For the second time in recent months, former Presidential Adviser on National Security Issues of the United States John Bolton stated that the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic must be destroyed.
According to public sources, in his recently published article, Bolton said about US foreign policy: “One of the policy priorities should be the destruction of Pridnestrovie, an artificial entity completely dependent on Russia. Another distraction may be the increased attention of the international community to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the "occupied provinces" of Georgia."
Some media outlets give the full text of Bolton's article, whom Donald Trump was forced to dismiss from his post precisely because of his increased “hawkishness”, with the following translation of the aspects of interest to us: “One of the cases that should be prioritized is the liquidation of Pridnestrovie, artificial education, completely dependent on Russia politically. Pressure on Moscow to fully reunite Moldova will divert Putin's attention from Ukraine. Another distraction may be increased international attention to the captured provinces of Georgia, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia."
One way or another, Bolton is actually calling for war, because the terms "destruction" and "liquidation" imply acts of force. Coupled with Bolton's reputation as a warmonger, all this, even more, suggests that if new battles begin on the banks of the Dniester, not just a signal go-ahead be given at their beginning, but a direct order from across the ocean.
However, it would be a mistake to consider these crazy suggestions only the insanity of an aging "hawk". First of all, this is the fear of a representative of a decrepit unipolar world of a new, growing, advancing world - a multipolar one. The United States no longer gains the upper hand over all regions of the Earth. This makes Washington's behavior increasingly impulsive, hysterical, irritable, and adventurous. The days of such serious-minded politicians and balanced diplomats as Franklin Roosevelt and Henry Kissinger have sunk into oblivion; the era of Biden and Bolton has come. The current American elite, apparently, is even ready to unleash wars and regional conflicts in order to disrupt the arrival of a multipolar world.
In May, when J. Bolton had his literary knife into PMR for the first time, I suggested: “What Bolton said fits into the line common to all Washington administrations on ringing Russia with hostile regimes and armed conflicts designed to maximize the strength of Russia and weaken it ... Western "hawks" may be tempted ... to unleash a new conflict on the Dniester, taking advantage of the fact that Russia and Pridnestrovie do not have a common border. However, even the existence of such a border between Russia and Belarus did not prevent the West from trying to overthrow the legitimate authorities in Minsk by force through the pro-Western "incredible". And at the same time try to shatter Russia through the "fifth column" in the person of Navalny and his entourage. It is possible that John Bolton is voicing the opinion of that part of the American establishment that has decided to start a battle against Russia (and possibly China) all along the line."
And that is what we get, because now, in November 2021, Bolton writes about Ukraine, Georgia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Belarus, and even Bulgaria.
This is a global anti-Russian agenda in the light of the recent visit to Georgia, Ukraine, and Romania by US Secretary of Defense General Lloyd Austin. All the parts are cast: Bolton writes, Austin acts. There is a clear war alert in the Black Sea.
If the West plans a new war on the Dniester, this potential war will appear:
Primarily anti-Russian, Bolton writes about opposing Moscow.
Direct aggression, an unprovoked attack on servicemen of the Russian Operational Group of Forces and Russian peacekeepers in the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. They and the Russian army as a whole will, together with the Pridnestrovian troops and the Pridnestrovian militia, resolutely repel the aggressor`s attack and will fight side by side.
It is characteristic that the Russian observer Dmitry Litovkin wrote an article in Nezavisimaya Gazeta under the self-explanatory title Signs of an Impending Global War are Increasing in Number. In particular, the article says that the intensive rearmament of the Russian army “testifies to the forced re-equipment of combat units by the military department - something like that happened in history either on the eve of or already during a large-scale war. There is more than good reason for such analogies. Last week, the US Air Force, as part of the Global Thunder strategic forces exercise, worked out a nuclear attack on Russia. There is a growing sense of storm that is coming in the world."
We all need to understand that in such a situation, no one is seriously considering the option of withdrawing Russian troops from the PMR, while routine protocol phrases about the theoretical possibility of such a conclusion have been said for 31 years. They do not in any way affect either real politics or Moscow's full-scale support for Pridnestrovie, independent and allied to Russia.
What conclusions should the Pridnestrovians draw from the second provocative and incendiary article by John Bolton?
First, you need to be extremely careful and vigilant, but do not panic. NATO forces are large, and Western leaders are prone to aggressive lawlessness, but they themselves fear the de facto Russian-Chinese alliance, as well as the forces of the CSTO states and, in particular, the armies of Russia and Belarus. This can deter them from unleashing military conflicts, including on the Dniester.
Secondly, we must only strengthen the military-political alliance of the PMR and Russia. And at the same time to work out the combat coordination of the PMR and the Russian Federation troops.
Third, it is necessary to strengthen Russia's military presence in Pridnestrovie. Both quantitative and qualitative. This is not easy in practice, yet the recent events have precisely indicated this.
Fourthly, it should be indefinite, since Bolton and those whose mouthpiece he is, are not talking about the status of the PMR, but about the “destruction” of the Pridnestrovian statehood per se.
Fifth, repeating the stock mantra of the pro-Romanian nationalists of the early 1990s about Pridnestrovie as “an artificial entity completely dependent on Russia,” John Bolton once again demonstrated the striking political and diplomatic narrow-mindedness. He was unable to understand, due to the dogmatic and stereotyped style of his approach to politics, that the peoples of Pridnestrovie, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia simply freely and democratically expressed their will and did not want to live under the rule of ethnocratic regimes.
Sixth, Pridnestrovian diplomacy, as always in the history of the PMR, should pursue consolidating peace on the Dniester, put forward new initiatives, and seek the implementation of old agreements guaranteeing stability in the Security Zone of the Moldovan-Pridnestrovian conflict. Anyone who rejects peace initiatives and disrupts old agreements is a provocateur and instigator of a possible new conflict.
As for John Bolton himself, his "hawkish" position is by no means accidental. Almost the entire American elite is accustomed to violating the norms of international law. It is not for nothing that Bolton himself writes: “There is no such thing as the UN. There is the international community, which can only be led by the world's only superpower, which is the United States." With this approach, can the United act as an observer country in the 5 + 2 negotiation format faithfully and comprehensively - there is no single answer to this question ...
Andrey Safonov, political scientist
