Putin’s war to reshape the American Zeitgeist
Alastair Crooke, Strategic Culture, Jun 24 2024
The G7 and the subsequent Swiss Bürgenstock Conference can in retrospect be understood as preparation for a prolonged Ukraine war. The three centrepiece announcements emerging from the G7 (the 10-year Ukraine security pact, the $50b Ukraine loan and the seizing of interest on Russian frozen funds) make the point. The war is about to escalate. These stances were intended as preparation of the western public ahead of events. And in case of any doubts, the blistering belligerency towards Russia emerging from the European election leaders was plain enough. They sought to convey a clear impression of Europe preparing for war. What then lies ahead? According to NSC spox Adm (Retd) John Kirby:
Washington’s position on Kiev is absolutely clear. First, they’ve got to win this war. So, number one, we’re doing everything we can to make sure they can do that. Then, when the war’s over, Washington will assist in building up Ukraine’s military-industrial base.
If that was not plain, the US intent to prolong and take the war deep into Russia was underlined by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan:
Authorization for Ukrainian use of American weapons for cross-border attacks extends to anywhere Russian forces are coming across the border.
He affirmed, too, that Ukraine can use F-16s to attack Russia and use US-supplied air defence systems “to take down Russian planes, even if in Russian airspace, if they’re about to fire into Ukrainian airspace.” Ukrainian pilots have the latitude to judge the intent of Russian fighter aircraft? Expect the parameters of this authorisation to widen quickly, to penetrate deeper to reach airbases from which Russian fighter bombers launch. Understanding that the war is about to transform radically and extremely dangerously, President Putin detailed in his speech to the Foreign Ministry Board just how the world had arrived at this pivotal juncture, one which could extend to nuclear exchanges. The gravity of the situation itself demanded the making of one last chance offer to the West. Putin said:
Today, we are presenting another concrete and genuine peace proposal. If Kiev and Western capitals reject it again, as they have done before, then the ongoing bloodshed becomes their responsibility, both politically and morally. Clearly, the situation on the front lines will continue to evolve unfavourably for the Kiev regime, altering the conditions necessary for initiating negotiations. Let me underscore the key point: the essence of our proposal is not a temporary truce or ceasefire, as the West might prefer, to allow the Kiev regime to recover, rearm, and prepare for a new offensive. I repeat: we are not discussing freezing the conflict, but its definitive resolution.
Just to be clear, Putin almost certainly never expected the proposals to be received in the West other than by the scorn and derision with which they, in fact, were met. Nor would Putin trust the West for a moment not to renege on an agreement, were some arrangement to be reached on these lines. If so, why then did President Putin make such a proposal last weekend, if the West cannot be trusted and its reaction was so predictable? Maybe we need to search for the nesting inner Matryoshka doll, rather than fix on the outer casing: Putin’s final completion likely will not credibly be achieved through some itinerant peace broker. In his Foreign Ministry address, Putin dismisses devices such as ceasefires or freezes. He is seeking something permanent: An arrangement that has solid legs, one that has durability. Such a solution, as Putin has hinted before, requires a new world security architecture to come into being; and were that to happen, then a complete solution for Ukraine would flow as an implicit part to a new world order. That is to say, with the microcosm of a Ukraine solution flowing implicitly from the macrocosm agreement between the US and the Heartland powers, settling the borders to their respective security interests. This clearly is impossible now, with the US in its psychological mindset stuck in the Cold War era of the 1970s and 1980s. The end to that war, the seeming US victory, set the foundation to the 1992 Wolfowitz Doctrine which underscored US supremacy at all costs in a post-Soviet world, together with “stamping out rivals, wherever they may emerge.” As Sameed Basha writes:
In conjunction with this, the Wolfowitz Doctrine stipulated that the US would inaugurate a US-led system of collective security and the creation of a democratic zone of peace. Russia, on the other hand, was dealt with differently. The country fell off the radar. It became insignificant as a geopolitical competitor in the eyes of the West, as its gestures of peaceful offerings were rebuffed, and guarantees given to it regarding NATO’s expansion forfeited. Moscow could do nothing to prevent such an endeavour. The successor state of the mighty Soviet Union was not its equal, and thus not considered important enough to be involved in global decision-making. Yet, despite its reduced size and sphere of influence, Russia has persisted in being considered a key player in international affairs.
