LESSONS FROM UKRAINE

30 March 2022

After a month of fighting, the flow of refugees and cities trashed, has the peace process now started? It seems so. Has the bombartment stopped? What will the troops do during the months of negotiation? It looks like we will get a "Minsk-3" that strangely ressembles what Zelensky's predecessor signed up for, but the Ukrainian govt didn't like because it gave some autonomy to the Russian East. Kiev preferred to lob missiles into Donbas and chase out the Russian expats.

After a month, and now a pause, we can collect our thoughts together.

The first thing to note. Remember German initial reluctance to confront Russia and Macron, who is still talking to Putin? But instead of this peaceful approach, the Angl-Saxon first response to the invasion was military, and the second was sanctions. There has not been listening, a search for peace, or a formal dispute resolution process. 

Biden announced yesterday that he wants to spend 778 billion on arms (for comparison, it was 280b in total in 2001). Germany 100 b. Europe upping to 2% its contribution to NATO.

  

Yet you could argue that NATO should have left in 1991 (and there wouldnt have been this war). 

You could argue this is a great boost to the American military-ind complex and arms industry, the most powerful lobby in America since the 1960s. 

And you could argue that this spending bears no relation to the threat. 

You could also argue that Europe's youth (includes Russian) is fighting and dying for Americans and for America's World Order.

Zelensky, the young president of Ukraine, has been nagging constantly to join the EU. And the ignorant media have supported the marytr. But how realistic is this, with an average wage of 3,000 USD (check) and a country overrun by oligarchs and corruption? It took Spain and Portugal 12 years of negotiation and subsidy to align their economies and values with others in the Union - the UK never really did, many questions are asked about the suitability of former soviet satellites. 

Just for starters, we know EU subsidies would go to oligarchs and outside interests and little on infrastructure projects.

Joining NATO, despite the undated Bucharest promise to Ukraine and Georgia in 2008 that they would one day be members, is out of the question and in particular, Russia would rather fire off its nukes than cede Crimea.

So the ideas of Ukraine joining EU and NATO are a waste of time, always were, and no need therefore for fighting for that. 

Second, sanctions are another disaster - for people everywhere and for the world's reserve currency.

The sanctions bring another major dislocation, but they also set Russia on a path of revenge. Remember Versailles, Potsdam and the collapse of Soviet Russia - Russia did not disappear off the map, it came back to redress the wrongs done to it, as it sees its history. We remember attempts at  change in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iran and even N Korea - epic American disasters. So hopefully Biden will correct his "senior moment" where the POTUS voiced a desire for regime change in Moscow.

Many countries in Asia, Africa and S America benefit from the American Order - they can trade in safety and exchange in a stable currency and have somewhere to stash the profits. 

An Order is a collection of rules, maintained by international institutions and policed currently by America. Long may it be so! 

But the fundamental mistake has been to want to go beyond trade and to export liberal-democratic values, usually by force, as above - most of the world outside the Anglo sphere is not very pluralistic, human rights is a luxury, freedom is far off the daily agenda, they are more authoritarian, and believe it or not the people themselves often prefer things this way - they want security and money and don't want to think too much.

Though I don't much like Europe's emperor-in-waiting, Macron is talking to Putin most days. He is listening to Putin's perhaps justified gripes. This is what Europe is about, these our our values, cooperation through negotiation, we have to live here, America is perfectly safe on the best slick of real estate in the world, an ocean away, and it is the most powerful country the world has ever seen. They are not us.