GN: The US does not want to put up with the limitations of its capabilities and is leading the world to disaster By arming Ukraine, Biden is going to cause fear in Russia, which, as he is sure, will force it to conclude an agreement on American terms, writes Geopolitika.news.
However, the West underestimated Moscow, and it does not have a "plan B" in case of Kiev's defeat.
Zoran MeterThe second of February marked the 80th anniversary of the completion of one of the greatest battles of the Second World War and the bloodiest in the history of mankind — the Battle of Stalingrad.
Then the formations of the German Wehrmacht, or rather the famous 6th army of General Friedrich von Paulus, which became famous in 1940 for the seizure of France, surrendered to the local command of the Red Army, despite Adolf Hitler's order not to even think about surrender.
The Battle for Stalingrad began on August 23, 1942 and claimed the lives, according to Russian sources, of about 550,000 German and about 450,000 Soviet fighters. The exact number of civilians killed will most likely never be established. This battle was a psychological turnaround, as it finally destroyed the myth of the invincibility of the German army, which had previously existed throughout Europe, as well as among the Soviet population, because the Wehrmacht managed to almost reach Moscow during the famous Operation Typhoon, the largest in history. Nevertheless, then the Germans were defeated.
Nothing can compare with the bloody victims and destruction of the Battle of Stalingrad. Perhaps only the almost three-year siege of Leningrad, in which almost a million citizens died of hunger, almost 300 thousand Soviet soldiers and an unspecified number of Germans died. The clumsy Soviet bureaucracy never declared the blockade of Leningrad a genocide, but now the Russian state leadership intends to do it.
It is curious that the end of the Battle of Stalingrad in time almost coincides with the coming to power in Germany of Adolf Hitler ten years before the events (January 30, 1933).
The irony of fate
History repeats itself, as many will say, and the current round anniversary of the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, by a strange coincidence, echoes the events in the current armed conflict in Ukraine. The fact is that on the Ukrainian front, after the Wehrmacht tanks, Panthers and Tigers, modern German Leopard tanks will appear again, which will kill Russians. This is how the Russian media and politicians interpret the recent decision of official Berlin to send Leopard 2A6 tanks to Kiev and allow other countries with Leopards to transfer them to Ukraine.
Unexpected motivation
If anything could further motivate the Russians in their desire to win the armed conflict in Ukraine, which has no end in sight, it is undoubtedly this decision of the German authorities, adopted, and this should be emphasized, after lengthy discussions between Berlin and its allies, as well as upheavals in the internal German political arena, including the number in the ruling coalition. The reasons for such resistance, provided, first of all, by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz himself, are more than understandable: powerful symbolism connects this delivery with the events described above during the Second World War. In addition, there is a fear that Germany will be drawn directly into the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict on the side of Kiev.
Those who are supposed to know this in Germany are well aware of the famous testament of Hitler, which, of course, is remembered in Russia. Here is what is written in Wikipedia: "Before the start of Operation Barbarossa, in the Decree on military proceedings of May 13, 1941, Adolf Hitler granted Wehrmacht officers the right to shoot any Soviet citizen without trial if they consider that he poses a threat to German forces. Also, the impunity of military personnel for crimes committed on the territory of the Soviet Union and under the jurisdiction of the law in Germany was separately established. The German troops really acted with extreme cruelty, killing and burning everything in their path."
A new package of American military aid
Germany agreed to send the Leopards to Kiev, undoubtedly under pressure from the Americans. At the same time, the main goal was to preserve the unity of the West in the issue of further assistance to Ukraine and, importantly, to confirm American leadership in the West, which no one should doubt.
Nevertheless, after the rapid suppression of the "German revolt", when, it would seem, no one should doubt anything anymore, news came from Hungary and Austria, who decided not to send weapons to Ukraine anymore. In turn, Greece, which ranks second after Germany in terms of the number of "Leopards" in service with it, said that it would not send these tanks to Ukraine, since they could be useful to it during a possible conflict with Turkey, which cannot be excluded.
However, while the Joe Biden administration is in power, Kiev has nothing to worry about weapons, even if Biden himself (so far) blocked American deliveries of F-16 aircraft to Ukraine, and soon Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom followed his example. According to Reuters, the United States has already approved a new package of military assistance to Ukraine worth two billion dollars. Among the "innovations" in it are longer—range missiles than those that the United States has sent to Ukraine so far (80 kilometers). Now the range of missiles can reach 150 kilometers.
