Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. Cribbed from Boris Rozhin's Live Journal page
by Sergey Poletav
Co-founder and editor of the Vatfor project.
[GlobalAffairs] The special military operation (SVO) in Ukraine that began on February 24, 2022, launched a chain of processes that led to a global conflict, politically and economically comparable in scale to world wars. We are probably in the initial phase of this conflict, over time more and more players will be involved in it, however, some conclusions can be drawn already now.
The past year was the year of the collision of postmodernism with the real world. Almost all direct and indirect participants in the Ukrainian crisis built their domestic and foreign policies on theoretical, highly ideological constructions, on wishful thinking, and the more the consequences are more difficult for them.
Let's take a look at the main players.
RUSSIA
Our first and main illusion is about the negotiability of counterparties. Throughout the post-Soviet period, we tried to resolve peace in Ukraine, based on the fact that it would be better for everyone: the West, on the border with a leading nuclear power, would receive a predictable security belt and clear rules of the game, coupled with a high degree of influence on Ukraine; Europe, in addition, will maintain and strengthen ties with Russia as a major resource base and a vast sales market; Ukraine will get the opportunity of soft integration into Europe while maintaining deep economic and cultural ties with Russia, while Russia, in addition to further gradual integration into the Western and, first of all, into the European system (up to symbiosis), will retain influence on Ukraine and guarantee Kyiv’s friendly policy towards attitude towards both Moscow and the multi-million Russian population in Ukraine.
Nevertheless, the entire history of post-Soviet Ukraine is a history of reverse movement (more on that below); this movement has become irreversible since 2014, and consistent ignoring of this fact, attempts to re-stubborn the large-scale historical process with agreements either with Kyiv or with the West led us to the NWO. What exactly went wrong at the end of February, we will not know soon. But if Moscow set a goal to solve the Ukrainian problem according to the Georgian scenario - with little bloodshed and within a few days, this goal, obviously, was not achieved.
The anti-Russian outpost that had been created for thirty years turned out to be very strong and ready to fight even at the cost of its own destruction - again, contrary to common sense, as it is understood in Moscow.
I would like to believe that Moscow's illusions have been finally dispelled, and our military-political leadership no longer hopes for the sanity of the West and Kyiv. However, so far, the course of the NMD suggests rather the opposite: after the February throw, offensive operations are carried out only in the Donbass, and not along the entire front, but in local areas - mainly by the forces of PMCs and the former people's militia of the republics. There is a feeling that during the year we did not really understand what to do next, as if we were waiting for the enemy to get bored before us, and he would finally begin to negotiate for real.
Our second illusion is the combat capabilities of the army. The actions of the Armed Forces of Russia (RF Armed Forces) during the NWO in a patriotic environment are usually scolded. But it should be understood that since the time of the Serdyukov reform, our army has not been preparing for a large-scale land conflict with a front line of a couple of thousand kilometers, with the need to conduct combined arms operations at the level of the Great Patriotic War, with the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of people. It won't change overnight. And although the identified shortcomings in the actions of the RF Armed Forces, the General Staff and the rear are recognized and somehow eliminated, we still do not see a full-scale offensive with the decisive goal of defeating the Ukrainian army (AFU). Maybe we'll see it next year. Perhaps the army is preparing right now, and not waiting.
USA
The main illusion of the United States in the post-Cold War era is about complete control (or at least dominance) over the processes taking place in the world, and therefore the conviction that the degree of consideration for the interests of counterparties is determined in Washington, and only in Washington. Simply put, as I want, it will be so, and if it is not the way I want, then I have enough means to coerce and punish those who disobey.
In many respects, this inflexibility led to the current crisis: if desired, it was possible to negotiate with Russia - saving face and even to its own economic and political benefit: Moscow was probably ready for a lot in response.
A similar situation is observed all over the world: everywhere the States act according to the principle "there is power - no mind is needed."
In the Middle East, such behavior has already led the US to a sharp weakening of its position; made the prospect of conflict with China almost irreversible; time bombs have been planted under relations with allies in Europe and Asia that are likely to go off in the coming years.
Since the Second World War, the United States has been creating a global system, in a way, a new type of empire. They consistently took political and economic processes in the world under control without encountering much resistance - on the contrary, everyone tried to integrate into this system, receiving in return some sales markets and access to cheap money, some - a security umbrella and the opportunity not to spend money on the army, some - Newest technologies.
The United States itself, having found itself in the role of the mother country of the Earth, skimmed off all this, and after several generations, the American political class became convinced that such a system was not the result of painstaking work and taking into account the interests of partners, but some kind of birthright, sometimes becoming a burden. Hence the stagnation, and the further - the greater the hysteria of American foreign policy, attempts to force others to act in their own way and, as a result, undermine the global American-centric system.
The United States has a solid margin of safety, the food base is still extensive, alternative global institutions are just beginning to take shape, so one should not expect noticeable changes in American policy in the coming years, especially since the internal split, on the contrary, is forcing to increase foreign policy tension.
