A Proposed Treaty of Peace with the Soviet Union

Analyzing which of my proposed 1986 peace terms ended up being implemented by the Soviets along with links to my most recent media interviews about the increasing threat of World War III with Russia

Back in 1986, I formulated a plan to defeat the Soviet Empire using an economic blockade, a trade war, fomenting and supporting a clandestine organized resistance in the Eastern bloc, and increasing the power and usage of Radio Free Europe to expand its range to the republics of the Soviet empire to deluge their country with information and education about freedom, etc. I then drafted the terms of a proposed peace treaty with the Soviet Union during the heady days of the Cold War about five and a half years before the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991. It served as a model peace agreement--a 'wish list' if you will--between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) which would establish a just peace with what I believed to be relatively lenient terms toward our former enemy at the time, but in retrospect seem rather harsh, in the event we were successful in defeating it.

I had spent a considerable amount of time thinking what a Soviet collapse would entail and decided to try to gather them all together in one document. I had foreseen a break up of the USSR only in consequence of a Third World War probably including the use of nuclear weapons. However, I admit that I did not foresee that the USSR would break up in accordance with a deliberate strategic plan by Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, likely for the purpose of ‘erasing the image of the enemy’ and encouraging the U.S. to unilaterally disarm itself of its military might, most importantly over ninety percent of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which is exactly what happened.

This peace treaty included many provisions which were implemented by the former Soviet Empire such as abolition of the Soviet Communist party, independence for the various former Soviet republics, and some provisions which were not implemented such as punishment of Communist and KGB tyrants and human rights violators. I have detailed which planks of my 24-point proposed peace treaty below ended up being implemented and which were not.

1. The KGB and Border Guards shall be disbanded.

The KGB was broken up into about four subsidiary organizations in 1992 which have assumed and continued to carry out the KGB's functions, missions, and objectives, but the fact that this change is only cosmetic can be easily verified by the fact that the same high level officials that led the KGB before the Soviet collapse continued to lead its successor organs for several years thereafter. Three of the successor security organizations of the KGB were consolidated into the FSB a couple of decades ago. The remaining one, known as the SVR, which along with the GRU is tasked with the responsibility for international espionage, remains independent. The KGB Border Guards were never disbanded. They were just renamed the FSB Border Guards and continue to have 170,000 men still under arms.

2. Full representative government and individual freedoms will be given to all citizens of the former Soviet republics. They will become constitutional republics with their constitutions based on the U.S. Constitution and modified for acceptance by the native populations of each republic. Emigration from the former Soviet republics to be permitted.

While all the former Soviet republics were granted their independence from 1990-1991, none of their constitutions were based on the U.S. constitution and many of them are not free today—Russia, Belarus and Ukraine being the most notable examples as they are all currently ruled by autocratic leaders.

3. Soviet nuclear weapons will be handed over to the United States or destroyed.

No Soviet weapons were handed over to the U.S. after the fall of the Soviet Union. While most Russian nuclear weapons were destroyed, Russia downsized its nuclear arsenal at a far lower rate than the U.S. did, destroying about 82% of its Cold War arsenal of 44,000 nuclear weapons while the U.S. destroyed about 92% of its over 22,000 nuclear weapons it had at the end of the Cold War.

4. Russia will revert to pre-1939 boundaries but will be allowed to keep west Ukraine and west Byelorussia (now Belarus) which it took from Poland in 1939.

This clause seems to conflict with Article 5 below. I think my intention for this plank was to outline Russia’s maximum possible post-Cold War western boundary forcing it to minimally grant independence to the Baltic states and Moldova while returning Kaliningrad to Germany.

5. Each former Soviet republic will be given the option of remaining in the Union or becoming independent states. Each republic will decide this question by a plebiscite of all its citizens.

As noted under Article 2 above, this clause was fully implemented during votes held between 1990-1991.

6.         No reparations or annexations will be implemented against Russia other than the restoration of its pre-1939 national boundaries already mentioned. Military occupation of Russian territory by U.S. and other NATO forces will be minimal and short-lived. The Communist Party and KGB ruling apparatus shall be dismantled.

