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Russo-
Ukrainian
War
Implications for the
Asia Pacific
This page intentionally left blank
 Russo-
Ukrainian
War
Implications for the
Asia Pacific

Steven Rosefielde
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA

World Scientific
NEW JERSEY • LONDON • SINGAPORE • BEIJING • SHANGHAI • HONG KONG • TAIPEI • CHENNAI • TOKYO
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rosefielde, Steven, author.
Title: Russo-Ukrainian war : implications for the Asia Pacific /
Steven Rosefielde, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA.
Description: New Jersey : World Scientific, 2024. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023015013 | ISBN 9789811274879 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9789811274886 (ebook) | ISBN 9789811274893 (ebook other)
Subjects: LCSH: Pacific Area--Strategic aspects. | United States--Foreign relations--
Russia (Federation) | United States--Foreign relations--China. |
China--Foreign relations--United States | Russia (Federation)--Foreign relations--United States |
Ukraine--History--Russian Invasion, 2022– | Proxy war--United States.
Classification: LCC E183.8.R9 R64 2024 | DDC 327.73047--dc23/eng/20230404
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 Preface

Winston Churchill famously declared that:

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a

mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian
national interest. It cannot be in accordance with the interest of the
safety of Russia that Germany should plant itself upon the shores of
the Black Sea, or that it should overrun the Balkan States and subjugate
the Slavonic peoples of south eastern Europe. That would be contrary
to the historic life-interests of Russia.
—Winston Churchill, The Russian Enigma, Broadcast, October 1,
1939. http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/RusnEnig.html.

Eighty years ago, Winston Churchill surmised that even though Russia
was a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, there was a key:
Russian national interest. He divined that the Soviet Kremlin was guided
more by Russian patriotism in national security affairs than communism,
and deduced that Moscow would do whatever it could to prevent a rival
power from planting itself upon the shores of the Black Sea, overrunning
the Balkan States, and subjugating the peoples of southeast Europe.
Churchill was right about the durability of the Kremlin’s mindset. His
judgment still holds. Whatever Vladimir Putin’s international ambitions
may be, he is apt to place great stock in maintaining Russia’s national
security.
Hitler admitted that he got Soviet Russia wrong in June 22, 1941. He
underestimated the Kremlin’s arsenal, its military industrial strength, its

v
vi Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for the Asia Pacific

war-fighting capability, and tenacity (Bernd, 1993; Steury, 1998, 2008;

Murphy, 2006).1 So did American and British intelligence (Bergson, 1961,
1963; Samuelson, 1996; Kahn, 2012, 2017).
American policymakers made the same mistake in the wake of the
Soviet Union’s demise. Washington interpreted communism’s defeat as a
mandate to integrate and subordinate the Kremlin in America’s global
order under the banner of Partner for Peace. The White House knew that
Moscow was a nuclear superpower and was capable of quickly rearming
its conventional forces as Stalin had during the 1930s (Rosefielde, 2005).
It knew the Kremlin might eventually balk, but forged ahead without req-
uisite confidence-building measures, risking Putin’s annexation of Crimea
and the Russo-Crimean war (Beebe, 2021; Sachs, 2022).2
Crimea’s annexation and the Russo-Ukrainian War were avertable
had Washington managed its relations with the Kremlin more wisely
(Bergson, 1976).3 It should have been clear to Foggy Bottom that
Washington could not micro-control Russia from afar and superpowers
must find ways to avoid nation-threatening armed conflict.
Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications of the Asia-Pacific updates the
backstory to the Russo-Ukrainian War, spotlighting where the Russo-
American Partnership for Peace derailed, culminating in the second wave
of the Cold War rather than assessing the balance of legal and moral rights
and wrongs.4 It investigates obstacles impeding the prompt restoration of
Peaceful Coexistence, Cold War, and Partnership for Peace without dwell-
ing on military details, and probes the ramifications of the Russo-
American Cold War for the Asia Pacific. The analysis builds on themes
previously explored in a series of prior publications.

Endnotes
1(Steury, 2008). “Yet, there can be no doubt that Murphy is correct both in detail
and in the sum and substance of his argument: Stalin was well-served by his intel-
ligence departments. The responsibility for ignoring that intelligence was his and
his alone.”
“In closing, it is worth noting that there was another failure of judgment in
BARBAROSSA, that of Adolf Hitler. Hitler, like Stalin, was a victim of his own
preconceptions, but, in contrast to Stalin, he was ill-served by his intelligence
services. Suffering from what the Japanese, from bitter experience, would call
‘victory disease,’ the Germans overestimated their own capabilities, even as they
underestimated the Soviet capacity to resist. In July 1942, one year after the start
 Preface vii

of the campaign, Hitler admitted as much to Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim,

the Finnish military leader, on a visit to Helsinki — Finland then being a cobel-
ligerent with Germany in its war with the Soviet Union. ‘We did not ourselves
understand — just how strong this state [the USSR] was armed,’ Hitler told him,
‘If somebody had told me a nation could start with 35,000 tanks, then I’d have
said, ‘You are crazy!’ … [Yet] … We have destroyed — right now — more than
34,000 tanks.… It was unbelievable.… I had no idea of it. If I had an idea — then
it would have been more difficult for me, but I would have taken the decision to
invade anyhow.…’”
2Sachs’s cast of villains includes Donald Kagan, Norman Podhoretz, Irving
Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Kagan (son of Donald), Frederick Kagan (son of
Donald), Victoria Nuland (wife of Robert), Elliott Cohen, Elliott Abrams, and
Kimberley Allen Kagan (wife of Frederick).
3Many people assume that the systems they prefer on intuitive, sentimental, aes-
thetic, and ethical grounds are objectively superior unaware that the facts needed
to validate their judgments are mostly figments of, their imagination. The belief,
duty, and willfulness of some do not negate the counter-views of others. Utility,
belief, duty, and willfulness all count in assessing social welfare. Bergson argued
that critical discourse offers a useful tool for finding common ground and perhaps
consensus. Most analysts ignore his advice.
4People tend to take strong stands on the Russo-Ukraine war based on intuitions
about the motivations of key actors and feelings about justice. Intuitions are
debatable, but conflicting perceptions are difficult to resolve.

References
Beebe, George. (2021). The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia
Could Spiral into Nuclear Catastrophe. New York: Tantor and Blackstone
Publishing.
Bergson, Abram. (1961). The Real National Income of Soviet Russia since 1928.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bergson, Abram. (1963). National Income. In Bergson and Simon Kuznets (co-
editors), Economic Trends in the Soviet Union. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Bergson, Abram. (1976). Social Choice and Welfare Economics under
Representative Government. Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 6, No. 3:
171–190.
Bernd Wegner, Bernd. (1993). Hitlers Besuch in Finnland 1942 (Dokumentation),
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 43, No. 1: 131–132.
viii Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for the Asia Pacific

Kahn, Martin. (2012). Russia will Assuredly Be Defeated: Anglo-American

Government Assessments of Soviet War Potential before Operation
Barbarossa. The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2:
220–240.
Kahn, Martin. (2017). The Western Allies and Soviet Potential in World War II:
Economy, Society and Military Power. London: Routledge.
Murphy, David. (2006). What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarossa. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Rosefielde, Steven. (2005). Russia in the 21st Century: The Prodigal Superpower.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sachs, Jeffrey. (2022). Ukraine Is the Latest Neocon Disaster. Common Dreams.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/06/28/ukraine-latest-neocon-
disaster.
Samuelson, Lennart. (1996). Soviet Defence Industry Planning: Tukhachevskii
and Military-Industrial Mobilisation, 1926–1937. Stockholm: Stockholm
Institute of East European Economies.
Steury, Donald. (1998). Too Much Is Not Enough: Joseph Stalin, British
Intelligence and Strategic Surprise in 1941, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 42,
No. 2.
Steury, Donald. (2008). What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarossa. CIA.
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publica-
tions/csi-studies/studies/vol50no1/9_BK_What_Stalin_Knew.htm.
 About the Author

Steven Rosefielde is Professor of Economics, University of North

Carolina, Chapel Hill. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University,
and is a Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (RAEN).
His books include the following: Democracy and Its Elected Enemies:
The West’s Paralysis, Crisis and Decline, Cambridge University Press,
2013; Inclusive Economic Theory (with Ralph W Pfouts), World Scientific,
2014; Global Economic Turmoil and the Public Good (with Quinn Mills),
World Scientific, 2015; Transformation and Crisis in Central and Eastern
Europe: Challenges and Prospects (with Bruno Dallago), Routledge,
2016; The Kremlin Strikes Back: Russia and the West After Crimea’s
Annexation, Cambridge University Press, 2016; The Trump Phenomenon
and Future of US Foreign Policy (with Quinn Mills), World Scientific,
2016; Trump’s Populist America, World Scientific, 2017; China’s Market
Communism: Challenges, Dilemmas, Solutions (with Jonathan Leightner),
Routledge, 2017; The Unwinding of the Globalist Dream: EU, Russia and
China (with Masaaki Kuboniwa, Kumiko Haba and Satoshi Mizobata,
eds.), World Scientific, 2017; Putin’s Russia: Economic, Political and
Military Foundations, World Scientific, 2020; Progressive and Populists:
The New Forces in American Politics (with Quinn Mills), World Scientific,
2020; and Beleaguered Superpower: Biden’s America Adrift (with Quinn
Mills), World Scientific, 2021.