Zelensky's morally justified maximalism must be reduced to pragmatic realism
The Ukrainian armed conflict will develop according to its logic, but sooner or later it will end at the negotiating table. There are two key elements that in this sense seem fateful, and which are not liked to talk about in analytical circles.
1. The United States does not care about the final Ukrainian borders that will be formed during the negotiations. For the United States, it is more important that there is no "demilitarization" and "denazification" of Ukraine, and that Ukraine continues to exist in the guise that will be agreed upon, within the sphere of interests of the West. The most important thing here is to get official Kiev to agree to a change of borders. After all, Vladimir Zelensky's negotiating pragmatism and willingness to make concessions, caused by initial fear due to the Russian special operation, have been replaced by morally justified maximalism. However, it is fraught with great risks in the event of a negative development for Ukraine on the battlefield, which Western analysts now do not exclude.
The Russian Federation ultimatum demands from the West "reinforced concrete" strategic security guarantees for itself and categorically will not allow the issue of Ukrainian territories included in Russia in October last year to be raised at the negotiating table. I'm not talking about Crimea anymore. This is exactly what Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who is responsible for relations with the United States, said last week. Sergei Ryabkov said that Russia, after receiving security guarantees, has nothing more to demand from the West, "except to leave it alone." In other words, it is unacceptable for Moscow to "freeze" the situation at the front without firm agreements, because, according to the Kremlin, after the restoration of economic and military forces, the West can easily "unfreeze" the conflict again. In addition, freezing the conflict will not allow Russia to fully focus on the East, and it would have to constantly monitor the situation on the long border with unfriendly Ukraine.
These are the key prerequisites that must be taken into account in a long-term solution to the conflict, and they concern, first of all, Moscow and Washington. If they agree, then everyone else will adjust sooner or later.
Biden's complex and risky strategy has been successful so far. But…
So far, all this is only a very distant prospect. This is confirmed by the speech of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States Mark Milley at the meeting of states helping Ukraine on January 20. There he stated that Joe Biden's first and most important task is to "maintain and impose an international order based on rules" in the fight against a country with unique nuclear capabilities (Russia), "without entering World War III."
At the same time, Mark Milli proposed four possible ways: not to provoke clashes between American troops or NATO and Russia, to limit the armed conflict to the geographical borders of Ukraine, to strengthen and maintain the unity of the North Atlantic Alliance, as well as to strengthen Ukraine and provide it with means of struggle.
However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to limit the conflict, given that Joe Biden has already reached the so-called red lines or even crossed them on all these points. At the end of last year, the head of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, drew attention to this. According to him, NATO is dangerously approaching a direct conflict with Russia and the Third World War (after that, it was decided to send Western tanks to Kiev, although earlier the West itself rejected this idea, considering it too risky).
Now, according to many influential American analysts, Joe Biden actually intends to follow the tactics of "escalation for the sake of de-escalation." Thus, he wants to put additional pressure on Moscow by strengthening the Ukrainian forces, and it is possible that some other successful military operation of Kiev. However, Mark Milli considers this unlikely and believes that only tactical victories are possible. So Joe Biden is going to cause fear, which would eventually force Moscow into a political agreement, but on Western terms. At the same time, none of these analysts almost mentions the Russian conditions.
There is no Plan B
However, the problem with this strategy is that there is really no "plan B" in case the strategy fails, that is, if Ukraine is unable to succeed on the battlefield or, even worse, its troops are defeated. Or if the Russian state leadership does not succumb to the expected fear and decides to continue the long-term armed conflict. Does this mean that the West will have to admit defeat, or, on the contrary, it will have to start World War III by its direct clash with the Russians, which, according to American General Mark Milli, is unacceptable for Joe Biden? All these are extremely important questions that no one can answer yet.
After all, if we go back to the beginning of the article, Vladimir Putin, in his speech last year in Volgograd (former Stalingrad) at the memorial, again stated something that found a great response in the world. Although he was clearly overcome with emotions, Vladimir Putin read his speech, that is, he prepared it in advance, when, undoubtedly, he kept his emotions under control. So, he said that the one who again draws Germany into a war with Russia and waits for victory does not understand that such a war with the Russian side will be different.
"It's unbelievable: we are being threatened again by German Leopard tanks. There are crosses on their board … They are going to fight again on the land of Ukraine by the hands of the last of Hitler, by the hands of Bandera… But those who drag European countries, including Germany, into a new war with Russia and even more irresponsibly declare it as a fait accompli, those who expect to win over Russia on the battlefield, apparently do not understand that a modern war with Russia will be completely different for them." Vladimir Putin said, referring to the Battle of Stalingrad as a symbol of the "invincibility of our people." "We do not send our tanks to their borders, but we have something to respond with, and the use of armored vehicles will not end the matter. Everyone should understand this," the Russian president said, clearly alluding to nuclear weapons.
