Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to demonstrate that the world is at risk of the outbreak of the 3rd World War, which could be avoided if there is a peace agreement between presidents Joe Biden and Wladimir Putin to initially end the war in Ukraine and , subsequently, with the reform of the international system to end wars around the world. Since 2014, Ukraine has been the object of our attention when we started to analyze its internal political problems until the outbreak of the conflict with Russia and the involvement of the United States and NATO. Since 2014, we have published the articles described below:
• Ukraine in boiling and its consequences- 03/07/2014
• Ukraine’s challenges – 02/04/2014
• Geopolitical trends of the contemporary era – 12/16/2014
• The complex political stalemate in the Russia-Ukraine conflict- 02/20/2015
• The Russia and Ukraine conflict as a new focus of war in the world – 01/31/2022
• Future scenarios of the war between Russia and Ukraine- 02/25/2022
• The real cause of war in Ukraine and current wars in the world- 01/03/2022
• Lessons from the war between Russia and Ukraine – 06/03/2022
• How the war in Ukraine can come to an end and how to put an end to wars in the world – 03/13/2022
• The war in Ukraine and the end of contemporary globalization – 03/18/2022
• The irresponsible American diplomacy in Ukraine war could lead to the 3rd world war- 02/11/2022
• War and peace between the United States and Russia – 02/25/2023
In the last article we published, we stated that the irresponsible action of the US government in the case of the war in Ukraine could lead to the 3rd World War. Rather than trying to negotiate a negotiated solution with Russia to the war in Ukraine, the Biden administration preferred confrontation by establishing economic sanctions against Russia and its citizens, as well as arming the government of Ukraine to resist the Russian invasion. Biden himself, in a statement given on October 6, 2022, during a Democratic Party event in New York, stated that he sees the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” – final war – which is at the highest level since the Cold War quoting that Putin is “not kidding” when he talks about the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons, chemical or biological weapons, because his Army is significantly less capable. According to him, the use of a nuclear weapon could get out of control and lead to global destruction. This statement demonstrates that Biden acts irresponsibly because he knows the risk of a nuclear hecatomb and does nothing to avoid it by seeking a diplomatically negotiated solution with Russia.
On the website <https://outraspalavras.net/outrasmidias/chomsky-em-busca-da-paz-na-ucrania/> there is an interview of the respected intellectual Noam Chomsky to Anne Guion, in La Vie, published 02/03/ 2023, when he stated in an interview that Washington wants to prolong the war as much as possible, to nullify Russia. Risks of a global conflagration are growing and the pacifist movement needs to resurface. Chomsky claimed that the United States, now a major part of the conflict, had decided that the war must continue to severely weaken Russia. Which means they don’t want a diplomatic deal. As a result, virtually all discussions, according to Chomsky, both in the United States and Europe, are about what steps to take to escalate the war. The longer the conflict drags on, the more devastated Ukraine will be. War has knock-on effects across the world, and there is a growing threat of nuclear war. Noam Chomsky calls for the urgent opening of negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, to end the carnage, avert a general conflagration and, above all, allow the world to finally focus on the extraordinary climate crisis it must face, before it is too late. According to Chomsky, due to the war in Ukraine, new deposits of fossil fuels are being explored that will be in production for several decades. For him, this is actually a death sentence for the human species. We have, therefore, to make a choice, that is, to make a diplomatic agreement.