ix
This page intentionally left blank
 Executive Summary

Washington encourages people across the globe to perceive America as

the leader of the free world. Everyone knows that reality does not live up
to the dream. Nonetheless, many equate the West with democracy, free
enterprise, opportunity, and social justice, and the East with authoritarian-
ism, controlled economies, insider privilege, and oppression. This view
provides Washington with an advantage in expanding its global reach.
Many citizens of the former Soviet Union, communist Eastern Europe,
and China prefer a market to a planned economy, and democracy to
authoritarianism. They prod their leaders to westernize, affiliate with the
West’s globalization network, and are favorably disposed to regime
change in the authoritarian East.
These proclivities shaped post-Soviet East–West engagement. The
West had little difficulty enticing many former Soviet republics and all the
USSR’s East European satellites to join the European Union and NATO.
Western leaders convinced themselves that it was their moral duty to
enlist these countries and invited Russia to participate.
The United States could not treat China symmetrically because
Beijing did not lose the Cold War. The US chose instead to assist China’s
transition from a planned to a market communist economy and educate a
generation of mainland students at American universities in the virtues of
democracy, the rule of law, and civil liberties. The strategy was successful
in numerous ways but failed to persuade Xi Jinping to accept Western
dominance in the Asia Pacific and across the globe. The prosperity
achieved by substituting a market economy for a planned economy not

xi
xii Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for the Asia Pacific

only benefited the Chinese people but also enabled the communist party
to cultivate nationalism and its own global ambitions.
Russia followed a similar path in the new millennium. After a decade
of misery caused by the USSR’s collapse, the Kremlin restored Russia’s
living standards, modernized its armed forces, and became increasingly
nationalistic. Vladimir Putin’s hostility to Western encroachment grew,
prodding him to contest Western power.
The Russo-Ukrainian War is the latest episode in the new-wave Cold
War clash of superpower titans. It is unlikely to be the war that ends all
wars. Putin and Xi’s nationalism will not win many friends, but they can
influence those in other states irked by Western badgering and progressive
values. Putin will not flip Germany, France, Italy, and Britain to his camp,
and Xi will not control India and the West. Both will wage “bloody battles
for peace and friendship” until world leaders cast the Cold War aside,
restoring Cold Peace, peaceful coexistence, and a Partnership for Peace.
The Russo-Ukrainian War is the consequence of Washington’s
flawed effort to build a Partnership for Peace between the United States
and Russia from 1992–2008. America had a once-in-a-century opportu-
nity to work cooperatively with Boris Yeltsin to transform Russia from
a communist command economy into a democratic free enterprise sys-
tem, but the Clinton administration did not fulfill its economic promises
and allay Kremlin’s concerns about NATO expansion. Cold Peace from
2008–2013 morphed into Cold War in 2014 over the issue of co-­
sovereign influence in Ukraine. The battle began in 2008 when Russia’s
conventional war-fighting capabilities were moribund and continued
after the Kremlin successfully completed its military modernization
drive in 2015. During the course of renewed struggle, the Kremlin
annexed Crimea and supported puppet regimes in Luhansk and Donetsk.
Washington and the European Union sought to reverse these territorial
losses by imposing economic sanctions coercing Russia to rescind
Crimea’s annexation and return control over Luhansk and Donetsk to
Kyiv. The conflict remained frozen within a Cold War context until
November 2021 when the Biden administration committed itself to arm-
ing Zelensky sufficiently to retake Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea, and
pressed assertively for Ukrainian accession to NATO. These actions
provoked the Russo-Ukrainian proxy war.
Both sides blame each other. Putin condemns America for over-
reaching in Ukraine and building a NATO coalition to subdue Russia.
Biden faults Russia for becoming a recidivist evil empire. Rights and
 Executive Summary xiii

wrongs depend on analysts’ assessments of the rival narratives. There is

no consensus.
Biden administration rhetoric suggests that Ukraine is a means to a
higher end. Whatever Biden and Blinken originally intended in November
2021 when they decided to increase military assistance to Kyiv for the
reclamation of Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea, they now seek to defang
the Kremlin. The Russo-Ukrainian proxy war has become primarily a
means to bring the Kremlin to heel. Reversion to peaceful coexistence,
Partnership for Peace, and Cold Peace are off the table until the White
House subjugates Russia.
The immediate impact of the Russo-Ukrainian War on the Asia-
Pacific has been to confirm Xi Jinping’s perception that Washington is
committed to a low-cost Cold War with China (Ash, 2022).1 The White
House seeks regime change in Beijing and is intent on remaining the
world’s preeminent superpower. It is willing to increase hard-power
defense spending modestly, but will not compete with China in an arms
race (Eaglen, 2022)2 or curtail productivity-stifling government over-
regulation and social spending. The Biden administration intends to deter
Beijing from seizing Taiwan, building bases to support its territorial and
seabed mineral claims in the South China Sea, and scotch China’s preda-
tory state-trading practices by fostering hi-tech American military tech-
nology and imposing export controls to keep China behind the learning
curve. Washington intends to reinforce this deterrent with attitude man-
agement campaigns, moral suasion, coalitions of the willing including
NATO (Brands, 2022),3 and efforts to spark a Chinese color revolution
and regime change. Biden diplomatically calls his policy Cold Peace, but
his actions bespeak Cold War. Emboldened by what he considers
America’s successes in the Russo-Ukrainian proxy war, Biden intends to
prevent China from defying Washington’s will. He could succeed, if his
implausible daisy chain assumptions somehow stand the test of time, but
if reality bites, Xi Jinping with or without Putin’s assistance will let Biden
play out his losing hand (Balzer, 2022; Gabuev, 2022).4
Biden and Blinken’s decision to settle the Ukrainian civil war on the
battlefield and tame Russia with unrestrained economic and geopolitical
war may prove to be a colossal blunder. It appears to be a classic case of
failing to appreciate that the best is the enemy of the good. The notion that
economic transition, military pressure, and/or regime change can trans-
form Eurasian superpowers into compliant partners for peace is the tri-
umph of hope over experience (Johnson, 1791). The converse is also true.
xiv Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for the Asia Pacific

The Kremlin and Beijing are not competent and powerful enough to make
the United States and European Union into vassal states. Superpowers
must rein their will to omnipotence and learn to coexist. It is nonsensical
to suppose that America, Russia, and China can permanently dominate
each other.

Endnotes
1“US spending of 5.6% of its defense budget to destroy nearly half of
Russia’s conventional military capability seems like an absolutely incredible
investment.”
2“Over the past nine fiscal years, budget after budget has traded away combat
power, truncated needed weapons early, and permanently closed production lines.
As a result, margins in the force are dangerously low, readiness is still recovering,
and America’s conventional and nuclear deterrents are at their nadir. Yet Pentagon
leaders continue to sacrifice capacity, as measured by fleets, inventories, and their
associated force structure, in the fervent belief that Beijing will not attempt to
forcibly reunify Taiwan in the next five years.”
3“US diplomats are reportedly telling their transatlantic counterparts that the
global economy would suffer a hit of $2.5 trillion per year from a Chinese block-
ade of the island, while a full-on invasion would cause immensely more com-
mercial carnage. These are scare tactics with a purpose: The US means to enlist
its European allies in deterring a prospective Chinese assault.”
4Neither Chinese assistance to Russia nor Russian aid to China has played a criti-
cal role in 2022. Nonetheless, their growing partnership could significantly affect
the East–West balance moving forward. Harley Balzer takes the opposite view.

References
Ash, Timothy. (2022). It’s Costing Peanuts for the US to Defeat Russia. CEPA
(Center for European Policy Analysis). https://cepa.org/article/its-costing-
peanuts-for-the-us-to-defeat-russia/.
Balzer, Harley. (2021). Axis of Collusion: The Fragile Putin-Xi Partnership.
Atlantic Council. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/
report/axis-of-collusion-the-fragile-putin-xi-partnership/.
Brands, Hans. (2022). If China Invaded Taiwan, What Would Europe Do? AEI.
https://www.aei.org/op-eds/if-china-invaded-taiwan-what-would-europe-
do/?mkt_tok=NDc1LVBCUS05NzEAAAGIKV7zoYs51Gm695elUvGKC9
 Executive Summary xv

jnjUx73UMUOHldBSQQR2ypE-5kixKAfK4lTzyfzeVjpMN5ufGN2IkCt
Rov49sGHqeh2s8s2_9cIv47CcRM4DTzIA.
Eaglen, Mackenzie. (2022). The Bias For Capability Over Capacity Has Created
a Brittle Force. War on the Rocks. https://warontherocks.com/2022/11/
the-bias-for-capability-over-capacity-has-created-a-brittle-force/?mkt_
tok=NDc1LVBCUS05NzEAAAGIKV7zoWHvyzuyjpCI9BQXJULgm
DiffJjbNzuFny6z_CHZnf1h_hlJ7pupyIOHtlh7bgEGZKf3QThjn5QsTjp9
WgR-2t4hooHD2xfo5DeHXDIxkA.
Gabuev, Gabuev. (2022). China’s New Vassal. Foreign Affairs. https://www.
foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-new-vassal.
Johnson, Samuel. (1791). A second marriage is a triumph of hope over experi-
ence. Boswell’s Life of Johnson.
This page intentionally left blank
 Contents

Prefacev
About the Authorix
Executive Summaryxi
List of Figures, Tables, and Mapsxxi
Introductionxxiii

Part I Russo-American Partnership 1

Chapter 1 Cold War World Order 3
Chapter 2 New Thinking 15
Chapter 3 Partnership 31
Chapter 4 Economic Miracle 45

Part II Estrangement 51
Chapter 5 Rearmament 53
Chapter 6 NATO Expansion 67
Chapter 7 Revolution of Dignity 71
Chapter 8 Crimean Annexation 77

xvii
xviii Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for the Asia Pacific

Part III Confrontation 87

Chapter 9 Minsk II Protocol 89
Chapter 10 Economic Sanctions 95
Chapter 11 Cold Peace 119

Part IV War Path 131

Chapter 12 Polarization 133
Chapter 13 Hotspots 139
Chapter 14 Flash Point 149
Chapter 15 Revealed Preference 163

Part V Russo-Ukrainian War 171

Chapter 16 Proxy War 173
Chapter 17 Cold War 179
Chapter 18 Just War 185
Chapter 19 Pristine War 189
Chapter 20 Color Revolution 193
Chapter 21 Crusade 199
Chapter 22 Nuclear War 203
Chapter 23 Next Time Will Be Different 209

