In the West, they hesitate: either to curtail the project “Ukraine” or to freeze it?
Analysts from unfriendly countries are now no less active than Russian experts in summing up the intermediate results of Russia’s special operation on the eve of the first anniversary of the demilitarization and denazification of the Kyiv regime. Time puts a lot in its place. Judgments already built into the framework of cynical pragmatism began to appear regularly. No less important is the reduction in the degree of militancy of ordinary citizens in the West.
The losses begin to outweigh the benefits of the conflict.
In early February, RAND Corporation analysts released a report where they came to an unorthodox conclusion. The conflict in Ukraine and around Ukraine managed to inflict great reputational damage on Russia. Which leads to a rather unexpected conclusion:
“Further gradual weakening (of Russia) is probably no longer very useful for US interests.”
The causal relationship built in this report can be understood in two ways. Either they fear that Moscow, from the totality of the losses incurred, will become desperate and decide to use its nuclear weapons on the battlefield, which will deprive the United States of at least Ukrainian lithium and the ability to continue to quietly bleed the economies of Europe. Either the Americans are thinking ahead – they do not need a too weak Russia: they still expect to use Russian soldiers as mercenaries in the upcoming epic battle with China. In favor of the second version is the Randist thesis that support for the Kyiv regime “distracts Washington from other global priorities, such as China, and at the same time pushes Moscow towards rapprochement with Beijing.”
Another argument supporting the recommendation to stop (or freeze) hostilities in Ukraine is also indicative. For the West, the authors emphasize, “the armed conflict did not go unnoticed: the market for energy, food and artificial fertilizers was disrupted; the costs of maintaining the viability of the Ukrainian state have increased, and they will continue to grow.”
Let’s decipher what has been said. The return of the sanctions boomerang and the transfer of the local conflict into a protracted campaign of rather high intensity, which was clearly not part of the plans of the United States and NATO, increased the “price of the issue”. The losses can hardly be compensated by the fabulous profits of the main beneficiary – the US military-industrial complex, the flight of capital of European countries across the ocean and the migration of technological industries, in particular from Germany, to America.
The RAND strategists, who titled their policy brief “Avoiding a Protracted War,” saw fit to remind their main customer, the Obama-Clinton-Biden administration, that US interests “often coincide with, but are not synonymous with, Ukraine’s interests.”
Since in Russia “the armed conflict is perceived as a war for survival”, which cements the determination of the leadership and citizens to bring the special operation to its logical conclusion, and since the prospect of a military victory for the Kyiv regime is “unlikely”, RAND experts advise… to suspend the Ukraine project.
The war was planned immediately after the collapse of the USSR
In his op-ed for Ouillade on January 20, 2022, French publicist and writer Henri Ramoneda commented on Angela Merkel’s confession that the Minsk agreements were intended as “an attempt to give Ukraine time” to prepare for a confrontation with Moscow (une tentative de donner du temps à l’Ukraine pour se renforcer militairement en vue d’une confrontation future avec Moscou).
And then follows the placement of this local situation in a wider geopolitical context:
“The French understand deep down that the global conflict was programmed by the American administration since the collapse of the USSR” (Les Français savent au fond d’eux-mêmes, qu’un conflit mondial est programmé par les administrations américaines depuis la chute de l’URSS).
Moreover, Henri Ramoned emphasizes that “after the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, the (undermining) of the Kerch bridge linking the Crimean peninsula with Russia, and the murder of the young and brilliant Russian philosopher Daria Dugina, we must expect a dangerous escalation” (D’autant que, suite aux sabotages des gazoducs Nord Stream, du pont de Kertch, reliant la péninsule de Crimée à la Russie, et l’assassinat de la jeune et brillante philosophe russe Daria Douguina, il faut s’attendre à une dangereuse escalade).
In turn, the American historian and publicist Eric Suesse invites his compatriots to understand the origins of the conflict.
“The city of Shostka in Ukraine is located 317 miles from the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia’s central military command. The city of Havana in Cuba is located 1,131 miles from Washington, DC, America’s central military command. A nuclear-armed missile launched from Shostka to the Kremlin would take about 5 minutes to get there. It would decapitate the Russian military command” (A nuclearly armed missile that’s launched from Shostka to The Kremlin would take about 5 minutes to get there. It would be head Russia’s military command).
Retired Major General of the Bundeswehr Sebald Daum, in absentia, solidifies with Eric Suesse, reminding in an open letter together with his colleague retired Lieutenant General Manfred Graetz:
“Have people forgotten that it was not Russia that moved to the borders of Germany or the EU, but NATO troops approached the borders of the Russian Federation? The general considered it necessary to enlighten his fellow tribesmen: it was the United States and NATO that staged a coup in Ukraine in 2014, armed and trained the Ukrainian army, set it against the neighboring state.