Igor Gielow published on the website <https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mundo/2023/03/eua-alertam-para-risco-de-guerra-nuclear-com-china-e-russia.shtml?utm_source=sharenativo&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharenativo> the article “EUA alertam para risco de guerra nuclear com China e Rússia” (US warns of risk of nuclear war with China and Russia). In this article, there is the statement by the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States Armed Forces, General Mark Milley, that the conflict is not inevitable, but asks Congress for money to dissuade rivals. According to Milley, for the first time in history, the United States faces the risk of a war with two nuclear powers at the same time, China and Russia. Fight simultaneously against them would be very difficult, despite American military capabilities. Milley’s alarmism seeks to sensitize congressional representatives. The general called for approval of the largest defense budget in US history. It outlined all the ongoing risk elements. He claimed, for example, that Putin continued to use irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and posturing as Russia conducted one of the largest intercontinental missile exercises in recent history. General Mark Milley stated that the United States and Russia hold just over 90% of the 13,000 warheads around the world. Milley argues that China has thousands of local-range missiles in its arsenals that would be difficult for the United States to contain with its current inventory, advocating investment in hypersonic and other weapons. He says the potential for armed conflict is growing. China remains the No. 1 long-term geostrategic security challenge citing China’s military expansion in the Indo-Pacific and US countermeasures such as patrols (asked for more ships) and the Aukus military pact that will supply nuclear submarines to Australia.
Everything that has just been described shows that international geopolitical chess points to the existence of 3 great protagonists: the United States, China and Russia. Based on the 3 great protagonists of contemporary international geopolitical chess, it can be said that the United States aims to avoid losing its world hegemony in the economic and military plans for China and Russia. To achieve this objective, the US government’s strategies essentially consist of the following: 1) barring the rise of China as the hegemonic power of the planet; and, 2) prevent Russia from rising to the status of great power dominant in Europe. The article Hacia una nueva Guerra fría (Towards a new cold war) published on the website <https://blogs.publico.es/cronicas-insumisas/2022/12/25/hacia-una-nueva-guerra-fria/> on December 25, 2022, informs that the NATO summit in June 2022 in Madrid approved the New Strategic Concept (NSC), and confirmed what had already been outlined by the United States in relation to world geopolitics, directing its attention to China because, although the NSC indicates Russia for its invasion of Ukraine as a threat, it is China that worries because it considers it a power that destabilizes its hegemonic interests. A new stage in US foreign policy was reaffirmed in the new National Security Strategy (NSS) approved in October 2022, where it is openly declared that the danger comes from China, both economically and militarily. While Russia is reduced to a danger limited only to the security of central Europe. Something that can be seen when observing how the United States has moved military capabilities to the Pacific Ocean and Southeast Asia. A strategy that considers a phase presided over by the worsening of political and military tensions between the United States and China, and their respective allies.
All this means that the new geopolitical strategy of the United States will have serious consequences in the political and economic spheres, as it will lead to an increase in militarism and warmongering that will lead to an arms race with the consequent increase in military spending, production and arms trade. The US war industry will make a lot of money by selling armaments to its allies. Something that can be seen, for example, in Japan, where the Japanese government has decided to increase its defense budget (today 1% of GDP) to reach 2% of GDP in 2027 and put itself on the same level as NATO countries. This is a huge increase that will put an end to Japan’s traditional non-militaristic policy, as this huge increase will be aimed at improving its military capabilities in new weapons, announcing the acquisition of combat drones, Tomahawk missiles and the fearsome missiles hypersonic missiles capable of varying their trajectory in flight to avoid enemy counter-missiles. An announcement that immediately sounded the alarm in China, South Korea and the Philippines, countries that suffered the criminal Japanese invasion during World War II. The article Hacia una nueva guerra fría (Towards a new cold war), reports that an increase in warmongering is also taking place in Europe, such as Germany, France and Spain, while the European Union predicts an increase of 32.7% (70 billion Euros in three years) on the current expenditure of 214 billion Euros to provide member countries with resources to acquire new weapons in the Annual Coordinated Defense Review (CARD).
This situation takes us to a situation where the great powers face each other in an excessive “war” for hegemony, today a struggle between capitalist countries. In the war in Ukraine, Russia and the United States are fighting for hegemony in the center of Europe. The same can happen between the Western bloc led by the United States against the eastern bloc led by China and its allies in the Shanghai Treaty of cooperation and security with Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and observers such as Iran. This confrontation foresees a future full of tensions, conflicts and some peripheral war. We are already living in an era in which, while governments spend resources on expanding their war capabilities, the populations of all countries in the global north and south will see their living conditions regress, given that many of their governments have decided to allocate resources for the military security (weapons and armies) when they should be allocated to human security, that is, to promote work, housing, health, culture, social services and preserve the environment that provide a life worth living.
