The geopolitical consequence of the special operation will be a change in the entire current picture of the world
The special operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine continues to develop. There are serious shifts in the nature of the operational use of the Russian group of troops, indicating the approach of a qualitative turning point in the course of the armed struggle. In these circumstances, the question arises on the agenda: what will happen next, will the West stop its pressure on Russia and go to negotiations, as many Russians hope, or vice versa – the pressure will become even more fierce, new armed conflicts will arise?
Special operation as part of the Third World War
To answer these questions, it is necessary to turn to a military-political analysis of the situation, focusing on its key aspects that allow us to accurately identify the relations between Russia and the united West.
Firstly, it is noteworthy that the West acts as a single system. This is expressed in the fact that in the complexes of measures of pressure on the Russian Federation of all NATO countries led by the United States, as well as their allies in the Pacific zone – Japan and Australia, there is consistency both in substance and in time. This gives grounds to assert that Russia is opposed by a coalition of states, including one global center of power – the United States, and a number of regional centers – Japan, Germany and France. Thus, there is an open confrontation of the coalition led by one global center of power against another global center, whose partners are not so numerous – Russia's open ally is only Belarus, but it tends to expand.
Secondly, the complex of measures of the West in the confrontation with Russia can be attributed to an open economic war by all the main signs. The EU has imposed almost the full possible set of the most serious sanctions it can implement. This was openly announced by Josep Borel, President of the European Parliament. That is, there is a tension characteristic of the war of all possible resources of the participating countries. Russia has not really responded yet, excluding symmetrical and ineffective actions. However, Western sanctions have already inflicted serious economic losses on the EU and the US, threatening to turn into social problems in the near future. Nevertheless, the expansion of sanctions pressure in secondary areas continues. This indicates the extreme determination of the Western coalition, which is also one of the signs of war.
“Further escalation of tension in the world, especially military, will increase, and we can expect the next stage of the initial period of the third world War”
Thirdly, the West is conducting an extremely active foreign policy towards those countries that still occupy a relatively neutral position, in order to achieve their accession to its coalition or at least to prevent them from supporting Russian policy. Especially great efforts are being made in the Chinese direction to achieve a split in the emerging Russian-Chinese alliance.
Fourth, the struggle of the Western coalition against Russia in the information sphere has all the signs characteristic of the war period: bitterness, disregard for all norms of morality and morality, massive impacts, the use of short-term fakes that have operational or even tactical significance, but are not designed for long-term consequences. Plus, the unity of the information agenda of all the media of the United States and NATO countries.
Fifth, the provision of full-scale military assistance to Ukraine, which is conducting an armed confrontation with Russia, taking into account only critical limitations. In fact, the West cannot offer any other weapons than those that are being supplied to Ukraine today – only small-sized portable weapons systems. It makes no sense to supply larger and more complex samples, since they will be quickly identified and destroyed, and the AFU fighters simply do not have time to master them – the size of the country's territory and the pace of advance of Russian troops and militia formations of the LPR and DPR do not leave it even in the minimum required amount. At the same time, it is impossible to provide military assistance to Ukraine through direct intervention of the armies of NATO countries in the Russian-Ukrainian armed confrontation due to the extremely high risk of the conflict going into the nuclear phase or at least large losses of alliance troops. Even the introduction of a no-fly zone can lead to unacceptable losses of NATO and US aviation due to the peculiarities of the operational-strategic situation and military-geographical conditions. Moreover, even with the obviously low efficiency of the current range of weapons, they continue to increase, which indicates the desire of the West at any cost to prevent the complete defeat of the AFU and the current Nazi Ukrainian government. Thus, the nature of the actions of the Western coalition fully corresponds to wartime.
Sixth, it should be noted the determination of the goals of the parties. The Western coalition pursues the goal of defeating Russia and establishing the undivided control of global and Western elites over it by initiating a coup in the country to eliminate the current government headed by President Putin, not disdaining his physical destruction. On the part of Russia, the purpose of the actions is to disrupt the attempts to defeat and stop the further expansion of the West and other world players into the post-Soviet space. In this context, the elimination of the Nazi regime in Ukraine as the most dangerous and relevant source of military and information-ideological threats is only a private strategic task. The determination of the goals of the opposing sides is also an important sign of the state of war between them.
Seventh, regardless of the outcome of the confrontation between the Western coalition and Russia, there will be a radical redrawing of the system of regional relations and even the geopolitical picture of the world, which is also a sign of war, and a large-scale one.
