Geopolitika.news: Washington made a strategic mistake, and it's too late to change anythingWashington has made a strategic mistake that will be fatal for it, writes Geopolitika.news.
The United States understood that it was necessary to prevent the formation of an alliance between Russia and China, but they could not achieve this. And now it's too late.
Zoran MeterLast week, one important event of a global geopolitical nature was replaced by another of the same kind.
This clearly indicates that we have entered the culmination phase of the conflict of the key world powers, the troika: the United States, China and Russia. A conflict in which there are no more rules, or, to be more precise, the old rules no longer apply in it, and the new ones that the parties want to impose on each other as mandatory are unacceptable to the opponent.
Such irreconcilable geopolitical contradictions make the equation of the reconstruction of the world unsolvable, and if something does not radically change very soon, sooner or later a conflict will begin that can no longer be held solely within the framework of a political and diplomatic struggle and the struggle to strengthen its global economic influence and the appropriation of the most important natural resources. Such a conflict will inevitably develop into an internecine armed conflict. This will happen despite the fact that all three sides fundamentally and undoubtedly sincerely want to avoid it at all costs.
However, everyone also sincerely wanted to avoid the First World War, and it happened, and there is no reason that history — the teacher of life in front of bad students — who knows for the umpteenth time, did not repeat itself. Of course, circumstances change against the background of social and technological progress, but the philosophy and logic of what is happening remains the same.
The foreign policy and media space last week, as usual, was dominated by Ukraine and everything that happens there and that is connected with the Ukrainian armed conflict, the largest in Europe after World War II. However, Ukraine is by no means the only place where the world's paths intersect, although, of course, the most important.
Several other important events have happened
The process of de-dollarization is accelerating. Global militarization is intensifying, especially in Europe, according to a new report by the Stockholm Peace Research Institute. The extremely unpredictable Turkish election campaign is spinning, and unverified information about the allegedly seriously ill President Recep Erdogan is coming. Conflict is breaking out in Sudan. Finally, the first telephone conversation between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky took place. US President Joe Biden has officially announced his desire to run for a new presidential term. Fox News channel suddenly fired the most popular American TV journalist and chief critic of Biden's policy, Tucker Carlson, which casts the darkest shadow on the United States as a global symbol of freedom of speech, at least since the harassment of Australian journalist and Wikileaks editor Julian Assange, who shocked the world by publishing a number of secret documents undesirable for the United States from key American institutions.
China is trapped, as is the US
The West was very much waiting for this step after the Russian-Chinese summit in Moscow last month. Finally, last week, Beijing went for it, and Chinese President Xi Jinping called Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Biden allegedly sought this, and, undoubtedly, Emmanuel Macron during a recent visit to China. The conversation lasted about an hour, but very little was reported about its content. This probably means that the conversation did not bring important results that would concern the beginning of the negotiation process on ending the Ukrainian armed conflict.
Vladimir Zelensky briefly stated that the conversation turned out to be meaningful, and that Ukraine would send its ambassador to Beijing again. I would like to add here that China is still the largest trading partner of Ukraine, as well as almost all countries of the world. Recently, data on this was published, and this is very bad news for the dollar.
On the other hand, in his message, Xi Jinping said that "the complex evolution of the Ukrainian crisis has seriously affected the international situation," that Beijing, as always, is committed to a peaceful solution as the only possible one, and that now it is necessary to create favorable conditions for a diplomatic solution.
In principle, that's all. Especially important to me is the formulation of Xi Jinping, who spoke about the "complex evolution" of the Ukrainian crisis. This clearly means that, in Beijing's opinion, it did not begin with a Russian special operation, but much earlier, and that China blames the West and Kiev, among others, for it, which "provoked" the Russian special military operation.
Beijing wants to share the blame for the armed conflict between the West (and Ukraine) and Russia and from this position propose its peace plan, unveiled a couple of months ago. Let me remind you that formally the US and the EU rejected it, but informally it remains the only hope for any future peace talks with Moscow, since the US and the EU themselves are unable to do anything, being a de facto party to the conflict.
After the start of the Russian special operation, China found itself in a kind of dual trap. That's what it's about.