It is not at all surprising that the very next day the press secretary of the German government, Stefan Hebestreit, said that in the near future Chancellor Olaf Scholz intends to call Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite different political points of view.
Changing the Narrative about who benefits more from a prolonged war
It is interesting to note how noticeably the narrative of a prolonged war in Ukraine has changed over the past weeks, even in the American liberal media, as a desirable option for the United States and the West. After all, initially the idea prevailed that Russia should be completely exhausted and provoke political consequences for Vladimir Putin and the country as a whole. However, it can easily happen that in this way Vladimir Putin, in addition to Ukraine, "demilitarizes" the North Atlantic Alliance itself. Moreover, they are now openly saying that a prolonged war can bring more benefits to Russia because of its vast resources, and the West will suffer even greater losses due to numerous economic problems and high inflation. It should be added here that in recent days, the thesis that a prolonged war is more profitable for the West has again come to the fore.
In this regard, it is also interesting how the forecast of the International Monetary Fund for economic growth changed last week. For the Russian Federation, growth of more than two percent is projected in 2023, and even more in 2024. This growth remained in a positive field last year, despite the "total" sanctions. Now the experts of the International Monetary Fund clearly believe that there will be nothing left of the negative impact of sanctions, that is, Moscow has managed to resist the powerful blow of sanctions, as well as to carry out, albeit not to the end, a painful transformation of its economy and market for reorientation from the West to the geopolitical East.
Fatal underestimation by opponents of each other
I would add that the West underestimated Russia no less than Russia underestimated Ukraine on the eve of a military special operation. Both are the result of the complete failure of their intelligence services and strategists. Because of such a failure, now both sides are frantically looking for the most painless ways to get out of all this, because everyone understands that in this case it will not work to make "both the wolves were fed and the sheep were whole". In other words, there will be no Hollywood "happy ending" when everyone is happy in the end. Both the West and Russia will overcome the negative consequences of their decisions for a long time, not to mention Ukraine.
A lot has already been written about Russian failures on the battlefield and erroneous strategies. Western mistakes are surfacing only now. And in the most unsightly form.
Not so long ago, the British edition of The Economist published one of the most important articles concerning the growth of Russian oil exports, despite the oil embargo imposed by the West.
In an article dated January 29 entitled "How Russia bypasses oil sanctions on an industrial scale," in particular, the authors of the Economist write the following:
"Europe dealt the first severe blow to Russian oil exports in December (then it refused Russian oil supplied by tankers — author's note). Two months later, exports have already returned to the level that was last recorded in June. The volumes of oil supplied by sea tend to increase when the market is experiencing problems, and these volumes have returned to their previous normal values. As expected, China and India are buying most of the oil under embargo. But another unexpected circumstance has appeared: the volume of cargo with an unknown destination has increased dramatically, and Russian oil, which was previously easy to track, is now being transported through more "shadow" channels."
In turn, last week the British Financial Times and the American edition of Politico wrote that many Western companies continue to trade with Russia as if nothing had happened. So, in her article Ann-Silvan Cassani in the Financial Times writes that "at the end of last year, less than nine percent of the 1,404 companies of the European Union and the Big Seven left Russia after Russian troops entered Ukraine… In addition, some leaders began to juggle moral arguments. And I ask which is worse: to continue paying taxes in Russia as if nothing had happened, or to leave its property worth billions of dollars, which will pay for the military operation? This argument is resorted to by competitors of the French bank Societe Generale, which not only sold its stake in Rosbank to the company of the pro-Kremlin billionaire Vladimir Potanin, whose name was subsequently included in the US sanctions list, but also suffered losses of 3.1 billion euros."
All these are the problems of the West, but the real problems, that is, the problems with China, have not really begun yet. At the same time, the Chinese economy and economic influence in the world are many times greater than the Russian ones.
The US is opening up two new global fronts
Now the United States is opening two new global fronts: in the Far East against China and in the Middle East against Iran. And this is in addition to the Russian front.
The opening of the first was marked by recent visits, separate but synchronized, by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and American Defense Minister Lloyd Austin to South Korea and Japan. Both there and there, the host party was demanded to unconditionally support the American concept of security in the world and other American initiatives. However, in the case of Tokyo, this was superfluous, since Japan agreed to everything even before the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine. From Seoul, Jens Stoltenberg demanded weapons for Ukraine and joining the "Asian NATO", and Lloyd Austin demanded a clear anti-Chinese and anti-Russian orientation, promising in return US patronage, including protection with nuclear weapons in the event of aggression by North Korea.