Part VI Battle for the Asia Pacific 213

Chapter 24 Market Communism 215
Chapter 25 Technology Transfer 235
Chapter 26 Military Modernization 243
Chapter 27 Taiwan 251
Chapter 28 Trade 267
 Contents xix

Chapter 29 Sino-American Quandary 271

Chapter 30 Prospects 277

Conclusion281
Appendix A: Bergson’s Systems Function289
Appendix B: Russian Economic Performance and Prospects295
Index299
This page intentionally left blank
 List of Figures, Tables, and Maps

Figure 24.1 Regional Comparison of Income Inequality Levels 222

Figure 24.2 Regional Comparison of Income Inequality Trends 222
Figure 24.3 Adult Literacy Rate in China from 1982 to 2015 223

Table 28.1 2000–2020: U.S. Trade in Goods with China 268

Map 9.1 (Color Map available online) Donbas Conflict Zone 90

Map 11.1 (Color Map available online) Zapad-2021 Training
Grounds125
Map 16.1 (Color Map available online) Russian Invasion
on February 24, 2022 174
Map 16.2 (Color Map available online) Russian and
Ukrainian Lines of Control in September 2022 175
Map 16.3 (Color Map available online) Russian and
Ukrainian Lines of Control in December 2022 176

xxi
This page intentionally left blank
 Introduction

Russia and the West

The Russo-Ukrainian War is neither an accident nor an unfortunate mis-
understanding. It is a superpower conflict over Ukraine’s territorial integ-
rity traceable to the start of Boris Yeltsin’s presidency,1 sparked in the
current phase by a color revolution in Kyiv, instigated and abetted by the
United States.2 Washington may have presumed when it assisted Ukraine’s
“Revolution of Dignity” in 2014 that President Yanukovych’s ouster
would anchor Ukraine in the West without adverse repercussions, but the
Kremlin responded by clawing Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea into
Russia’s sphere with the possibility of further Ukrainian dismemberment.
The United States and European Union cried foul. They eschewed war,
imposed economic sanctions, and demanded that the Kremlin return full
sovereign control over Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea to Kyiv, knowing
that Putin did not accept Washington’s rules and if the Biden administra-
tion opted for proxy war, the Kremlin might conquer and annex additional
land.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 transformed this
possibility into reality. What began as an American-assisted color revolu-
tion under the Obama administration ended in a Ukrainian civil conflict
and renewed Cold War. The Biden administration committed itself in
November 2021 to providing sufficient military assistance for Kyiv to
restore full control over Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea, switching from a
Cold Peace to an intense Cold War framework.3 Washington says it

xxiii
xxiv Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for the Asia Pacific

expects to win in Ukraine and is preparing Moscow to accept further color

revolutionary losses in its sphere of influence docilely when they occur.
Putin’s initial intentions for the Kremlin’s special military operation
are debatable (Luttwak, 2022),4 but as the Russo-Ukrainian War unfolds,
it seems that Kyiv may suffer additional territorial losses and that the
Biden administration may have to revise its Cold War game plan in the
Russian sphere of influence. America and NATO reject thermonuclear
war with the Kremlin and may wish to reconsider the wisdom of assisting
color revolutionary wars in hotspots like Georgia.
There are four distinct sets of players in the Russo-Ukrainian War:
two Ukrainian blocks, the West, and Russia. One Ukrainian group is pro-
Western, the other pro-Russian, further divisible along complex ethnic
and political (Petro, 2022) lines, partly as a consequence of the August 23,
1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop “Non-Aggression” Pact between Hitler and
Stalin partitioning Poland.5 The factional intra-Ukrainian struggle is pri-
marily political, but there is also a military dimension in Luhansk,
Donetsk, and Southeastern Ukraine. The superpowers have larger geopo-
litical agendas. They seek to defend and expand their spheres of interest.
The Russo-Ukrainian War is fundamentally a superpower contest between
the West and Russia, even though Ukraine is the battlefield. Russia claims
that the Kremlin launched its special military operation attacking Ukraine
because America and NATO were preparing military assaults on Luhansk,
Donetsk, and Crimea. Russia is not fighting American and NATO troops
seeking to annul the Revolution of Dignity. It is battling Kyiv’s forces
armed, financed, equipped, trained, and guided by America and NATO.
This makes the Russo-Ukrainian War a dual-purpose proxy war
(Aslund and McFaul, 2006; Leonard, 2022).6 Pro-West Ukrainian soldiers
are fighting to complete the 2014 color revolution by regaining political
control over Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea from anti-Kyiv Ukrainian and
Russian forces. Washington is using pro-West Ukrainian soldiers to
coerce Putin into accepting American co-sovereignty over Kremlin’s for-
eign and domestic policy. Viewed from Moscow’s perspective, Russian
soldiers are fighting Ukrainian forces to undo the political consequences
of the American-assisted color revolution that ousted Yanukovych and
rebuff Washington’s co-sovereign ambitions over Russia. They may
annex additional Ukrainian territory in the process or America may reduce
Russia to a vassal state.
The superpower conflict began six years before the Revolution of
Dignity at the Bucharest NATO Meetings in April 2008, which brought to
 Introduction xxv

a head a long-simmering tussle over Washington’s sponsorship of

Ukraine’s NATO membership (Carpenter, 2022).7 Putin viewed the Bush
administration’s stance as hostile and a sign that the West was abandoning
the Russo-American partnership for Cold War (Brussels, 2021).8 He con-
cluded that the United States was more interested in dominating the
Kremlin than building a cooperative global order (Baroud, 2022;
Mearsheimer, 2022).9 NATO and the Biden administration’s decision to
arm Kyiv sufficiently to recapture Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea is the
proximate cause of the Kremlin’s February 24, 2022 Ukrainian invasion
(special military operation). The deeper issue is Washington’s unwilling-
ness to tolerate limited Kremlin co-sovereignty in Russian traditional
sphere of influence, and Russia’s insistence on controlling some aspects
of Ukraine’s domestic and foreign policy.10
The Russo-Ukrainian War is an important post-Soviet milestone in
two senses. First, it reflects Putin’s decision to teach Washington a lesson
about reining in its ambitions across Russia’s internal and external zones
of interest. The casus belli in Putin’s mind is the U.S.–Ukraine Charter on
Strategic Partnership signed on November 10, 2021 (U.S. Department of
State, 2021), and rapidly increasing American and NATO military
assistance to Ukraine (United States Department of State, 2022; see
­
Chapter 14). The Kremlin’s special military operation demonstrated its
resolve to defend what Putin deems Russia’s inviolable preserves, includ-
ing the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics and Crimea, against
Washington’s aspirations (Episkopos, 2022).11
Second, the invasion revealed that renewed Cold War between Russia
and the West might not be confined to color revolutions, economic sanc-
tions, saber-rattling, and sporadic reprisals as it had been prior to February 24,
2022, but could morph into proxy and open hot wars between nuclear
superpowers. The Russo-Ukrainian War moved Russo-American relations
toward the brink of hot war between superpower principals, a risk that
will linger regardless of the outcome in Ukraine unless Russia and the
West agree to restrain their respective ambitions within prudent limits.
Neither Washington nor the Kremlin appears inclined to accommodate
one another. Biden continues pressing NATO global reach and expansion
beyond Ukraine (Wales Summit, 2014),12 reinforcing Putin’s resistance
and making a return to the East–West partnership of 1991–2008 improb-
able (McFall, 2022; US, 2022). The most likely prospect is frosty lethal
Cold War in Europe (Sachs, 2022),13 an outcome that hobbles American-
led globalization and mostly benefits China.
xxvi Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for the Asia Pacific

Asia Pacific
The West has its hands full coping with Russia. It will have even greater
difficulty deterring two rival superpowers simultaneously. The threat
posed by Beijing in the Asia Pacific was challenging before the Russo-
Ukrainian War and will intensify unless NATO decisively repels Putin’s
special military operation and retakes Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea.
Beijing will interpret any other outcome as a license to increase pressure
in the Asia Pacific, inferring that the United States lacks resolve to restore
Ukraine’s territorial integrity circa 2014, and to prioritize credible military
deterrence at the expense of competing domestic political objectives
(Wolfowitz, 2022). Failure to rout Putin will confirm Xi Jinping’s convic-
tion that America is a paper tiger.
Washington frames the Russo-Ukrainian War differently, treating it as
unprovoked Kremlin aggression (White House, 2022). The Biden admin-
istration insists that Putin’s actions are unjustified and a pretext because
America’s intentions are benign and laudable. It contends furthermore that
Putin intended to resurrect as much of the Soviet empire as he could long
before NATO expansion became a contentious issue. The Revolution of
Dignity merely provided Putin with an excuse for what he intended
anyway. Perhaps Biden is right, but it is impossible to tell because
­
Washington did not actively pursue confidence building (Russian
Federation, 2022),14 doing nothing substantive to allay Putin’s concerns
beyond making unsupported claims of beneficent intent, ensnaring the
West in a dangerous Cold War that Washington appears reluctant to exit
(Ashford, 2022; Russia Matters Staff, 2022).15

How did the United States stumble into this morass?

Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for the Asia-Pacific tells the story of
how Washington seized defeat from the jaws of Cold War victory by
botching Russia’s post-Soviet transition (Fukuyama, 1992).16 For nearly
two decades, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and Vladimir Putin were
amenable to experimenting with the Russo-American partnership (gradual
westernization) in return for economic and political assistance. They set
their suspicions aside (or played possum) while assessing prospects for
restoring Russia’s superpower status and America’s willingness to respect
Kremlin sensibilities (Keynes, 1919).17 Moscow tolerated the inclusion of
the Soviet East European satellites and some former Soviet republics into
 Introduction xxvii

the European Union and NATO before 2008, but Washington continued
pushing the envelope, assuming that Moscow would gradually acquiesce
to American rule of law as the foundation for global order through
friendly persuasion or pressure.18
The Biden administration had ample grounds for caution after 2013.
Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea in tit-for-tat retaliation for American
complicity in the 2014 the Revolution of Dignity (Maidan coup d’état)
(Dubrovskiy et al., 2022; Risch, 2022).19 Washington countered by pun-
ishing the Kremlin with American and European Union economic sanc-
tions, moral condemnation, and NATO coalition building rather than by
negotiating an agreement limiting political and economic rivalry in the
former Soviet space.
Washington and NATO also signaled weakness in 2014–2022 by
neglecting to deploy adequate military forces adjacent to the conflict
zone. The policy of shunning confidence building and inadequate deploy-
ment was maladroit. It failed to foster trust and cooperation if Putin’s
intentions were benign, and it failed to deter Moscow if Kremlin’s inten-
tions were malign (Bondarev, 2022).20 Western realpolitik masquerading
as internationalist idealism backfired with global consequences (United
States Department of State, 2022).21
Sino-American relations unlike Russo-American relations until
recently operate under the principles of Cold Peace. Washington
and Beijing sparred with each other, but their superpower rivalry was
restricted to non-lethal economic, geopolitical, and diplomatic jousting.
The status quo however has been tattered by China’s successful military
modernization, Beijing’s demands for Taiwan’s prompt reunification, and
Biden’s prohibition of high-tech computer chips to the People’s Republic.
Xi Jinping denies Taiwan’s sovereignty and demands that the United
States withdraw its support for and protection from Taipei.22 Washington
refuses, setting the stage for a proxy war with America as the principal
and Taiwan as the proxy fighting Chinese invaders (Lee and Wu, 2022).
The risk of lethal Cold War depends significantly on the lessons
Washington and Beijing draw from the Russo-Ukrainian War. Anything is
possible.
Good results are conceivable in the final analysis, if Biden and Xi
realize that they do not have an omnipotent superpower option. America
is not powerful enough to make China a vassal state, and vice versa. It is
senseless for either to try. The West cannot prevent China from building a
formidable war machine or severely damage its civilian production with
xxviii Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for the Asia Pacific

economic sanctions and soft power. If Beijing improves market efficiency

as quid pro quo for globalizing, this will only increase China’s military
potential. The notion that economic transition, military pressure, or
regime change can transform Eurasian superpowers into Washington’s
virtuous partners for peace is foolish. The converse also is true.
Superpowers must check their will to omnipotence and learn to coexist.
If they do not, they will discover that the best is the enemy of the good.

Endnotes
1Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin signed a Partnership for Peace Accord in 1994.
Both sides claimed to trust each other’s good intentions and cooperate. Latent
Soviet-era distrust however lingered. Russia and the United States gradually
shifted from partnership to Cold Peace and then to Cold War, each believing with
increasing certainty that the other side was an implacable enemy. Confidence
building might have alleviated the problem, but if diplomats tried, they failed.
2The term color revolution refers to regime change triggered by a Western-
supported popular insurrection. From Washington’s perspective, color revolu-
tions are progressive. Most color revolutions do not topple regimes aligned with
opposing superpowers. This was not the case in Ukraine. Russia retaliated when
America toppled Yanukovych’s pro-Russian presidency and Moscow struck back
by annexing Crimea, initiating a slow-motion superpower proxy war between
Moscow and Washington, with the Ukrainian army fighting America’s battle and
Russia directly opposing Ukrainian armed forces with its own troops and militia
loyal to the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics. There are no exact analogs
to the Ukraine case, although a repeat performance is possible if Washington suc-
ceeds in toppling Lukashenko’s Belarusian regime.
3Biden and Blinken counter-argue that they did not commit America and NATO
to intense Cold War. Putin, they can claim, exaggerated the hostile nature of their
intent.
4Putin’s declared intention was to surgically destroy forces imperiling Luhansk,
Donetsk, and Crimea, including Banderite neo-Nazis influencing Kyiv’s policies
and the Azov brigade (Lauria, 2022).
5The former Polish territories incorporated into Ukraine by the Molotov–
Ribbentrop Pact are most of Galicia, and Northern Bessarabia, Northern
Bukovina, and Hertsa regions (the Chernivtsi Oblast). Southern Bessarabia is
now part of the Odessa Oblast.
6Proxy wars are third-party armed engagements permitting principals to use
agents to fight their battles. Agents receive assistance from principals and share
 Introduction xxix

common goals in local battlefields, but are minor players in other conflict zones.
Proxy wars arise when a principal attacks another’s agent as was the case in
Ukraine, or agents are engaged in civil conflicts. The Republic of China served
as America’s agent against Soviet-sponsored international communism in 1945–
1949. The United States assisted Chiang Kaishek, but did not send troops or
attack the USSR. Contemporary Taiwan is a legacy relationship. The Korean and
Vietnamese conflicts were Sino-Soviet proxy wars fought by their agents against
America and its allies. The Korean proxy war left Korea partitioned. America lost
the Vietnamese War.
7“Russian leaders and several Western policy experts were warning more than
two decades ago that NATO expansion would turn out badly — ending in a new
cold war with Russia at best, and a hot one at worst. Obviously, they were not
“echoing” Putin or anyone else. George Kennan, the intellectual architect of
America’s containment policy during the Cold War, perceptively warned in a
May 2, 1998 New York Times interview what NATO’s move eastward would set
in motion. “I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,” he stated. ‘I think the
Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies.
I think it is a tragic mistake.’” “George W. Bush began to treat Georgia and
Ukraine as valued U.S. political and military allies, and in 2008, he pressed
NATO to admit Ukraine and Georgia as members.” “In his 2014 memoir, Duty,
Robert M. Gates, who served as secretary of defense in both Bush’s administra-
tion and Barack Obama’s, conceded that ‘trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine
into NATO was truly overreaching.’ That initiative, he concluded, was a case of
‘recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national
interests’.”
8At the June 2021 Brussels summit, NATO leaders reiterated the decision taken
at the 2008 Bucharest summit that Ukraine would become a member of the
Alliance with the MAP as an integral part of the process and Ukraine’s right to
determine its future and foreign policy. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
stressed that Russia will not be able to veto Ukraine’s accession to NATO “as we
will not return to the era of spheres of interest, when large countries decide what
smaller ones should do.”
9Mearsheimer, John. (2022). The partnership phase of America’s relationship
began under Boris Yeltsin in 1991 and continued under Vladimir Putin until 2008.
“First, the United States is principally responsible for causing the Ukraine crisis.
This is not to deny that Putin started the war and that he is responsible for
Russia’s conduct of the war. Nor is it to deny that America’s allies bear some
responsibility, but they largely follow Washington’s lead on Ukraine. My central
claim is that the United States has pushed forward policies toward Ukraine that
Putin and other Russian leaders see as an existential threat, a point they have
made repeatedly for many years. Specifically, I am talking about America’s
xxx Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for the Asia Pacific

obsession with bringing Ukraine into NATO and making it a Western bulwark on
Russia’s border. The Biden administration was unwilling to eliminate that threat
through diplomacy and indeed in 2021 recommitted the United States to bringing
Ukraine into NATO. Putin responded by invading Ukraine on February 24th of
this year. Second, the Biden administration has reacted to the outbreak of war by
doubling down against Russia. Washington and its Western allies are committed
to decisively defeating Russia in Ukraine and employing comprehensive sanc-
tions to greatly weaken Russian power. The United States is not seriously inter-
ested in finding a diplomatic solution to the war, which means the war is likely
to drag on for months if not years. In the process, Ukraine, which has already
suffered grievously, is going to experience even greater harm. In essence, the
United States is helping lead Ukraine down the primrose path. Furthermore, there
is a danger that the war will escalate, as NATO might get dragged into the fight-
ing and nuclear weapons might be used. We are living in perilous times.”
Baroud, Ramzy. (2022). “Noam Chomsky said ‘it is the opinion of every
high-level US official in the diplomatic services who has any familiarity with
Russia and Eastern Europe. This goes back to George Kennan and, in the 1990s,
Reagan’s ambassador Jack Matlock, including the current director of the CIA; in
fact, just everybody who knows anything has been warning Washington that it is
reckless and provocative to ignore Russia’s very clear and explicit red lines. That
goes way before (Vladimir) Putin, it has nothing to do with him; (Mikhail)
Gorbachev, all said the same thing. Ukraine and Georgia cannot join NATO, this
is the geostrategic heartland of Russia.’”
10No country is entitled to have spheres of influence in a world where all nations
are fully sovereign. Nonetheless, spheres of influence are commonplace in inter-
national relations. For example, the Monroe Doctrine formulated by President
James Monroe on December 2, 1823 opposed European colonialism in the
Western Hemisphere. The doctrine was central to U.S. foreign policy for much of
the 19th and early 20th centuries.
“Putin somewhat revised the uncompromising approach communicated in his
11

