The biggest risk when analyzing a war, is hyper-focus. Not seeing the entire picture. Especially when you focus on the wrong things, which have no bearing on the outcome. A war ends through negotiations, or when one of the warring parties is defeated, or exhausted. Exhaustion refers to material exhaustion, no longer being able to continue the war with progress being made, or mentally, when the people no longer support the war. In complex wars, with multiple stakeholders involved, like the war in Ukraine, it is not easy to predict the decisive moment when everything comes crashing down, or what a deal to end the war would look like.
The narrative in the West is straightforward, and wrong. It points to Russia as the aggressor, and Ukraine as the defending party, with multiple countries helping both. This image requires to uphold the idea that Russia is looking for territorial gains, while Ukraine is defending its territory tooth and nail. Simple and effective, easy to sell, but missing the point. Which doesn’t matter, as long as Russia loses the war. But if it doesn’t, this does create many problems for those who want to end it. What does one need to offer Russia to stop fighting? The narrative sold to us suggests that they will stop when the territorial gains match their original goals. Which will leave Ukraine heartbroken and angry, having to deal with losing territory, and hundreds of thousands of men, not to mention the economic costs. Which will drive a desire to seek protection by partners to prevent future losses if Russia creates an appetite for more.
However, I maintain that Russia was *not* looking for territory when this war kicked off. They stated clearly that they wanted to prevent further NATO-expansion ever since 2007, and that they were prepared to go to war if NATO expanded its territory nevertheless. This ambition was reflected in both the ‘Minsk Accords’, and the ‘Istanbul Accord’. They left Ukraine ‘whole’ (minus Crimea), but stipulated conditions limiting its sovereignty, imposing a requirement to federalize Ukraine, to stay neutral, and treat culturally Russian people living in Ukraine as equal citizens, with the right to observe their religious practices and historically established common ways of life. Moreover, after Zelensky shredded the ‘Istanbul Accord’, Russia made it clear that since Ukraine couldn’t be trusted to live up to its signature, they would advance to protect the areas where these culturally Russian people lived, and add them to the Russian Federation, while still maintaining that they wanted the remainder of Ukraine to become a lightly armed neutral country.
A crucial role was played by NATO in all of this. If NATO would have made it clear that Ukraine would never be accepted as a member, that entire issue would have been resolved straight away. Clearly the opposite is true. NATO extended an invitation to Ukraine in 2008, knowing full well that ‘Moscow’ was prepared to prevent it, through military means if needed. And in 2014 they regime changed the country, divorcing the government from those culturally Russian Ukrainians in a violent coup, to create the conditions to bring Ukraine into NATO, and have a war with Russia. Therefore I consider this war in Ukraine to be a war between Russia and NATO, with a divided Ukraine as the victim. As explained NATO had a strategy, based on using the Ukrainian military and militia as ‘Stay Behind’ resistance fighters, while the ‘Sanctions from Hell’ were certain to sink the Russian economy, and create the conditions for Russia losing the war. This is actually well documented, and recent stories in the NYT, and the British Times, describing how the Americans and the British were *deeply* involved in managing the war, underpin that it was NATO fighting Russia, using Ukrainians to die for the cause.
It really doesn’t matter whether you pick one side or the other if you want to find out who is winning, and who is losing, and what the result might be. It won’t change anything. But you need to focus on a wide range of considerations, with territory lost or gained as one of the lesser important aspects of this entire conflict. Moreover, NATO-countries did not yet provide soldiers, other than those eager to fight the Russians, for whatever reason, signing up as mercenaries. Many of which were informally used by their own country to keep them posted on developments, and to operate NATO supplied weapon systems requiring specialized training and plenty of experience, while their *real* superiors in ‘Wiesbaden’ selected the targets and provided the launch codes. So yes, NATO *was* involved, and not merely as banker, weapons dealer and somewhat hapless supporter.
Which translates into NATO as a third party which has to be appeased to bring this war to an end. But NATO as a unified alliance no longer exists. On the one hand we are dealing with the US under Trump, and ‘dissident’ European countries, European members of NATO, but opposed to the war. And on the other we have the ‘Coalition of the Willing’, dragging the corpse of Ukraine behind them as they seek further escalation. In other words, this entire plan to provoke war with Russia devoured NATO already, and the EU looks like it will be next, with ‘Brussels’ acting as if the UK, as a dropout of the EU itself, was still a member, while formal members like Hungary, Slovakia and Romania are treated with contempt. The latter having been subjected to serious machinations to prevent election results which would have blocked plans to expand the war with Russia. Same threat all over Europe where parties erupt which oppose this war.
