There’s a very good opinion piece by Shlomo Ben-Ami at The Strategist, the blog of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), which aligns very closely with my own views. Its entire thesis is summed up in these two sentences:
Despite Ukraine’s recent impressive counteroffensive around Kharkiv, the war with Russia has reached a prolonged deadlock. But there is one clear winner: the US arms industry.
Depending on your operative definition of “good”, I guess that’s good news. The U. S. is the world’s leading exporter of arms by a substantial margin. I suspect that margin has become even greater given the sanctions imposed on the second greatest supplier (Russia).
That reminds me of an old joke.
Question: When a mafioso goes to see a gangster movie, who does he root for?
Answer: The popcorn concession
The US/NATO/EU sanctions are not recognized by any country outside those groups. Even some countries in the groups do not recognize them, viz. Hungary and Turkey. Not one country in Latin America, including Mexico, not one country in Africa, including Egypt, no one in the Middle East, Israel is only partly in, and no country in Asia, except Japan and South Korea.
Only the EU is suffering from the sanctions, and the African countries that have had food and fuel shipments to them intercepted and seized by the EU.
On the other hand, countries all over the place are lining up to join the Chinese and Russian projects SCO and BRICS. Iran just became a full member of SCO, and Iran and Argentina ave joined what is now BRICSIA. Other countries have some sort of observer status and will join soon. OPEC+ is fully aligned with Russia re oil and gas export policies. That includes Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The fact is that the non-West is realigning into a Russia-China led coalition. For now, these coalitions are economic, developmental, and political. The US offers other countries nothing but war, sanctions, and threats. It demands submission, and it steals other countries’ property, viz. Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, Syria. The US has started nearly every war since 1945.
Russia may have captured all of Ukraine it wants. The war could have been settled soon after it started, probably along the lines of Minsk, with no loss of territory by Ukraine. There was actually an agreement between Putin and Zelenskii (Astana?), but the US and UK intervened to prevent it.
However the war ends, it marks the end of US/Western hegemony
If the rumors on telegram / Twitter are true (annexation referendums next week; new laws enabling partial or full mobilization; imminent address by Putin to Russia) — Russia is signaling it is “all inâ€, and they consider the conflict existential.
If I am right; buckle up. It is not 1962 in terms of risk of the use of nuclear weapons on a battlefield; it is 1945.
Those aren’t idle rumors. Russian language news sources are reporting the same things.
After reading a transcript of Putin’s speech… we are all headed for an almighty train wreck.
The more I think about; the reporter question to Biden over the weekend about possible use of WMD by Russia seems peculiar; like how they asked Biden about a possible Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan out of the blue before it became widespread knowledge. There maybe something observed or communicated that hasn’t been disclosed to the public yet.