Berlin, FRG (Weltexpress). The last part of this three-part series describes the thoughts of British economist and geostrategist Lord Skidelsky on the “sanctity of borders” dictated by the West, the rejection of a Russian sphere of influence despite the Monroe Doctrine, and the attempt to instill fear in the population in order to stimulate industry through armament.
In the “rules-based world order” invented and dictated by the US and followed by the collective West, the so-called inviolability of international borders is also enshrined as a supreme principle. But in the case of Western violations of its own sacred rules, special rules naturally apply. These reinterpret notorious “isolated cases” such as NATO’s brutal, unprovoked war of aggression against Yugoslavia and the violent separation of the Serbian province of Kosovo as not only excusable but also urgently necessary humanitarian operations, quasi charitable measures among do-gooders.
But when borders are forcibly changed somewhere in the world without Western leadership, the neoliberal Western elites are up in arms. According to Lord Robert Skidelsky, the West does not care how arbitrarily these borders were drawn in earlier years or centuries (as is the case with most states in the Middle East). Nor does it matter whether the external circumstances under which the current borders were originally drawn have fundamentally changed. All this must be considered with regard to Ukraine, about which Skidelsky points out that the borders of today’s Ukraine are the result of centuries of constant redrawing of borders.
For example, in Tsarist Russia, there was no political or administrative entity called Ukraine. At that time, the term “Ukraine” simply referred to the “borderland” in general. The territories of today’s state of Ukraine were fragmented into several administrative units at that time, in which Ukrainians lived scattered without a strong sense of their own national identity, according to the Lord, who then adds a brief historical review: “In 1922, Ukraine became a founding member of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Formally, all these republics were sovereign, but in reality the Communist Party ruled from Moscow. In 1939, Eastern Galicia (with its center in Lviv, which had been recognized as part of Poland under international law in 1923) was incorporated into Soviet Ukraine as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In 1940, Northern Bukovina and Southern Bessarabia were added, again in agreement with Nazi Germany. In 1945, Transcarpathia was annexed after the Soviet victory over Germany. And in 1954, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea to the Ukrainian Republic.”
This history reveals a “fundamental problem,” the author continues, without committing to one view or another: “When existing borders no longer fit reality for whatever reason, there is no peaceful international mechanism to change them (unlike consensual domestic changes such as the split of Czechoslovakia into Czechia and Slovakia in 1993).”
Spheres of influence and the Monroe Doctrine
According to Skidelsky, the principle of the inviolability of borders is closely linked to that of equal sovereignty—that is, the idea that every state is free to choose its own foreign and domestic policies. This means “a rejection of old concepts such as buffer zones, spheres of influence, or enforced neutrality.”
This thesis, that every state is free to choose its foreign and domestic policy, is particularly strongly advocated by US/NATO/EU circles in order to justify their expansion to Russia’s borders. In this context, however, Skidelsky points out the double standards of the US and the West as a whole. For the US has never officially abandoned its “Monroe Doctrine.” And now the Trump administration has even made it an essential part of its National Security Strategy of December 4, 2025, and explicitly reformulated it.
The “Trump amendment” of December 5 makes it clear that the American people – not “foreign nations or globalist institutions” – must be masters of their own hemisphere. It must therefore not allow its rule (over the Western Hemisphere) to be jeopardized by external powers. This certainly does not give Latin American states the opportunity to freely choose their own foreign and domestic policies.
According to Skidelsky, this means the following for the debate on Ukraine: If Washington reserves the right to determine for itself what happens in its strategic periphery, it becomes more difficult to dismiss Moscow’s claim that NATO’s eastward expansion violated the recognition of spheres of influence agreed upon after the end of the Cold War (for example, by US Secretary of State Baker: NATO will not expand one inch to the east).
Military Keynesianism
In his final chapter, Skidelsky draws on his comprehensive life’s work on the famous British economist Keynes and comes to a conclusion that will certainly surprise many. According to him, the gigantic push for military rearmament in EU countries has hidden drivers or motives that “go far beyond the officially stated security justification of warding off Russia.” This is because a trend is increasingly emerging in European political debate that links the drive for armament with a second, less openly admitted goal. Although much of the EU’s armament agenda is justified on security grounds, in practice it serves “an attempt to revive Europe’s weak productivity and ailing industrial structure.” According to Skidelsky, this is “industrial policy disguised as a defense necessity, a strategy of military Keynesianism after the pandemic and stagnation, so to speak. From this perspective, the emphasis on an existential Russian threat is not a strategic assessment, but nothing more than political camouflage for a massive industrial mobilization with which EU leaders want to restore Europe’s economic competitiveness.”
Skidelsky agrees that Europe needs new sources of growth. But attempting to smuggle in industrial policy under the guise of war preparedness—by stoking fear and exaggerating threats—is “neither honest nor acceptable.” Creating a war-like atmosphere to legitimize economic renewal may be politically convenient, but it undermines democratic debate and threatens to push Europe into permanent militarization that has little to do with the continent’s actual economic challenges.
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See related articles
- The deception behind the Ukraine debate – Series: Lord Skidelsky exposes warmongers (Part 1/3)
- The Budapest Memorandum – Series: Lord Skidelsky exposes warmongers (Part 2/3)
in WELTEXPRESS.
