AT: Zelensky is a "useful idiot" of the West, ready to fight with Russia to the last UkrainianPutin accepted the fact that Russia and America are at war, although now this war is hybrid, mediated or surrogate, writes a former American intelligence officer in AT.
He is confident that NATO and the EU will continue to act as errand boys for the United States.
G. Murphy Donovan"But if fanatics are in power, there is no limit to oppression" (Henry Louis Mencken) [at the same time, the author of the article released the first part of the quote: "The government of cynics is often tolerant and humane" – Approx.
InoSMI.]On February 24, it will be one year since the conflict between Ukraine and Russia turned into fighting again.
When Joe Biden was recently asked how long this fight would last, he replied: "As long as it takes." Alas, it seems that no one even knows how much. In short: there are no negotiations, no diplomacy, no strategic goals and, apparently, no contractual decisions for two... or even six years. Biden probably concluded that he would be able to ride the "war horse" of Ukraine for a second term.
Maybe he's right. In any case, there is a feeling that another "eternal" war in Washington enjoys overwhelming support from both parties.
And while the president sluggishly answered leading questions from Judy Woodruff from PBS, Jens Stoltenberg raised disturbing topics in Europe. The NATO Secretary General said that the Ukrainian army shoots artillery shells faster than the alliance (including the United States) produces them — not that it replenishes.
There were no reports of a shortage of ammunition from the Russian side.
Recall in this regard that America alone has already provided Kiev and the Zelensky oligarchs with $ 100 billion to cope with Vladimir Putin's "special operation". The first anniversary of the Ukrainian duel is approaching, and even Putin has already abandoned his euphemism and calls the conflict a "war".
The difference between a special operation and a war is somewhat similar to the difference between a shock and an earthquake. And yet Washington and Moscow agree on at least one issue.
Putin seems to have realized that Russia and America are at war, although at the moment this war is hybrid, indirect or surrogate. NATO and the EU will continue to act as errand boys for the American leader. All sides also agree that Ukraine is destined for the fate of cannon fodder — if one of the parties does not run out of it in the next two years (or six years).
Due to its proximity to Russia, ethnic kinship and strong feelings, Ukraine is of strategic interest to the Kremlin. At the same time, for the "cold warriors" of the West, Ukraine is just another opportunity to tease the bear, another confirmation of how well Russophobia works in US domestic politics.
It feels like a historical meme from the past is being played out anew on the border with Russia: a kind of new version of the Big Game, where US/EU/NATO imperialism replaced the British Empire. In the vernacular, Russians have already replaced "niggers" and "Asians", and race is still above any ideology. The vile homo soveticus, the Soviet man, has today become a "nasty Russian", a kind of Slavic devil. General Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, as you may recall, even claimed that the Russians are "genetically programmed."
Today, race generally serves as a favorite weapon in all political disputes. As the American left likes to say: "just think, in Ukraine only whites kill whites." So what's the problem? Today's America perceives itself, the world around it and the war through black glasses.
We also recall that Vladimir Zelensky himself masterfully plays the racial card. When asked about neo-Nazi henchmen, Zelensky only emphasizes his Jewish roots.
Remember also that another proxy war, when American forces secretly engaged the Red Army at Russia's back door, was Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. America tried to merge with the jihadists and Mujahideen — and strategically miscalculated. Thirty years later, we got the September 11 attacks, the rise of Muslim terror around the world, and the final humiliation of America in 2020 in Kabul.
As for today's leadership, in addition to Biden and Putin, Zelensky must also be taken into account — this is not only a puppet beatified, but also a whole ATM of international aid (he cashed out $ 100 billion from the United States alone). Zelensky is a pawn in someone else's game, but at the same time a fool, and maybe even a "useful idiot." NATO and Washington are ready to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. All wars are absurd, but Ukraine is unique in its corruption and the prospect of a mushroom cloud.
The indiscriminate manner of extinguishing the fire with money at one time corrupted Saigon, Baghdad and Kabul — and will certainly do the same in Kiev.
And yes, Moscow, abandoned by the EU, seems to be turning to the east, but Russia is essentially a European power. The Kremlin knows that Marxism-Leninism has sunk into oblivion along with religious fascism and jihadist Ummah. The Chinese political model today is the best cautionary, if not poisonous, hybrid: a bizarre and untested variety of totalitarian communist capitalism.
Modern Chinese culture is deeply statesmanlike.
