The US has once again proposed what it calls a “peace plan” amid its proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.
New US “Peace” Proposal is “Minsk 3.0” Repackaged (Yet Again) The contents of the proposal are irrelevant. The US does not seek peace in general, and certainly not with Russia specifically. Instead, and what previous proposals likewise represented, this is an attempt to freeze the ongoing conflict, rebuild Ukraine’s armed forces, and, if possible, move Western troops into Ukraine itself to create a buffer zone, possibly forcing advancing Russian forces to stop.
Beyond mere speculation, this is what US Secretary of Defense (now “Secretary of War”) Pete Hegseth laid out himself in a public directive delivered to Europe in Brussels in February of this year.
Despite Secretary Hegseth going out of his way to insist, “this must not be Minsk 3.0,” the directive not only explicitly lays out a “Minsk 3.0” framework complete with freezing the ongoing conflict (not ending it), “doubling down” and “re-committing” to Ukraine’s “security needs,” thus rebuilding Ukraine’s armed forces, but it actually exceeded it with an additional Syria-style buffer zone imposed by “European and non-European troops.”
Just as Minsk 1 and 2 prevented Ukraine’s armed forces from being overwhelmed and any actual peace from being achieved, this new “Minsk 3.0” proposal seeks to freeze the conflict once again, specifically to prevent any genuine resolution from emerging.
With “European and non-European troops” placed into Ukraine, Russia’s ability to resume its Special Military Operation (SMO) once it becomes clear the US has once again violated its agreement with Russia will be complicated by a now deeply entrenched NATO presence inside Ukraine — just as US and Turkish forces complicated the full retaking of Syria by Damascus and its Russian and Iranian allies, ultimately leading to the complete collapse of the Russian and Iranian-backed government in late 2024. It was the current political interests now running Russia including President Putin and his political allies who reestablished Russian sovereignty, reestablished policies, institutions, and industry shifting priorities back closer to purpose over profit
Even if the US were to propose a deal explicitly excluding any of these possibilities, it must be remembered the original Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 agreements did as well and were simply, blatantly, and very deliberately violated by both the US and its Ukrainian and European proxies.
It must also be remembered that the US, far beyond just the conflict in Ukraine, has violated every single agreement, treaty, and understanding ever proposed to Russia — and before that — the Soviet Union. There exists a long trail of unilaterally upended arms treaties, memorandums, and agreements left by successive US administrations, including by President Donald Trump himself, including the now scrapped Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and the Treaty on Open Skies.
The current Trump administration has, in just under its first year in office alone, used proposed “peace deals” and “ceasefires” with Iran and Lebanon-based Hezbollah as cover for attempted and successful decapitation strikes by both US proxies (Israel), as well as strikes carried out by the US itself against Iran.
The Russian Response
It is impossible to say with certainty how the Kremlin interprets these proposals. It is almost impossible to conceive Russia’s leadership could be naive enough to believe anything being proposed by the US or even believe the US could in any conceivable way seek peace in the first place.
However, with Minsk 1 and 2 in hindsight and Russian President Vladimir Putin himself having agreed to both proposals despite later admitting they were “sheer deception” according to Russian state media, TASS, it raises questions as to why these agreements were ever accepted in the first place and whether or not Russia will accept future proposals by the West.
It could be that Russia was simply not ready in 2014-2015 to launch what would eventually shape into the 2022 SMO and felt the time Minsk 1 and 2 created for both sides could be better utilized by Russia and eventually place it in a stronger position than Ukraine and its US sponsors when the SMO was launched.
This latest proposal by the US must be understood by Russia as yet another obvious deception, with Secretary Hegseth admitting to the real objectives the US was and still obviously is working towards in regard to encircling and containing both Russia and its Chinese allies.
Agreeing to it would only happen if Russia felt it required a pause itself and believed it could once again use the time a pause would afford it better than the US and its proxies. It would also have to believe it would be prepared to deal with any deployment of “European and non-European troops” to Ukraine in a manner more successful than it did in the now toppled and decimated Syrian Arab Republic.
Or, Russia may simply play along with each successive proposal while Russian forces continue their exponentially accelerating advance on the battlefield in Ukraine as Ukraine’s fighting capacity collapses.
By now, it should be abundantly clear that the US, regardless of its current presidential administration or the composition of the US Congress, is incapable of agreement, and that nations faced by its decades-spanning global-spanning pursuit of primacy must balance strategies to defend against it with a means of avoiding a dangerous spiraling into escalation.
Making Real Sense of US Foreign Policy
For observers trying to make sense of successive US proposals, it would be useful to consider the various layers of US policy.
