Don’t be Distracted by the “Ukraine Crisis” — Part III

By Wayne Allensworth

Your humble servant and longtime Russia watcher has stated his position regarding Ukraine a number of times: The Washington-Brussels-Davos Blob’s focus on the war in Ukraine is driven by globalist ideology and a visceral hatred for Russian President Vladimir Putin that has nothing to do with us.

As I wrote previously:

We should hope for peace in and freedom for Ukraine, and that, whatever the outcome, it is not one in which the Blob thinks it has “won,” for that would likely mean even more foreign interventions, more support for “color revolutions,” and more destructive arrogance and hubris from the usual suspects, creating still more enemies for America. I would add that it would also likely mean an even more intense crackdown on “domestic terrorists” who will be labelled “Russian agents.”

Russia is not our enemy, but the Blob and its minions are.

Two of the Blob’s front men, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, were in Ukraine recently, AFP reported, and they plainly announced that their intention was for this war to drag on and on:

Following the talks, Austin said the U.S. hoped the Russian military would be exhausted in Ukraine, preventing it from launching further invasions. 

“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” said Austin. 

How interesting that the media’s narrative has shifted to whatever the Blob’s aims are at a given time. First, we heard that Russian forces were being decimated and the invasion was failing. That was in the mobilization phase of the Blob’s campaign. The aim was to portray Putin as Hitler, Russia as the Worst Country in the World, and rally support for intervention in the war, albeit indirect intervention, with lots of support flowing to Kiev, while drumming up backing for economic sanctions against Russia that the Blob apparently believed would wreck that country and foment an internal rebellion against Putin. That has not happened. 

But now the narrative is aimed at stoking fear of a Russian juggernaut steamrolling Europe. That story line is intended to justify the next round of arms and cash that the Blob transfers to the Ukrainians. The goal is to wear down the Russians, which again, is aimed at undermining Putin and forcing him out. “Regime change” in the Kremlin has been the aim of the West for some time. As Putin couldn’t help but notice, Western support for “color revolutions” in other post-Soviet states were just a warmup for targeting him. The big chance for “color revolution” skullduggery in Russia was during the wave of popular protests there in 2011-2012. Problem is, the anti-Putin protests never gained a lot of traction with broad segments of Russian society. The “Westernizing” liberals who led the protests turned out to have limited appeal. So, back to the drawing board.

That’s where Ukraine comes into play. “The globalists care nothing for Ukraine, which is but a pawn in their dangerous game,” as I wrote in Chronicles:

They have been using that country to undermine Putin’s regime, placing Ukraine in the Kremlin’s crosshairs. … As with Georgians in 2008, the Ukrainians were led to believe that NATO was behind them. … Am I alone in thinking that some globocrats might wish to prolong the war, savoring their nauseating sanctimony, and playing the great game they all love so well?  

Austin and Blinken’s trip strongly suggests that that is exactly what is going on. Russia has limited manpower and budgetary and financial resources, yet still must sustain and complete its “special operation” in Ukraine, which at this point appears chiefly aimed at absorbing the Donbass and opening a land corridor to Crimea via Mariupol. The Blob wants Europe to believe that Putin might plan to expand even further to the West, beyond former Soviet borders. That is simply not possible.

In short, those who fear that the Blob is prepared to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian to undermine Putin are on to something. Reaching agreement and ending this war would be in everyone’s interest, as far off as that seems now. But the Blob does not want that. And I dare say that the globocrats were rejoicing when Putin initially opted for a full scale invasion of Ukraine instead of a more limited operation in the Donbass.

Russia and Ukraine are declining demographically. The fertility rate in Ukraine this year is estimated at 1.437 (down from 1.439 last year). Russia’s is better at 1.824, but replacement level would be 2.1. As noted above, Russia lacks the manpower for a vast campaign of military conquest. And Ukraine cannot afford to expend the lives of its people, especially its young people, on a protracted war.

The Blob is again misleading Ukraine. A Bloomberg editorial recently noted that the United States, despite renewed promises to be world’s “arsenal of democracy,” simply does not have the stockpile of arms to supply Ukraine for the long term. Arms and equipment are being lost at a rapid rate. Hal Brands wrote that the costs in both equipment and human terms of Ukraine winning a protracted war would be “astounding.”

If either side in this conflict were far sighted, then their leaders would realize that the only victories to be had in a long conflict are pyrrhic.

The Blob is an insatiable monster. Its cynical designs have nothing to do with us.

Wayne Allensworth is the author of The Russian Question: Nationalism, Modernization, and Post-Communist Russia, and a novel, Field of Blood.