit on February 21,1972 to cement the deal of the century. China decided to make peace with America and isolate Russia.
That's why America could survive the humiliation of its withdrawal from Vietnam.
Post-Afghanistan Washington cannot. Today, the two Eurasian powers are no longer divided, and they see eye to eye.
They view the events of 2014 in Ukraine as a colour-coded coup against a democratic government. They want the subsequent Minsk Peace agreement to be fulfilled along with a reversal of NATO encroachment.
A declaration in Beijing
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin penned a lengthy 5,300 word statement for the Beijing Winter Olympics. This will be remembered as the document which cemented a "friendship with no limits."
Henry's work is completely undone. Kissinger emulated the dark genius of German chancellor Otto von Bismarck (who was able to completely isolate an enemy from their potential allies).
Bismarck was shunted aside by an impatient Kaiser Wilhelm, leading to arms races, aggressive standoffs and wars on two fronts -- rather than patient, intelligent diplomacy -- before the launch of a one-on-one invasion.
Blinken and the present US state department mandarins must see the unsubtle Kaiser as their role model.
Interestingly, Beijing and Moscow "intend to develop cooperation within the 'Russia-India-China' format" or RIC and they also want "to support the deepened strategic partnership within BRICS," in this case meaning B(RIC)S.
Clearly, Moscow has not given up on Delhi nor China with South Asia as a whole. The mother of all diplomatic positioning is to persuade India Inc (or its fractious opposition parties) that the future lies with Eurasia.
The two leaders laid this broadside: "Russia and China aim to comprehensively strengthen the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and further enhance its role in shaping a polycentric world."
Iran is now in the SCO and India is officially within its outer orbit.
If AUKUS is the Anglo-Saxon answer to India's ambiguity over QUAD, then an SCO with a "higher security profile" (in addition to broad cultural, economic and technological coverage) potentially becomes a monumental counterforce.
Silk Roads and gas
Germany's Green but bellicose foreign minister is at odds with her chancellor and even Emmanuel Macron. The French president, who once termed NATO as "brain dead" sat at the end of surely one of the longest ever tables chatting to Putin over six hours, before flying off to Kiev to remind the ex-comedian now President Zelensky that the Minsk accords should be implemented.
All this after the bizarre spectacle of Joe Biden telling Zelensky that war with Russia was "imminent" and then seeing the vassal effectively telling the master to calm down.
Social media then started to buzz with loose talk about removing the ex-comedian from power, for not knowing how to read his script.
Let us recall that years before any talk of Russian invasion, then-President Trump had been bullying Germany into not taking cheaper Gazprom gas from the new Nordstream Baltic Sea pipeline.
Former German chancellor, Gerard Schroeder is a director of Gazprom. As chancellor, he had opposed the 2003 Iraq war claiming it was really an oil and gas war, while Bush and Blair said otherwise.
Trump wanted to sell dirty, expensive US-fracked LNG. Today's supposedly hurried scramble ("in case Putin cuts off supplies") to replace Gazprom gas with US and Qatari gas, has been in the planning for years.
Berlin is not impressed, which explains Olaf Scholz looking so uncomfortable next to Joe Biden professing trans-Atlantic unity.
German Big Business feels they are being played over Ukraine and are determined to retain the NordStream 2 pipeline. They know Germany's economic future lies to the east, with Russia, China, and RCEP.
Connect the dots in Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. All are key nodes in the Chinese and Russian initiatives for connectivity, where no AUKUS submarine can sail.
That is what is at stake. Roads, rail freight, pipelines, and profits were big factors in all three.
Military-technical reaction?
No one has coherently explained the strategic case for a Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow vehemently denies, incidentally.
If Putin did send in the tanks, then Moscow would instantly lose Berlin, Beijing would see its Belt and Road Initiative stopped in its tracks (to Duisberg, Germany), and NATO extend its existence for another generation.
More likely, Putin will counter Nato expansion in Eastern Europe with maneuvers in Africa and southwest Asia.
Bernie Sanders wrote this week that Russia is legitimate in asking for a sphere of influence , just like the US has with its Monroe Doctrine. He compared Nato forces in Ukraine to a hypothetical Russian presence in Mexico.
Unacceptable to Russia and the US, respectively.
If a thousand Russian advisors (and billions of dollars of equipment) were parked in Mexico, what would the American reaction be?
Would it be 24 hours or 48 hours before the US blockaded Mexico before sending the 82nd Airborne "to secure the presidential palace" in Mexico City?
Does Dhaka want to join the action in Eurasia?
Amid all this, Bangladesh has proposed a free trade agreement with the Russian-dominated Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).
Some in Dhaka and Chittagong are wondering how Bangladesh can survive the graduation to a Less Developed Country (and loss of privileges) and also remain out of the Chinese-dominated RCEP. Furthermore, when will Dhaka go for the SCO?
There needs to be a serious domestic conversation about Bengali attachment to the greater Eurasian Project to secure its rightful place in Asia.
Farid Erkizia Bakht is a political analyst. @liquid_borders.