September speech recognizing the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, where

he all but laid out a program for existential confrontation between Russia and the
West.”
The military operations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are
12

not confined to the United States, Canada, and Europe. NATO is an arm of
America’s military and political global presence conducting operations in the
Middle East, Afghanistan, and Africa.
“The Western narrative about the Ukraine war is that it is an unprovoked attack
13

by Putin in the quest to recreate the Russian empire. Yet the real history starts
with the Western promise to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO
would not enlarge to the East, followed by four waves of NATO aggrandizement:
 Introduction xxxi

in 1999, incorporating three Central European countries; in 2004, incorporating

7 more, including in the Black Sea and Baltic States; in 2008, committing to
enlarge to Ukraine and Georgia; and in 2022, inviting four Asia-Pacific leaders to
NATO to take aim at China. Of course, NATO says that is purely defensive, so
that Putin should have nothing to fear. In other words, Putin should take no notice
of the CIA operations in Afghanistan and Syria; the NATO bombing of Serbia in
1999; the NATO overthrow of Moammar Qaddafi in 2011; the NATO occupation
of Afghanistan for 15 years; nor Biden’s “gaffe” calling for Putin’s ouster (which
of course was no gaffe at all); nor US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stating that
the US war aim in Ukraine is the weakening of Russia.
At the core of all of this is the US attempt to remain the world’s hegemonic
power, by augmenting military alliances around the world to contain or defeat
China and Russia. It’s a dangerous, delusional, and outmoded idea. The US has a
mere 4.2% of the world population, and now a mere 16% of world GDP (mea-
sured at international prices). In fact, the combined GDP of the G7 is now less
than that of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), while the
G7 population is just 6 percent of the world compared with 41 percent in the
BRICS.”
14Russia applied for GATT membership in 1993. The Obama administration per-
mitted its accession to the WTO in August 2012. Some may argue that this was a
confidence-building gesture.
15(Ashford, 2022). “IN DECEMBER 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken
addressed negotiations over Russia’s formidable military buildup around Ukraine.
He reiterated that the United States would not discuss Russian concerns over
Ukrainian membership in NATO, arguing that ‘one country does not have the
right to exert a sphere of influence.’”
(Russia Matters Staff, 2022). CIA Director William Burns makes the follow-
ing points: (1) “Putin really does believe his [own] rhetoric and I have heard him
say this privately over the years — that Ukraine is not a real country.” (2) “He
believes the key to doing that is to recreate a sphere of influence in Russia’s neigh-
borhood.” (3) “We had building from at least October of 2021 a very troubling
picture of what were quite detailed plans on Putin’s part for a major new invasion
of Ukraine…. So the president asked me to go to Moscow [in November 2021]
and lay those concerns out in an unusual amount of detail to President Putin and
some of his closest advisors and then to lay out the serious consequences that
would unfold if he chose to execute that plan. I must admit I came away from
these conversations even more troubled than when I arrived…. Putin himself
made no effort to deny the planning…. My impression, which I conveyed to the
president when I got home, was that Putin had not yet made an irreversible deci-
sion to launch that invasion; he was clearly leaning hard in that direction at that
point, too. My further impression was that he had convinced himself strategically
that the window was closing for his ability to control Ukraine and its choices,
xxxii Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for the Asia Pacific

[and] that it was not so much a function of Ukraine and NATO — because he was
smart enough to understand that formal Ukrainian membership in NATO at that
time was at best a distant aspiration. It was more in a way about NATO in Ukraine.”
“A Russian military modernized to a point where they could win, in his view, a
quick and decisive victory at minimal cost”; “European leaders whom he saw to
be distracted by their own political transitions”; “And he believed he had built a
sanctions-proofed economy with a big war chest of hard-currency reserves.”
16Washington botched the post-Soviet transition, whether its goal was transform-
ing Russia from authoritarian planning to a democratic free enterprise in a
benevolent trans-Atlantic community or manipulating the Kremlin into obedi-
ently relinquishing its great power status.
17The story here is similar to Britain and France’s attitude toward the Weimar
Republic. It should have been obvious at Versailles that Germany would someday
reemerge as a great power, and that it would be best for all parties if this were
accomplished without reigniting old animosities.
18The concept is attractive from an idealistic perspective, but is not fail-safe. Rule
of law can easily degenerate into rule of unscrupulous lawyers.
19Some counter-argue that Putin was plotting to seize Luhansk, Donetsk, and
Crimea if Russia’s influence in Kyiv weakened. The Revolution of Dignity is
alternatively called the Maidan events or Maidan coup d’état. Washington openly
advocated and aided Ukrainian regime change. Putin reciprocated in Crimea.
Russia did not overtly invade Crimea as some now claim.
Washington provided provocative military assistance to Ukraine itself, but did
20

not adequately bolster military forces adjacent to the conflict zone. As the Russo-
Ukrainian War unfolded, the Biden administration gradually portrayed Putin as a
purblind despot. Russia must be subdued and prevented from ever threatening the
West again. Boris Bondarev, a former Russia diplomat, supports Washington’s
position.
21Realpolitik means using international power even when benefits conflict with
international ideals.
22Putin sides with Xi. See Yimou Lee and Sarah Wu, “Chinese Warplanes Take
to Skies, US Warships on Move before Expected Pelosi Visit to Taiwan,” Reuters,
August 2, 2022. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pelosi-expected-
arrive-taiwan-tuesday-sources-say-2022-08-02/.

References
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multipolar-world-203276.
 Introduction xxxiii

Aslund, Anders and Michael McFaul. (2006). Revolution in Orange: The Origins
of Ukraine’s Democratic Breakthrough. New York: Carnegie Endowment for
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Baroud, Ramzy. (2022). ‘Not a Justification but a Provocation’: Chomsky on the
Root Causes of the Russia Ukraine War. Counterpunch. https://www.
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on-the-root-causes-of-the-russia-ukraine-war/.
Bondarev, Boris. (2022). The Sources of Russian Misconduct: A Diplomat
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boris-bondarev.
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participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Brussels.
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Carpenter, Ted Galen. (2022). The U.S. and NATO Helped Trigger the Ukraine
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cato.org/commentary/us-nato-helped-trigger-ukraine-war-its-not-siding-
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Dubrovskiy, Vladimir, Kálmán Mizsei, and Kateryna Ivashchenko-Stadnik in
collaboration with Mychailo Wynnyckyj (2022). Eight Years after the
Revolution of Dignity: What Has Changed in Ukraine during 2013–2021?
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Episkopos, Mark. (2022). ‘A Higher Price’: Putin Lays Out His Vision for a
Multipolar World. National Interest. https://nationalinterest.org/feature/%
E2%80%98-higher-price%E2%80%99-putin-lays-out-his-vision-multipolar-
world-205630.
Fukuyama, Francis. (1992). The End of History and the Last Man Standing, New
York: Free Press.
Keynes, John Maynard. (1919). The Economic Consequences of the Peace.
London: Macmillan & Co., Limited.
Lauria, Joe. (2022). On the Influence of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine, Consortium
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Lee, Yimou and Sarah Wu. (2022). Chinese Warplanes Take to Skies, US
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Leonard, Mark. (2022). Ukraine’s War Viewed from China. Project Syndicate,
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 Part I
Russo-American Partnership
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 Chapter 1

Cold War World Order

Russia grew from a small 15th century principality ruled by Ivan the Great
(Ivan III), Grand Prince of Moscow and Grand Prince of all Rus’ (1440–
1505),1 into the planet’s largest nation under Catherine the Great
(1729–1796).2
During her reign, Russia crushed the Crimean Khanate, colonized the
territories of Novorossiya (Ukraine), partitioned the Polish–Lithuanian
Commonwealth, colonized Alaska, and established Russian America.3
The Secret Protocol to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Soviet–German
“non-aggression” pact in August 1939 enabled Stalin to annex large por-
tions of Eastern Europe,4 followed by further adjustments after the Red
Army defeated Hitler in 1945.5 The protocol divided Romania, Poland,
Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland into German and Soviet spheres of
influence. It assigned Finland, Estonia, and Latvia to the Soviet sphere.
The USSR received the areas east of the Pisa, Narev, Vistula, and San
Rivers. It annexed Lithuania in a second secret protocol in September
1939. The Soviet Union acquired Bessarabia from Romania, together with
the Northern Bukovina and Hertsa regions. It transformed East Germany,
Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and
Yugoslavia into communist regimes under its hegemony soon thereafter.
The UN Charter endorsed by the USSR and the West in 1945 and the Yalta
and Potsdam agreements of 1945 fixed the rules and boundaries of the
postwar world order from 1945–1991. Both camps concurred that they
would not invade the other’s territories, and would honor universal prin-
ciples, but could vie ideologically to expand their global reach with other
means including propaganda, agitation, color revolutions, and proxy wars.

3
4 Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for the Asia Pacific

The postwar world order proscribed hot wars between superpowers, but
legitimated the Cold War on both sides of the iron curtain dividing the
capitalist West and communist East: “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste
in the Adriatic” (Churchill, 1946).
The iron curtain shattered postwar hopes for global peace and amity.
It pitted the nations of the East against those of the West, and divided the
communist from the capitalist bloc. Forty-five years of Cold War between
the USSR and the West ensued (Kennan, 1946).6 The rivalry was particu-
larly bitter from 1946–1953 (Holloway, 2022; NSA, 2022),7 prompting
the formation of NATO on April 4, 1949.8 The founding members
of NATO were United States, Canada, England, France, Belgium,
the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, and
Iceland.9
The Cold War waned and waxed thereafter. The Soviet detonation of
an atomic bomb on August 29, 1949 and Mao Zedong’s victory over
Chiang Kaishek a month later ended a brief period of uncontested
American superpower.
Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953 triggered the 1954 “thaw,”10
Nikita Khrushchev’s secret speech “On the Cult of Personality and Its
Consequences” in February 1956 (Congressional Record, 1956),11 and
Khrushchev’s endorsement of peaceful coexistence,12 marking a softening
of the Cold War (Détente).13 The Hungarian Revolution in October 1956
and the Sino-Soviet split the same year hinted at the fragility of Soviet
power.14 The Cold War simmered thereafter for thirty years influenced by
the Soviet acquisition of the hydrogen bomb in November 1955, the
Vietnam War from 1955–1975, Khrushchev’s 1956 “We will bury you”
speech,15 the Cuban Missile and Berlin Crises in 1961,16 Prague Spring in
1968,17 the Brezhnev Doctrine in 1968,18 the Solidarność rebellion in
1980,19 the Russo-Afghan war from 1979–1989,20 and a multitude of
Soviet third-world forays. Although it was murky at the time, Mikhail
Gorbachev discarded the Cold War paradigm and the “iron curtain” in
1987 for an untested radical communist program of his own devices
that swiftly destroyed the Soviet Union in 1991 (Gorbachev, 1987).
Communist power proved surprisingly brittle. Russia’s leaders discarded
Marxism in the blink of an eye.
Gorbachev’s perestroika (radical market reform) wrecked Soviet cen-
tral planning. His demokratizatsia (democratization) subverted central-
ized communist party control and novoe myslenie (new thinking)
green-lighted republican secession, the dissolution of the USSR, and the
 Cold War World Order 5