This clause was mostly not implemented as while there were no reparations levied or annexations carried out against Russia, Russia was not returned to its pre-1939 borders, suffering a return to its 1918 western and southwestern borders under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which was imposed by Imperial Germany against defeated Soviet Russia in 1918, before Germany was herself defeated after which the treaty was rescinded. For obvious reasons, there was no US or NATO occupation of Russian territory as Russia was never defeated militarily thus no conditional surrender document was ever signed. While the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was outlawed in late 1991, the Soviet Union itself was disbanded in December of that year so it didn’t really matter. Communist parties have remained legals in most Soviet republics including in Russia where the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has formed the main opposition party to Yeltsin’s and Putin’s ruling parties since the Soviet Union collapsed.

7.         No international war-crimes tribunals will be held. Soviet Government and military leaders will be tried only if the citizens of the former Soviet republic in which they claim residence so choose--this includes Communist party leaders. Individual crimes committed by members of the Soviet military should be left up to the citizens of the republic in which they reside to prosecute, if at all.  The prosecution of Communist government leaders, KGB, military, or gulag guards for alleged war crimes or atrocities committed or ordered by them under their tenure will be left entirely to the new Russian government.

This clause was implemented as no war crimes tribunals were held for Soviet mass murderers. A few Communist leaders were executed by their own countrymen as was the case with the Communist dictator of Romania. Nicolae Ceaușescu on December 25, 1989.

8.         Soviet troops shall withdraw from all territories outside the new Soviet boundaries which will be decided by the self-determination of the various former Soviet republics. Russia must cease giving military aid to and/or subverting other countries. Contingents of troops from the various republics along with their equipment shall be returned to their republics if they decide to become independent. All aid to terrorist and guerilla movements will cease. Spies and guerillas, who are not protected by international law, or the Geneva convention may be dealt with as the country against whom they have acted sees fit.

Russian troops were withdrawn from most but not all former Soviet republics and vassal states. Russian troops completed their withdrawals from eastern Germany and other former members of the Warsaw Pact, including Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1994. Russian troops remained in the breakaway Republic of Transnistria which is nominally part of Moldova as well as various other former Soviet republics primarily in Central Asia. Russia has also deployed troops to Syria and sent military advisors to Communist Cuba and Communist Venezuela. Russia has continued to send military aid to various allies. The Soviet military units recruited from the territories of former Soviet republics became part of the armed forces of those newly independent states with few exceptions.

9.         Russia will not attempt to reconquer her former republics and its former republics will not war against each other to gain power or territory.

The provisions of this clause were honored by the Russian Federation until it intervened militarily in Georgia following Georgia’s attacks on the separatist republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in August 2008. This was followed by the Russian occupation of Crimea days after the CIA-backed February 2014 Maidan coup against the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. The signing of a strategic partnership agreement between the US and Ukraine making it a de facto NATO member and the refusal of the Biden administration to issue a written guarantee to Russia that Ukraine would never become a formal NATO member provoked the Russians to invade Ukraine again in February 2022.

10.       A limited number of elite NATO troops will be stationed at key points in Russia along with an overseeing commission composed of representatives from the NATO countries who will see that the terms of this treaty are implemented. They will take a low-profile and will not stay longer than 2-3 years or until the major and substantive terms of this treaty have been complied with. These troops and observers will provide security and ensure a peaceful transition of power from the Communists to duly elected representatives and will leave the individual republics as soon as representative governments have been elected there.

This clause is essentially an extrapolation of Article 6. As stated previously, NATO troops never occupied any part of Russian territory following the collapse of the USSR and no peace treaty with the Soviet Union was ever signed or implemented as they were not defeated militarily in war but rather collapsed voluntarily.

11.       Those arms industries in the Soviet Union largely built with the assistance of the U.S. and her allies shall be dismantled and returned to the nation which had the largest share in their construction. Selected Soviet tanks, aircraft, missiles, and air-defense systems to be sent to NATO countries--only the latest--T-80's, MiG-29's, etc.

