West Must Adopt Morgenthau Plan to Deal with Post-Russian States, Baku Historian Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 9 – The demise of the Russian Federation is now inevitable, Baku historian Dhafarli Khagani says; and the West must make plans now for coping with the various ethnic Russian and non-Russian states likely to emerge in its place. He urges that it look something like the Morgenthau Plan that was proposed but not adopted for post-Nazi Germany.

            At present, the Baku State University scholar and pro-Ukrainian activist (turan.az/ext/news/2022/2/free/politics_news/en/1006.htm/001) says, it is all too obvious that the West has not recognized the inevitability of the coming demise of the Russian Federation let alone decided what it should do when that happens (idel-ural.org/archives/razdroblennaya-rossiya-riski-i-perspektivy/).

            Khagani says that unless plans are made and made now, “the inevitable collapse of Russia will entail tragic consequences” because the West won’t be ready. Fortunately, he continues, there is a model plan on which Western governments can draw: the plan Henry Morgenthau, US Secretary of the Treasury, advanced for dealing with Germany after Hitler.

            Although never implemented, that plan’s provisions could be usefully applied to the Russian Federation, the Baku scholar says. The Morgenthau Plan specifically called not only for the partition of Germany but its disarmament and the transfer of its industrial capacity to neighboring countries.

            Such a plan for the post-Soviet states and especially any ethnic Russian one centered on Moscow will never be adopted. But the fact that it is even being proposed highlights three important realities: first, ever more people are confident that the Russian Federation will fall apart; second, ever more are convinced that getting rid of Putin won’t be sufficient.

            And third, ever more people especially those in the countries around Russia now and in the future believe that their only protection against yet another recrudescence of Russian imperialism would be a highly invasive Western policy designed to geld any future Russian state and force it to turn away from the revanchism that has regularly characterized it up to now.