by George V Wright, Prof. em.
June 19, 2024
https://georgevwright.com
The “Collective West” (the United States, the EU and NATO) is playing with real, “Honest to God,” fire. This is due to its Political Class’ decision to escalate military support to Ukraine in its “proxy war” with Russia. This view was reinforced by developments which occurred in southern Italy and Washington, D.C. last week where G7 leaders, including United States President Joe Biden, and NATO member foreign ministers respectively met to discuss the next stage of using Ukraine to break the Russian economy and create “regime change” there. The tenor of both meetings was that the ”Collective West” was not going to let up its support for the Ukrainian “puppet regime” in Kiev. Biden expressed that position, saying: “we’re not backing down.” The G7 agreed to provide a $50 billion loan to Kiev before the end of the year. They also agreed to pay the loan back by using (actually stealing) the interest from the $280 billion of confiscated Russian reserves held in European banks. While foreign ministers from NATO countries agreed that they would begin coordinating the distribution of military and logistical equipment through NATO rather than through individual states. Moreover, discussions also centered around France’s plans to form a “coalition” to send ground troops into Ukraine. Biden also signed a ten-year military “security” guarantee with Kiev, amounting to $5 billion per annum. He had already decided to allow Kiev to use United States-provided long-range missiles to attack inside Russia proper; a decision Germany had also agreed to. The NATO plans to escalate will be finalized when members meet in summit in Washington, D.C. July 9-11.
The “Collective West’s urgent drive for escalation is because its objective of using Ukraine to break the Russian political-economy and cause regime change there has failed. Though the ”Collective West” claims it is defending Ukrainian “democracy” and “sovereignty;” the truth be known, it is actually using Ukraine as a sacrificial lamb to achieve its objectives towards Russia. Russia is prevailing in the war, while Kiev’s military effort is near exhaustion, particularly related to the number of troops killed (perhaps 500,000), the lack of potential conscripts, and the depletion of artillery shells; the Russian economy has expanded, not collapsed; President Putin has not been overthrown and has over 80 percent popular support for the war effort; and Russia and China have solidified their “Special Partnership.” The logical trajectory of the “Collective West’s” escalation is either United States and European troops will eventually be deployed in Ukraine resulting in a direct conventional war between NATO and Russia—therefore, shifting from a United States promoted “proxy war” to World War III, and heighten political and military conditions could trigger a nuclear war. The latter could occur, for example, if Kiev used long-range missiles to attack military targets inside Russia; and, based on Russian strategic doctrine, the Kremlin could use nuclear weapons in response, possibly targeting Kiev, NATO depots in Poland, or Brussels. Obviously, what target would be attacked first does not matter—what does matter is—to use one of Curtis Mayfield’s lyrics, —“we all gonna go.”
Nevertheless, the “Collective West,” materiel wise, troop wise, logistically and infrastructure wise, is incapable of fighting a conventional war against Russia at the moment. Moreover, its industrial productive base doesn’t have the capacity to produce military equipment and artillery to match Russia’s production; nor is the “Collective West’s” hollowed-out industrial-base even structured for that purpose. For example, a recent New York Times article admitted that Russia has a 7:1 advantage in the production of weapons and artillery. In the wake this reality, European politicians (except Serb, Aleksander Vucic; Hungarian, Victor Orban; and Slovenia’s Robert Fico) are spouting scare tactics conjuring up a false scenario that once Russia “conquers” Ukraine “Putin” will invade Europe, and so Ukraine is the ”frontline” in that fight in order to get public support for an already planned comprehensive Military-Keynesian project, including military mobilization, in preparation for direct warfare with Russia. However, that propaganda contrasts with the evidence (and logic) that Russia has no intention of invading Europe, or attacking a European country unless a NATO country attacks Russia. In fact, the Russian intervention beginning February 22, 2024 was directly a response to the “Collective West’s” expansion of NATO into Ukraine, and its intransigence to negotiate a political solution to the Ukrainian crisis based on the Minsk II agreement and security proposals the Kremlin issued December 17, 2021, combined with Kiev escalating military assault on the Donbass region of Ukraine. The Minsk II agreement called for Ukrainian neutrality and regional autonomy for the Donbas, which is largely populated by pro-Russian speaking peoples.
While the leaders of the “Collective West” were actively planning a military escalation in Ukraine on June 14th President Vladimir Putin presented a proposal to end the War over Ukraine. (See: Putin’s Full Speech at Foreign Ministry: BRICS, NATO Expansion and the Ukraine Peace Talks Conditions,” Sputnik International [June 14, 2024]). Putin’s proposal was motivated by the fact that Russia is winning the war and is capable of annexing more Ukrainian territory, so as to end the blood shed and move towards normalcy it is time to negotiate a peace settlement. Specifically, Putin stated that the war would end if Kiev: 1.) withdrew Ukrainian troops from the Russian annexed provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Kaporizhzhia; and, 2.) declared that Ukraine would not become a member of NATO. Putin elaborated: “As soon as they declare in Kiev that they are ready for such a decision and begin a real withdrawal of troops from these regions, and also officially announces the abandonment of their plans to join NATO on our side immediately, literally at the same minute, an order will follow to cease fire and begin negotiations.” He also called for the West to end the economic sanctions it has imposed on Russia. The tragic irony is that if the “Collective West” had allowed Kiev to accept the Minsk II agreement, the war would never have occurred, Ukraine would still be intact, and perhaps over a half-a-million Ukrainians would still be alive.
However, Putin’s proposal will have absolutely no traction in the ”Collective West.” In fact, it was immediately dismissed. This is because the United States can not accept compromise with Russia over Ukraine. There are two inter-related reasons why that is unacceptable for United States: One: It would mean the complete failure of the United States’ post-Cold War project to achieve “Absolute Global Hegemony” over the Inter-State World Capitalist System. This project was codified in the1992 Wolfowitz Doctrine, which stated that the United States would not allow a “peer competitor” to emerge in Eurasia. Moreover, since the early 1990’s the ideological, strategic and institutional-orientation of the United States has been structured to achieve that end. In fact, the War over Ukraine is occurring because over the past two decades Russia has achieved the status of “peer competitor”—therefore, Russia must be defeated and “Putin” eliminated so the United States can continue to pursue “Absolute Global Hegemony.” Two: “Defeat” over Ukraine would be a mortal blow to the United States’ designs for “Absolute Global Hegemony;” and, by implication, control of a uni-polar world order. Therefore, the United States can not allow that defeat. That means the ”Collective West” prevails and breaks Russia (which, at this moment, appears impossible); Russia decisively defeats the Kiev regime (which would also involve the political and economic exhaustion and splitting of the West—and the disintegration of NATO); or the War over Ukraine devolves into a nuclear holocaust (which gets increasingly inevitable with Western escalation, intransigence and denial of geo-political reality). Finally, the populations of th“Collective West” rising up and successfully demanding an end to the United States’ “Permanent War Machine” is another possible scenario. However, this writer is not ready to think that will occur, but he concedes that future History has not been written yet.
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