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Russia – Ukraine War: An Avoidable Conflict?

For the regular readers of these pages, this is not the daily update of the war in Ukraine. Instead, this is a query into the causes, strategies, and reasons for a conflict which would appear to have been completely avoidable from the onset.

The theory and propaganda promoted from the Western political elites is that Vladimir Putin no long wishes to be part of the “global system” so he must be going insane or suffering from some sort of illness. While I might have over-estimated the capabilities and upgrades of the Russian military before the war, I seriously doubt that I am under-estimating the intent of Putin and his radical supporters.

Thus why the essay in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday is worthy of review.

Vladimir Putin’s 20-Year March to War in Ukraine—and How the West Mishandled It

This is behind the paywall so I shall only save the key elements of the essay with my readers then my thoughts as this conflict moves forward.

First and foremost, the largest miscalculation, the same as that with Communist China:

Washington, under both Democratic and Republican presidents, and its allies at first hoped to integrate Mr. Putin into the post-Cold War order. When Mr. Putin balked, the U.S. and its European partners had little appetite for returning to the strategy of containment the West imposed against the Soviet Union. Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, led the EU’s big bet on peace through commerce, developing a dependence on Russian oil and gas that Berlin is now under international pressure to reverse.

Containment only worked on the margins. In fact, if the USSR had not bankrupted itself on the false premises of the 1980’s, it might have succeeded in repelling the Reagan agenda to seal off and repel the communist threat globally. Fortunately the left had begun to shift in the mid-1980’s and failed to fulfill the desires of the KGB and Comintern of that era, a successful sabotage of Soviet foreign policy by the US government of that era.

In the current era, containment could have worked, but the lack of a serious commitment by European Union members to upgrading their military capabilities to keep pace with Russian and Chinese modernization has left NATO as nothing more than a hollow shell of itself, totally dependent on the US and its nuclear capabilities.

In 2007, Putin sent the first warning signal that Russia was not going to tolerate any more NATO expansion:

Perceptions changed in January 2007, when Mr. Putin vented his growing frustrations about the West at the annual Munich Security Conference. In a long and icy speech, he denounced the U.S. for trying to rule a unipolar world by force, accused NATO of breaking promises by expanding into Europe’s east, and called the West hypocritical for lecturing Russia about democracy. A chill descended on the audience of Western diplomats and politicians at the luxury Hotel Bayerischer Hof, participants recalled.

Yet the West ignored these warnings due to the ongoing financial crisis which had distracted the powers of that era away from strategic threats and only on economic risks.

This key phrase from today’s article, highlighted by Aaron Maté on Twitter says it all:

In other words, Mr. Maté highlighted the obvious; Germany thought this war was avoidable and could be negotiated away without civilian and military bloodshed.

President Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson would have none of it.

Why?

More from Mr. Maté’s feed:

In other words, the globalists who manage and run the US and UK, along with most of the EU are willing to fight to the last Ukrainian to achieve their goals. No different than promoting insane theories about a disease which causes a 0.05% death rate to suppress the American economy and public from their freedoms.

This has nothing to do with invading Ukraine to achieve a unification with Russia beyond those Russian speaking areas. Vladimir Putin will never surrender and is 100% committed to achieve his goals. There is little doubt he feels any remorse for “sterilizing” Ukrainian cities and manufacturing to a point unseen since World War II and the brutality of both Nazi German and USSR attacks on either nation during that era. Thus the photos, the “war crimes” by both sides shall continue, unabated, as the war begins to intensify.

It is about the conflict between the nations which refuse to surrender and join the “new order” and those which must be destroyed for failing to fall in line. Putin is an evil man and yes, he is not someone worth “cheering” for by any reasonable person. But is Joe Biden any better hiding under the guise of the US media? I think not.

The great conflict which has been building since the collapse of the Soviet Union is finally here. The scary part is when China recognizes that the West has exhausted its weapon supplies on the Ukraine and is no longer capable of defending nor supporting Taiwan when China wishes to seize it.

Based on what is happening now, as the typhoon season winds down in October, it would appear Taipei has a lot to worry about.

Especially with the cowards in the West refusing to confront and correct the errors of their past.

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