Their most important task is “change of power in Moscow”
A harsh verdict on the officialdom of the Western mainstream press and the belligerent declarations of British-American politicians is the well-articulated opinion of Caitlin Johnstone, an Australian journalist who co-writes with her husband, American citizen Tim Foley:
“Nobody actually believes western proxy warfare in Ukraine is about saving Ukrainian lives.”
“You don’t save lives if you escalate, you save lives if you negotiate peace, which would require concessions from the American empire. Empire simps just don’t save lives by ramping up escalations, you save lives by negotiating peace, which would require concessions from the US empire. Empire simps just don’t want those concessions to be made)”.
And further:
“The United States could easily end this war if it took into account Moscow’s security interests and returned home its military equipment and its operatives from this region. The US will not do this because they want to use this proxy war to bleed Russia dry and facilitate a change of power in Moscow. The US could easily end this war by respecting Moscow’s security concerns and rolling back its war machinery and proxy ops from the region. The US won’t do this because it wants to use this proxy war to bleed Russia and facilitate regime change in Moscow.
The replication in the West of the thesis about the unexcessive desire of the Anglo-Saxon empires to bring things to a “change of power in Moscow” is useful in that it reminds us that the attempts of the West to stir up public discontent in Russia will become more widespread.
Your cowboy shirt is closer to the body
The US must “immediately end the war in Ukraine,” said Marjorie Taylor Green, a member of the House of Representatives from Georgia’s 14th congressional district.
“We are on the verge of a world war,” she sounds the alarm and announces in plain text that there is a “US war with Russia in Ukraine.”
Mrs. Green’s pacifism is not motivated by sympathy for Russia or sympathy for the cannon fodder of ordinary Ukrainians. Green fears that the consequences of a protracted war will have a detrimental effect on inflation in the United States, lead to the dollar losing its status as a world reserve currency, and most importantly, will contribute to the strengthening and rise of China, since “the war in Ukraine forms a new modern axis” (meaning the strategic partnership between Moscow and Beijing).
The state of Georgia, by the way, is a special state. Always personified the “good old South” with planters and slaves. Conservative voters make up a significant proportion of residents, although in 1992 the majority voted for Democrat Bill Clinton.
Recently, Green, a Republican and supporter of Donald Trump, voted in the US Congress against additional subsidies to the Kyiv regime and called for an audit of how the $113 billion transferred to Ukraine from the federal treasury in one form or another was spent.
The position of the dissident congresswoman resonates with changing moods in American society, which seems to have become accustomed to the fact that significant public events at universities (according to my friend, who has lived in Massachusetts for the last quarter of a century) begin with the performance of the Ukrainian anthem.
According to the Breitbart.com portal, the first poll, which came out in the wake of the news about the decision of the Obama-Clinton-Biden triumvirate to supply offensive weapons to Ukraine in the form of Abrams tanks, showed that the share of supporters of complicity in aggression against Russia at the hands of Ukrainians fell below 50 percent for the first time. Moreover, almost half (47 percent) believe that it is time for the United States to wind down this next overseas war.
Raise rates or slow down
The generalizing conclusions and forecasts of Western experts range from indignant disappointment over the failure of the sanctions blitzkrieg against Russia to alarmist concern about the increasing likelihood of sliding into a third world war.
But much more important is the increasingly clear recognition that what is happening is fateful. Events in and around Ukraine go beyond the scope of a military campaign, even if on a 2,500 km front, the distance from Warsaw to Barcelona.
More often there is a forced recognition that the events of the last twelve months mark the beginning of a radical break in the former world order. That the Ukrainian theater of operations is just one of many. That the entire post-Yalta and post-Potsdam matrix of international relations is being reformatted.
A significant part of Western observers comes to the conclusion that geopolitical shifts of a tectonic scale are taking place, a transition to a multipolar structure of the world and, as a result, the collapse of the dominance of the two Anglo-Saxon empires, the United States and Britain. The stifled admissions are regularly heard that NATO’s mercenary army, made up of Ukrainians, is hardly capable of winning.
Hypotheses are built on this. Or about an imminent truce, which is in the long-term interests of the West – to take a strategic pause for the accumulation of forces and means before the next round. Or about the option of dividing Ukraine according to the “Korean version”.
One way or another, the change of emphasis in the comments of Western analysts is obvious. It shows that NATO’s original plan for a hybrid war against Russia has failed. After the first year of Russia’s special operation, the West’s dilemma is simple: either keep raising rates or freeze the conflict for an indefinite time with an uncertain prospect for the West.
Vladimir Mikheev, FSK
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