“This is not Afghanistan or Iraq. This is the
Eastern Front during World War II. Putin has called the West’s
bluff.”
While I am impressed by the courage and resiliency of
the Ukrainian people during the first phase of Putin’s
Gambit, this war has only just begun.
In the months leading up to the invasion, multiple military and
intelligence sources told me, with absolute certainty, that Russia
would invade Ukraine.
I underestimated the scope of Putin’s territorial ambitions, and
thought that Russia would only take eastern Ukraine, but was
wrong.
My sympathies lie with the Ukrainians, but as I pointed out in
Ukraine Part 1,
Part 2, and
Part 3, this is not a simple conflict, and we ignore
the deep, tangled, historic and economic roots at our own
peril.
Over the weekend of February 26–27, western politicians and the
vast majority of the media reverted back to the same, stale 9/11
formula that failed in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and
Afghanistan.
They painted a monochromatic, monocausal portrait of the plucky
forces of good, epitomized by the fictional “Ghost of Kiev” and the
heroic soldiers on Snake Island, standing up to the forces of evil,
personified by Vladimir Putin.
Many gushed optimistically about “regime change,” the
possibility of a Russian palace coup, or even “a Caesar
solution.”
This magical thinking, however, raises as many questions as it
answers. If Putin is assassinated, who will replace him? If there
is a civil war in Russia, what will happen to one of the world’s
largest nuclear arsenals?
Did “regime change” and the deaths of “evil” tyrants like Saddam
Hussein, Muammar al-Qaddafi, the heads of Al Qaeda and ISIS
bring peace or stability to Iraq, Libya, or Syria?
The sad truth is that the failed Global War on Terror has left
America with no coherent foreign policy, an embedded foreign policy
establishment and a mainstream press that no longer tolerates
dissent.
Both should have been discredited long ago, but they remain and
serve as the living embodiments of the Peter
Principle.
“Putin’s failed blitzkrieg” is a figment of the western
imagination as fast, easy victories are not part of Russian history
or the Russian psyche.
The outcome of this war will be decided on the battlefield, not
the bargaining table, because economic sanctions will not stop
Vladimir Putin.
The West’s leverage over Putin is limited because Europe depends
on Russia for natural gas, oil, wheat, corn, aluminum, and many
other necessities.
Moreover, Russia has large foreign exchange reserves and low
national debt. Whatever technology they cannot get from Taiwan or
Korea, they can make themselves, buy from China, or find on the
black market.
Even the much-vaunted expulsion from Swift will only hurt, but
not cripple, Putin. Like the Iranian banks, Russia can make
and receive payments, use banks in third countries, or even shift
to the People’s Bank of China’s CIPS network.
My associate, “Nug,” has spent the past month in Ukraine.
Yesterday, after visiting a military hospital filled with
civilian casualties, he wrote, “Things seem to be changing for the
worse. Putin put in ‘Big Jake’ [his nickname for Putin’s new
general], a yes-man psycho as his new military commander who
prefers bombs and big guns to infantry assaults. Molotov cocktails,
Ak-47s, Stingers and Javelins are no match for tanks, artillery,
and Russian bombers. Putin is now targeting civilians.”
Nug pointed to the Russian artillery, rocket, and cluster bomb
attacks on Kharkiv to support his claim that Putin has taken off
the gloves.
“This is not Afghanistan or Iraq. This is the Eastern
Front during World War II,” he wrote, “Russia will now use the big
guns and the big bombs. Putin has called the west’s bluff.”
If nothing else, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has forced
China, America’s greatest strategic threat, out of the closet.
Beijing has not condemned Russia and will aid and abet their
ally because they have similar territorial
ambitions.
Unlike western political leaders, tech plutocrats, and
multinational corporations who turn a blind eye to China’s
concentration camps, genocide, imperialism, and blatant racism in
order to increase their profits, China is not burdened by such
hypocrisy.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s ongoing predations in
the Pacific Rim and Africa have exposed neoliberalism/globalism’s
Achilles heel— unprecedented and amoral greed that created a
strategically dangerous dependence on Russia and China.
After the Cold War, in the West, the multinational corporate
state overthrew the sovereign nation state in a bloodless coup and
the leaders of the new corporate state declared the playing field
level. Anti-trust laws, unions, banking rules, workers’ safety
regulations, and environmental protection, were deemed outdated and
unnecessary hindrances to “the free market.”
The politicians they owned and their mandarins in the press
agreed. Increasingly overweight westerners flocked to warehouses
full of cheap food, generic clothes, disposable furniture, and
electronic distractions, most of it made in foreign sweatshops.
Soon everyone had 500 channels, giant flat screens, and streaming
porn.
As long as the rich had cocaine, Cialis, Concerta, and Oxy, and
the poor had crack, smack, and crystal, nobody seemed to notice the
greatest consolidation of wealth in human
history.
Had Marx lived long enough to witness this strip mining phase of
capitalism, he would have called it laissez-faire anarchy. In
the end, these vast accumulations of wealth enervated the west’s
transnational ruling class.
Not only did they grow complacent and self-congratulatory, but
their belief that the rules of geopolitics no longer applied led to
strategic shortsightedness and imperial overstretch.
Today, the policy and press minstrels who helped to create this
mess clutch their pearls and gasp in disbelief.
However, not all of us turned a blind eye to larger strategic
plans of Russia and China and the inherent weaknesses and dangerous
conceits of globalism/neoliberalism.
It was clear to see if you cared to look.
Once again, Sven Lindquist said it best, “You already know
enough. So do I. It is not knowledge that we
lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we
know and draw conclusions.
“We have to take a hard look at ourselves as a nation and not in
five-year election cycle time frames. China is becoming
incredibly powerful. China doesn’t think in five-year time
frames, they think in fifty and hundred-year time frames.
They’re lovin it! They’re buying our debt, buying our steel,
and they’re laughing at us. They’re a real power.
Russia’s a real power. Vladimir Putin is a tough guy, he
plays hard ball, and for Bush to say, ‘I looked him in his eye and
saw his soul,’ Putin’s just laughing! Bush said, ‘See
Vladimir! We’re proud of our houses here, we own them unlike
you!’ and Putin’s just going, ‘OK pal, sure.’ So I think this
game we’re playing is a dangerous one. We’re over
extended.”
(Editor’s note: Peter Maguire is a surfer, war crimes
investigator and author ofThai Stick: Surfers,
Scammers, and the Untold Story of the Marijuana
Trade (movie rights optioned by Kelly Slater), Law and
War, Facing Death in Cambodia and
Breathe, the new bio on jiujitsu icon Rickson Gracie.
Ain’t much ol Petey can’t do. The following story, appears on
Pete’s substack Sour Milk, subscribe, it’s free
etc.)
