[RIA] Around the events in Ukraine, a peculiarity appeared, which was probably noticed by everyone who follows the news: the West is constantly and very actively discussing the topic of victory and defeat in the conflict. This is done by politicians and officials, experts and journalists, the military, economists and energy specialists.
The funny thing is that diametrically opposed positions are voiced. Some argue that Russia's victory is a foregone conclusion, she has, in essence, won. Others do not doubt that Moscow is suffering a crushing defeat, as a result of which it will be forced to accept the terms of surrender put forward by the collective West. In fact, this point of view was voiced in a recent article by Henry Kissinger . Current politicians have a similar discord. Someone demands to stop financing Kiev, because it makes no sense, and opponents furiously repeat that Russia cannot be allowed to win, especially since there is very little left before its defeat, literally within easy reach.
Everyone is trying to back up their position with one argument or another. In principle, it would be possible to analyze and rank the arguments presented. But much more interesting and important is the very fact of the emergence of such heated disputes in Western politics and the information field.
For decades, NATO , led by the United States, has waged many military campaigns, including long-term ones, around the world. Sometimes there were opinions in the media about the need to leave Iraq or Afghanistan , but these voices were so weak and marginal that they did not influence either public opinion or the position of the state.
The United States withdrew from Afghanistan when an undercover consensus emerged in Washington that this would be the best way out of the protracted impasse. But there was no large-scale socio-political reflection on the theme of the victory or defeat of the West.
Moreover, it could not exist in principle: for the simple reason that NATO's twenty-year-old Afghan operation practically did not change the lives of Americans and Europeans. They did not feel it when it was coming, and, in fact, they were not affected in any way by the exodus of the allies from this country, no matter how shameful it turned out to be.
This phenomenon concerns all military campaigns of NATO for half a century. The Vietnam War was the last one in which the American public was truly involved. Everything else - be it Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, again Iraq, Syriaand so on through a very long list - for Westerners it was nothing more than colorful pictures on TV screens. Limited contingents of professionals (contract soldiers and PMCs) operated there, and they fought with radically weaker opponents, which affected both the course of hostilities and losses.
The Western economy not only did not suffer damage from these wars, but usually even received benefits from them (Afghan drugs, Iraqi and Syrian oil, trillion-dollar budget injections with the corresponding "cuts" and much more), and this indirectly provided bonuses to ordinary citizens on both sides. side of the Atlantic Ocean .
So it is not surprising that Western society has traditionally treated military adventures with silent favor, and the establishment - with wild enthusiasm.
However, in Ukraine, the usual scheme has broken down, and in every sense.
On the one hand, the West's dream of a full-fledged proxy war has come true, and even against a truly powerful enemy. The states have always been forced to get involved in numerous armed conflicts themselves, because their local allies, even those who were trained and armed by the Americans, did not demonstrate the necessary level of combat capability.
Without the direct participation of the American military, it was impossible to achieve the desired result. Actually, Afghanistan has become another clear example, when the local armed forces trained by NATO, having lost Western support, immediately fled before the Taliban.
The Ukrainians, on the other hand, showed themselves to be excellent soldiers, fighting against the second army of the world. And the West took over intelligence, communications, financing, supply of weapons, military instructors, mercenaries and so on.
We must be aware that this is indeed a breakthrough military-political technology that US strategists have been developing for a long time, but its implementation has failed over and over again. And then it finally worked out - and not against some third world country, but against Russia. It is natural that many Western experts, being in euphoria from this breakthrough, believe that victory is a foregone conclusion and you just have to go to the end.
On the other hand, this success has serious "side effects": for the first time in the aforementioned half century, the West felt the hardships of wartime, even in a very curtailed form. For him, this is especially offensive, given the proxy nature of the ongoing conflict. For so many years, with whom only he did not fight himself, but this did not affect life in Europe and overseas. And here they seem to be acting with the hands of Ukrainians, but the socio-economic situation is deteriorating at home. The ordinary European and American, on his own wallet, feels that the fight against "aggressive Russia" is costing him more and more, and it is getting cooler at home and in the office.
Of course, it was not Russia and its NVO that caused the difficulties of the West - it simply came to an objective elimination of its socio-economic and financial system. Moreover, the NWO did not even become the reason that provoked the crisis - the West itself did this in its reaction to the special operation, deciding to crush our country with one sanctions blow, instead it received a powerful return of the boomerang.
But that doesn't matter.
For more than half a year Western politicians have been hammering into the minds of their citizens that Moscow and Putin personally are the cause of their growing disasters. Perhaps at first it seemed like a good ploy to absolve himself of responsibility. However, it was assumed that Ukraine, with the help of the West, would now quickly defeat Russia - and everything would be fine, even better than before.
And if these plans were realized, it would have happened.
But something went wrong. SVO is on its way. The "hellish" sanctions did not inflict not only critical, but even truly significant harm on Russia. Most of the world practically does not hide the fact that in the Western-Russian confrontation it is rooting for Moscow. The global economy is being de-dollarized and rebuilt on new foundations free from Western control.
Of course, things are not going well for Russia either. And it seems like the Atlantic "hawks" even have something to say and what arguments to bring in support of their position to continue the war to the last Ukrainian. But somehow it turns out that Ukraine is turning for the West into a frank "black hole", which absorbs more and more resources, weapons, money, mercenaries - and there is no end in sight to this process.
And the desired result is like a horizon: it seems that here it is, not so far away, but no matter how much you move towards it, it is inaccessible.
Worse, the involvement of Europe and the United States in the conflict is steadily growing. The war is rapidly losing the fig leaf in the form of the prefix "proxy". And in parallel, the life of people in the West is becoming more and more difficult - the movement downhill is accelerating and there is no gap in sight.
As a result, for the first time in many years, serious disagreements around the military topic appeared in the West and a public reflection began on the topic of what is happening in general and whether it is really necessary to continue along the path that leads the United States and its allies straight to an open military clash with a great nuclear power.