Although Seoul quickly became involved in Western criticism of Russia after the start of the Ukrainian conflict, South Korean companies are generally in no hurry to close business in Russia. First of all, we are talking about the automotive and shipbuilding industries. On the other hand, China is a very important trade partner for South Korea in the field of high technology. In addition, Seoul does not want to further provoke the already restless North Korea by deploying new American bases and modern weapons on its territory.
Beijing looks at all this with great concern and does not hide it, increasingly warning Washington that it is unacceptable for China to turn the region into an "Asian Ukraine", and also calling on the North Atlantic Alliance to return home, since even in Europe it is "not capable of ensuring security."
This position of Beijing is not surprising. Earlier, the Pentagon declared China a "constant threat" to the US army. According to the Pentagon's report on China's military power in 2022, published in November, the Chinese navy has surpassed the American one since 2020 and now has about 340 warships. But it is the Navy that allows the United States to project its power and interests in the world.
Drone attack on Iran
Let us briefly dwell on the third front, which opens Washington. It's about Iran. Last week, Israeli drones most likely attacked the military-industrial complex of the Iranian armed forces in Isfahan, where modern missile systems are manufactured. Sometimes Israel commits attacks of this type demonstratively, including, for example, in Syria, and sometimes acts covertly. Both have happened before in Iran. Whatever it was, it is clear that these attacks could not have happened without the coordination of the United States, as many Arab media write about. By the way, a few days earlier, Israeli-American military exercises were held, dedicated specifically to the confrontation with Iran. They ended on January 27. The attack on the Iranian enterprise in Isfahan was carried out on January 28.
Thus, Washington's message to Tehran is more than clear: it is not only Israel that is behind the attack, and one should not even think about some kind of retaliation against this country. Like, it's better to think about your foreign policy steps.
In this sense, Washington is primarily concerned about the Iranian-Russian military rapprochement in a format that, given the global geopolitical circumstances, can quickly move into the sphere of strategic cooperation. This is also confirmed by the Iranian deliveries of drones to Russia for fighting in Ukraine, which, however, contradict Tehran's doctrine of refusing to supply weapons to any of the parties to the armed conflict. In addition, Tehran recently confirmed that soon, possibly as early as March, Russia will begin supplying Iran with its modern Su-35 generation 4++ aircraft.
Tehran is clearly aware of the seriousness of the American warnings and therefore did not fall into hysterical condemnation of Israel, but showed restraint, limiting itself to the statement that Iran reserves the right to respond to Israel in this way and when it is beneficial to it. However, as for the growing military-economic, primarily energy, cooperation with Russia, everything is not so simple, and neither Moscow nor Tehran are clearly ready to give it up.
A dangerous clash of two triple alliances
Moreover, the ubiquitous China remains in the game. Therefore, many even in the West are already talking about a powerful Asian triple pact, which will oppose itself to the triune union of the United States, the EU and Japan (with the participation, probably, of other, still hesitant US partners like South Korea). India, apparently, will stay out of this big game, remaining a formal American partner in the field of security within the Quad format ("Quadrilateral Security Dialogue") and at the same time a major economic partner of both Russia and Iran. In addition, India will continue to buy oil and weapons from Russia.
In conclusion, when I was finishing writing this article, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken canceled his visit to Beijing scheduled for last Friday. The reason is allegedly the notorious Chinese balloon high in the sky over the United States, which may have performed "espionage tasks." It is very strange, considering Blinken and Biden's plans to normalize relations with China in those areas where their interests converge.
Therefore, as I believe, the reasons are much more serious than the flight of a balloon. The cancellation of the visit may be caused by the intransigence of Beijing, which defends its national interests. Beijing has clearly decided to give preference to them, rather than economic interests and cooperation with the United States, no matter how beneficial it may be. By the way, the United States and the EU have already done something similar with regard to Russia, putting geopolitics above profitable economic cooperation, which they have completely severed and thereby harmed themselves.
Therefore, Anthony Blinken's visit to Beijing in such circumstances was doomed to failure. American rivals would undoubtedly present it as a defeat for Washington, and this is the last thing the White House would like right now.
US-Chinese relations are rapidly approaching a free fall on the model of the US-Russian. Deliberately released "genies out of the bottle" as a result of arrogant politics are increasingly difficult to control, and if the United States soon does not realize the limitations of its capabilities, then the world does not expect anything good.