Russia today is a preeminent global actor in both the economic and political spheres. Yet for the Ruling Strata in the US, equal status between Moscow and Washington is out of the question. The Cold War mentality still infuses the Beltway with the unwarranted confidence that the Ukraine conflict might somehow result in Russian collapse and dismemberment. Putin in his address, by contrast, looked ahead to the collapse of the Euro-Atlantic security system, and of a new architecture emerging. Putin said:
The world will never be the same again.
Implicitly, he hints that such a radical shift would be the only way credibly to end the Ukraine war. An agreement emerging from the wider framework of consensus on the division of interests between the Rimland and the Heartland, in Mackinder’s terms, would reflect the security interests of each party, and not be achieved at the expense of others’ security. If this analysis is correct, Russia may not be in such a hurry to conclude matters in Ukraine. The prospect of such a global negotiation between Russia-China and the US is still far off. The point here is that the collective western psyche has not been transformed sufficiently. Treating Moscow with equal esteem remains out of the question for Washington. The new American narrative is no negotiations with Moscow now, but maybe it will become possible sometime early in the new year, after the US elections. Well, Putin might surprise again by not jumping at the prospect but rebuffing it, assessing that the Americans still are not ready for negotiations for a complete end to the war, especially as this latest narrative runs concurrently with talk of a new Ukraine offensive shaping up for 2025.
Of course, much is likely to change over the coming year. The documents outlining a putative new security order were already drafted by Russia in 2021, and duly ignored in the West. Russia perhaps can afford to wait out military events in Ukraine, in Israel, and in the financial sphere. They are all, in any event, trending Putin’s way. They are all interconnected and have the potential for wide metamorphosis. Putin is waiting on the shaping of the US Zeitgeist. He seemed very confident both at St Petersburg and last week at the Foreign Ministry. The backdrop to the G7’s Ukraine preoccupation seemed to be more US election-related than real. This implies that the priority in Italy was election optics, rather than a desire to start a full-blown hot war. But this may be wrong. Russian speakers during these recent gatherings, notably Sergei Lavrov, hinted broadly that the order already had come down for war with Russia. Europe seems, however improbably, to be gearing up for war, with much chatter about military conscription. Will it all blow away with the passing of a hot summer of elections? Maybe.
The coming phase seems likely to entail western escalation, with provocations occurring inside Russia. The latter will react strongly to any crossing of (real) red lines by NATO, or any false flag provocation (now widely expected by Russiam military bloggers). And herein lies the greatest danger: In the context of escalation, American disdain for Russia poses the greatest danger. The West now says it treats notions of putative nuclear exchange as Putin’s bluff. The Financial Times tells us that Russia’s nuclear warnings are “wearing thin” in the West. If this is true, western officials utterly misconceive the reality. It is only by understanding and taking the Russian nuclear warnings seriously that we may exclude the risk of nuclear weapons coming into play, as we move up the escalatory ladder with tit-for-tat measures.
Even though they say they believe them to be bluff, US figures nonetheless hype the risk of a nuclear exchange. If they think it to be a bluff, it appears to be based on the presumption that Russia has few other options. This would be wrong: There are several escalatory steps that Russia can take up the ladder, before reaching the tactical nuclear weapon stage: Trade and financial counter-attack; symmetrical provision of advanced weaponry to western adversaries (corresponding to US supplies to Ukraine); cutting the electricity branch distribution coming from Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania; strikes on border munition crossings; and taking a leaf from the Houthis who have knocked down several sophisticated and costly US drones, disabling America’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) infrastructure.
