Further Notes on Ukraine
Over the past few weeks, I have had a few further thoughts on the consequences of the situation Ukraine that I don’t think are fully represented in most mainstream media.
1. Military Tactics
The American commentariat has unilaterally decided that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a military failure. The reason for this is likely to stave off calls to escalate military confrontation from their own side. If the invasion were not failing by itself, there would be more pressure for NATO (led by America) to intervene, leading to a direct confrontation between nuclear powers. This has never really been feasible.
So, to disguise the fact that this is not a feasible option (that we do live in a multipolar world and American power is not limitless) the Russian invasion is failing – hence no need for action (other than sending equipment). This doesn’t mean Russia’s invasion is automatically successful in whole or in part, just that the confidence in it being unsuccessful is misplaced and not really based on anything other than wishful thinking.
A key misconception that supports this wishful thinking is that Russia is pursuing the same kind of military campaign as the US has pursued in various countries around the world (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, to name but a few). This is completely off-base, because the situation in Ukraine is not remotely comparable to any of these American forays for obvious reasons of geography.
America has pursued a strategy of using air power to take over bits and pieces of territory around the world and use those places as base points for itself to semi-control the surrounding region. These base points are usually small or weak territories, and the American strategy is to bomb the living daylights out of them and then take over for as long as they feel like while the territory’s remaining hostile forces put up an incessant guerrilla campaign. They rarely, if ever, truly conquer the territory in question, they just insert themselves on top for a while. Because America is very far away from any of these theatres of war, all of the costs, except their own casualties, are externalized. Even the refugees created by the hostilities tend to flee to other countries – for the most part, they can’t get to America. Thus, because the only remaining ‘cost’ they have is their own casualties they, naturally enough, make minimizing these a priority. True damage to America is not in question, however great their failure may be.
It's a somewhat similar strategy to that used by the ancient Athenians. Athens became a naval power and naturally enough got into the habit of rowing themselves around, getting in control of strategic islands and making them pay tribute. One could say they played to their strengths. America is rather similar, just even more extreme in this regard. They are, in a metaphorical military sense, island-hoppers.
This has the added advantage that most of the people in its various attack venues have a different language and culture to its own, so sympathy for the victims is limited and it’s rather easy to blame wholesale destruction on them one way or another. Few people in the US are really familiar with Yemen, so it kind of floats around in the national consciousness as some poor country that is bound to have problems. They still practice child marriage and walk around fully armed, so sounds like the kind of place where getting bombs dropped on you is a normal part of the day. Things ‘just happen’ in these faraway places.
The situation between Ukraine and Russia is vastly different and this is why I and so many others thought that Russia would be quite hesitant to go ahead with this invasion (and for all we know, maybe they were). Firstly, Ukraine is really big. It’s just a lot of territory to take. And secondly, unlike these other little jaunts, once started it really is imperative for Russia to somehow take, subdue or pacify this territory, because it is geographically right next to them with an enormously long border.
America may be able to decide that it’s had enough of Vietnam or Afghanistan, pull out and leave the problem where it is, but this is not a good option for Russia vis-à-vis Ukraine, because however this ends up, it’s still right next door. And if the US can’t subdue Iraq or Libya, you ask yourself if Russia can subdue Ukraine where the stakes are somewhat more even.
This is why some more internationally-minded people like myself, speculate that Russia’s objectives may be somewhat more limited than wholesale conquest. The goal is, as in traditional European land warfare, perhaps not to create a forward operating base in otherwise hostile territory, but rather to acquire some strategic objective for yourself (valuable mines, for example, or in this case, ice-free sea access and preventing equipment from being stationed in locations that substantially reduce strike-time to key military and economic objectives in Russia).
American commentators constantly make a huge issue about the defence of Ukraine’s capital Kiev, but a typical (stereotypical, even) land war strategy is to pin some troops somewhere defending a key objective in order to cut down on the numbers you have to deal with in the place you really want to take over. So, here likely the Russians are trying to pin a sizeable number of troops defending Kiev, while they get on with what they really want, slicing off eastern and southern Ukraine where their key strategic objectives are located, not to mention Russian-speaking citizens more likely to look favourably on either being directly ruled or living in client states. Even that slicing manoeuvre would be very difficult to achieve, but it is infinitely more achievable than taking all of Ukraine, which would involve having to neutralize a whole lot of people who don’t want to be ruled by Russia.
