What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
As the war in Ukraine peters out, Russia remains stable and relatively strong, while Western Europe has taken an economic beating. Its largest economy, Germany’s, has contracted, and inflation is biting populations across the continent. The US, the main driver of this war-fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian, as some wits put it—has emerged quite well, if one ignores its ballooning debt. Not that the ordinary citizen is necessarily getting a larger slice of the GDP pie. As in other wars, since President Eisenhower warned of the Military-Industrial Complex in January 1961, mega-corporations such as arms manufacturers have raked in huge amounts of what the US has spent in Ukraine.
Blackrock, the mammoth investment firm, will now make more, for it has already booked its spot as the rebuilder of Ukraine. Of course, that will not include the quarter of Ukraine that Russia has taken over. A war of attrition will probably continue along the new border, even if a formal agreement is negotiated.
Meanwhile, inflation has galloped across Western Europe, even biting the very wealthy Scandinavian countries.
Germany, hitherto the leading light of the EU, has permanently lost its supply of cheap Russian gas, the mainstay of its economy. Some suspect the hand of the US behind the underwater explosion that destroyed the Nordstream 2 pipeline 15 months ago, but Germany has remained docilely mute.
It boggles the mind to think that the US would thus cripple its strongest ally—at a time when its hegemony is challenged by China. Could US strategists have calculated that Germany would see the way the wind was blowing, and sign up for the emergent Chinese empire? Surely, that’s the only way to explain it, if one seeks logic, strategy, and long-term calculations.
Otherwise, it would be bizarre for the US to adopt a strategy that has crippled its most trusted and loyal allies, the countries of Western Europe—and more specifically, the EU. Many of those countries have already been struggling for several years. (Germany was the lone beacon of sturdy economic growth). Their decline could now be precipitate.
Biden in Cold War frame of mind
The war in Ukraine has been Biden’s project, not just since last year but since the 2014 Maidan agitations through which pro-West, pro-EU sentiment was promoted in Ukraine. Obama was President but, as vice president, Biden had charge of relations with Ukraine. His son, Hunter, is said to have taken great advantage of his father’s clout in Ukraine.
Biden, who established himself in US politics way back in the 1970s, is stuck in the past, his thinking framed by the Cold War. Since Russia’s geopolitical clout has reduced massively, and China has in recent years seemed set to overtake the US as the world’s pre-eminent power, it does not make sense for the US to try and crush Russian power.
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Rather, the US ought to have drawn Russia toward it on the global chessboard, as Trump did by cozying up to Russian President Putin. That made far more sense for US interests, for it served to draw Russia away from China. Biden, on the other hand, has pushed Moscow into a tighter embrace with China, and other BRICS countries. Not just that, Russia and China have used the period of the Ukraine war to strengthen strategic relationships with Iran and Saudi Arabia. If those go forward, US hegemony over the global oil trade, and the dollar’s pre-eminence in world trade will be undermined.
Militarily a stalemate
The war in Ukraine has not only been a negative for the West in the economic and geopolitical domains, but in the ultimate analysis, the West has not shone militarily either. Russians are not entirely wrong in their perception that they have been fighting NATO in Ukraine. The war has been executed by Ukrainian soldiers (and some from NATO countries), under the direction of NATO planners, with NATO weaponry. They performed very well but, despite their best efforts, have failed to break the deadlock of the past year-plus.
However decrepit some of Russia’s armaments have turned out to be, not to speak of the sometimes abysmal logistics and planning, Russia remains a redoubtable military power. And the Russian economy continues to buzz, despite what was described as the most severe slew of sanctions ever.
Indeed, the Ukrainian battlefields have demonstrated over the past 22 months that the military hardware of some prominent West European countries among leading lights of NATO (yes, Germany) have boutique equipment, impressive at demonstrations, parades, and on brochures but not game-changers on the battlefield. It has become obvious that NATO is only the US holding the torch for a bunch of not-very-effective hangers-on. Ukraine’s greatest gains were gifts from Russia—the disastrous attempt to take Kyiv at the beginning, and the withdrawal to the east of the Dnieper River from Kherson.
For the most part, the war has been a stalemate and could end that way. Russia has partly achieved the objective of taking over portions of Ukraine that have substantial Russian speakers—not to speak of resources and industry. On the other hand, it has failed to take the Black Sea coast west of the Dnieper, and the two big prizes: the second and third biggest cities of Ukraine, Kharkiv, and Odessa. There are credible rumours that Ukrainian commanders insisted, against the advice of NATO consultants, on spreading across three points the `counterattack’ that’s been underway since June. The result: they have failed to break through beyond a few tens of metres.
By contrast, Russia has held out and smoothly got past what could have been a massive revolt by the mercenary group, Wagner, in June. Iran’s military hardware (notably, drones and missiles) has proved credible, keeping Russia’s military going at certain moments of this war. Both countries are undaunted under the most severe sanctions imposed by the US. Their military cooperation, and the demonstrations during this war of the cozy friendship of each to China, underlines the fact that this war has weakened the US geopolitically.
