In February 1991, officials of the Warsaw Pact gathered for a final meeting in Budapest.

When the doors opened and Soviet officials and officers emerged with delegates from the five other member states, there was an expression of barely suppressed hilarity on the faces of many. A journalist approached one Central European delegation to ask why.

The officials could barely contain themselves. “As the meeting was ending,” one said, “the Russians said there was one final thing – no one had said thank you.”

“Thank you? Asked one delegate. “What for”

“A thank you for keeping the peace all these years.”

Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians, whose countries had been invaded by Russian tanks, were said to have led the snorts of derision and suppressed laughter. This was too much for the Russians, who packed up their papers and left.

The death of the unloved Warsaw Pact marked the ultimate conclusion of the 1945 agreement in Yalta, Crimea, between Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill to agree on the new map of Europe just before the end of World War II. This agreement de facto carved the post-World War II world into spheres of influence, which perhaps at the time seemed like a reasonable solution for long-term stability.

Except it wasn’t. Because chiseling the world into zones isn’t just about dividing territory – it’s about carving up populations, and history has shown over and over that people want to live in free societies, not dictatorships. Spheres of influence deny a say to the smaller nations consigned to swallow deals made about them, without them. As with the Warsaw Pact states, many refuse to consent.

After Yalta, the US, which emerged from World War II as the leader of the free world, realized that giving up to dictators in countries whose people wanted to live in freedom was not in the US national interest either – why give away your friends and allies to your enemy?

Now, Vladimir Putin demands a new Yalta, a meeting of world powers to carve up the world again – “a mechanism [can be created to] allow the leading powers to remain within the framework of diplomacy in resolving their differences,” he said in 2020.

Putin has proposed the three-way meeting of China, Russia and the US for November 18-19 at a summit in Shenzhen, China. That’s because Russia’s ambitions have always extended far beyond its war against Ukraine – in other words, far beyond territory. Putin hopes to break the old world order and build a new one in its place. Xi Jinping holds similar ambitions, complaining that the post-1945 settlement gave too much power to the US and its democratic allies to impose their values – in his view – on the world.

As a bonus, such a deal would allow Xi to advance the idea that he is a peace-maker, while also aiding Russia’s war effort against Ukraine, even as it rendered Moscow ever more dependent on Beijing.

For Trump, of course, a deal seemingly would fulfil his election pledge to end the Ukraine war, and he hopes, usher in a new era of cooperation and deals with Russia, so balancing its increasing reliance on China.

Win-win, then? No, absolutely not. Instead, it would mark a false dawn and present a real danger for US power and global standing. It would repeat the original mistake of Yalta.

A global order based on spheres of interest only works if the great powers refrain from interfering in each other’s security arrangements with smaller states. Is that a price the US is willing to pay?

The Kremlin would certainly include the South Caucasus in its zone. Would the US be willing to abandon its new policy in the region, including the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP)? And what about East Asia, home to explosive economic growth and island bases that constrain China? Could a global power like the US be content to limit itself to the Western Hemisphere?

The US is a truly global power in the way that Russia certainly isn’t, and in a way that China aspires to but hasn’t reached.

The US network of allies in Europe and Asia is an asset no rival has. For example, it provides an extraordinary and incomparable network of bases, intelligence, defense industrial capacity, markets, and investment (amounting to $4 trillion in Europe, about 60% of all US foreign investment).

A Russia-China sanctioned deal on Ukraine would be unlikely to end the war, certainly not in a sustainable way. But even if it did, the democracies would pay a real price. The US and Europe would suffer a loss of moral authority for pushing Ukraine toward a bad deal; it would lose a battle-hardened military unmatched in the West; it would lose Ukraine’s nimble and world-beating tech and defense industries that should be central to a more secure and prosperous Europe; it would “gain” a revived and experienced Russian army pawing the ground on NATO’s borders; and millions of new refugees fleeing the Russian yoke.

It would, unquestionably, be heralded as the beginning of a new global system and a division into spheres of influence. Having secured a major strategic goal, the nuclear-armed midget that is Russia would seek to move onto others in its imagined sphere of influence.

Putin made this clear in his December 2021 ultimatum to the US and Europe. He demands their departure from the old Warsaw Pact bloc and its return to the Kremlin’s sphere of influence. There is no question that this would amount to a historic surrender of power and influence, and of almost 40 years of work by the US to cement democracy, extend its influence and secure extensive trade links.

As for China, it would send a disastrous message. Beijing is watching how we handle Ukraine very carefully and will proceed on Taiwan and its other strategic goals accordingly. With Ukraine handed to Russia, would we really be willing to lose Taiwan – and thereby – the first island chain that constrains Chinese expansionism?

The message from such historic errors would be unmistakable to China and its partner-in-arms in the Kremlin. They would push even harder, and why not if it produces such extraordinary benefits?

Russia’s shadow war campaign against Europe is already spreading elsewhere. Increasingly aggressive sub-threshold attacks are multiplying against US allies around the world. We should expect it to become super-charged.

Global carve-ups do not work. They simply lay the ground for future dispute and war. This approach did not work for Spain and Portugal, arrogantly seeking to divide the known world in the 15^th century, it didn’t work in agreements like the 1916 Sykes-Picot deal to demarcate the Middle East and it certainly did not work at Yalta, where millions of people across Eastern and Central Europe were consigned to half a century of Russian darkness.

The alternative? Alliances between countries with similar but not the same values. The old order may need replacement, but there are no good answers to be found in Moscow or Beijing.