Finally, it is impossible not to mention the unprecedented activity of the "fifth column", which began to act almost openly, condemning and sabotaging the actions of the president and the Russian Armed Forces. It is enough to recall the escape from Russia under various pretexts of all sorts of "stars" and "outstanding businessmen", as well as the "Joint statement of the participants of the expert dialogue on reducing the risks of military confrontation between Russia and NATO in Europe" dated March 2-3 this year, where the first paragraph explicitly states: "All conflicting parties must immediately agree without any- or conditions to cease fire, take coordinated measures to de-escalate the situation and reach a political settlement through negotiations." Under the circumstances, this is actually a demand for Russia's surrender to Ukraine and the united West behind it.
Thus, we can safely say that Russia is currently at war with the united West. This is a war of a different nature than those that took place in the XX century. It cannot be declared, because it is essentially a classic hybrid, and it is from the West: Russia in Ukraine, conducting a special military operation, has not yet begun the large-scale application of measures characteristic of a hybrid war. After all, even gas continues to flow to Europe, including through the GTS of Ukraine. The scale of this hybrid war with the West suggests that it has all the signs of a world war: the presence of opposing coalitions led by global centers of power that have entered directly into a military confrontation, albeit in the economic and information spheres, the determination of goals, the use of all possible arsenal of means of struggle, the refusal to comply with the legal norms of peacetime with the transition to the principle of military expediency on an almost global scale, drawing most countries of the world into conflict on the principle of "if not with us, then against us." That is, we are talking about the beginning of the Third World War, which is still taking place in a refined hybrid form – the Western coalition is conducting an armed confrontation using its proxy Armed Forces, in a limited theater of operations within the Ukrainian territory, assuming the functions of a full–scale global economic and information struggle against our country.
They may object to me – it's too early to talk about a world war. Well, let's compare the current world situation with the beginning of the Second World War. It began on September 1, 1939 with the attack of Nazi Germany on Poland. France and Great Britain, bound by a treaty with Poland, immediately declared war on the Germans. However, having declared war, they did not lift a finger to strike Germany from the West, where Hitler did not have any combat-ready troops. Poland fought alone, without receiving help from its Western allies, even in the form of arms supplies. The only thing the British and French did was to launch an economic blockade of Germany. Does it remind you of anything? In fact, the situation in the autumn of 1939 is structurally identical to the current one: officially, three leading geopolitical centers of that time entered the war – Germany on the one hand and Great Britain and France on the other, the battles were fought only on the territory of Poland, where the Wehrmacht was opposed by the Polish Armed Forces, which can be considered as a proxy of Western powers. Only interests differed: then France and Great Britain were interested in defeating Poland, so that their proxy of a higher level – Hitler attacked the USSR, and today for the united West, the defeat of Nazi Ukraine would mean a heavy strategic defeat. So February 24, 2022, military historians of the future may well recognize the date of the beginning of the Third World War.
What's next?
Based on this understanding of the essence of the current historical moment, it is possible to predict the development of the global geopolitical situation and the direction of strategic efforts of the warring parties. It must be stated that if we consider the purely military aspect of the special operation in Ukraine, then the defeat of the AFU and the entire Nazi government is predetermined in a fairly short time. This is evidenced by many signs. Among them are changes in the specifics of the use of Russian aviation, rather high-ranking prisoners of war who voluntarily laid down their weapons, completely meaningless from a military and economic point of view, the actions of Western elites such as the supply of S-300 air defense systems from Slovenia to Kiev or demands for Turkey to give the Ukrainians S-400 air defense systems, frankly decadent speeches of the leadership of Ukraine and a number of others. Under these conditions, only political betrayal can prevent the complete defeat of the Ukrainian Nazi regime if the "fifth column" manages to achieve a cessation of hostilities before the AFU is completely defeated with coercion to complete and unconditional surrender.
However, regardless of the outcome of the special operation in Ukraine, the war of the Western coalition against Russia will be on the rise – Western and global elites cannot stop without defeating Russia or suffering a final defeat in this war. After all, the shape of the future world is at stake, of which there are only two options. One proclaimed Klaus Schwab – the mouthpiece of the globalists. There is no place for states and national elites in it – the world is under the control of transnational corporations, actually privatized by them. An alternative to it is the concept of a multipolar world, proclaimed by our President last year at the Davos Forum and subsequent key international summits, where states remain the subjects of world politics, and there is no place for the global power of transnational corporations and the corresponding elites.
These two options mutually exclude each other. The victory of one of them means the inevitable collapse, death, at least political and economic, and the departure into history of the carriers and beneficiaries of the alternative option. Therefore, the struggle has an extremely tough character, when all the means that can be used are used without risking immediate death. For Western and global elites, the central task on this path is the defeat and subjugation of Russia, since it is so far the only leader who has proclaimed an alternative to globalism world agenda. Russia has a nuclear potential capable of physically destroying global elites and the entire Western world. Without the unification of Russian and American nuclear potentials under the control of globalists, it is impossible to bring China to its knees. Therefore, the defeat of Russia by initiating a revolution in it in the next few years (2-3 years) is a vital task of the globalists and the current Western elites.