If Russia had won a quick military victory, then Beijing would have no problems. Russia would probably suffer from the consequences of the rupture of relations with the West, as it is now, but no one could accuse China of military assistance to Russia and its support, because it simply would not need it — the Russians themselves would have coped with everything. In other words, under such a scenario, China would be able to maintain strong economic ties, primarily with the EU, its second largest trading partner after the United States.
Now, against the backdrop of a protracted war, the EU, under strong pressure from the United States, is setting conditions for China to continue economic cooperation. Is it implied that China will decide and choose whom "it supports in the war — Ukraine or Russia"?
The main problem for Beijing is that it has linked its well-known initiative "One Belt, One Road" or, figuratively speaking, the Silk Road with the construction of infrastructure to Europe. For this, China bought the most important ports in the Mediterranean, in particular in the Greek Piraeus and the Italian Genoa and Trieste. China had the same plans for the German port of Hamburg and so on. At the same time, Beijing has been creating its own political and economic platforms for trade cooperation with some members of the European Union and states that have not yet joined it. In particular, we are talking about the States of the Western Balkans. All this is now in question.
The next essential element of the trap into which China has fallen is the fact that the United States has unleashed a protracted and exhausting economic and political war against it, into which they have driven their allies from Europe and Asia. In such circumstances, China has no choice but to establish strong strategic ties with Russia, military and economic. Let them not be formally called a union, but we can confidently call them a "Sino-Russian coalition", similar to the one created by the collective West to help Ukraine. Only the union of China and Russia is more comprehensive, since it covers all spheres and key global problems, and is not only limited to Ukraine.
A multipolar world without China and Russia?
Beijing understands that Washington wants to throw Russia and China off the global geopolitical chessboard and may even try to create a multipolar world without China and Russia — under its own leadership and with a certain restructuring of the most important international political and financial institutions, such as the UN, the IMF, the World Bank and so on. Given this, Beijing will never start a game against Moscow.
Washington has made a strategic mistake in this sense. American analysts understood very well that at any cost it was necessary to prevent the formation of an alliance between Russia and China. The problem that led to the most important mistake was actually banal, but it can easily become fatal: the American elites simply could not cope with their arrogance, and because of the psychological sense of eternal superiority, they could not build the necessary communication with China as an equal partner. Otherwise, China would act in a completely different capacity, and it would not need any "symbiosis" with Russia.
Therefore, the American elites began an extremely risky game, opening two fronts at the same time, despite numerous warnings not to do so. Nevertheless, the American elites were confident that they could win, first of all, by driving a "wedge" between Beijing and Moscow, as it happened once in the mid-70s. Then Kissinger's diplomacy won the most important foreign policy victory of the United States of America, maybe even the main victory in history. The United States has quarreled with two great neighbors and communist giants: China and the USSR. It was expected that Beijing would be afraid of breaking off cooperation with the West, especially knowing how the West treated Russia because of Ukraine (sanctions, political and military measures).
However, Beijing's desired retreat did not happen, which could have been foreseen even with the most modest analytical abilities. It's just that China is well aware that in American strategic documents, and published, it, along with Russia, is called the main American rival and a threat to American national and global interests in the 21st century. In other words, China was unwilling to sacrifice its future and its own existence in general for the sake of short-term or short-term economic benefits that the continuation of cooperation with the United States gives.
Russia's defeat is completely unacceptable for China
The defeat of Russia is completely unacceptable for China, because it is well known that in this case it is next in line. It is easy for Beijing to imagine what kind of situation it would find itself in if Russia were defeated. He will be left alone against the collective West without a single serious ally on whom he could rely in case of urgent need.
If Washington wanted to play on the Chinese card, trying to break Russia, it should have acted more gently, not sharply and aggressively. It was not necessary to provoke the Taiwan problem, mobilize its partners in the Indo-Pacific region on an anti-Chinese platform, transfer troops and expand military bases around China, and so on. China has simply become too powerful and influential enough to respond to threats of this type by retreating. Beijing has decided on the only possible step: it has turned towards Russia, which itself needs its help.
