America’s War in Ukraine
The scorpion wanted to cross the river and asked the frog to carry him … or so the fable goes …. The frog said: “but you will sting me and I will dieâ€. To which the scorpion replied: “but if I do that, we will both drownâ€. Half way across the scorpion could not resist the urge and as they both plunged to their deaths the frog asked “whyâ€. “Because it’s in my nature†replied the scorpion.
The two great island nations - Britain and her American cousins - are not like the scorpion: they never sacrifice themselves. In 1914 Britain persuaded the bulk of Irish nationalists to fight for Britain to defend the rights of small nations. She invented atrocities such as: German soldiers were raping Belgian nuns. But when the post war settlement was being decided in Versailles the Irish realized that the rights of small nations only applied to other empires; never to the British. The sacrifice of 50,000 Irishmen was in vain. But who cares about the Irish!
In the 1930s Britain identified a new enemy. But she was not going to fight the Soviet Union herself. Churchill praised and encouraged Italian fascism and found a new ally in Nazi Germany. It could hardly have escaped the British Establishment’s notice that Hitler admired the British Empire and in Mein Kampf referred to Russia as Germany’s India.
The handing over of the Czech arms industry to Hitler in 1938 was not an act of appeasement by Chamberlain but an attempt to direct German military forces towards the Soviet Union. Britain then encouraged Poland to take an intransigent position in relation to Danzig for the same reason and then she left Poland high and dry.
But, of course, British plans were cut from under them by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and Poland was sacrificed. But who cares about Poland!
And who cares about Ukraine! Certainly not the British and Americans. After the Second World War the Americans cultivated a pro Nazi insurrection against the Soviet authorities in Ukraine. The insurrection was suppressed in 1953 but the Bandera supporters did not go away. Some of them stayed in Ukraine; others developed networks in Western Europe, the USA and Canada.
The Soviet Union, like Tito in Yugoslavia, thought that the nationalism of various regions would be mitigated if the territory of the majority ethnic group was extended to include other ethnic groups. This must have been what Khruschev had in mind when he gave Crimea as a “gift†to Ukraine.
The centrifugal forces of nationalist tendencies were counteracted by the centralising effect of the communist party (many distinguished Soviet leaders such as Brezhnev and Khruschev were born in Ukraine). But all that ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Ukraine was given Independence after the collapse but there was no possibility that she would be left to her own devices. She had inherited a substantial nuclear arsenal as well as technological know-how from the Soviet period. Nobody in Ukraine seriously disputed the requirement to disarm. The only issue was how much compensation the country would receive.
It cannot be said that Ukraine was particularly successful after independence but her problems did not relate to ethnic conflict. The country was just about viable with the industrial east of the country subsidizing the agricultural west. All of that changed following the Western inspired coup of 2014. Prior to that the democratically elected government had explored the possibility of a trade agreement with the EU. As negotiations developed it became clear that a closer relationship with the EU would undermine industry in the East which was the economic substance of the country.
The decision by the Kiev government to withdraw from negotiations was unacceptable to the Americans. But the only internal elements with the political will to implement an anti Russian agenda were the Americans’ old friends the Ukrainian Nazis. With American help they infiltrated the State apparatus so that all elections since 2014 have been window dressing. The anti-Russian laws and the glorification of Ukrainian Nazis such as Stepan Bandera since 2014 have forced Ukrainians to choose between a pro-western and a pro-Russian identity.
After 2014 Crimea could easily break away from Ukraine and return to the motherland because there was already a Russian military presence in the warm water port of Sevastopol. But the “pro-Russian†elements in the Donbas region were on their own. They initially took a conservative position of calling for the rule of law and the reversal of the coup but that was not practical. As a war developed between the Kiev government and the Donbas an attempt was made to reach a compromise known as the Minsk accords. We now know that the Kiev government and the western powers had no intention of implementing the agreement. They were only playing for time to allow for the arming and training by NATO of a new Ukrainian army.
It was only in early 2022 that Russia recognized the independence of the Donbas region. Zelensky’s earlier proposal at the Munich conference to restore Ukraine’s nuclear capability must have been the last straw.
After an initial underestimation of Ukraine’s military capability, the conflict has settled down to a war of attrition. Ukraine’s superiority in manpower was counteracted by Russia’s superiority in artillery power. However, the mobilization of Russian troops has now tipped the balance decisively in Russia’s favour.
Ukraine cannot win, but the war continues because it has long ceased to be about Ukraine. Ukraine is sacrificed in order to weaken Russia. And American’s destruction of the Nord stream pipelines shows that the economic well-being of Germany (and by extension Europe) must be sacrificed in order to ensure she remains under America’s hegemony.
There is scarcely a debate about this in Europe. The Europeans have learned to do as they’re told. Only in America is there any kind of discussion.
The dissenting view in America is that this war cannot be won; that Russia has “escalatory dominance†in this part of the world; that all that will be achieved will be a depletion of the West’s military resources. Furthermore, that Russia is neither a political nor economic rival to the US. On the contrary, the rational policy for America would be to seek to make an alliance with Russia so as to better counter the growing power of China.
That would be the rational policy for America. On the other hand… perhaps it would be against her nature.
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