Russia winning on the battlefield is obvious, but to achieve a lasting peace, much more is required. To defeat Ukraine militarily is not sufficient, since the real threat to Russia is posed by NATO, which is clearly prepared to throw other countries under the bus as well if they have to, including member states. I’m talking about the ‘inner circle’. The US under Trump acting as a mediator, while that country under Biden was leading the entire effort, is begging the question if some kind of cease fire wouldn’t be merely a pause, which would allow NATO to recoup and mend their wounds before starting all over again. Sebastian Sas, another insightful commentator I watch closely, stated that if Biden’s effort to overextend and unbalance Russia would have been successful, Trump wouldn’t have made such a show of having been against this war. There is no ‘Higher Principle’ guiding these NATO-members. No common moral or ethical concept they observe. They grew accustomed to creating the Rules others had to live by as they went from creating opportunity after opportunity to go to war. The ‘Rules Based Order’. With truckloads of ‘legal scholars’ prepared to ‘explain’ how some law gave them the liberty, even the duty to go to war.
Though I’m treating this from the assumption that the political leaders involved are aligned with the vast majority of the people they represent, related specifically to this issue, that clearly isn’t the case. It is anybody’s guess how much support they actually have. Their over all support may differ by a wide margin if we were to isolate the issue of them handling this war, either way. Countries further removed from the fighting may consider it less important than those sharing a border with Ukraine, or Russia/Belarus. This European ‘Coalition of the Willing’ has changed its name again. After they relabeled themselves as ‘Reassurance Force’, the soon to be exposed Trump Peace Plan calls them the ‘Resiliency Force’, reduced to a clown-act way behind the lines, with units comprised of Russians and Ukrainians, and some third non-NATO country monitoring the cease fire along the front line. Everybody is already talking about it, betting on whether or not the Russians are going to accept it. Among those who notice that the Russians are winning there is doubt, but there are also those who insist that Ukraine is winning, believe it or not. I was listening to ‘The Project’, another pro-Ukrainian vlog (in name), which featured three guests from the ‘Atlantic’ realm, among which was the inevitable Ben Hodges, former Top Dog General who was responsible for NATO in Europe when they ran the Ukrainian army into the ground at Debaltseve in the civil war over control of the Donbas in 2014/15.
Hodges, referring to the present Top Dog of NATO, another American general, stated that he agreed with what Cavoli said in a statement to Congress, that Ukraine was winning. Meanwhile, Hodges wants the Europeans to pump up the volume on arms production, stating that European capacity dwarfs that of Russia by a wide margin. Either he has lost his marbles, or I’m out of touch, but I fear he is mistaken, to say it politely. I do understand that those who want this war to drag on *need* to say that victory is just around the corner, and that Russia is a ‘Gasstation with Nukes’. Because if the Europeans get cold feet at this stage, it is over and out. Last call for alcohol. Cabs outside waiting to take the intoxicated home safely. See you at the next war.
Is there any chance that Russia would accept an American proposal falling short of total victory for Russia? Without giving Russia a free pass on taking the remainder of the Oblasts it claims as Russian territory? Yes, because this war was not about territorial expansion, even though they won’t retreat from what they’ve already conquered. What they want, what they *need*, is some kind of certainty that Ukraine won’t join NATO. And that Ukraine won’t rearm. And that it will be ‘denazified’. Not only did all the people Trump sent to talk to Russia, and Trump himself, say that Ukraine will not, *never* be part of NATO as far as they are concerned, but NATO effectively ceased to exist as an alliance. And those barking dogs in Europe upping the ante won’t get any rewards from Trump at all, risking a total, formal break-up, and the emergence of some haphazard European force under the umbrella of ‘Brussels’, which will have to iron out a *lot* of differences among the EU-members to begin with, while they still need to *start* creating a viable Military Industrial Complex. Meanwhile they cut themselves off from affordable energy, and all the basic commodities they need. Not just that, but the individual members are already watching all the others carefully over the allocation of the money, and they will fight the others till the death if one is seen as receiving more money over the others, or being allowed to produce the most deadly weapons, as they fear those might be used against them one day.
Yes, Ukraine would still be there, and its European partners will shower it with empty promises to back Kiev up, without the ability to deliver. If that European force is predicted to be on a par with Russia in ten years, provided Russia doesn’t improve its own forces, that is not a threat like NATO used to be. In fact, the effort will sink what is left of Europe economically. And this includes the UK. Meanwhile, the US would be trading with Russia, and Ukraine. And I wouldn’t be surprised if trade between Russia and Ukraine would resume as well, with Ukraine being responsible to reigning in the extreme right wing Azov and other militia to prevent ‘issues’ at the border, with the help of those European partners sitting in the back of the theatre, feeling important. It is not unlikely that the Russians will add a demand that the US sees to it that the Europeans lift their gravest sanctions, and behave like decent neighbors again, without any obligation for the Russians to trade with the Europeans. Remember, Trump wants to rebuild the US, making money, instead of wasting it on wars. Snatching deals with Ukraine and Russia from under the noses of their European ‘friends’ would be a real victory. Russia wants peace and quiet to trade within ‘BRICS’, and save lives of badly needed men to boost the real economy, which is doing fine, but would be doing even better without this war. And Ukraine will come to terms with what went down. How they were used and abused by their ‘friends’. And Europe? It needs a shrink.