This "symbiosis", a partnership useful to both states, and not one in which the stronger dominates the second, forced to obey the "elder brother", is the key to the strength of what Moscow and Beijing are building now. In the West, this justifiably causes concern, given the opportunities that these two mega-states have in all key areas, from natural and human resources to military potential, that is, their status as nuclear powers. Moreover, such a structure of bilateral relations and international formats that Beijing and Moscow are building on a similar basis are increasingly attracting states around the world, including the so-called global South, which will be discussed below.
With the EU still unclear
On the other hand, we still have to find out how Europe, or rather the European Union, will eventually react to all this. The EU, as an institution uniting states, will definitely follow the line set by the United States in relation to China. However, some member states of the European Union tend to achieve particular interests, that is, they build bilateral trade relations with China. This is best confirmed by the recent visit to Beijing of French President Emmanuel Macron, who, together with a delegation of entrepreneurs, signed a number of lucrative contracts with Chinese partners in various fields there. The trade turnover of France and China reaches almost one hundred billion dollars a year, which is almost a fifth of the total trade turnover of the EU with China. In addition, China itself prefers the development of bilateral trade relations with EU member states. Therefore, it will be interesting to observe what will happen. As I assume, Germany and Italy will refuse to cooperate widely with China, succumbing to strong pressure from the United States. Moreover, Rome may refuse to cooperate with China in its Silk Road project. Italy is the only EU country that participates in this project, and Rome does not have the strength to resist.
Unexpected inspection of the Russian Pacific Fleet confirms Russian aid to China
No matter how events develop, I am sure that China will not sacrifice its security for the sake of maintaining trade cooperation with the West and will not turn away from Russia. This is best confirmed by the recent three-day visit of the new Chinese Defense Minister to Moscow. It is frankly stated that together with his Russian colleagues, his department is working to strengthen military-technical cooperation at all levels. Now we are talking not only about conducting military exercises, which, by the way, are increasing, but also about strategic initiatives, and this is important news in the context of relations between the two neighboring states.
Another significant example is the recent sudden check of the combat capability of the entire Russian Pacific Fleet, which includes about 190 ships and 14 submarines, including those with nuclear weapons. 35 thousand sailors were raised to their feet, and hundreds of naval combat helicopters were involved. All this happened at a time when the United States, clearly wanting to demonstrate its power to China, was building up its naval potential in the region. To do this, the United States is not only expanding existing bases, but has also sent three nuclear aircraft carriers, which, according to the plan, should enter the ports of South Korea, China's neighbor, for the first time in history.
Dedollarization cannot be stopped
Last week, Argentina signed an agreement with China on the use of the Chinese yuan in mutual trade. Shortly before that, Brazil signed an agreement on operations in yuan with China during the visit of President Lula da Silva to Beijing. A little earlier, Saudi Arabia began to receive yuan, not petrodollar, for the supply of its oil to China, and this will remain henceforth on the basis of the agreement between Beijing and Riyadh. Moscow and Beijing have agreed on the same, and China will pay for Russian gas in rubles.
Something strange is happening with the dollar, which is confirmed by a categorical article that was published last week in the British edition of the Financial Times. The author refers to the data of Stephen Yen, a well-known currency analyst who worked at Morgan Stanley. The yen calculated that "the dollar's share in the world's official reserve currencies decreased from 73% in 2001 to 55% in 2021, and in 2022 it fell to some 47%. In the last year, this share has been declining ten times faster than before!"
The publication notes another amazing and little-known fact. The author of the text reminds that today 30% of all countries of the world live under the sanctions of the USA, the EU, Japan and the UK. And in the early 90s, there were only ten percent of them, and until recently, sanctions were imposed mainly against small states. "Now this group of countries has launched a comprehensive offensive with sanctions against Russia (...), excluding Russian banks from the global system of payments in dollars. Suddenly it became clear to everyone that no state is immune from this," writes the Financial Times.
The US is too confident in the invincibility of the dollar and believes that sanctions are a free way to fight Russia without using troops. But the United States is paying for such self-confidence, because the states of the world are abandoning the dollar. Now even long-standing American allies, such as the Philippines and Thailand, are reducing trade in dollars, as stated in an article by a leading British publication.
Ukraine: the "moment of truth" is coming
In the end, the most important thing. Ukraine is approaching a kind of "moment of truth", which literally can and probably will determine its future and future geographical appearance.