These layers include (1.) the most shallow, almost meaningless rhetoric, propaganda, and political theater; (2.) that of ongoing US military operations, posture, and preparations; (3.) corporate-financier policymaking taking place within the halls of well-established think tanks where papers are transformed into bills by teams of lawyers before being sent to Washington by lobbyists merely to be signed off on; and (4.) the deepest layers where principal motivations of maintaining US primacy over the globe and an urgent desire to confront and dismantle “collective internationalism” or “multipolrism” drive all other policies.
A focus on and analysis of the upper layer of rhetoric, propaganda, and political theater will consistently lead to confusion, disastrously failed predictions, and an overall general inability to understand US policy, motivations, and interests.
By diving deeper into these other, more relevant layers, the deliberate confusion created at the surface can be cut through, and a deep, fundamental understanding of US power, its actual intentions, methods, and motivations can be achieved.
It also equips those targeted by US policy with the best chance of formulating realistic strategies to defend themselves against both the deception that accompanies it and the dangers of the treachery those deceptions are meant to distract away from.
Layer 1: Rhetoric, Propaganda, Political Theater
The US is only talking “peace” in the first place because of Russia’s objective success on the battlefield, just as conditions in 2014-2015 forced the US and its European proxies to talk “peace” ahead of the Minsk 1 and 2 agreements.
Otherwise, just as was the case in Syria in 2024 when an opportunity presented itself to overthrow the Syrian government and fully politically capture the Syrian Arab Republic, the US and its proxies would pursue an uncompromising policy seeking to inflict maximum cost on its designated adversaries.
In this first, superficial layer, the US performs with its proxies, including both Ukraine and the rest of Europe, a form of political theater meant to compartmentalize the means through which it will both shape disingenuous agreements with Russia regarding Ukraine and the means by which it and its proxies will inevitably violate any agreement Russia accepts.
First and foremost among Washington’s intended violations will be the creation and implementation of a “European and non-European” force intending to enter into Ukraine. The theater of “disagreement” between the US and its Ukrainian and European proxies allows the US to propose and, if possible, implement a “peace deal,” while Ukraine and Europe can take responsibility for violating it, affording the US plausible deniability while still enjoying the benefits of a frozen conflict and a US-planned “European and non-European” force now standing between Russia and any potential restart of its SMO.
The US also performs this theater within its own political system. A proposal made by the “Trump administration” is automatically attacked by his supposed opponents in the Democratic Party, prompting Trump supporters to likewise automatically support the proposal regardless of its contents and its contradiction of the very promises made by US President Donald Trump during campaigning in 2024.
Even within the Trump administration itself, this theater is performed. More “aggressive” members of President Trump’s cabinet take responsibility for both a proposal at odds with President Trump’s 2024 campaign promises, while more “reasonable” voices, like Vice President JD Vance, pretend to uphold those promises despite the administration’s blatant violation of them, preserving at least some public support and hope despite the obviously opposite direction the Trump administration has headed in.
Layer 2: Operational Reality
Operational reality includes the actual actions of the United States in regard to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
The US in 2014 politically captured and now completely controls Ukraine politically, militarily, and economically.
The US, through its operational base in Wiesbaden, Germany, controls every aspect of the ongoing war, forming the very top of Ukraine’s armed forces’ chain of command, overseeing everything from devising high-level strategy, to selecting individual Russian targets on the battlefield and even deep within Russian territory itself.
The US, since 2014, has also taken over, rebuilt, and now directs every aspect of Ukraine’s intelligence capabilities, as the NY Times would reveal in its 2024 article, “The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin.”
The US still maintains tens of thousands of troops across Europe, overseeing US policy that includes militarizing NATO and even non-NATO members along Russia’s own borders in the same manner it did regarding Ukraine from 2014 onward, provoking this conflict in the first place.
All of this objectively continues regardless of the rhetoric, propaganda, and political theater taking place in the above layer, indicating much more accurately US intentions than any amount of political assurances, promises, or proposed agreements.
Layer 3: Corporate-Financier-Funded Policymaking
Deeper still are the policy papers laying out the strategy guiding Washington’s global operational reality, including its continued hostility, encroachment upon, and encirclement of Russia — again — regardless of its rhetoric, propaganda, political theater, or promises.
US operational realities regarding Russia specifically have been explicitly laid out in the 2019 RAND Corporation paper, “Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground,” which proposed the now ongoing US proxy war with Russia in Ukraine through, “Measure 1: Provide Lethal Aid to Ukraine,” noting it would:
Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. More Russian aid to the separatists and an additional Russian troop presence would likely be required, leading to larger expenditures, equipment losses, and Russian casualties. The latter could become quite controversial at home, as it did when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.