Of course, any warfare situation is infinitely fluid and things could change rapidly. I’m betting Russia sees the ‘besiege Kiev’ situation as a win-win, because as long as it is defended Ukrainian troops are stuck there, and if it falls, obviously that is a huge psychological victory for the Russians, not to mention generally symbolic of having ‘won’.
This slicing objective is also probably why Russia has emphasized its action against neo-Nazi groups like the Azov Battalion. This is propagandized by both sides since few people have sympathy for neo-Nazis. In other words, they sit around debating the morality of killing neo-Nazis and whether or not it justifies an invasion. However, the real reason Russia really needs to get rid of them, is that they’d definitely be first pick of groups to arm and fight any future Russian or Russian-client state from the inside. When it comes to insurgencies, you really can’t ask for better than a bunch of people who are obsessed with weapons, fighting and a group ideology that preaches their own pure superiority and binds them together. Thus, by ridding the world of them, Russia is ridding itself of probably the most potent fifth column that could be used it in the future, if it does succeed in openly or covertly ruling all or part of Ukraine.
So, no one knows how this is going to turn out (I would say it depends largely on the opportunities that present themselves to all parties concerned as the situation develops), but American commentary (the dominant commentary) remains, as usual, self-obsessed and unable to understand why anyone ever pursues different tactics than they themselves do. This is true regardless of whether or not such tactics ultimate prove successful.
My recommended reading here is The Quiet American by Graham Greene. The man really had a lot of things figured out.
2. Energy Boom
The one thing I find constantly fascinating about this situation is the continued level of hubris and this certainly is reflected in the attitude towards energy provision, which the entire Western elite is taking rather lightly.
Back when I ran for election in 2016, my take on the move towards renewable energy was that the issue really wasn’t ‘belief’ or failure to ‘believe’ in apocalyptic climate change. Instead, the real and immediate benefit to renewable energy for Ireland would be increased energy independence. Energy, like food, is really one of the two things you want to be in control of as a nation.
Six years later, I’m going for an: ‘I told you so’ here.
However acute and dangerous the whole climate situation may or may not turn out to be…this got you first. Like I said it would.
Interestingly, the Ukraine situation and accompanying Russian threats to cut the pipelines have led to a sort of reconciliation between traditional Western energy providers (oil and gas) and renewable energy providers. Thanks to high prices, there’s enough demand for all of them now, although some of them have had the temerity to suggest they should be subsidized for increasing their production at a time of incredibly high prices.
As far as the peasantry is concerned, of course, this is all rather unpleasant. Nothing like paying a lot more money for the same thing, is there? Especially when it isn’t even something fun. There is a limit to the joy that can be gained by flicking your light switches no matter how much money it is burning through.
It interests me how little politicians are concerned about this. High energy prices reverberate the whole way through the economy, because Every Single Thing you own or do needs energy. So the price of Every Single Thing goes up. This, of course, combined with the increases to staple food prices since Ukraine is a bread basket – or would be, if they could get anything planted this year.
I dearly hope it felt good to sanction Russia, because it amounted to cutting off our noses to spite our face. Western elites hold a lot of cards. They can make people hurt. But those people can hurt us back now, so really, a little more thought would be helpful here. Working towards energy independence before this crisis was reached would, for example, have been useful. But then, of course, boatloads of money wouldn’t be raining down on energy companies right now. So, there’s always a reason for everything, even seeming incompetence.
3. Economic Decoupling
The only way the Western strategy of ‘sanction, sanction, sanction’ really pays off is if Putin goes without a successor capable of carrying on what I would mildly call a nationalist plan (that is a plan that centers your national interests as opposed to some other goal) and Russia becomes a looting paradise again (as it was in the 1990s).
Because what the West has otherwise done over the last month is effectively part-decoupled the entire global economy and essentially handed India and Russia to China like little presents with a bow on top.
