A MERCANTILIST WAR
This is a mercantilist war, America's object is to capture the resources of Russia, it will save America from ruin - ruin brought upon itself by debt.
The strategy has always been escalation, going way back to 2014, 2008 and before....like cooking the frog in the pot, or softly softly catch ye monkey.
ESCALATION
"Escalation" means first pushing Nato up to Russia's border, getting Russia to fight, and now more and more Nato (esp. Anglo-Saxon) support to Kiev.
Which leads to thinking Russia should react more strongly, fight off these attacks before it finds itself to weak to fight back, and winds up cooked like the frog in the pot.
Because if Russia doesn't react more strongly then America will cook it and eat it all up - energy, food, minerals, take and sell - and save its empire from self-ruination.
Let's get real, this has been the story of America from the get-go, from its civil war. It's the story of all empires - fight your way to the top and exploit your empire to the max.
DIAGNOSIS
To better understand this conflict and the adversary:
We have changed all the top brass at the Ukrainian MoD, now we must get shot of Zelensky and maybe the Kievian Stepan Bandera regime, and "hold elections" to install a moderate govt willing to understand where Russia is coming from and unwilling to see Poland and Romania on the front line, or even avoid the use of atomic weapons ( which don't seem to disturb some in Washington, it's ok as Europe is far away).
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/ukraine/2023/01/ukraine-stepan-bandera-nationalist
Some Western supporters of Russia, or rather some commentators based in The West and critical of their govts' stances on the war, fear a lack of the will to transform Western foreign policy, or alternatively - and I cannot understand this - fear a defeat for Russia.
That's a bleak picture. To understand why, just consider quite how far America has abused and over-reached
1. A Long War has always been the American aim in the belief that it's far stronger economy will eventually exhaust Russia's.
2. Russia's quest is for security along its Western frontier, from Finland forest through the Baltic Sea, to the Baltic states, the Suwalki Gap, Belarus Ukraine the Carpathian mountains Moldova, and Crimea, and round past the Black Sea and Istanbul, into the Caucasian mountains and finish at the Caspian Sea.
That is quite a bit of natural frontier to defend. Behind these natural defences sweeps the Russian steppes as far as the Urals in the East. Flat featureless lands, difficult to defend - a feature which incidentally explains how the Rus were able to take over and assimilate many different peoples into the Russian Federation, and indeed why Russia is such a big country in the first place.
Given its history of being invaded - over 50 times in the last 1,000 years of the history of the Rus, including twice by Sweden, Napoleon and Hitler we know about, even Canada had a go - it is legitimate to ask "has Russia always been expansionist, aggressively building empires, be they czarist or Soviet?".
Or is it that Russia a defensive land power ('mother earth'), trying to defend its resources (little-ones) from the voracious Western sea-powers, who are after its mineral, energy and food wealth?
3. Because how a commentator on this war views America's "Ukraine First" foreign policy principle (which seems to favour far flung peoples and places over America's own home-grown citizens), will be coloyred by whether they see Russia as in a defensive posture and seeking to contain its military budget, as a fraction of GDP, ie low threat to the Wet.
America's foreign policy is unaccountable to American voters at the ballot box. It is a constant across both Republican and Democrat parties. As is much of govt policy. Voters are left with trivial issues like Woke, political correctness, some lifestyle issues, to vote on.
The elite (America's military-industrial-congressional complex) has a deep and constant commitment to remaining top dog and eliminating all competitors, in the name of spreading democracy and human rights, it is how it exploits its empire (as do all empires of course).
4. So short of America getting a sound thrashing - by Russia? by China? by Europe?! - I cannot see how a Ukraine First policy could ever be changed. It is not even about Ukraine - it could be Polish or Romanian soldiers on the front line - it is all about America and America's position as world hegemon - and no empire has ever gone down without a fight except possibly the British who handed over to their Anglo-Saxon cousins.
5. I don't see a lot of evidence that CIA or Pentagon targeting and Ukrainian artillery will succeed in decimating Russia in Crimea. Maybe even the opposite as the recent story of the destruction of Russian Admiralty HQ and killing of the Russian Admiral, by six Scalp missiles, has turned out to be another Ukrainian farce. Plus as fast as America escalates up the range of missiles, Russia develops counter-measures; and in a war of artillery, and in an artillery war Russia has the advantage.
6. Russia's Achilles heel and also what makes this war existential for Russia is Crimea. The Kerch bridge is not so important except symbolically. The head-of-the-line Russian ship sunk at the start, the Moskova would not happen today.
Compared to the Russian army, Nato is a paper tiger - 50,000 men currently ready to fight, not 300; manufacturing of performant and reliable specialised components for military assets outsourced to supply chains that end up in China; in a real continental confrontation a dependence on energy only found in Russia; warehouses but no equipment, they are empty, leaving Nato with a "sample army"; economies crippled by their own govts' sanctions, and so wracked by inflation that rising interest rates will push them into recession and unsustainable monetary expansion; trade moving off the dollar reserve currency and into "shadow" fleets and "shadow" insurers.
Of Ukraine's remaining ten million males, after emigrations, war casualties and land expropriations, how many can and will fight?
It is a disaster for the West, America's greatest disaster, possibly its last. Europe needs to sever the dependence.
7. So probability is that Kiev will have to take Russian terms or dissappear off the world map; though if Poland or Romania or nuclear enter the theatre of war, this would mean rescheduling Kiev's defeat.