disbanding of the Warsaw Pact21 and CMEA (Lavigne, 1983).22 In the

span of four brief years, Gorbachev’s reforms demolished the Soviet
Union, killed communism in all the former Soviet republics, dismem-
bered the Soviet empire, and crippled Russia’s armed forces. Former East
European members and satellites of the USSR became frenemies of
Russia, aligned with America and the EU. Most joined NATO,23 and par-
ticipated in American-led efforts promoting democratic market regimes in
Ukraine, Belarus, non-European former Soviet republics, and Russia itself
(McFaul, 2001, 2018; US Ambassador, 2012).24
The Cold War ended in Moscow’s total defeat, creating an opportunity
to build a post-Soviet world order on a liberal institutionalist basis
unmarred by ideological and latent nationalist enmities. Liberal Kremlin
leaders were not scheming for a prompt ideological or nationalist East–
West rematch. They did not move the iron curtain westward or seek resto-
ration of the postwar World War II global order established at Yalta25 and
Potsdam in 1945.26 Although Moscow remained the hegemon of the
Commonwealth of Independent States,27 including Russia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, and Uzbekistan, it avoided reigniting the Cold
War. Instead, Russian President Boris Yeltsin strove to integrate Russia
into the post-Soviet G-8 order, navigating toward democracy and liberal
markets with the assistance of the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund to increase economic efficiency and foster national pros-
perity. President Bill Clinton offered Russia and the Commonwealth of
Independent States a niche in an America-led global order, and the Kremlin
accepted it on a trial basis with the proviso that Washington would accom-
modate various Russian sensibilities. Yeltsin and later Vladimir Putin
engaged the West on these terms until 2008 when the Kremlin grew dis-
satisfied with the West’s “Grand Bargain” (Allison, 1991; Allison and
Blackwill, 1991), paving the road to the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War.
Ukraine held a special place in the Kremlin’s concept of East and
West (Hedlund, 2023).28 It had been an integral part of Russia for two
centuries,29 and had a large Russian-speaking, Eastern Orthodox Christian
minority population. It served as a buffer with the West and a strategic
asset on the Black Sea. Ukraine in Moscow’s eyes was and is an integral
part of Russia’s sphere of influence. Putin declared in 2022 that he did not
object to its accession to the EU, but considered its NATO membership a
provocation. United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowl-
edged this, but did not feel bound by Putin’s concern (Ashford, 2022),30
an attitude Putin construed as a casus belli (Motyl, 2022).31
6 Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for the Asia Pacific

Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin held disparate views about the post-
Soviet world order. All accepted the United Nations charter and none
insisted on preserving the Yalta and Potsdam agreements after 1991. The
West found little reason to negotiate with Russia’s leaders. Gorbachev
discarded the Yalta and Potsdam agreements of his own free will, believ-
ing Soviet republics and satellites would embrace his vision of libertarian
communism and inspire Western converts. The title of his 1987 new com-
munist manifesto “Perestroika: New Thinking for my Country and the
World” proclaimed his message (Gorbachev, 1987). Western leaders did
not bother disputing Gorbachev’s end of history. They were content with
his endorsing German reunification, Soviet disunion, and the dissolution
of the Warsaw Pact and Comecon. Yeltsin was also cooperative. He some-
times balked over issues like Serbia (Parks, 1992), but always knuckled
under Western persuasion.
Gorbachev and Yeltsin were liberalizing politicians, not siloviki
(power service men). Putin is different. He is a tough-minded, security-
focused, modernizing silovik with liberal Andropov school inclinations,32
who gradually pressed for a negotiated post-Soviet world order dividing
the East and West into separate camps, explicitly rejecting Washington’s
version of globalization. He was content to follow Yeltsin’s liberal foot-
steps in East–West relations from 2000–2008 while rebuilding Russia’s
national economy and preparing a military modernization drive, but
reversed course thereafter. Yalta and Potsdam were back on the table and
up for renegotiation from Putin’s perspective in 2008, but the Obama–
Biden team was dismissive. Washington believed that it did not have to
accommodate Russia and staying the course was wisest whether Putin
acquiesced or launched a special military operation (Sakwa, 2023).33
This is the crux of the polarized attitudes toward the origin of the
Russo-Ukrainian war and its resolution. Those who believe Putin plotted
to restore some of the Soviet empire the moment he came to power blame
the Kremlin for the renewed East–West Cold War (Blank, 2022). They
press for Russia’s military defeat. Those who judge that the United States
mismanaged Russia’s post-Soviet transition (United States Department of
State, 2022)34 and should have accommodated Putin on Ukraine’s NATO
accession, at least on a trial basis, believe that the Biden administration’s
ambitions pushed Putin over the edge. They favor negotiation and
compromise.
If Washington wins the Russo-Ukrainian War, it can impose
stern discipline on Muscovy for many years. If it does not, the Biden
 Cold War World Order 7

administration will have to reassess whether it is wiser to formally negoti-

ate a living arrangement with the East, modify its objective, or pursue a
cold or hot war. The issue warrants careful consideration (Perry, 2022).35

Endnotes
1Ivan III Vasilyevich (1440–1505), also known as Ivan the Great, was a Grand
Prince of Moscow and Grand Prince of all Rus’. He ended the dominance of the
Tatars over Russia, renovated the Kremlin in Moscow, introduced a new legal
codex, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. His 1480 victory over the
Great Horde is cited as the restoration of Russian independence 240 years after
the fall of Kyiv during the Mongol invasion. Ivan was the first Russian ruler to
style himself “tsar.”
2Catherine II, known as Catherine the Great, ruled Russia from 1762 until 1796.
Under her reign, Russia experienced a renaissance of culture and sciences with
many new cities, universities, and theaters being founded, a large number of
European immigrants moving to Russia, and Russia being recognized as one of
the great powers of Europe. She expanded the Russian empire. In the south, the
Crimean Khanate was crushed in the Russo-Turkish War from 1768–1774.
Russia colonized the territories of Novorossiya along the coasts of the Black and
Azov Seas. In the west, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was partitioned,
with the Russian Empire gaining the largest share. In the east, she colonized
Alaska, establishing Russian America.
3Russian America refers to the Russian Empire’s colonial possessions in North
America from 1799 to 1867. It consisted mostly of present-day Alaska in the
United States, but also included small outposts in California, including Fort Ross,
and three forts in Hawaii, including Russian Fort Elizabeth.
4The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression pact between Nazi
Germany and the Soviet Union that enabled those two powers to partition Poland
between them. German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet
Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov signed the pact on August 23, 1939. It was
officially known as the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
5The secret protocol divided Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and
Finland into German and Soviet “spheres of influence.” It assigned Finland,
Estonia, and Latvia to the Soviet sphere and partitioned Poland in the event of its
“political rearrangement.” The USSR would receive Pisa, Narev, Vistula, and San
Rivers, and Germany would occupy the west. Lithuania, which was adjacent to
East Prussia, was assigned to the German sphere of influence, but a second secret
8 Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for the Asia Pacific

protocol, agreed to in September 1939, reassigned Lithuania to the Soviet Union.

According to the protocol, Lithuania was to receive the historical capital, Vilnius,
controlled by Poland during the interwar period. Another clause stipulated that
Germany would not interfere with the Soviet Union’s actions toward Bessarabia,
which was then part of Romania. As a result, the Soviets occupied Bessarabia as
well as the Northern Bukovina and Hertsa regions and integrated them into the
Soviet Union.
6George Kennan reached the same conclusion two weeks earlier on February 22,
1946.
7Declassified “top secret” NSA document.
8Talks for a wider military alliance, which could include North America, also
began that month in the United States, where US foreign policy under the Truman
Doctrine promoted international solidarity against actions viewed as communist
aggression, such as the February 1948 coup d’état in Czechoslovakia. These talks
resulted in the signature of the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949 by the
member states of the Western Union plus the United States, Canada, Portugal,
Italy, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland.
9NATO soon began enlarging. Greece and Turkey joined in 1952. West Germany
followed shortly thereafter in 1955. Spain became a member in 1982. United
Germany joined immediately after Gorbachev gave his blessing in 1990. The
Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland acceded in 1999. Bulgaria, Romania,
Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia, and Slovenia were added in 2004.
Albania and Croatia became members in 2009, Montenegro in 2017, and North
Macedonia in 2020, bringing the total membership to 30. The net result of NATO
expansion in 2022 in the context of the new Cold War is a new iron curtain
redrawn on the USSR pre-1939 borders north–south from Saint Petersburg to
Mariupol, with Ukraine and Georgia in dispute. Belorussia, Transnistria,
Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and
Chechnya are in Russia’s sphere of influence.
The Thaw (Оттепель) is a short novel by Ilya Ehrenburg first published in the
10

spring 1954 issue of Novy Mir. It coined the name the Khrushchev Thaw, a period
of liberalization following the 1953 death of Stalin.
In a secret speech before a closed plenum of the 20th Congress of the CPSU,
11

Khrushchev denounced Stalin’s cult of personality. In addition, he revealed that

Stalin had rounded up thousands of people and sent them to political work camps
(Gulags).
Peaceful coexistence (Mirnoye sosushchestvovaniye) was a theory that Marxist–
12