The paper also proposed pressuring Russia all along its periphery and even beyond its near-abroad with measures like, “promote regime change in Belarus,” “exploit tensions in the South Caucasus,” and even “reduce Russian influence in Central Asia,” and “increase support to the Syrian rebels.”
The paper also proposed economic measures including, “hinder petroleum exports,” “reduce natural gas exports and hinder pipeline expansions,” “impose sanctions,” and “enhance Russian brain drain,” all measures the US has since implemented and are still implementing — spanning the Obama, Trump, Biden, and now second Trump administrations.
Again, despite whatever these various administrations said publicly or promised Russia privately, policy papers like RAND Corporation’s “Extending Russia” constituted the actual blueprint driving US policy toward Russia regardless, manifesting itself in operational reality both past and present.
Worse still is the larger picture such policies targeting Russia fit into.
In a 2018 US Naval War College Review paper titled, “A Maritime Blockade Against China,” Russia is identified as a substantial obstacle against any successful containment and/or blockade of China primarily because of its large energy production capacity, its long, shared border with China, and ongoing construction of pipelines to supply this energy to China.
Even with a successful maritime blockade of China along with the targeting and destruction of China’s Belt and Road Initiative land routes, Russian energy exports to China would still make a successful US blockade difficult. Thus, far beyond long-standing policies of containing Russia itself, doing so fits in with a much more urgent and deeply desired policy of containing China.
Secretary Hegseth even mentioned the urgency with which the US must pivot to contain China in his February directive to Europe earlier this year.
Even if Russia were to concede entirely to the US in all aspects regarding Ukraine, unless it likewise conceded in terms of cutting off or even adopting a hostile posture toward China, the US would continue its encroachment upon Russia’s periphery far beyond just Ukraine.
The RAND Corporation and other policy think tanks, hardly independent institutions, are instead funded and directed by corporations and financial institutions representing the most powerful, influential interests from across the collective West, including arms manufacturers, Big Oil, the pharmaceutical industry, Big Tech, banks, equity firms, and more. This leads to a deeper layer still.
Layer 4: Principal Corporate-Financier Objectives
If these policy think tanks are driven by large corporate-financier interests, what drives these interests?
The answer is the perpetual pursuit of power and profit, which is institutionalized by principles like “shareholder primacy,” demanding the maximization of shareholder wealth. An infinite desire for profit and power within a finite or even sometimes shrinking population and likewise finite markets means eliminating any and all competition — not only within the United States itself through a process of consolidation and monopoly, but all across the entire planet — demanding access and monopolies over the populations and market shares of all nations on planet earth, including Russia.
The ultimate expression of these principles and their impact on Russia took place during the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the US-European plundering of the nascent Russian Federation. Drives to dismantle purpose-driven state enterprises and “privatize” them before stripping and selling them off for profit rendered millions impoverished and with dim prospects.
The promises of “free market capitalism” never availed themselves to the Russian public, just as they have failed to avail themselves to others across the former Soviet Union’s members “warmed” by the glow of Western capitalism for decades since.
It was the current political interests now running Russia, including President Putin and his political allies, who reestablished Russian sovereignty, reestablished policies, institutions, and industry, and shifted priorities back closer to purpose over profit, that led to the subsequent reemergence of the Russian Federation into the global power it is today.
From Wall Street and Washington’s perspective, this is an obstacle to their principal objectives of pursuing power and profit, and thus why Russia (along with many other nations constituting the multipolar world — especially China) has been designated an “adversary” and has been set upon by decades-spanning policies aimed and encroaching upon, encircling, and ultimately upending them, just as the Soviet Union had been and other nations like Syria, Libya, Iraq, and most recently Nepal have been much more recently.
Until these principal objectives change (and they haven’t), the policy they drive the creation of will not, nor will the operational realities of these policies being implemented.
The only thing that will change will be the rhetoric, propaganda, and political theater used to distract and disarm both the global public and decision-makers around the world from this reality to afford additional space, time, and opportunity for their further advancement.
A full analysis of US foreign policy must extend through all of these layers, consistently building understanding upon the first principles of how US foreign policy is actually created and why. Focusing on the topmost superficial layer of rhetoric, propaganda, and political theater gives no more understanding of geopolitical realities than studying the waves in an ocean reveals all the many millions of organisms, currents, and features lying far below them.The last working-class hero in England. Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ??? - 4 November 2021 Georgina the cat ???-4 December 2025
Absolutely. Continuity of agenda. Brian has history on his side. nm
on November 29, 2025, 12:26 am