The Chinese strategy is a lot ‘quieter’ than the American one (perhaps they are the true quiet Americans, in a way). Americans intentionally pursue a strategy of screaming, blustering and otherwise trying to make people give them what they want through intimidation. Whereas the Chinese strategy (which I personally favour – it’s a bit more me, frankly) is to just patiently acquire all the cards and make your move once the situation has irretrievably lined up in your favour and no one can do anything about it anymore. So much less hassle.
I have, however, observed that Americans don’t bother to understand that which they would rule (the whole world). You’d think they would have learned better by now, but alas, they don’t. I’ve seen Americans pass over amazing business opportunities in sophisticated economies just because they think the entire country is pathetic and not worth their time for no apparent reason or because they are operating on ‘intelligence’ that is decades old.
This causes them to over-estimate themselves, and because they don’t move into those markets (‘not worth it’!) they leave space for others to do so. This strategy seems to have been kicked into overdrive by the recent part-withdrawal from much of the world.
Some manufacturing industries have seen the writing on the wall and are pulling back to controlled territory (eg. chip manufacturing, for example).
However, you ask yourself how this is going to work in the long run. There are definite dependencies in the global supply chain at this point, so although America can make others scream, those others can make American scream back. It is not all one way. Yes, perhaps we are important markets for China, but traditionally you get the goods first and pay your bill later, so who is really going to hurt first if this circle stops functioning?
The second aspect of this is even more interesting: if we were to re-onshore production in Western countries, do you know how expensive that would be? Low wages have only worked because people can buy cheap stuff from other countries. We would have to go from being low-wage/cheap stuff to being high-wage/expensive stuff again. Interesting to think on the ramifications here.
In one way this could be very good for workers and re-create a middle-class again. But I suspect mass immigration will off-set these gains (note ‘mass immigration’ is different from just old-school ‘immigration’ in that it has the effect of having enough people enter a labour market all at once so that it depresses wages, rather than people entering at a lower rate and upscaling and moving on). People wanting to immigrate en masse is also a factor of not resolving issues in their home countries/subjecting them to some disaster, which is itself kind of cruel.
You ask yourself how far this economic decoupling is going to go. However, rich people don’t seem very concerned, so my bet is less far than the news is making out. That or they truly have lost their minds.
4. Militarization of Europe
Finally, the Ukraine situation has predictably been used as a tool to militarize Europe. The US has been working on this for a long time (just like Biden’s China policy is partly a continuation of Trump’s, so is his European military policy). Europeans, having a social safety net as they do, have been significantly less happy to spend vast amounts of money on military equipment than Americans have been. There are other uses for money in Europe. For a while now, however, America has been pushing for Europeans to spend more – 2% of GDP in fact. They also want European military personnel to take part in actions more. This desire is shared by many top-level Eurocrats who have never gotten over losing their hegemonic position to America in the first place.
However, in addition to purely not wanting to give up the money, certain Europeans have pesky anti-military ideas. For example, Germany has long refrained from using its military beyond its borders, Austria was compelled to be neutral (as an enemy state during WWII) and Ireland and Finland are politically neutral for various reasons.
All of this has come under attack in recent years. This preceded Ukraine, but, of course, one should never waste a crisis, and obviously the need to ‘defend’ Ukraine has been used as a stick to beat the remaining pacifists with. Hence, we see great efforts, such as the Citizen’s Assembly in Germany on ‘Germany’s Place in the World’ (that’s diplomatic for ‘we want in on this game’) and pushes for one in Ireland to overturn neutrality (something one of the largest parties, Fine Gael, has been trying to get done for years).
Recommended watching here is
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/deutschland-83
Pretty good TV about Cold War Germany.
Conclusions
In 1989, the United States of America became the world’s sole super-power. However, they essentially blew this opportunity and were unable to rule without an enemy. They failed to curb their military-industrial-complex and could only define themselves negatively (against something) and not positively (for something). As a result, they have been lashing around looking for credibly-threatening enemies. Is it the Taliban? Is it systemic racism? Is it the internet? Indeed, so necessary is an enemy to the American political imagination that they were at each other’s throats and almost on the brink of civil insurrection themselves. I suspect a lot of Americans are sleeping easier at night knowing that nay – it is not any of these things. It’s Russia and China. Other great powers. They are back in their comfort zone, which let’s face it, is where they always wanted to be.