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The US move to align with Russia is prompted by fear of a Sino-Russian joint threat.
Russia, fully aware of its military vulnerability vis a vis China, may cautiously welcome the American move, assesses Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
It is by now clear that President Trump's agenda for ending the Ukraine war is a part of his larger design to move rapidly to create a US-Russia alliance as a counterweight to expanding China.
His support to the pro Russia resolution in the UN Security Council marks a 180 degree turn from earlier American moves in favour of Ukraine.
This is the exact replica of what another Republican President Richard Nixon did on February 27, 1972 when he signed a Shanghai Declaration with Communist China ending its support to the Republic of China.
The UN Security Council seat was given to the People's Republic of China and the US gave up its 22 years' support to Chiang Kaishek, its World War II ally.
All those years the US maintained the fiction that the regime in occupation of the island of Formosa (Taiwan) represented the 'real' China.
The US motivation in taking that U turn was with a clear aim to align with Communist China against the Soviet Union.
During the Cold War China was more virulent against the USA but that did not deter it in embracing it. This time round it is Russia.
In the current situation Ukraine finds itself in a position similar to what Taiwan found itself in 1972.
And like the US did for Taiwan, it will not totally abandon Ukraine but force it to compromise with Russia.
Like in 1972, the US will rapidly move towards creating a strategic alliance with Russia.
Successive American presidents have been talking about pivot to the Asia Pacific and a China first policy.
The logical corollary to that was to have peace and stability in Europe.
In any case, as the Ukraine war has shown, the much weakened Russia no longer prosed a viable military threat to NATO.
The moves to expand NATO eastward and threaten Russia played into Chinese hands and Russia was forced to move close to China.
Russians are well aware that they face a future threat to their Far East and Siberia from China. But the aggressive American policy left it no option.
Like in 1972, the US separated China from the Soviet Union, this time round it is trying to separate Russia from aligning too closely with China.
What took the USA so long to understand this obvious logic?
The answer to that lies in understanding the influence of the China lobby in the US, lingering suspicion of Russia as a legacy of the Cold War, misinterpreting the collapse of the Soviet Union and its sources of strength and sheer lazy analysis.
My own interaction with the American think-tanks over the last 40 years has convinced me that the Americans by and large are disdainful of history.
Even at the policy making level there was inadequate appreciation of the effect of the loss of Central Asian Republics on Russian power.
In 1990s the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern and Central Europe collapsed with the dramatic demolishing of the Berlin Wall.
But soon thereafter the nearly 100-year-old Tsarist empire in Central Asia consisting of all the stans (Uzbekistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan) plus Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia was dismantled.
The decolonisation of Central Asia flew below the media radar.
The historical truth is that it was NOT just Russia that defeated Nazi Germany in the Second World War but the entire Soviet Union played a major role.
Uzbekistan with a population of 6 million contributed 1.4 million soldiers to the war effort and lost over a million people due to the war.
The contribution of Central Asia in the Allies' victory over Germany has seldom been acknowledged.
It is this amnesia that made sure that the West did not fathom that Russia minus the old empire was militarily weak and no threat to Europe.
It took the Ukraine war to show how weak Russia is compared to the erstwhile Soviet Union.
The American corporate lobby and big business were the greatest beneficiary of China's rise as they had moved most of their production there.
It suited this lobby to continue to create a Russian threat bogey and divert attention from China.
My interactions with American think-tanks over the years left me with an impression that most of them have still not adjusted to a world where Russia was no longer the big bad wolf that they had pictured during the Cold War.
President Trump is finally implementing the much talked about pivot to Asia in letter and spirit.
The motivation is provided by the rise of BRICS nations and potential threat to the dollar economy.
As the 21st century advances, it is becoming increasingly clear that China's economic muscle is getting converted into raw military power, the only field in which the USA holds an advantage over China.
The US move to align with Russia is prompted by fear of a Sino-Russian joint threat. Russia, fully aware of its military vulnerability vis a vis China, may cautiously welcome the American move.
India has to be nimble footed to adjust itself to the new reality as it did in the 1970s when in response to the US-China detente it conducted Pokran I in 1974!
Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) is a military historian whose earlier columns can be read here.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com