We’re all buying more nukes. Here are the five main reasons why
Martin Jay, Strategic Culture, Jun 24 2024
The SIPRI report is a grim read. All of the world’s nuclear powers are modernising and/or increasing their missiles. But how did we get from “the world can’t afford a nuclear war” narrative of 40 years ago to the present nail-biting edge of the abyss as of today? A lot has changed in those years, but here are the chief factors which we need to face to understand why 12k nuclear warheads are out there and perhaps more are going to be added to that number.
Governance in western countries. We, in the West, have never been poorer in this respect. Western leaders no longer have the courage to formulate bold policies based on their beliefs, if they have any which explains the political crisis currently in the UK and a huge protest vote in the EU elections recently which gave a quarter of the entire European Parliament to far-right groups. Typically western elites continue to perniciously steer away from being associated with the state of the economy, environment, state of health care sector, small business and increasingly hide behind opaqueness while using media more and more for their own gains. In this environment, they relish the idea of cultivating fear with phoney wars on the horizon so to allow them to confuse the voters with saving the country from an external threat rather than tackle head on the country’s domestic challenges. Of course within this area of “we must spend more on defence” comes the more salient threat of the erosion of civil liberties. Spend big on defence, keep the fear alive. Nukes.
BRICS and new world order. Of course, part of the unintended consequences of the Ukraine war is the emergence of BRICS which threatens the old guard and US hegemony which, under the Biden administration, appears to be in sharp demise with more reports each day of dollar dumping around the world. BRICS countries naturally create a basis for western elites to continue with “the Russians are coming” narrative which then naturally has its own momentum which encourages those same countries to spend more on nukes like China, India, North Korea, Pakistan and of course Russia. As the US loses its former grip around the world, its natural inclination is to spend more on nukes and defence in general.
Poor nuclear diplomacy. Again this comes back to Ukraine and Gaza. Before both of these conflicts the US had good relations with Russia on nukes as both parties were signed up members of a test ban treaty. Russia has of course pulled out of its obligations and is now a wild card, with no communication or diplomacy open with the US. As the SIPRI report states, the US hasn’t actually kept its part of the bargain since 1996 which raises another aspect to nuclear diplomacy, which is that it makes the case for the old adage “contracts are only as good as the people who sign them.” Similarly, the US had cordial relations in the field of nuclear diplomacy with Iran, right up until Oct 7 2023 when Hamas launched its horrific attacks in Israel. All bets off after this point, as even though it is believed that Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons itself, if certainly is much closer to making them since Trump tore up Obama’s so-called Iran Deal. Nuclear diplomacy was always poor but at least it kept countries talking. Now the radio silence presents its own catalyst to a growing threat.
Nanny state thinking. Many western countries, for example the UK which has 225 warheads, have since WW2 taken a “zero casualties” approach to conflict, particularly noticeable in the last 20 years. The thinking is that new wars can be fought at a distance and with technology and that infantry fighting should be a thing of the past. In Somalia in 1993, a failed military operation by US rangers in Mogadishu led to 18 servicemen killed and one having his body dragged through the streets of the capital attached to a vehicle. This event was enough to dramatically change US foreign policy in Africa under Clinton and as Osama Bin Laden observed, it showed how vulnerable western countries are to body bags. The Mogadishu incident called Black Hawk Down resulted ultimately in the 9/11 attacks. Such vulnerability feeds the nuclear argument for western countries in particular who operate on a Nanny State basis without consulting voters and using nukes as a way of fooling a gullible public they (the citizens) need the nukes, whereas in reality it’s the elites who need them more as they have no political stamina for body bags, not even a handful.
New enemies. This was briefly touched upon in the report also. As the world changes new friendships emerge, or perhaps new partnerships. These new alliances in the east are untested and so, while Pakistan and India almost have an identical number of warheads, India’s are increasingly reaching longer distances way beyond Pakistan’s footprint, suggesting that countries need a fallback plan for when regimes change and a new political dynamic takes place. In India’s case, China might one day become a foe. Israel’s stockpile, the worst kept secret in the Middle East, might come in handy one day if the Arab world threatened the Zionist regime. Unfortunately it only makes the case stronger for Iran to continue to refine uranium and one day perhaps make its first nuclear missile. Who would stop them?
Niqnaq 