Leninist communist states could peacefully coexist with the capitalist bloc,
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catching something. She climbed up fairly high and then let herself
drop with all her legs stretched out, spinning all the time the thread
by which she was hanging. Then she climbed up it, spinning another
thread, and when she had like this spun some nice strong sticky
threads she waited for the wind to carry them on to some branches
of furze. When these held, Emma ran along them, fastened them
firmly and spun a fresh thread each time till she made a line that was
strong and elastic, and so not likely to break easily. When she was
satisfied it would bear the weight of the web, she spun struts from it
to hold it firm and then began the web itself. She first made a kind of
outline and then spun and worked towards the middle. It was
wonderful to see what a beautiful regular pattern she was spinning,
with nothing but her instinct to guide her.
You know when a house is being built it has tall poles all round it
called scaffolding, which helps the building; well, the first outline of
the web was Emma’s scaffolding, and when it was no longer wanted
she got rid of it by eating it up!
“But how did Emma spin a thread?” I can hear you asking.
It is like this—suppose you had a ball of silk in your pocket and ran
about twisting it round trees to make a big net. This is really what the
spider does, but the silk comes from inside her and will never come
to an end like the ball in your pocket. It issues from what are called
spinnerets. When she lets herself drop, the spinnerets regulate the
thread, but when she is running along spinning she uses two of her
back legs to pay it out, just as you would have to use your hands to
pull the silk out of your pocket. It is a pity spiders usually spin their
webs at night, so that we seldom get a chance of watching them.
I said just now that Emma’s silk never comes to an end, but
sometimes if a very big fly or wasp gets caught in her net she has to
use a great deal of her silk, which she winds round and round the fly,
binding him hand and foot, and then her stock of thread which is
carried inside her may run low; but it soon comes again, especially if
she gets a good meal and a nice long rest.
 A fly struggling in her web.

When Emma had finished she was pleased with the look of her
web and hid herself at the side of it under a furze branch. She
watched and waited. She waited all night long and nothing
happened.

CHAPTER III
A NARROW ESCAPE

In the morning she was still watching and waiting, but at last there
was a sound. A deep humming was heard in the air as if a fairy
aeroplane were passing. It was so loud that even deaf Emma might
have heard it if she had not been too busy. Just then, however, her
hairs had received a wireless message to say there was a catch at
the far end of her web. Although a spider is much more patient than
you, and can sit still a long time, it is a quick mover when there is
need for speed. Emma darted out like a flash of lightning and found
a fly struggling in her web. It was a very small thin one, and poor
hungry Emma was disappointed not to see a larger joint for her
larder. She quickly settled it, however, and spun some web round it
to wrap it up, for, after all, it was something to eat and so worth
taking care of. She was still busy with her parcel when “Buzz, buzz,
buzz,” the whole web gave a big jump and there quite close to
Emma was a huge, terrible beast. A great angry yellow wasp,
making frightful growling noises and struggling desperately to get out
of the web. Poor Emma wasn’t very old or daring and she knew the
danger she was in, for this savage monster could kill her easily with
his sting. He was fighting hard against the sticky meshes of the web
and jerking himself nearer to her. She was too frightened to move,
and for a minute she hung on to her web limp and motionless looking
like a poor little dead spider. Then something happened. The wind
blew a little puff, the wasp put out all his strength and gave a twist,
the web already torn broke into a big hole and the great yellow beast
was free. He glared at Emma and hovered over her, buzzing
furiously. He would have liked to kill her, but luckily he was too afraid
of getting tangled up again in that sticky, clinging web, so, grumbling
loudly, he flew away.
“What did Emma do?”
Well, she quickly got over her fright and I think she had a little
lunch off her lean fly; then she looked at her web and was sorry to
see it so torn and spoilt. The best thing to do was to mend it then
and there, and as a spider always has more silk in her pocket, so to
speak, she was able to do it at once. She repaired it so well that it
didn’t look a bit as if it had been patched but just as if the new piece
had always been there, the pattern was just as perfect.

CHAPTER IV
ABOUT WEBS
 I don’t believe you are feeling a bit afraid of spiders now, are you?
There is no reason why we should fear them, for they don’t bite or
sting us; and if they did the poison that paralyses and kills their prey
would not hurt us. Besides, they kill the insects that harm us. I saw a
spider’s web once full of mosquitoes, and you know what worrying
little pests they are. I was glad to see so many caught, but sorry for
the spider, as they didn’t look a very substantial meal. Then you
know how dangerous flies have been found to be, making people ill
by poisoning their food, so it is a good thing that spiders help us to
get rid of them.
Another reason to like spiders is for their webs. There is no animal
or insect that makes anything quite so wonderful and beautiful as
what these little creatures spin.
The spider’s web is really a snare for catching her food. The
strands of it are so fine as often to be invisible in some lights even in
the daytime, and of course quite invisible at night. Sometimes the
beetle or flying insect is so strong that he can tear the web and get
free, but not often, for the spider can do wonders with her thread.
She spins ropes and throws them at her big prey and doesn’t go
near it till it is bound and helpless.
Of course, there are many different kinds of spiders who spin
different kinds of webs. In a hotter country than this there is one that
is as big or rather bigger than your hand, and another called the
Tarantula whose bite is supposed to be so poisonous that it can kill
people, but this is very exaggerated.
 A Beautiful Web.

As the spider’s web is only her snare, she naturally has to have
some kind of home, which must be quite near to her place of
business. If you look very close and follow one of the strands of the
web you will find some little dark cranny where the huntress can
hide. If the web is amongst trees it will probably be a leaf she has
pulled together with her thread and made into a dark little tunnel out
of which she darts when something is caught.
Now before we leave the spiders’ webs you may wonder why you
never see them so clearly as they show in the photographs, and I will
tell you the reason. You see if the spiders’ nets which are set to
catch sharp-eyed insects were always to show as clearly as they do
in the pictures, I am afraid they would really starve, for no fly would
be silly enough to go into such a bright trap. But sometimes in the
autumn, very early in the morning, the dew hangs in tiny beads on
the webs, and makes them show up clearly, and then it is that the
photographs are taken. If you get up early some still September
morning, just about the same time as the sun, and go for a walk in a
wood, or even along a country road, you may see the webs with
what look like strings of the tiniest pearls on them, and you will find
that until the sun has dried up all the little wet pearls, which are of
course dewdrops, the poor spider has not a ghost of a chance of
catching anything.
But to return to the spider herself. The one you know best is
probably the house-spider. It has eight legs and a body rather the
shape of a fat egg, with a little round bead of a head. It runs up the
walls, sometimes hanging by a thread from the ceiling, and seems
very fond of the corners of the room. How glad these house-spiders
must be when they get to a dirty untidy house, where they will be
safe from the broom. Most of us hate to see cobwebs in our houses,
and get rid of them as quickly as we can.

CHAPTER V
THE LITTLE HOUSE-SPIDER

I will tell you about a little house-spider who had a very exciting
adventure. She had made a beautiful web in the corner of a
bedroom, high up near the ceiling. One day her sensitive hairs told
her there was some sort of disturbance in the room, and looking
down from her web she saw all the furniture being moved out. The
curtains and rugs had gone and the bed was pushed up into a
corner. Then, to her dismay, a huge hairy monster came rushing up
the wall. Of course, it was only a broom, but the poor little spider was
so terrified she thought it was alive. It came nearer and nearer, and
all at once there was a terrific rush and swish right up the wall where
she lived, and web and spider disappeared. It was very alarming, but
you will be glad to hear that the little spider was not killed but only
stunned; and as soon as she came to her senses, she found herself
right in the middle of the broom. She hung on and kept quite still, and
soon the servants went into the kitchen to have some lunch and the
broom was stood up against the wall.
Now was the little spider’s chance to escape, and out she popped.
The coast seemed clear, so she scuttled up the wall and rested on
the top of the door. Spiders haven’t good sight, so she couldn’t see
much of the kitchen, but what she did see looked nice, and she
thought it a much more interesting place than a bedroom, besides
there were some flies about, so she determined to spin another web.
No sooner had she begun when there was a crash like an
earthquake. “Will horrors never cease?” thought the spider. It was
really only the slamming of the door, but it so startled her that she fell
and dropped on to the shoulder of some one who had just come in.
 A Snare.

“Oh, Miss Molly!” cried cook, “you’ve got a spider on you, let me
kill it.”
“No, no,” said Molly, “that would be unlucky, besides it’s only a tiny
one,” and she took hold of the thread from which the spider hung
and put it out of doors. Wasn’t that a lucky escape? She ran up the
wall and got on to a window sill. Here she crouched down into a
corner making herself as small as she could for fear of being seen,
and then she fell asleep. You see she had gone through a great deal
that morning, and the excitement had thoroughly tired her out.
When evening came she woke up and felt very hungry, so she
quickly spun a web, and would you believe it, before it was even
finished she felt a quiver, and there was a silly little gnat caught right
in the middle. He was very tiny, but the spider wasn’t big, and he
made a very good meal for her. She didn’t stop even to wrap him up,
for she couldn’t wait, but gobbled him up on the spot.

CHAPTER VI
BABY SPIDERS

Before a spider lays her eggs, she spins some web on the ground.
She goes over it again and again, spinning all the time, till it looks
like a piece of gauze. Into this she lays her eggs—often over a
hundred—and covers them with more web and then wraps them up
into a round ball. I don’t suppose you would think it, but a spider is a
very devoted mother, and this white ball is so precious to her that
she carries it everywhere she goes and never lets it out of her sight.
She will hold it for hours in the sun to help to hatch the eggs, and
she would fight anything that tried to hurt it or take it away from her.
It is the same when the eggs are hatched out, for her babies are
always with her. Their home is on her back, and as there is such a
swarm of them, they cover her right up and you often can’t see the
spider for the young. Often some of them drop off, but they are
active little things and they soon climb on again. As long as they live
with their mother they have nothing to eat. This fasting, however,
doesn’t seem to hurt them for they are very lively; the only thing is
they don’t grow.
It doesn’t seem to matter very much even to grown-up spiders to
go without their dinners for several days. And when they do at last
get some food they gorge. They eat and eat and eat, and instead of
making themselves ill like you would do, they seem to feel very
comfortable and are able to go hungry again for some time. Perhaps
it is because, as babies, they got used to doing without food.