Carl Von Clausewitz (1790 – 1831), Prussian military, specialist in military strategies and author of the most famous treatise on the subject of war in the West, “On War”, published in 1832, stated that “the war is the continuation of politics by other means” (CLAUSEWITZ, Carl Von. Da Guerra. São Paulo: Editora WMF Martins Fontes, 2010). According to Clausewitz, war is an act of violence designed to force the enemy to submit to your will. This Clausewitz thesis does not apply when it comes to the confrontation between major nuclear powers such as the United States, Russia and China. Neither of them has enough power to unleash a war against the other to impose their will on the enemy. This thesis does not apply even in the confrontation between a great nuclear power like the United States and a tiny country like North Korea, which also has nuclear weapons that can reach North American territory. Another great thinker on warfare was Sun Tzu who wrote between the 5th century BC and III BC The Art of War, which is understood to be the oldest treatise on this subject (Sun Tzu. A Arte da Guerra. Jandira-SP: Editora Ciranda Cultural, 2019). Sun Tzu stated that “War should be conducted in such a way as to be resolved quickly, since a long war would impoverish the kingdom, be painful to the soldiers, bring many deaths and damage the honor of the one who was at the head of the soldiers”. The US government is not following Sun Tzu’s advice on the US war strategy against Russia and China which must be long to the detriment of the country itself.
The brilliant Sun Tzu presents several pieces of advice that the US government has not been following, as described below:
1. There are no examples of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare. For example, the United States did not benefit from the protracted war in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. When surrounding the enemy, leave an exit for him, otherwise he will fight to the death. To exemplify, after the 1st World War, the victorious allies imposed with the Treaty of Versailles economic sanctions, loss of territory and the disarmament of Germany, leaving no way out for this country but to trigger the 2nd World War. In the current confrontation with Russia, the United States may not leave a way out for Putin who, as a last resort, may make use of nuclear weapons with harmful consequences for humanity.
3. Victory is the main aim in war, but the real purpose of war is peace. The United States does not follow Sun Tzu’s advice because peace is not its main objective in confronting Russia and China. Its purpose is to try to impose its will on enemies in a protracted war at high cost.
4. The supreme art of war is to defeat the enemy without fighting. Defeating the enemy in a hundred battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in overcoming the enemy without having to fight. The United States seeks to defeat Russia without its direct participation in the conflict in Ukraine, but that will not succeed as intended because Russia is invincible.
5. Avoiding wars is much more rewarding than winning a thousand battles. This is what should be the effort to be developed by the United States, Russia and China, considering the cost of wars in human lives and the financial resources involved would not justify their existence.
In the conflict in Ukraine, given the impossibility of the US government to impose its will on Russia, it is urgent to conclude a peace agreement between presidents Biden and Putin to end the war in Ukraine because the war between Russia and Ukraine can evolve for a conflict that would spread across Europe and the world turning into a world war. If this were to happen, it would pave the way for the involvement of major military powers with unpredictable consequences with the use of nuclear weapons. Everyone needs to understand that the war in Ukraine is the scene of the dispute between Russia and the United States. On the one hand, we have the United States, which wants a NATO presence in Ukraine, and on the other, we have Russia, which does not want a NATO presence in Ukraine. The war in Ukraine will only end if Biden and Putin reach an agreement on ending the conflict between Russia and the United States with UN supervision. The initial deal between Biden and Putin could take place with Russia accepting the ceasefire in Ukraine on the condition that the United States withdraws from Ukraine’s incorporation into NATO. The definitive deal would consist of Russia ending its hostilities in Ukraine by liberating occupied territories in that country, with the exception of Crimea, assuming the burden of rebuilding what was destroyed by the war on condition that the United States and NATO abandon the countries of the European east and Finland that adhered to it, returning to the limits existing in 1997 and assuming the commitment to remove the economic and financial sanctions adopted against Russia.
