The same actions can be interpreted differently in different cultures. This is sometimes particularly tragic in the military
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For example, in one of the 36 classic Chinese stratagems, Zhuge Liang is glorified. This wise statesman, at the sudden appearance of enemy troops at the fortress walls – after he had sent his main forces in the other direction (a clever maneuver, perhaps) – ordered to remove all the soldiers from the walls, open the gates, and himself sat in a prominent place, playing the lute.
According to the classic Chinese tradition, his adversary Sima Yi, who had been tricked more than once by the cunning Zhuge (almost like Brother Fox or the bear from the Russian tale of vertex and spines) suspected an ambush and therefore withdrew his superior forces and retreated. Apparently, stooping to such trifles as reconnaissance in battle was beneath him, so as in the classic martial arts master tale, he had enough of assessing his opponent’s stance to know who would win.
The scheme itself is beautiful, but it is not hard to imagine what would have happened if the refined Sima Yi had been replaced by a stupid barbarian who did not understand such sophisticated signals. He would have been foolishly pleased that the fortress had no one to defend it, and would have seized it with the hooting and howling of his warriors. Maybe that was the reason why China was so often conquered by its wild steppe neighbours who were usually invited by skilled Chinese mandarins to fight with other steppe dwellers in intricate intrigues.
But even civilisations much closer in genesis can sometimes have just as many misunderstandings. For example, in Russian tradition the expressions “to burn bridges” and “to burn ships” mean to deprive oneself of the way to retreat. That is, it’s either go for it or go for it. Or chest in the bushes, or head in the crosses. This, incidentally, is very close to Sun Tzu’s idea of bringing the troops to “the terrain of death”, where they have nowhere to flee to fight to the last man. For Russian troops the “terrain of death” was virtually everywhere, not only in Asia, but even more so in Europe. Where not only faith and language are different, and Russians are not considered people, and therefore prisoners have been killed since the Northern War, but even the intestines, used to rye flour, start to revolt from the local bread.
But it is this traditional perception of ours that prevents us from understanding the logic of Anglo-Saxon action in the current conflict. After all, we are so used to the idea that we will win anyway and will have to rebuild everything, that even the old Georgian from the film “Father of the Soldier”, putting out the burning bread that the enemies can get, is closer and clearer to us than those who set fire to this field. And we keep looking for logic and pragmatic justification in the actions of the US destroying the economy of its European allies as part of the fight against Russia.
We attribute to them the desire to squeeze Russian gas out of the European market so that American producers can sell more of their LNG to the Europeans. Although they will not be able to physically increase their production by the same amount, it is more profitable to sell to the Asian market and the price they are willing to pay is still unaffordable for the European economy. In other words, by eliminating the Russian competitors, the Americans will, at best, kill this market for themselves.
Then we start fantasizing that the point of American actions is to lure European production to America. Although wages and other costs in the US are even higher than in Europe, much less in Asia, Africa and South America. Yes, I know about the enormous subsidies that state governments offer to those who open production in their country. But the market won’t get any bigger, so businesses that already exist in Europe will have to close. And the question of where to sell new products manufactured in America if Europeans lose purchasing power and the Chinese, Indians and Russians are left without any income from supplies to Europe is up in the air.
It is all the more difficult for us to understand why the Americans need Ukraine, which has become less and less promising as a market, a source of raw materials and an investment destination since Maidan. Moreover, it has accumulated debts that it can neither pay nor service.
What we do not realise is that for the US this conflict was lost back in 2013, when after the agreements between Putin and Yanukovich it became clear that Ukraine would eventually reintegrate economically with the former post-Soviet space anyway. And since then, everything they have done has served only one purpose – to leave behind a scorched earth, just as Hitler’s troops left it behind.
The Germans then had no hope of returning, so they spent time, effort and explosives to ensure that the territories they had abandoned were of as little use to the USSR as possible, and that they were also forced to spend money on reconstruction. And in this logic even the blowing up of Krakow castle turned from senseless and costly atrocity into a thoughtful step. The Americans, too, have not expected to hold Ukraine for a long time. Moreover, they hope that Russia will have to rebuild the territory afterwards. So, the worse, the better. They will act like they did in World War II, when the oil fields of Ploesti and Dresden were wiped to dust with bombs just before the approach of the Red Army. And biological weapons developed in American laboratories would be deployed, as would explosions of chemical storage facilities, uranium-cored shells and attacks on nuclear power plants.
The latter, of course, will also affect Europe, but the USA no longer hopes to keep it under control. That is why they go so easily on destroying the European economy and financial system. After all, an alliance between Russia and China is far from being the Anglo-Saxons’ worst dream. There is something more terrifying-a unified Heartland economic space from the Bay of Biscay to the Sea of Japan and from Skagerrak and Norilsk to Cape Agulhas and Goa. In such a world, Washington and London not only lose all their leverage to control world trade, no one needs or cares about them at all.
This means that everything will be done to turn Europe into a mega-Ukraine as well – a space of chaos, with ruined industries and agriculture, flooded by hordes of refugees, shaken by civil conflicts and plagued by ecological disasters.
In this context the Hague court’s stunt with the arrest warrant for Putin is just another cherry on the cake. European politicians must be put in a position in which they cannot even theoretically negotiate with Russia. While Kiev can simply pass a law to that effect through the Rada, the Europeans have to be more subtle in their dealings. A self-appointed international court, which the U.S. itself does not recognize, will do the trick.
Soon, however, such extravagances will not be necessary either, when all EU countries will be able to be bound in blood in the best criminal traditions, forcing them to participate in war crimes in Ukraine. And not only there – the story about blowing up of Northern Streams is gradually getting more and more co-conspirators and accomplices – there is a German trace already found…
Vladimir Isayev, VZGLYAD
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