The second American (as well as European) illusion is that a military conflict of the Ukrainian scale can be won without direct involvement in it. Yes, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are holding up well, but Russia has so far deployed a small part of its military resources in the NMD, and the degree of escalation on our part is now determined by political decisions, and not by military and mobilization capabilities. If we are willing and ready, we can multiply the onslaught, which will be extremely difficult for the West and the United States to respond to without direct involvement in the conflict with their troops (at least air defense and air force). However, President Biden has repeatedly stressed that he will not agree to such an intervention as long as he lives.
EUROPE
The main illusion of Europe is that its well-fed well-being of the last decades is its own merit, and that it is based on a set of some abstract values. In fact, the well-being of Europe stood on two pillars: the American military, political and economic roof and a cheap resource base, primarily Russian.
The absence of the need to take care of one’s own security , resources and sales markets, the impossibility of internal conflicts, on the one hand, contributed to an unprecedented economic take-off, a real golden age, and on the other hand, led to the degeneration of European elites and the political class, who sincerely believed that this would be the case. always and that for this it is enough to cultivate values and strive to spread them to the entire surrounding backward world.
This explains the obstinacy of Europe in the Ukrainian issue - obstinacy, bordering on fanaticism. Europe takes the most vicious anti-Russian sanctions with the greatest zeal , regardless of any damage.
If the United States in this crisis is borrowing from the future, then Europe naturally shoots bursts at its knees.
Here and now, it is depriving itself of a large market, its most important resource base, and is sent into almost colonial dependence on Washington, which, unlike Europe, has real military power and real control over political and economic processes in the world.
After the combined attempt by the West to give Russia economic shock and awe failed, the leaders of Europe are at a loss: the same people, with a difference of a couple of days , can talk about the need for a military victory over Russia and the need for diplomatic dialogue - seemingly without really understanding what "military victory" means and what "diplomatic dialogue" means.
The prospect of many years of multiple increases in energy prices and, as a result, deindustrialization and falling living standards, the prospect of a trade war with the United States in a global recession, the prospect of maintaining a devastated Ukraine for an indefinite number of years, the prospect of hundreds of billions of losses from the loss of accumulated investments in Russia is already sobering, but does not yet lead to any decisions - there is simply no one to make and implement them. Plus, the long-standing problems of the European Union , which it stumbled over in previous years, have not gone away: the migration crisis, the constant balancing of southern Europe on the verge of economic collapse.
UKRAINE
The main illusion of Ukraine is the belief in the possibility of building a mono-ethnic state hostile to Russia within the post-Soviet borders with a significant share of the Russian population, as well as the conviction that both the West and Russia itself will endlessly favor such a Ukraine - as they say, for beautiful eyes.
Ukraine is not Poland, and the attempt to pursue its own policy led to a civil conflict, each side of which was supported by the West and Russia, respectively. After this conflict entered an open phase in 2014, Ukraine began to turn from an anti-Russian outpost into a weapon, into a kind of kamikaze drone of the West against Russia.
It should be admitted that this was partly successful: both the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Ukrainian state as a whole withstood the February blow, recovered and, with the support of the West, inflicted a number of painful defeats on Russia by autumn .
Military successes, however, are not of a strategic nature, and their cost is the death of the Ukrainian economy. According to various estimates, up to a third of the population fled Ukraine, production was cut by half even before the Russian strikes on energy facilities that began in October, and by the new year, according to official statements from Kyiv, already by 70 percent. This means unemployment, an empty treasury, the impoverishment of the population and massive closures of enterprises.
Yes, now the West acts as a powerful rear for Ukraine and goes to serious expenses for this, however, it evades direct involvement in battles, shifting all the hardships and hardships to Kyiv. Whatever the outcome of the hot phase of the conflict, the devastated Ukraine, apparently, will have to deal with its consequences on its own, and the further, the more difficult these consequences will be.
However, even if among the Ukrainian elites someone even guesses how they are being used, they cannot stop. The control from the West is too tight, the ideological pumping is too great, everything has gone too far.
Ukraine now is a zombie, a walking dead man, and he will walk as long as the West galvanizes him. However, even in this form, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are capable of fighting for years, especially with the current sluggish course of the conflict.
The West can refuse to galvanize Ukraine only in one case: if the Armed Forces of Ukraine are defeated and physically lose the ability to fight, if Ukraine is physically reduced enough to lose its strategic significance for the West. Any truces will only postpone the conflict for the future, and one should not have any illusions about this.
The global conflict is only growing. For both Russia and the West, it is existential, and neither side shows an inclination to compromise. It is all the more surprising that the hostilities are still relatively local in nature, limited to one Ukrainian theater, and even on it - in a dosed and positional manner. It seems that the parties have focused on how to learn how to live in the new conditions, which means that the development of the next world order and the rules of the game has a chance to go relatively peacefully, without turning into an endless struggle of all against all with the risk of a nuclear catastrophe.
The initiative in this process will be given to those who accept reality before others, understand their place in it, and begin to act accordingly. This concerns not only the participants in the Ukrainian crisis listed above, but also so far neutral countries , which have yet to part with their own illusions.
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