This clause was never implemented. All Soviet arms industries either built with US assistance or stolen from Germany after its defeat in the Second World War remained under Russian control except for a few high-tech weapon industries which were sold to and shipped to the People’s Republic of China. Also, no Soviet weapons were sent from Russia to NATO member countries though former Warsaw Pact members--Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria--retained large numbers of Soviet weapon systems even after they joined NATO and of course Germany inherited thousands of them from the East German armed forces following German reunification in October 1990.

12        All political prisoners are to be freed and the gulag system disbanded.

Before the Soviet Union collapsed, the Soviets retained approximately one million mostly political prisoners in the so-called Gulag Archipelago. The Russian gulags were never disbanded, merely renamed “penal colonies.” Some Soviet political prisoners were released but many never were. 

13.       Russian satellite states will become fully democratic in Eastern Europe, Cuba, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Kampuchea, Laos, etc, and will submit to terms similar to Russia. All Russian aid and assistance to these countries--economic and military will cease.

This clause was only partially implemented. Most Eastern European states became democratic at one point or another with the notable exception of Belarus which has been led by Belarussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko since 1994. However, Cuba, Angola, Mozambique, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos have remained largely Communist controlled while South Africa has been Communist led since 1994. None of these countries accepted terms of surrender. Afghanistan and Ethiopia are no longer Communist-controlled. As stated previously, Russian aid to its allies has continued.

14.       All subversion and espionage activities to steal Western technological secrets will cease. Lists of Soviet spies and agents worldwide to be exposed will be provided by the former Soviet leaders to the Western Allies. These will be prosecuted for their crimes if they have committed acts of violence or subversion against one or more Western nations. Espionage information will be returned to the United States or the nation from which it was stolen. Non-U.S. spies will leave the country and be returned to their country of origin.

The terms of this article were never implemented. Russia has retained an expansive espionage network of GRU and SVR agents against the U.S. and its allies including for the purposes of stealing Western military and military dual-use technology. Lists of Soviet spies were never provided to the West and, accordingly, with few exceptions, they were never expelled or prosecuted.

15.       All nuclear and bacteriological weapons production facilities will be closed and dismantled and either shipped to the U.S. or destroyed.  All bacteriological weapons will be destroyed.

This clause was never implemented. Russia continues to maintain an offensive biological warfare program and may still possess thousands of tons of biological weapons in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972.  Not only have Russian nuclear weapons production facilities not been closed but they have been expanded since the collapse of the Soviet Union enabling Russia to produce up to 3,000 nuclear warheads a year while the U.S. is struggling to increase its nuclear warhead production to a mere 80 a year.

16.       Trade and economic aid between Russia and her allies and the West will be restored when full democratization has been achieved and the other terms of the treaty are well into implementation.

Trade between Russia and western countries increased greatly following the demise of the Soviet Union as did western aid to Russia. However, following Russia’s invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022, the US and over thirty other Western countries have enacted severe economic sanctions on Russia, drastically reducing bilateral trade while also cutting off all assistance. While Russia has had democratic elections, they are not believed to be free and fair as U.S. elections used to be.

17.       Communist cronies in the armed forces will be retired (Applies to all Communist states).  This article applies to those who were politically reliable to the Communists‑‑promoted on such a basis.  Rebellious or renegade generals shall be imprisoned.

This clause was never implemented. Former Communists continue to lead Russia today and former Communists continue to lead some former Soviet republics, most notably Belarus. Putin himself is a former KGB Lieutenant Colonel and former member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the KGB was the protector of the Communist ruling elite. Today, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation constitutes the main official opposition party to Putin’s ruling United Russia Party.

18.       Alliances will be concluded between the U.S. and Russia and her old republics individually upon the concurrence of both parties.

