Emperor Xi and Tsar Putin may have a lot to celebrate.
Photographer: Pavel Byrkin /AFP/Getty Images
The US Is Losing the Contest to Divide the World
Splitting the globe into spheres of influence with China and Russia is more likely to lead to war than peace.
It was a “naughty document,” Winston Churchill admitted. In October 1944, the British prime minister proposed that he and Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin avert postwar conflict by splitting the Balkan Peninsula into separate spheres. Russia would reign supreme in Romania and Bulgaria; Britain in Greece; Hungary and Yugoslavia would be divided 50-50.
The proposal was scandalous enough that Churchill suggested burning the document that he and Stalin had just agreed on. It “might be thought rather cynical” to settle the fates of millions “in such an offhand manner,” he worried. “No, you keep it,” Stalin replied.