Of course, we are talking about the likely imminent start of the announced large Ukrainian spring counteroffensive. In the West, for many months, politicians and the media presented him as a "trump card" that would allow the liberation of Ukrainian territories. If not all of them, including Crimea, then at least most of them, and at least the situation will return to the beginning, that is, until February 24 last year, when the Russian special operation began.
The West harbors such ambitions due to the unexpectedly and catastrophically bad start of the Russian military campaign in Ukraine. Many in the West, seeing how kilometer-long columns of Russian tanks were rapidly advancing towards Kiev, then expected a quick loss of Ukraine. I must admit that I was one of them myself. After what happened, the West, for some reason, believed that with the help of unprecedented anti-Russian sanctions and equally unprecedented supplies of Western weapons to Ukraine, it is possible to achieve Russia's military defeat and the subsequent speedy overthrow of Vladimir Putin's regime, that is, Russia's strategic defeat.
But this is not happening. The war has dragged on, and there is no end in sight. Now it has an extremely negative impact on the Western economy, primarily the EU. But the situation is constantly deteriorating in the United States: inflation is still high, Democrats and Republicans are arguing about the need for another increase in the debt limit, which threatens the first bankruptcy of this state in history. Plus, the head of the US Federal Reserve System recently admitted that this year the country is likely to enter a recession. In addition, four regional banks collapsed one after another in just two months, which exacerbated distrust of the banking sector.
If we add to this the huge financial costs to Ukraine, as well as large supplies of weapons there, then it becomes clear that they will somehow need to be justified before the impoverished voters on the eve of the upcoming presidential elections, which are scheduled in the United States for next year. The Ukrainian counteroffensive is a great chance for this, no matter how it ends.
However, only Ukraine can lose in the truest sense of the word if the counteroffensive proves unsuccessful, or if only minor tactical successes can be achieved that will not be able to reverse the situation. Nevertheless, in any case, the counteroffensive will definitely lead to new large casualties among Ukrainian soldiers.
It will be even worse if the counteroffensive fails completely, and if Russian troops launch some kind of lightning counterattack, which also cannot be ruled out. After all, it is well known that the Russian military leadership is seriously preparing for the Ukrainian counteroffensive with the confidence that it will be, and in no case underestimates its opponent. Moreover, the Russians understand that the whole West is actually fighting on the side of the Ukrainian army, which no longer hides this. In addition to supplying Kiev with its modern weapons, it also participates in the planning of Kiev's military operations, providing it with high-tech intelligence services, and instructors of the North Atlantic Alliance train Ukrainian fighters in Ukraine. The same thing happens at NATO bases. Numerous volunteers from many Western states are also fighting on the side of Ukraine. Most of them are from Poland and Canada. Everyone understands that all this has long been not only a Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict, and that Ukraine, no matter how heroic the resistance of its soldiers, who literally fight for every building and street in the Donbass, would have been defeated long ago without weapons and finances, if there were no Western, primarily American, help.
Urgent warnings are being sounded
Because of the fear that the Ukrainian counteroffensive will fail, other, more cautious voices are increasingly being heard. So, in recent days, less and less talk about a guaranteed and brilliant Ukrainian victory and a crushing Russian defeat, and warnings are increasingly slipping into judgments. Moreover, they are not expressed by amateurs.
For example, on April 27, General Christopher Cavoli, head of the European Command of the US Armed Forces, said that although Russia had lost thousands of soldiers in the war, there were still enough reserves in the arsenal of the Russian forces, and that in fact they were stronger than a year ago, when the armed conflict had just begun. "The Russian ground forces have somewhat degraded in this conflict, although today they are more than at the beginning of the armed conflict," Christopher Kavali said in the House of Representatives of the US Congress.
"The air forces of the Russian Federation have lost very little — only 80 aircraft. They still have a thousand fighters and fighter-bombers left. The fleet has lost one important ship," the general said.
Christopher Cavoli said that "most of the Russian army does not suffer from the negative consequences" of the conflict in Ukraine, and that in the Atlantic "the Russians are more active than in previous years, and their patrols throughout the Atlantic are at a high level." He also said that the allies had delivered 98% of the promised and planned military assets to Ukraine, and that the Ukrainian offensive could begin immediately.
