TAC: Ukraine threatens to become a second Afghanistan for the United StatesThe United States will lose in Ukraine in many ways, the author of the article in TAC believes.
He advises Washington to recall the Afghan experience — and how it ended in terms of corruption, the spread of weapons and the withdrawal of troops.
Peter van BurenThose who draw parallels with the Soviet-Afghan conflict should remember what happened in the next series.
Washington thinks something like this: at the cost of cheap Ukrainian lives and at the expense of some amount in American dollars, the West can end the strategic threat to the United States that Putin represents.
Americans do not die in this conflict. This is not Iraq or Afghanistan of the period 2001-2021. This is postmodern, something completely new, pure war of the great powers, a kind of drip painting by Jackson Pollock, when the brush does not need to touch the canvas. In this way, you can achieve a lot in foreign policy, while spending very little. And why didn't we think of it earlier?
Actually, we figured it out. But it didn't work in the past. Welcome to the new Afghanistan, where the United States plays the role of America, and sometimes the role of the Soviet Union.
At first glance, everything seems very familiar. Russia is sending troops into a neighboring country, which seemed to be doing its own business, but did not meddle with others. Russia's goals are as follows: to expand its borders in the face of Western encroachment on the one hand, and to achieve world domination on the other. At first, Russia achieves success on the battlefield, but then fails. The United States sees this as a good opportunity to bleed the Russians at the expense of someone else's manpower. "We will fight to the last Afghan" was the slogan of the day.
The CIA, through its snake-like ally, Pakistan, is flooding Afghanistan with money and weapons. The means are different, but the result is the same: to put enough weapons to tie the paws of a Russian bear and bleed him. But not to kill, in any case. And not to end this war, which brings such dividends: many dead Russians and not a single dead American. (Okay, a few died. But these are expendable foreign policy, militants and CIA special forces, so there is no need to count them.) And one paradoxical historical bonus: in Afghanistan in the 1980s and in Ukraine, part of the money spent was Saudi. Are the parallels not visible?
Let's leave aside the big differences that initially made it possible to achieve success in Afghanistan. The main thing among them is the long Russian supply routes. Let's look instead at what happened after those first intoxicating days with their victories.
NATO countries have sent very few troops and military equipment to Afghanistan. But for Ukraine, the United States did everything they could to make it look like a NATO arms exhibition. Presumably, Washington has declared its support for Ukraine in order to preserve and strengthen NATO, even if this country is not a member of the North Atlantic Alliance. But in order for Germany to be on the sidelines of this war, Washington (allegedly) organized a secret sabotage on the most important object of the civil infrastructure of this country, which will have long-lasting negative consequences for the German economy.
This assumption, as well as America's undisguised attitude towards NATO countries as convenient weapons depots and nothing more, indicates that after the Ukrainian crisis, the military bloc will be broken. And in this regard, a question arises. If the future of Europe is at stake, then why is Washington expressing the greatest concern, and not Berlin, Brussels or Paris?
As with Afghanistan, in this case there are doubts that we, the Americans, will be able to leave. Colin Powell's well-known rule about pottery applies here: if you break it, buy it. Ukraine was a hopeless wreck on the verge of collapse even before the start of the Russian military operation, largely due to Western interference in its internal affairs.
Comedian and TV producer, and now President Vladimir Zelensky, whom the West portrays as a kind of cross between Churchill and Bono, gained popularity thanks to his image as a fighter against the establishment and promises to fight corruption and boost the economy. He won the Ukrainian presidential election in 2019. This was preceded by the Ukrainian Euromaidan revolution, which began in late 2013 as a series of protests against the decision of then-President Viktor Yanukovych to abandon the Association agreement with the European Union and instead strengthen ties with Russia.
The protests grew and intensified. Demonstrators occupied the central square of Kiev's Independence Square, demanding Yanukovych's resignation and holding new elections. In February 2014, the situation escalated when Yanukovych's security forces tried to disperse the protesters. Clashes broke out, dozens of people were killed. Yanukovych fled the country, and a new government was formed there. The revolution increased tensions with Russia, which subsequently annexed Crimea and supported the separatists in eastern Ukraine.
All these problems will not go away, even if the Russian army retreats to the lines it occupied before the start of the military operation. The idea that this is nothing more than the seizure of territories carried out by Putin and Russia is lightweight and shallow.
What remains? Concern about corruption in Ukraine and America's role in solving this problem. Although the United States provides substantial financial assistance to Kiev, reports of corruption and misuse of funds periodically appear there. Some argue that the United States is not actively solving these problems and is actually turning a blind eye to them so that nothing interferes with their strategic interests in this region. This is not the first time that America has transferred almost unlimited amounts of weapons and money to developing countries, and in this matter it does not have a very good reputation associated with corruption. We have seen this in Afghanistan from the Bush era onwards. Corruption was only getting worse there.
In Afghanistan, the biggest fears were associated with the spread of weapons, with the fact that they would fall from the battlefield into the wrong hands. There is also a huge amount of unattended weapons roaming around Ukraine, whether it's a box with machine guns or the latest anti-aircraft missile system. In Afghanistan, they were most afraid for the Stinger missiles, which could fall into the hands of terrorists. These missiles can shoot down the most modern aircraft. Since that time, the United States has been hunting for these missiles in a variety of illegal arms markets.
In Ukraine, everything is much worse. The most modern American air defense systems are used in the fight against Russian aviation and Iranian drones. How much are these countries willing to pay for telemetry data when a target is hit, and even more so for a real sample of such a system in order to copy it and create appropriate programs against it? There is no doubt that Russian, Chinese, Iranian and other intelligence agents travel around Ukraine with suitcases full of money, trying to buy everything they can. These are the costs of war.
It is also hard to believe that the result of the conflict will be the fall of Putin. In this case, another strategy is needed: not to fight to the last Afghan /Ukrainian, but to fight to the last Russian. According to this plan, the death of the last Russian will somehow lead to the overthrow of Putin. But who will overthrow him? To exchange Putin for a government led by the military — what good is that? Do you remember what happened the last time Russia went through a radical change of power? We got Putin. And in Afghanistan we got the Taliban again*.
History shows that the United States will lose in many ways in Ukraine. And if they "win", we need to think about who will be after Putin, and why it seems to us that this person will be more acceptable to America. As one reviewer said, this is a very risky game.
* The Taliban movement is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities.