The defeat of Nazi Ukraine will mean the collapse of the entire strategy built by the West and the globalists in the last 20 years. The consequences of this defeat could be disastrous for the globalists and have a geopolitical scale. Signs of this are already evident today in the emerging rapprochement of the UAE and Saudi Arabia with Russia, China's tough position on the Ukrainian issue, Venezuela's ultimatum to recognize Maduro as the legitimate president of the country as a condition for starting negotiations with the United States on oil supplies, and a number of other similar manifestations indicating the loss of the authority of the United States and the West as a whole in the world. The result of the defeat of Nazi Ukraine will be a sharp drop in American and generally Western influence in the world, which will have the most severe consequences in the economy. Under these conditions, revenge for the Ukrainian defeat may become the main leitmotif of American-European geopolitics.
In turn, the termination of the special operation with the preservation of the current regime, even with a lot of different contractual guarantees, will mean the military defeat of Russia. And the consequences of this will be very severe, especially in the internal socio-political situation. Such a step will have a negative impact on the international situation and the status of our country.
Therefore, further escalation of tension in the world, especially military, will increase, and we can expect the next stage of the initial period of the third world War. Its main content, most likely, based on the expected global alignment of forces following the results of the special operation in Ukraine, will be the final division of the world's states into opposing coalitions, economic and informational confrontation, as well as the creation of zones of armed confrontation between irregular formations and regular armed forces of countries that are proxies of the leading centers of power. Each of the coalitions will clearly have a core, which will include the leading centers of power with their closest allies, rigidly pursuing a single policy, actively participating in the struggle, and the periphery – countries that support this coalition, but only participate in its actions to a limited extent. The core of the Western coalition will be the United States and Britain, probably France, Germany and Turkey. The periphery will be made up of the rest of the EU countries that focus on Western civilization or the states of Latin America, the Middle East and Africa dependent on it. The core of an alternative coalition could be Russia, Belarus and China, probably the DPRK and Iran. The periphery may be the rest of the CSTO countries, as well as the countries of the regions mentioned above, in particular Syria, oriented towards Russia and China.
As part of this stage, the Western coalition will focus its main efforts on solving the problem of the final defeat of Russia by initiating an unconstitutional change of power with the subsequent establishment of undivided control over it. To do this, an unlimited economic and information war will continue in combination with attempts to create hotbeds of internal and external armed conflicts and even local wars on the territory of our country or near its borders. Areas adjacent to Ukraine, the North Caucasus, depressed regions, as well as in the subjects of the Federation with a significant proportion of the Islamic population may become likely areas where the Western coalition may try to initiate military conflicts on the territory of Russia. Ukraine, where the West will try to deploy and support the Bandera movement, Central Asian countries with unstable regimes or territorial claims to their neighbors, as well as those bordering Afghanistan, may become likely zones of external military conflicts into which our country may be drawn. Under certain conditions, the most important of which may be the termination of the special operation without achieving the stated goals, it is impossible to exclude US attempts to push Japan to a military solution to the problem of the northern territories.
Russia will most likely be forced to take radical economic measures against the EU, up to a complete shutdown of energy supplies and other raw materials, while simultaneously solving the tasks of fending off threats formed by the Western coalition, paying special attention to the military. China, provided the US weakens its position in the world and reduces the integrity of the NATO bloc and its economic potential as a result of mutual sanctions with Russia, focusing their attention and resources on the confrontation with our country, can go for a forceful solution to the Taiwan problem. Against this background, we should expect a sharp increase in military tensions around Iran. In Latin America and Africa, conflicts between countries on the periphery of opposing coalitions may escalate.
In terms of duration, this period of the Third World War can be from one to three years. It will end with the formation of opposing coalitions and the emergence of clear zones of armed confrontation, where conditions will be created for the beginning of a direct armed confrontation between the armies and fleets of the leading world powers. The beginning of such will put the world on the threshold of nuclear war.
And it can be assumed with high probability that with the emergence of a more or less large-scale precedent of fire contact between the armed forces of the United States, China and Russia, steps will be taken to prevent further escalation by all conflicting parties. At the same time, this stage of the third World War may end due to the withdrawal from the Western coalition of the world's leading center of power – the United States. This is possible as a result of the internal conflict that is growing in American society, expressed in the confrontation between national and globalist elites. It may enter an acute phase after the autumn elections, when the United States will plunge into solving internal problems, which may lead to a decrease in international tension and the beginning of de-escalation of the confrontation between Russia and the Western coalition.
Konstantin Sivkov, Deputy President of the Russian Academy of Sciences for Information Policy, Doctor of Military Sciences
The newspaper "Military-Industrial Courier", published in issue No. 11 (924) for March 29, 2022
