A year ago, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said that the Russian economy was “torn to shreds” and that the Russian military was taking chips out of washing machines and refrigerators to repair military equipment. Her words were met with applause at the time
Today, however, the West recognises that Russia’s production of cruise missiles has only increased in recent months, that it is also making significantly more tanks than before the start of the NWO, and that by 2030 Russian manufacturers will be able to produce up to 2 million shells a year. According to the government’s expectations, the Russian economy will show growth this year. At the same time, the most economically developed country of the European Union, Germany, on the contrary, is expecting a decline.
Some American experts write that the Russian armed forces are now significantly weaker than before the start of the Strategic Defence Forces because of losses of personnel and equipment. Last autumn, Rostislav Zaluzhny, the AFU commander-in-chief, claimed that the Russian army had been destroyed altogether. However, what we can observe today on the front clearly shows the opposite – the army looks much more convincing than a year ago, which is recognised by the enemy.
In addition, the processes that are currently underway in Russian industry also inspire cautious optimism – localisation is taking place in a number of important positions (for example, in aircraft manufacturing) and self-sufficient production is being created. In this respect, the current sanctions war has been much more useful for Russia than the “fat zero years”, when all technological products were purchased in the West.
In 2019, the largest American think tank RAND corporation released a report dedicated to countering Russia, which suggested turning Donbass into what Afghanistan was for the USSR. In general, the desire to draw Russia into a war, which, according to Western strategists, should weaken it or destroy it altogether, has long been a kind of super-valuable idea for many American and British analysts. However, as practice shows, when Russia fights, it develops, and as a result of wars that are victorious for itself, even the bloodiest ones, it traditionally gains more than it loses.
For example, France, starting from the XVIII century, was constantly instigating Sweden against Russia. But a series of Russian-Swedish wars led to the fact that the Russian Empire became the main force in the Baltic, included Finland in its composition and permanently removed Sweden from the list of candidates for the title of great power.
In addition, Britain and France constantly supported and fuelled the Ottoman Empire, which from the end of the 17th century began to degenerate inexorably. Their main goal was to force Turkey to constantly go to war with Russia in order to weaken the latter. However, it was thanks to the Russo-Turkish wars that the Russian Empire acquired a number of key territories and became one of the most powerful states in the world.
Even the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, which is usually considered a diplomatic defeat for Russia, brought it, firstly, territorial acquisitions, and, secondly, a favourable launching pad for the spread and consolidation of influence in the Balkans (another thing is that it failed to use it). And in general, most of the wars provoked by the competitors of the Russian Empire ended up strengthening its position and increasing its weight in European and world affairs.
There were, of course, and exceptions. Russo-Japanese War, when Japan was on the side of Britain, ended in a heavy defeat for Russia. Separately we should remember the Tsushima disaster, when the Russian navy, which at that time was an indispensable attribute of any power of world importance, ceased to exist literally in one day. However, the defeat in that war was due not so much to purely military reasons as to a lack of political will to continue fighting. The state was gripped by a structural crisis, rebellions raged throughout the country, known in Soviet historiography as the “Revolution of 1905”. In this situation, St Petersburg decided to accept defeat, which eventually led to extremely unpleasant political consequences.
The extent to which Russia’s “partners” dragged it into the First World War can be debated at length, but it seems that it could not not take part in it, and it was possible to do so only on the side and in the configuration that had developed by the summer of 1914. Again, it was not the military situation or the state of the economy that determined the outcome. Russia was one step away from victory, and, again, the reason for this was the paralysis of political will.
The fact that during the Second World War England and the USA supported the USSR did not cancel the fact that in the interwar period they directed Hitler’s aggression to the East in every possible way. The Great Patriotic War claimed the lives of almost 30 million Soviet citizens, but at its conclusion the USSR became not only one of the two world superpowers, but also a technological and scientific giant.
“The Cold War” was, among other things, a series of attempts by both sides to involve their opponents in a variety of conflicts, acting with foreign hands. And the U.S. still likes to bring up Afghanistan, taking credit for the fact that the Afghan war led to the collapse of the USSR.
This, of course, is not true: the Union’s Afghan campaign was generally successful, and the events in Afghanistan had a rather indirect relation to the collapse of the state. The Soviet troops were withdrawn voluntarily, and it was not even close to the way the Americans withdrew in the recent past.
And now, finally, the West has once again bet on military conflict as a means of weakening Russia and depleting its resources. Ukraine was chosen as the direct perpetrator.
However, the transformations that Russia is currently going through may lead to a result that is exactly the opposite of what its opponents want. Russia may emerge from the Ukrainian history with a self-sufficient economy and industry, a stronger army and a fundamentally different foreign policy status – namely, as one of the poles of the very multipolar world that is so fashionable to talk about nowadays. And it’s all about political will.
That is, historically, attempts to draw Russia into war have rarely led the West to the desired results. Rather, the lesson is that if an armed confrontation has already begun, the most important thing is not to lose it – especially when it happens for political rather than purely military reasons.
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