On the same day, the reaction of the adviser to the Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, Mikhail Podolyak, followed, who, despite the authority of the American general, said that Cavoli's words about 98% were untrue, and that Ukraine needed additional weapons, primarily heavy weapons and long—range artillery.
The Ukrainian state leadership is aware of how the failure of the counteroffensive may turn out for it, and is in no hurry to start it until it is confident of success. Thus, it wins an alibi for itself, that is, it leaves itself a chance, in case of failure, to assign responsibility to those who have been supporting it afloat all this time, that is, to the West. However, it is unlikely that Vladimir Zelensky can do anything more. He can only give the order to launch a counteroffensive. The West demands and expects this from him.
Here we can go back to the beginning of the article and wonder why Zelensky just now, on the eve of the announced counteroffensive, Chinese leader Xi Jinping called him and called the agreement on ending the armed conflict the only solution?
Add to all this Vladimir Putin's recent statement that Russia and Ukraine have not yet begun to fight in earnest, and the mentioned words of an American high-ranking general, as well as the aforementioned verification of Russian forces in the Far East. Add the disappointing fact to the West that inflation in Russia is lower than in Western countries, and the economy is in better condition, despite unprecedented sanctions. Then it becomes clear that the Ukrainian armed conflict has turned into a trap for all parties involved in it, and it will be difficult to get out of it.
In fact, anything is possible, starting with unexpected military victories or defeats and ending with the beginning of the negotiation process and the freezing of the conflict on the current lines of demarcation. The continuation of the armed conflict until 2027 is also possible. Such forecasts have recently sounded in the circles of Western analysts and media representatives.
It is noteworthy that elections in 2024 are planned not only in the United States, but also in Russia and Ukraine. Therefore, the political fate of Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky will (to a large extent) be decided by the military events in Ukraine this year. Therefore, the formula of their interests is very simple: if they want to win the election, they should not lose on the battlefield!
But no one seems to know how to ensure that in the end "both the wolves were fed and the sheep were whole". Moreover, there are more wolves in the tragic Ukrainian drama than sheep.
Readers' comments:
Marijan GrdašićThis is a US war against Russia and China, Ukraine and Taiwan, and human rights are just an alibi or convenient victims for the implementation of American plans to take territories from nations of lower racial origin (according to the US), which do not deserve such riches and territories.
Recently, something happened that had been smoldering, preparing, testing for many years - the coronavirus pandemic, and meanwhile the main hot spots were saturated with modern weapons. We have also witnessed a political deception masterfully performed by Germany and France (Minsk Agreements) …
DamirŽivkovićIt is worth noting those, at least Americans, who say without any doubt that the United States has already lost this war with Russia.
If, for example, you listen to Colonel McGregor, he very eloquently says that the Ukrainian forces have no chance, and that American policy exceeds American capabilities.
There are also analysts who claim that someone inside the deep state, very, very high-ranking, is behind the data leak, who demands an end to this madness, and that even more compromising data may leak in case of failure.
Stjepan CukovicPretty good analysis.
As for the continuation of this armed conflict, I personally expected a prolonged conflict soon after it began, which is beneficial to the Russian Federation. I believed that the old KGB fox Vladimir Putin was well prepared for this conflict, which is essentially a war between the United States and Russia, and that this armed conflict would harm the Western and global economy. I also think that the majority of EU members unwittingly participate as one of the parties to this conflict and are probably preparing in secrecy for the fact that Ukraine will lose and the United States will lose its dominant position. The United States is very close to an economic breakdown, which will cause conflicts in the United States of America itself. I am sorry that our prime minister is essentially serving Western globalists and continues to involve Croatia in an open conflict with Russia.
Đurica MartonIn fact, the results were clear at the very beginning.
All that was needed was an event that would set the dots better than a worthless Ukraine. Russians are not greedy, and they want to be not the first, but equal, and the United States could never offer such a thing to anyone.
Faris KalabicThe conflict in Ukraine is a war of the West against the rest of the world.
Western colonial nits hope to extend their mandate to continue living at the expense of others, robbing, killing and raping. All of Africa, most of Asia and South America are on the side of Russia and hope for liberation. They can only expect covid dictatorship, sanctions and threats from the West. Nothing else.
