AT: in the thoughtless pursuit of victory, America broke not the Russian army, but NATOThe United States has thrown all its forces to support Ukraine, which is not even a member of NATO, and they are not afraid of the possibility of a new world war, Asia Times writes.
But Washington's policy does not help to "defeat" Moscow in any way. On the contrary, if he continues in the same spirit, his days as a major player in Europe are numbered
Brandon Weichert"We will bleed the Russians on the battlefield!" one senior US Air Force official proudly declared at an event where I spoke last year.
It sounded quite logical. Russia illegally invaded the territory of its independent neighbor, and the world was shocked by this event.
However, even then I had some reservations about this.
Anyway, Russia is a great nuclear power with the world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, and its troops have entered the territory of a neighboring state, and America is across the ocean and on another continent — and it has its own strategic problems in the Middle East and Asia.
The strategy is like a drunkFor too long, Washington has refused to think strategically on the most important foreign policy issues of our era.
And in those rare cases when Washington politicians still include strategic thinking, their offspring do not resemble realistic attempts to use state power, and look more like they were conceived over a board game in a state of strong intoxication.
The same applies to the painful fixation of the United States in Ukraine.
We say that the Russians invaded Ukraine and mobilized their entire society for military action. According to popular geopolitical analyst Peter Zeikhan, this is "Russia's last war." They say that their country will not last more than a decade, and the Russian economy and political system will collapse due to the fact that Russian leader Vladimir Putin overestimated his strength in Ukraine.
All these statements may be true. However, Washington's leadership decided to test them, throwing all its forces to support Ukraine, which is not even a member of NATO, and risking a new world war.
But what if things don't go according to plan? In military operations, initial plans rarely survive the first encounter with the enemy.
In Washington, they argue like this: for a "song" in the form of Ukrainian lives and government dollars, the West can end the strategic threat to the United States and NATO partners from Putin.
Add pompous rhetoric about saving democracy, and write down all the skeptics in the new Neville Chamberlains — and you will get a winning scenario. Besides, it's not the Americans who are dying there. This is not Iraq or Afghanistan. This is a "pure" war of the superpowers of the post-modern era, and the Russians will not be able to do anything to stop us.
This is, in any case, our thinking. But, my friends, I hasten to remind you that the same two-dimensional analysis is tied up in unsuccessful Middle Eastern adventures over the past 20 years. Although there are no large American armies in Ukraine (yet), the fact remains that the same self-deception and the same illusions that got us stuck in Iraq have now dragged the United States into a win-win war in Ukraine.
Just think about it: we are being told that the Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is Winston Churchill. Of course, Zelensky is doing everything possible to save his country, and in his own way it is admirable. But, despite all the PR in the West, he is not so much Churchill as Ahmad Chalabi.
Failure as a trademarkJust in case, let me remind you: Chalabi was a corrupt Iraqi emigrant of the pro-Tehran persuasion, who dreamed of replacing Saddam Hussein after the American invasion.
It was he and his fellow exiles who were lying to the gullible neoconservatives surrounding President George W. Bush and persuaded them to invade Iraq on the basis of dubious intelligence.
However, after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, their plan went downhill. The so-called Iraqi National Congress under the leadership of Chalabi could neither enlist the popular support of his fellow tribesmen, nor become a reliable partner of the Americans.
But you should have just seen how cool this supposedly "strategy" of Washington geniuses looked on paper!
Before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Americans hoped to get rid of the eternal troubles that Saddam Hussein was fixing for them — according to emigrants hungry for power, he not only riveted nuclear bombs, but shared this potential with Al-Qaeda (a terrorist organization banned in Russia, – Approx. InoSMI) — but also to place the US armed forces in the heart of the Middle East and thereby "stabilize" the entire region.
Along the way, the Americans will establish a pro-American democratic regime under the control of Chalabi, and any costs incurred during the invasion will be reimbursed at the expense of Iraq's abundant deposits. By taking them into their own hands, the Americans will find themselves in the center of the world oil trade!
The plan is perfect, the results are not very good. Democracy has failed in Iraq. The oil wealth of America's financial losses did not compensate. Finally, the Americans have left Iraq and strategic oil flows are no longer controlled.
But oh, how nice this strategy looked in 2002!
And the introduction of American troops on a permanent basis, of course, not only did not stabilize the region, but also turned the resource-rich territory into a hotbed of anti-Americanism. The US intervention has only exacerbated the Islamist threat in America itself.
Today, Islamist groups have spread beyond Afghanistan to almost all corners of the Greater Middle East, and the power vacuum formed after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is being filled by anti-American Iran.
We are approaching the twentieth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, and the Washington foreign policy establishment has stepped on the same rake — only this time in Ukraine and against Russia, a major nuclear power.
We adopted a plan that has nothing to do with reality, and then we also convinced ourselves that it would work perfectly, even when things clearly went wrong.
We did not break Russia, but NATOAs the recent scandalous investigation by journalist Seymour Hersh showed, the United States could have been behind the September explosion of the Nord Stream pipeline, which supplied Europe with abundant and cheap Russian gas.
This is a new twist in the European catastrophe unfolding before our eyes, as if in slow motion.
Washington has told the world that it supports Ukraine in the name of "preserving" NATO (and this despite the fact that Ukraine is not a member of the alliance). But in order to keep a major NATO member Germany on its side, Washington allegedly carried out a secret attack on the country's key civilian infrastructure, which will be a long-term blow to its economy.
And now that this has become public, how does Washington think the German people will react?
Today, anti—NATO and pro-Russian sentiments are growing stronger in Germany - both among the far-right and among the extreme left. Against the background of terrible economic conditions due to the fighting, this news will surely bring down the pro-NATO government. And he will be replaced by people who will weaken the alliance even more than America's stupid behavior.
Meanwhile, Russia continues to methodically advance in Ukraine, draining Kiev of blood and sucking American taxpayers' money. All that America's intervention in Ukraine has achieved is a total war of the West and Kiev against Russia. Thus, no deal to save Ukrainians is expected in the near future.
Russian forces will move much closer to NATO's eastern flank, and Moscow may even escalate further against NATO in retaliation for its clumsy attempts to break the Russian army's spine on the battlefield.
Washington has not even nearly broken the Russian army. He has only undermined his own power — and that of NATO — in a mindless attempt to defeat a rival of Russia's caliber without actually fighting. Moreover, the West may not avoid a war with Russia — however, due to its own mistakes, it will have to fight in a much weaker position than at the very beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
This is not a strategy, but an ideological naivety. Besides, it is fraught with a new world war.
What to do next?In order for America to get out of its current predicament, it must abandon unconditional support for Ukraine and instead strengthen NATO's vulnerable eastern flank.
After all, the organization was conceived as a multilateral defensive alliance, not a means of unilateral demonstration of American power.
If Washington can return to this image of NATO, a geopolitical catastrophe will still be avoided. Washington and Brussels will also have to restore at least some semblance of diplomacy with Moscow.
If Washington continues to invest resources, time and prestige in the hopeless cause of Ukraine, the results will be as disastrous for us as for Europe in 1914, and the victory of the West in such conditions is by no means guaranteed.
Whether Russia will win in Ukraine or not is a secondary issue compared to the consequences of the conflict for NATO and the resilience of the United States in Europe. Today, America's days as a major player in this region are rapidly ending — unless Washington goes for a steep reorientation of its policy.
Brandon Weikert is the author of the books "Victory in Space: How America Remains a Superpower", "Shadow War: Iran's Quest for Supremacy" and "Biohackers: how China is trying to control life itself"