Sadly, this article was never implemented. While the U.S. won the Cold War against the Soviet Union, it lost the post-Cold War peace by violating our guarantees which we issued to Russia in 1990 to not expand NATO eastward in return for Soviet agreement to allow German reunification within NATO. If the West was dead set on expanding NATO, eastward we should have instead invited Russia, Ukraine, and former Warsaw Pact countries to join NATO simultaneously by 1995 to prevent Russia from forming a strategic partnership with China a year later. Had we done so, the U.S. and Russia would still be allies today and Russia would never have felt the need to invade any of its neighbors following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China would be isolated and contained.

While present circumstances make it no longer possible to accept Russia or Ukraine into NATO, it is not too late to negotiate a mutual security agreement with Russia that will serve to ensure the safety, security and stability of Europe as will be discussed in my upcoming report entitled “America in Danger--What U.S. Leaders Must do to Avert War with the Sino-Russian Alliance and Ensure our National Survival” which will be published at www.emptaskforce.us as well as in the upcoming book “Catastrophe Now—America’s Last Chance to Prevent an EMP Disaster.” Instead, U.S leaders have spent the past fifteen years attempting to expand NATO eastward into Ukraine, provoking Russia to invade, and have refused all Russian attempts to negotiate a compromise peace settlement to end the conflict, thus prolonging the war unnecessarily. 

19.       Germany shall be reunited under a democracy and the old German lands in the boundaries of pre‑1914 Germany will be restored in the East including Silesia, Pomerania, Danzig, and the northern half of East Prussia, Brandenburg, parts of Posen, and West Prussia, excepting majority Slav areas as of 1914, which shall remain with Poland.

While Germany was reunited under democratic rule, the rest of this clause was sadly never implemented. To obtain Soviet support for German reunification in 1990, Germany had to pledge not to seek any of its lost eastern territories annexed by Poland, Lithuania and the Czech Republic and the Soviet Union at the end of the Second World War. Poland also refused all requests by German Chancellor Helmuth Kohl to discuss the return of any of the illegally annexed German territories which Germany never agreed to cede given the fact no peace treaty was ever signed ending the war between Germany and the Allied Powers. 

20.       Members of the armed forces will be given the choice whether to remain in the military or return to their families. The draft shall be abolished.

This clause was never implemented. Russia has retained a draft continuously since the collapse of the Soviet Union, albeit with changing terms of service.

21.       Weapons and some arms industries will be removed from Russia to (Western) allied countries which aren't necessary for home defense.  More than adequate arms and factories will be left to defend Russia and her republics against hostile uprisings or against any conceivable foreign power who would attack her.  These weapons include warships, aircraft, and tanks.  Over 50% of current military weapons and war production material will remain in the ethnic state of origin in the Soviet Union's current boundaries. (ex. 50% of the weapons in the Byelorussian Miliary District will remain in Byelorussia). Armaments shall be placed in very well‑guarded government storehouses to be used by the military.  They are not to be left lying around.  If the Russian government can't find a decent place for them, they will be removed from Russia.  States leaving the USSR will be given adequate defensive arms from captured Soviet weapons and a sufficient tank and air force for their size, while not being strengthened out of proportion with Russia's own military might.

No weapons were ever removed from Russia by the U.S. and its NATO allies due to the fact the Soviets did not surrender. However, the former Soviet republics did retain virtually all the armaments industries and heavy weapons which had been stationed in their newly independent nations by the Soviets. The exceptions of course were the Soviet-era nuclear weapons which had been stationed in Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan which were returned to the Russian Federation, as the legally recognized successor state of the USSR, under the Budapest Memorandum of 1994.

22.       The Communist party will be outlawed in all conquered nations. Those who advocate treason or violent overthrow of their own or other governments will be imprisoned. (It is recognized that Point number 7 of this article will not be able to be enforced by the U.S., after Russia's legitimate government is set up, but it will be strongly suggested to their new leaders).

This provision was never implemented. Communist parties remain legal in all former Soviet republics except for Ukraine as it was one of eleven opposition political parties that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky banned in March 2022 as part of a concerted effort to crush his political opposition and essentially establish a one-party police state using Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a pretext for his dictatorial moves.

23.       'Free Russian' military forces will provide security for a possible coup against the new government by the Communists. The new Russia must be protected against subversives who would overthrow the newly democratic government.

