Lost in a haze of arrogance and naïveté, American and European attachés meeting with the Russians at Geneva this week appeared confounded by their immediate geopolitical reality — that the old rules of realist politics still apply.

For the week of intense negotiations has accomplished little other than disclose the delusions of the West. Moscow flexed its political muscles as it continued to mass troops on the border with Ukraine.

At the same time, Western diplomats rambled about a “rules-based international order” and “stable relations,” and pondered President Putin’s commitment to global diplomacy, of which he has none.

For Americans, part of the folly lies in clinging to the belief that the Cold War ended when the Iron Curtain fell. In demarcating a pre- and post-1989 era, a premature victory was declared.

Yet from Moscow’s perspective there was no “end of history,” as Francis Fukuyama once put it, but a continuity — jagged, no doubt, and demanding reflection, as political traditions do, but a continuity nonetheless.

Moscow’s quibbling with the West is then not about Ukraine or NATO, but about a project that aims to reinstall by any means necessary the political and security order of the Soviet period.

It’s an ambition to reestablish a web of tributary states that approximate the members of the former Warsaw Pact and that are unabashedly beholden to it. Nothing less than a modern-day era of Giereks, Husáks, and Kádárs.

On this, Western leaders have grasped the wrong end of the stick. As Secretary of State John Kerry said during Mr. Putin’s 2014 invasion of Crimea, “You don’t just in the 21^st century behave in 19^th century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped up pretext.” Yet Mr. Putin did — and does.

A similar lack of seriousness regarding Mr. Putin’s mission ails President Biden and his whole camarilla. As American envoys were working overtime to feign political fortitude in Geneva, the administration was lobbying on Capitol Hill to thwart sanctions against the Kremlin’s Nordstream 2 pipeline.

In an impressively short amount of time, Mr. Putin has successfully propped up pliant regimes in Syria and Belarus. Through the peace agreement that Moscow brokered between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020, he extended his influence over the South Caucasus.

In the Balkans, Mr. Putin continues to fan the flames of conflict so as to warrant Russian intervention. Under the umbrella of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, he last week intervened in Kazakhstan and ensured the survival of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and his pro-Moscow regime. Mr. Putin will likely deepen his interests there.

In Ukraine, Mr. Putin has been chipping away at state sovereignty since at least 2014. With the West ostensibly admitting that this week’s talks are “the best it can do” against Russian aggression, Mr. Putin could soon put that assertion to the test.

The question now is not whether warfare comes next, but what form of warfare. Mr. Putin’s decision will depend on what he thinks will advance his objectives. Perhaps something akin to the Gerasimov doctrine first, with a military attack to follow. Perhaps the reverse. Mr. Putin is in a position where he has options.

To a degree, the Kremlin’s eventual success depends on Beijing. Mr. Putin needs Communist China to counterbalance the West. As has been previously observed in this column, he now seems to believe that the benefits of closer ties with Beijing outweigh the inevitable costs.

For Beijing, there also was no “end of history” in 1989 — no conclusion to the realpolitik that punctured the era. Of that, the Tiananmen Square massacre was the Chinese Communist Party’s horrid reminder to a West that had preemptively declared victory.

Like Moscow, Beijing has long been engaged in a historic project. It has regained Macau, betrayed Britain, brutally suppressed Hong Kong, and reasserted economic dominance over Outer Mongolia.

It is menacing Tibet and maneuvering for a potential invasion of Taiwan. The resulting geography hearkens to the tributary system of the imperial era, in which subordinate states knew which lines not to cross in terms of the emperor’s interests.

The communist mandarins in Beijing have no doubt been carefully watching this week’s proceedings. They likely perceive the results, or lack thereof, encouraging: threaten conflict, assert improbable demands, engage a divided West in talks, leave emboldened, and proceed at will. Rinse and repeat.

So, a week of deliberations that was intended to quell Russian ambitions has instead accomplished the reverse — and more. The global political realignment that had so far been unfolding steadily has now been accelerated. Until Western leaders emerge from their fog of historical delusion, it seems that all we can do is sit, wait, and watch.

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Ms. Gadzala-Tirziu is a contributing editor of the Sun.

Image: Russian and U.S. flags at the United States Mission in Geneva, Switzerland, January 10, 2022. Reuters/Denis Balibouse