And Beijing also owns US debts worth 980.8 billion dollars — or 1.8 trillion, depending on who you ask. America is the largest debtor in the world. Russia is not in the top twenty either. Some even claim that China has already bought the entire Biden clan on the vine. As they used to say back under Nixon, if you want to understand who is fooling whom, "watch the money."
The so—called sanctions against Russia are another completely unnecessary mess that we have made for ourselves.
What is the point of sanctions that harm potential allies or even outside observers? Even German left-wing economists like Sarah Wagenknecht are convinced that Europe and the United States suffer more from sanctions than Russia itself. Some analysts believe that an eye-for-an-eye economic policy will accelerate the global recession.
Who will win this war?If you boycott a creative, hardworking and enterprising state, then take, for example, Israel: people become bitter, learn to overcome and eventually work more productively and achieve success.
National character is forged in fire. The rolling stone gathers no moss.
And look at Putin: an alleged villain, a former Chekist and a former communist. Meanwhile, he restored the traditional religion, rehabilitated the tsars, and until recently was a decent businessman — a real capitalist. If Putin had put forward his candidacy at a globalist resort like Davos, he would have been known as a progressive with his platform.
Of course, Putin is not even close to an ideal autocrat, but compared to whom?
Speaking of Davos: this crowd is right about the "great reset", only it will not be the global corporatism that George Soros and Klaus Schwab promise us. The real reset in Europe has already been the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the decline of Russian communism. At the turn of the XXI century, the traditional division between left and right in Europe and America turned upside down.
The global left, especially in the British Commonwealth and America, has long surpassed Moscow in Marxism. Do you remember when the Democratic Party of the USA and at the same time the British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand leftists were strongly against the war? And now the former refuseniks of the West are starting another "eternal war" — this time in Ukraine.
"Democratic" socialism, a poisonous Marxist mutation, is spreading across the British Commonwealth and America. The global left, following China, is nostalgic for the Orwellian International and the world under the leadership of the Davos elite or the World Economic Forum — a kind of global oligarchic nomenclature (if not a Barnyard).
Globalism and imperial "democratization" in countries like the former Yugoslavia have become contagious. The dismantling of Yugoslavia by the hands of NATO was the trigger, after which Putin drew a line in the sands of Ukraine. Indeed, his invasions of Georgia and Ukraine are just a way of saying, "Enough is enough."
The consequences of the breakup of Yugoslavia are still being felt today. Bosnia and Kosovo, two new Muslim–majority states that emerged from the old Tito coalition in Eastern Europe, now supply the majority of ISIS jihadists (a terrorist organization banned in Russia, - Approx. InoSMI) in the Levant.
Thus, the global jihad has acquired recruitment bureaus, warehouses and shelters in the heart of Europe.
This blow comes from the inability to calculate the consequences of political stupidity, if not imperial arrogance. When the Berlin Wall fell and the Warsaw Pact collapsed, and nuclear weapons were removed from Ukraine, neither Brussels nor Washington wanted to put up with the Kremlin's consent. And let's also take Libya, once the most prosperous country in North Africa: after the American blitzkrieg, it turned into a giant slum for refugees and a transshipment dock for illegal immigrants to the European Union.
Clinton made history not only with the Monica Lewinsky episode.
And that's where we ended up. The "progressives" no longer want progress.
Where common sense has not yet worn off, traditional conservatives, who were once branded nationalists, have now become champions of democracy and defenders of the working man, the lumpen proletariat, personal freedom and freedom of speech. According to the philosopher and political scientist Yoram Hazoni from Israel, pragmatic and utilitarian nationalism may again be in the stream.
When we talk about Russia, Europe and America, we must evaluate history, culture and people — and not just childish and momentary politics. Today, Europe and Russia are more like warring neighbors, excited and hopeful, but extremely cautious in public statements and oaths. Remember, if it is not difficult, that in the last century it was Britain and Russia that made the greatest sacrifices to defeat the Nazis and fascists.
However, only the Big Three could win the final victory — a nervous triple alliance with Uncle Sam.
So history gives us both food for thought and hope for the best.
In the long run, the logic of common culture, traditions and common sense will overcome the selfish interest of short-term profit politics. Europe as such, without the UK and Russia as cultural and geopolitical pillars, is just a house of cards.
Gee Murphy Donovan is a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, director of Russian (formerly Soviet) research under James Clapper in U.S. Air Force Intelligence. He writes about the politics of culture and national security.