I foresaw that if the Soviet Union collapsed, the Communists might attempt to retake power by force and that the Russian Federation would need to employ Russian troops to quell any such attempted coup against the post-Soviet Russian government. In August 1991, there was a reported coup against Gorbachev by Soviet hardliners to prevent his proposed “New Union Treaty” which would have transformed the Soviet Union into a “Union of Sovereign States” from coming into effect and Russian President Boris Yeltsin rallied the Russian people to oppose it. Rather than halting the Soviet Union’s collapsed the coup served to accelerate it. Two years later, while I serving as the acting U.S. Army S-2 military intelligence officer for my armor unit at Fort Knox, Yeltsin ordered Russian troops to attack the Russian White House which housed the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation and the Congress of People’s Deputies in October 1993 after both houses of the Russian parliament had attempted to impeach and remove Yeltsin as President.

24.       American nationals who engaged in spying, espionage or traitorous activities will be prosecuted severely and given fair trials.

This provision was never implemented though some U.S. nationals have been prosecuted for committing espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union and its Russian successor state.

Conclusion to my Draft Treaty of Peace with the Soviet Union

I am willing to see Russia as a strong legitimate continental power with a large conventional (non‑nuclear) military with a full assortment of weaponry and no limitations on conventional arms. It would no longer be a police state, but a free nation.  She could also retain great influence in her various republics, but she must cease providing international military aid as well as subverting other countries. I have never feared a strong and independent Russia, but I believe that it is necessary that she undergo a decommunization program and true democratization with a U.S. style constitution, in order that Communism be rooted out of her. Then, she may subsequently be trusted to keep her treaties and agreements, cease subverting the independence of other nations, stop funding of terrorist states and organizations, and refrain from a clandestine policy of aggression against the West designed to produce the defeat of the Western nations and their conquest by World Communism, by any means necessary.

My next article, “Why Did the Soviet Union Really Collapse?” will address why the popular misconceptions regarding the reasons for the collapse of the USSR back in 1991 are incorrect.

Recent Media Interviews:

March 29, 2023--Worldview Weekend Hour Hosted by Brannon Howse on Lindell TV discussing our new book. “Catastrophe Now—America’s Last Chance to Protect against EMP Attack” much of which I wrote. Here is a link to the interview.

March 22, 2023--Worldview Weekend Hour Hosted by Brannon Howse on Lindell TV discussing what Chinese President Xi told Russian President Putin in Moscow and the increasing threat of a crippling Sino-Russian cyber-space first strike against the U.S. Here is a link to the interview.

March 20, 2023--Worldview Weekend Hour Hosted by Brannon Howse on Lindell TV discussing the Putin-Xi summit this week in Moscow, North Korean nuclear missile threats against the US, the increasing threats of Russian and Chinese cyber and EMP attack and the looming threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Here is a link to the interview.

Upcoming Media Appearances:

April 5, 2023—Stew Peters Show discussing Biden’s latest Ukrainian military aid package, the dumping of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and why Biden’s war against Russia in Ukraine has proven to be an unmitigated geopolitical disaster for the U.S. as well as for Ukraine itself.

April 6, 2023—Canadian Prepper Podcast discussing the increasing threat of war with Communist China and North Korea with China mobilizing their entire country and economy for war as well as China’s Great Underground Wall.

April 7-8^th--I will be speaking on Friday, April 7^th from 2:00pm to 2:45 pm and on April 8th from 11:45am to 12:30pm on Saturday April 8th at the Firm Foundation Expo being held at the Mountain America Expo Center (MAEC) 9575 S. State Street in Sandy, Utah.

April 8th—Interview with Jon Twitchell on the Republic Broadcasting Network to discuss the increasing threat of war with Russia over Ukraine and with China over Taiwan.

© David T. Pyne 2023

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He currently serves as Deputy Director of National Operations for the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and is a contributor to Dr. Peter Pry’s book “Blackout Warfare.” He is also a co-author of the new book “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster." He also serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.