The debacle the West has brought on itself over Ukraine is impossible
to ignore any longer. Of the three wars that began in February: the battlefield, the economic, and
the propaganda—only the last, the “softest” and least tangible, can be called a
victory of sorts though a Pyrrhic one at that.
The Russian invasion prompted the U.S. and its western
allies to attempt to crush Russia’s economy in full confidence that the rickety old “gas station masquerading as a country” would quickly collapse and force Putin to beg for forgiveness. Bad Vlad would
be overthrown or marginalized, and Russia reopened for business just like in
the glory years of Yeltsin and the Harvard-boys, the neoliberal experts who auctioned off Russian resources to the oligarchs.
Instead, the Russians turned out to be prepared for just
such an eventuality. They now preside over a stable domestic scene, are selling all the oil and gas they wish, and are in the process of launching a
radical reordering of a large chunk of world trade by hiving itself off from U.S. control. Russia has its own bank clearing system that smoothly took over after the Americans threw them out of SWIFT, uses its
own currency with its trading partners, is finding alternatives for things it
used to import from the EU, and has kept inflation at manageable levels. (No, Joe, the ruble is not "rubble.") Somehow, it will survive the loss of
access to Louis Vuitton bags and Scotch whiskey, no doubt at great emotional
cost.
On the other hand, the U.S. and Europe are frantically
trying to rein in double-digit inflation at home while at a loss for what to do
in case the recession-inducing interest rate hikes don’t work. Two EU/NATO governments
already have cracked, and more will surely follow. Estonia’s 22% inflation rate
knocked its coalition government, led by the free-market-liberal Reform Party,
into a corner. Boris Johnson in the U.K. survived a no-confidence vote by such
a slim margin that he’s now dead meat and currently standing by the door with his coat on. Face-saving commentators refuse to blame the Ukraine war for their losses and point instead to the economic messes directly caused by it. Okay, whatever.
The Italian techno-government led by the eternal (though
not, thankfully, immortal) Mario Draghi is tottering; Macron in France stands to lose his parliamentary majority; and the German Social Democrats, never
strong since they took over just months ago, look set for an historic drubbing.
And last and also least, our own dear Sleepy Joe has to be
wondering where did this ass he’s holding in his hands come from. Food prices are shooting up, housing costs are galloping into the far distance (trailer parks are being seized by private equity, so that’s a disappearing option), and gas
is so dear that Americans may suddenly discover that they have feet. According
to Biden’s recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal,
everything is or soon will be just dandy, demonstrating that for our Democrat
leaders, the only real problem is an inadequate public relations strategy and whiny
citizens who don’t realize how great they’re doing.
Speaking of propaganda campaigns, casual observers deserve
our sympathy for believing that the Ukraine war is going well and that triumph
is near. Unfortunately, Mr Bernays had no real advertising suggestion for how
to spin the destruction of one’s fighting forces by an enemy invader. Ukraine is tottering on the verge of total defeat, notwithstanding the cheery dispatches from the hotels of Kiev
by a phalanx of loyal stenographers bottle-fed by western spook agencies.
The US/European dominance of the informational spaces has
resulted, perversely, in a trap: given the relentless boosterism over every
imagined Ukrainian battlefield advance—whether technically true, practically
irrelevant, or completely made up—has left Biden, Johnson, and von der Leyen
with nowhere to go once they realize that the Russians are eating their
bountiful lunches.
With every passing day, Russia’s leadership has ever less
reason to negotiate anything. What once could have been face-saving compromises
(such as that outlined in the Minsk agreements that would have left the Donbass republics within Ukraine) are slowly
disappearing from the realm of possibility. In a few more weeks, the hated Mr
Putin will be dictating terms, and Russia will decide exactly how much of
the former Ukraine it will absorb into its territory permanently.
When we, the citizens of the western countries who brought
this about, realize that we’ve been fed a pack of lies, the reaction will be
something to behold. IMNSHO, the aftermath of this war will not be merely a
humiliating Afghanistan 2.0 but rather a cataclysm with existential
consequences.
NATO’s continued credibility as a defense/offense alliance
will be in serious doubt, and the much-ballyhooed entry of Sweden and Finland
looks likely to be vetoed by Turkey’s president, who is highly attuned to the direction of the winds.
Europe, in the person of its undemocratic EU bureaucracy, remains
strangely committed to its own disintegration as it faithfully toes the failed American
neocon non-strategy of telling everyone what to do despite no longer having the
power to make them do it.
More immediately, the economic war launched by Washington,
which the Nulands and Sullivans and Blinkens were sure would bring about a
quick and glorious triumph, has turned into a giant boomerang headed right for
the necks of the Democrats facing the voters in a few months. The boycotts and
sanctions and thefts have caused oil and food prices to spike, and there is no
sign of relief from any quarter.
Failing to stave off recession and impoverishment while
losing a war is not an attractive record of accomplishments for the campaign
trail. It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see the maniac Republicans
steamrolling to victory both now and in 2024, then finalizing its rigging of
the system to remain in power permanently. We will be lucky to avoid electoral
dictatorship with journalists imprisoned for sedition or ultra-right-wing biker
gangs and gun clubs enforcing ideological purity. Those who sat by passively
while Bush, Obama, and the courts destroyed habeas corpus may be shocked to see how precious that hoary old civil right actually is.
Unfortunately for the increasingly deranged figures arising
from the Trumpian swamps, they also have no answers to the systemic weaknesses
of our current social and economic arrangements and will find themselves
equally discredited in the long run. What looked like a slow decline and
gradual political crisis with neither party able to mount a coherent response is
shifting into a much higher gear.
While the upheaval is not likely to be pretty, the
possibilities for a rethinking of very basic assumptions—about our country, our
habits, and in the end our very selves—increase proportionally. When the old
ways no longer work, painful changes ensue.