Spiders love fine weather.

 Spiders love fine weather, and they seem to know when to expect
the sun to shine. When it is a bright day Mother Spider brings out her
big little family. It is no good offering them any food, for they can’t eat
it yet, so she finds a sheltered hot place and gives them a thorough
sun bath, which they like better than anything else.
And now one more little story before we say “Good-by” to spiders.
When Emma was a tiny baby she had thirty-nine brothers and
sisters. And as she was just a tiny bit smaller than the others, she
was very badly treated. The stronger ones would be very rough and
cruel to her. They used to walk over her and push her near the edge
where she would be likely to fall off. Two or three times they had
crowded her so that she really had slipped off and lay sprawling on
the ground. However, she was very nimble and agile, and she had
always been able to pick herself up quickly and clamber up one of
her mother’s legs on to her back again.
One day the little spiders were more spiteful than usual. “You are a
disgrace to us,” they told Emma, “you might be a silly ant.”
“I’m no more an ant than you,” said Emma, “I can’t help being
small.”
“Ant, ant, ant!” they cried, “ants belong on the ground and that’s
your proper place,” and pushed her off on to the ground.
The unlucky part was that Emma’s mother didn’t know what had
happened, and before Emma could struggle to her feet, she had
hurried away having noticed a bird hovering near. There was Emma
all alone, a poor lost little spider without a mother or a home.
She was feeling very sad and wondering what would become of
her, when along came another Mother Spider with a lot of babies on
her back. Two of these fell off quite near to Emma, and when they
ran back to their mother she ran with them. Up an unknown leg she
climbed and on to a strange back, and yet she felt quite as happy
and at home as if it had been her own mother and the companions
she joined had been her real brothers and sisters. How different
spiders are from us! Emma’s mother never knew she had lost a
baby, and the new mother didn’t bother herself at all that she had
adopted one, and as for the strange brothers and sisters, they
treated her rather better than her own, for they happened to be just a
little smaller than Emma so were not strong enough to push her off.
As far as Emma was concerned it was decidedly a change for the
better, and she was really a very lucky little spider.
 WHAT THE CHICKENS DID

CHAPTER I
JOAN AND THE CANARIES

I wonder if you have ever watched young chickens. You can’t help
liking such babyish, fluffy little things; they are so sweet and so
different from the grown-up hens. I know a little girl who cried out,
“Look at all those canaries!” Of course, they are not really a bit like
canaries, and it was only because of their yellow coats that she
made the mistake.
Chickens are so lively and cheery, too; even when they are only a
day old they are able to feed themselves, and will run about picking
up grain. For such babies they are quite bold and will wander off a
long way from the coop, but when anything alarming comes along
they will all rush back to Mother Hen, making funny little peeping
noises showing they are rather frightened; and she answers, “Tuk,
tuk,” as much as to say, “You are little sillies, but I’m very fond of
you,” and takes them under her wing.
Joan was the little girl who had called them canaries, and you may
guess how she got teased about it. She had come to stay with an
aunt who had a farm, and as Joan had always lived in a town, she
couldn’t be expected to know very much about animals or birds. She
liked the cows and the goats and the horses but she loved the
chickens best of all. When she was missing, her aunt always knew
where to find her, and the chickens seemed to know her too and
were tamer with her than with any one else.
When anything alarming comes along they will all rush back to Mother Hen.

A little tapping sound.

 Several of the hens were sitting on their eggs, and Joan was told
she mustn’t go near them or disturb them at all. While a hen is sitting
she doesn’t want to be bothered to think of anything else except how
she can best keep her eggs warm and safe. She has to be careful
and patient till the chicks are ready to come out. This is an exciting
time, and Joan used often to think about it. She did wish so she
might see a chicken burst through its shell. She imagined there
would be a little tapping sound, and that the other chickens would be
very interested and listen, and then the shell would suddenly open
and out would spring a fluffy yellow chicken. She had been to a
pantomime once called “Aladdin,” and there had been a huge egg,
supposed to be a Roc’s egg. In the last scene this egg was in the
middle of the stage. A dancer struck it with a wand, when it opened,
and out sprang a full grown fairy, dressed in orange and gold, with a
skirt of fluffy yellow feathers. Somehow Joan had always imagined a
chicken would begin its life in this dramatic way.

CHAPTER II
THE WORM

As yet only one small family of chickens had come out of their
eggs but they were quite enough for Joan to play with. She soon
made friends with them and gave them all names. There were:
Honeypot, Darkie, Piggy, Fluffy, Cheeky, Dolly and Long-legs. Darkie
was rather different from the others; he was a lively little chick with a
dark coat and white shirt front. Cheeky was the boldest and most
impudent. He would cock his little head on one side and stare at
Joan, and he was always the last to run to Mother Hen if anything
was the matter.
 Dolly found a worm.

Cheeky dashing off with the prize.

Joan never forgot the morning Dolly found a worm. Instead of

keeping quiet, the silly chick made such a fuss over it that the others
soon found it out. Cheeky was on the spot at once, and before slow
Dolly could say a “peep” he had snatched the worm out of her beak
and was off. I wonder if you have ever seen a chicken running with a
worm; it really is great fun. Joan shouted with delight to see that
rascal of a Cheeky dashing off with the prize while poor foolish Dolly
only looked on. However, one chick is never allowed to have a worm
to himself for long, and soon Fluffy and Darkie were after Cheeky
trying hard to get the worm for themselves. Round and round they
ran, into the long grass round the food pails, into the corners of the
yard and out again, till at last poor Cheeky despaired of ever being
able to eat the worm, there never was a second’s time. At last, he
tried to take a bite, and at once it was snatched away from him by
Darkie, and then the race began again and they all rushed about
after each other till Fluffy got it. He was just going off with it when Mr.
Cock came along, a very proud and dignified gentleman. “Ah, Ha!”
he cried, “What have we here?”
“Please, it’s mine,” said Cheeky, “he snatched it away from me.”
The cock looked very surprised, for I don’t think any other chick
would have been bold enough to speak to him at all. Every one was
rather afraid of him, for he had a very sharp beak and would take no
back answers.
“It isn’t yours at all!” cried Darkie and Fluffy. “You stole it, you didn’t
even find it yourself.”
“Please, don’t make such a noise,” said the cock, “I never knew
such rowdy, ill-behaved chickens, you have no dignity at all. Now, so
that there shall be no quarrel, I am going to remove the cause,” and
he stooped down and gobbled up the worm.
 Made them take some grain out of her hand.

This is really what happened; it is quite true for Joan saw it all. I
am not quite so sure that the cock actually used these words
because, you see, Joan couldn’t understand his language, but she
thought he said something very like it.

CHAPTER III
JOAN SAVES A CHICKEN’S LIFE

I wonder if you have ever seen a hen feed her chickens. It is a

pretty sight. She scratches on the ground, and when she finds
something to eat, she calls her children. “Tuk, tuk, tuk,” she cries,
and all the little chicks come scurrying up, for they understand quite
well what she means, and are always ready for something more to
eat. They peep out all sorts of pleased things in chicken language,
and each tries to push the others away to get most for himself.
 Joan loved to see them, and she used to imitate the old hen and
call the chickens and give them some chopped egg. They liked this
and got so tame that they would eat out of her hand. Joan’s aunt
was quite surprised, and one day she made them take some grain
out of her hand. Cheeky jumped on to her thumb, and Piggy and
Fluffy lost no time in getting to their dinner. The other three were not
quite so trustful. Honeypot looked up in her face as much as to say,
“I know Joan, she’s a friend, but I’m not quite so sure about you.”
The others, too, were a little undecided and hesitated for a time, so
Joan felt the chickens were really sensible enough to know her, after
all.
The chickens were so pretty and attractive that Joan wanted them
to be like real people, and she thought of all sorts of ideas which she
pretended they were thinking. But even she had to own they were
not very original. If one did a thing, they would all do it. Their favorite
game was certainly “Follow-my-leader.” One would run into a corner
and scratch, and at once the others would run and scratch, too. Then
they would all run to the gate, and if anything came along there
would be a quick scamper back to mother and not one would be left
behind.
Joan watched them once playing “Follow-my-leader” round a barn
door. It was standing wide open and Fluffy ran behind it and poked
his head through the crack, just below the hinge. It was not a big
space, but Fluffy could just squeeze his neck through. Of course, the
others must follow his lead and try and do the same; and all would
have been well if only Piggy’s head had been the same size as the
others. I expect it was because he had eaten rather more than the
rest that his head was just a tiny bit bigger. When it came to his turn,
he pushed hard to get his head through, as all the others had done,
but when he tried to pull it back, it stuck. It was terrible; there he was
held as if he were in a trap. Oh, what a noise he made! Joan heard
his shrill frightened peeping and thought at least he must be nearly
killed. She came running up and was very alarmed when she saw
what was the matter. But she was a sensible child, and instead of
running away to call some one, she squeezed in behind the door,
being very careful not to push it to, as that would have choked the
poor little chick. Then she firmly took hold of Piggy, and putting two
fingers through the crack she gently pushed the fluffy little head back
through it and pulled the chicken out of danger. Just as she had put
him on the ground and he had given another loud peep to show
there was no harm done, the old hen came running up clucking in
such an excited manner as much as to say, “it doesn’t do to leave
these babies one minute, they are bound to get into mischief.” She
had heard her chick crying and had hurried up to see what she could
do. I wonder what she would have done to help. Something I feel
sure, for it is wonderful how clever mother animals and birds can be
when it is a case of taking care of their young.
Joan told her she had better lead her little family further away from
such a danger trap, and to help her Joan called the chickens to the
other end of the yard, and when they came running up, there on the
ground lay a nice long worm she had found for them, and she took
care that each had a bit.

It is very funny to see chickens drink.