The classic doctrine that referred to the concept of spheres of influence in modern times was the Monroe doctrine. The President of the USA formulated it in 1823. It stipulated that the USA would not allow any interference in the affairs of the former European (Portuguese and Spanish) colonies in America (depriving them of their newly won independence). The United States, on the other hand, declared that it had no intention of interfering in the affairs of the still existing European colonies in America and beyond. The Old World was to remain the sphere of influence of the European powers, but the New World was to adopt US hegemony. The doctrine enjoyed open support of Great Britain, which even wanted to make it a common position (which was not quite appreciated by the Americans), and until the end of the 19th century the British domination on the seas ensured that the doctrine was respected by the European colonial powers, because the then military weakness of America encouraged Europeans to ignore the Monroe Declaration for many years. And when the British confirmed sovereignty over the Falklands (1833), or (until 1850) they blocked Argentina, the Americans did not protest. However, the British were warned by the US not to interfere with the US takeover of Hawaii.
Ever since President Polk (and his declaration of 1842), the Monroe doctrine has acquired an imperialist interpretation and has forbidden Europeans to prevent the United States from expanding its influence in the Western Hemisphere. The Civil War, however, weakened the US ability to repel European influence. Napoleon III intervened in Mexico (placing Maximilian Habsburg on the throne), Spain in the Dominican Republic, and Great Britain in Belize. The Venezuelan crisis (border dispute with Great Britain which started in 1841) was a real test for the credibility of the doctrine. Despite the objections of Palmerston (and Bismarck), US hegemony in Central and South America was consolidated. After Spain was driven out of Cuba (1898) and the American intervention in Venezuela (1903), the doctrine already meant that the US could intervene freely in internal affairs, mediate and generally govern the continent. And they intervened.
As expanded by Theodore Roosevelt, the doctrine stipulated that the United States could do intervene in the event of any internal chaos and state failure. And when Germany during World War I dared to promise Mexico Texas and other southern states in return for joining the war on the side of Germany (Zimmerman’s telegram), it was an indisputable casus belli. After the Second World War, the challenge for the doctrine was the Cuban Revolution and the entry into the western hemisphere of Soviet influence. Maybe that is why, with such neurotic haste, the US brought order in Granada, intervened in Panama, or supported the Pinochet coup.
With time, American hegemony began to upset even America’s most loyal allies. The left-wing governments in Chile and Brazil of this millennium made no secret of the unacceptable American patrimonial approach to the continent.
Secretary of State John Kerry announced in 2013 that the Monroe Doctrine lost relevance. But the Trump team was accused of trying to galvanize it when they stepped up their pressure to bring down the Maduro regime in Venezuela.
Post-Soviet Russia tried to implement the doctrine of the sphere of interests in its way. It was expressed shortly after the collapse of the USSR with the concept of “near abroad”. Already during the ministry of Andrei Kozyrev, strong voices appeared in Russia that, following the Monroe doctrine, Russia should proclaim the entire post-Soviet space as its sphere of vital interests. At the 1992 CSCE ministerial meeting Kozyrev made his famous speech in which he demanded that the West should recognize that the post-Soviet space was a special area to which Russia had special rights and to which all CSCE norms could not apply. It caused a shock, unprecedented in diplomatic practice, among the participants. At that time, I was sitting in the room in the last row behind Minister Skubiszewski. I got the print-out of Kozyrev’s speech before he even finished speaking. I decided to get through to the minister without delay and give him the text. He remained calm. The polemic turned out to be unnecessary. After a few minutes Kozyrev asked for the floor again and announced that his speech was only a rhetorical ploy. It was supposed to make people realize what Russian policy could look like if things in Russia went in the wrong direction. From the perspective of today’s Russian political line, Kozyrev’s voice turned out to be a prophetic one.
Primakov, who was in charge of Russian diplomacy in the second half of the 1990s, made the doctrine of “near abroad” an element of restoring Russia’s superpower status in world affairs. The key to this was to make Russia the center of the post-Soviet space. It was during his time that the thesis appeared that one cannot be a pole in the global system without having one’s own sphere of influence. Today this concept has been even reinforced by assumptions that Russia cannot exist without enemies and that it should remain a fortress of stability in a chaotic world.
Russia tried to make the Commonwealth of Independent States the vehicle of its policy of the sphere of influence. The CIS turned out to be an empty shell. Attempts were made to consolidate the sphere of influence with projects in the field of security, such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization. So-called organic forms of integration were attempted in the form of the Eurasian Economic Community (today the Eurasian Economic Union). But closer integration, which could be achieved, for example, by the introduction of a common currency (ruble), has not yet worked out.
The revolutions in Georgia (The Rose revolution) in 2003 and in Ukraine (The Orange revolution) in 2004 made Russia’s political elite realize that the concept of exclusive influence, traditionally understood in geopolitical terms, did not produce the expected results. It was decided to supplement it with the highly ideological doctrine of the “Russkij Mir”, which we will discuss elsewhere.
The West, as a whole, does not want to agree to the division of wide Europe into spheres of influence and does not want to legitimize Russian claims, and quite rightly so. It rejects the idea of a new Yalta that would put the post-Soviet space under Russia’s rule. But there are politicians in the West (and in Poland as well) who have been dancing to Russian music for a long time.
Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014, and especially the fuelling of tension with the threat of an open invasion in 2021, were intended to make the West aware that nothing could stop Russia from preventing the gravitation of Ukraine (and other post-Soviet states) into the orbit of the West’s geostrategic influence. Russia has made it clear that if the West wants to relax in relations with Russia, if it wants to avoid the constant threat of escalation of tensions, and to lead to a relative normalization of relations, it must accept Russian rights to treat Ukraine (Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, etc.) as the Russian sphere. The draft security treaties prepared by the Russians at the end of 2021 made it plain clear.
During Putin’s rule, Ukraine will not find peace from Russia. He would like to anchor it back in Russia (by causing an internal implosion and placing a pro-Russian puppet there). But if he were to lose her, he would divide Ukraine by force (taking “Novorossiya”, “Slobodskaya” Ukraine, etc.), leaving the Galician-Volhynian-Polessyan-Bukovinian-Transcarpathian hull in the West. They just need a pretexte. Putin’s dilemma towards Ukraine resembles the quagmires of Catherine II towards the Commonwealth of Poland. She wanted to take the whole of then Poland under her rule (and even put her ex-lover on the throne there). But the Poles did not want to accept the vision of Russian rule, nor did their Prussian neighbours. Catherine was also afraid of Catholic dissentism in her empire. So she went to the partitions as plan B.
The mistake of many politicians, who, in their oneiric stupor, believed in the possibility of resetting relations with Russia and fledged to Putin, was the belief that it was possible to rebuild relations with Russia under Putin without a new Yalta and without legitimizing the Russian sphere of influence.