The deal between Biden and Putin would be advantageous for Ukraine, Russia, the United States, Europe and the world. Ukraine would gain from this agreement because it would end the suffering of its population, avoid the military occupation of its territory by Russia, recover its sovereignty over the national territory and have the reconstruction of the country carried out by Russia. Russia would gain from this agreement because there would be the removal of economic and financial sanctions against it adopted by the United States and its western allies, there would be the abandonment of NATO’s claim to Ukraine’s membership as one of its member countries and the commitment of the United States and of NATO to leave the 14 countries of Eastern Europe (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic) and Finland, which recently joined the organization. The United States would gain from the agreement because it would no longer destabilize its economy with a prolonged war. Europe would gain from the agreement because the threat of the cessation of oil and natural gas supplies from Russia and the destabilization of its economies with a protracted war would disappear. The world would gain from the agreement because there would be no destabilization of the world economy with serious repercussions on the economies of all countries and the threat of a new world war that would lead to the end of the human species would disappear. For Biden and Putin to conclude this peace agreement, it is necessary that the UN, through its secretary general, leave its passivity in the search for world peace and that China and all peace-loving countries mobilize in order to achieve it.
In order to permanently remove new risks of a new world war and for perpetual peace to materialize on our planet, it would be necessary to reform the current international system, which is incapable of guaranteeing world peace. The new international system should work based on a Planetary Social Contract that would be the Constitution of planet Earth. For the preparation of the Planetary Social Contract, there should be a convening of a Constituent World Assembly with the participation of representatives of all the countries of the world elected for this purpose. The Planetary Social Contract should establish the existence of a World Government whose president should be elected with more than 50% of the votes of the World Parliament to be, also, constituted with elected representatives in the different countries of the world. In addition to the World Government and the World Parliament, the World Supreme Court should also be constituted, which should be composed of high-level jurists from the world chosen by the World Parliament who would act for a determined time. The World Supreme Court should judge cases involving disputes between countries, crimes against humanity and against nature committed by national States and by rulers in the light of the Planetary Social Contract, judge conflicts that exist between the world government and the world party and act as guardian of the Planetary Social Contract. The World Government will not have its own Armed Forces, having to count on the support of the Armed Forces of the countries that would be summoned when necessary.
Therefore, with this system the World Parliament would successfully legislate through a democratic process. There would be no need for an entity that would act as a world police officer because the one who would exercise power would be the President of the world government who would use the Armed Forces of certain countries that would be summoned when necessary. The new rule of international law would be enforced by the three constituted powers: World Government, World Parliament, and World Supreme Court. World power would rest in the World Government, the World Parliament and the World Supreme Court. World power would neither corrupt nor be corrupted because there would be vigilance from all the authorities. World Government, World Parliament and World Supreme Court would act as checks and balances aimed at the efficiency and effectiveness of the international system.
These are, therefore, the measures that should be adopted in the short term to end the war in Ukraine and, in the medium and long term, to definitively end wars in the world. Peace-loving citizens of the world should mobilize in their countries to demand that their governments and the UN commit to achieving world peace to prevent the outbreak of the 3rd World War.
* Fernando Alcoforado, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, of the SBPC- Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science and of IPB- Polytechnic Institute of Bahia, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, college professor (Engineering, Economy and Administration) and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning, urban planning and energy systems, was Advisor to the Vice President of Engineering and Technology at LIGHT S.A. Electric power distribution company from Rio de Janeiro, Strategic Planning Coordinator of CEPED- Bahia Research and Development Center, Undersecretary of Energy of the State of Bahia, Secretary of Planning of Salvador, is the author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018), Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019), A humanidade ameaçada e as estratégias para sua sobrevivência (Editora Dialética, São Paulo, 2021), A escalada da ciência e da tecnologia e sua contribuição ao progresso e à sobrevivência da humanidade (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2022), a chapter in the book Flood Handbook (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida United States, 2022) and How to protect human beings from threats to their existence and avoid the extinction of humanity (Generis Publishing, Europe, Republic of Moldova, Chișinău, 2023).
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