Publication date: 2022-01-27
Having read every single word, and watched every single minute of each one of the sources included in the last few articles published on the Ukraine situation, I am perhaps, reasonably informed. I am more than concerned.
I dearly hope that which I describe below turns out to be fanciful and wildly inaccurate.
If it All Gets Too Hot
Let's run a hypothetical, with a couple of scenarios, like thought experiment war gaming.
Ukraine's government currently has around 130 000 Government troops, not counting various mercenary or paramilitary forces, on the line of control between government held areas and the two "break away" republics in Donbas. Apparently, the militias in the republics amount to around 60 000, but and this is a very important but, they have probably the worlds strongest conventionally armed land military right at their backs. They are not "over there", they are "right there".
Small Scale
Lets imagine that Ukraine decides to initiate a low intensity battle to "reclaim their territory". Russia will support the republics with intelligence and minor military assistance, as they have previously. Ukrainians will die, on both sides. This will just add to the already UN confirmed 13 000 people who have died in Donbas, and to whatever the equivalent numbers are for the Ukraine army and paramilitaries. This would just be more unnecessary horror.
Any trust in the current political discussion for security cooperation between Russia and the USA and NATO will be totally lost, and Cold War II gets writ large. Russia and China will have confirmed that there is no point in even talking to the West, responses will be planned, a new arms race will run, and the military contractors will do nicely while eastern Europe lives in fear. We'll be right back to the 1970's and 1980's for Europe. Meanwhile the global geopolitical power dynamic has radically changed since then.
Full Scale
Lets imagine that Ukraine decides to begin a major offensive against the Donbas. Russia will scream at the top of her lungs both internationally, and on every airwave she can in and around Ukraine to STOP, STOP!!! But, there is only so much she can permit before there is no other choice, and she will respond.
All of the military analysts’ predictions for what comes next are uniform: Russia will respond so decisively, and so quickly, that the Ukraine's armed forces will be ineffectual in hours. Russia's electronic warfare capabilities and precision long range missiles will immediately take out all military, and many other communications systems either physically (the military ones) or electronically (the others), leaving Ukraine's armed forces leaderless. Satellite phones? Good luck with that, Russia will probably be jamming those too. All of Ukraine's heavy weaponry along the front will be destroyed; the artillery, the tanks, the missile batteries (anywhere near the front) and armored personnel carriers, all of it. Gone. Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who either did not get the message or refused to abandon their equipment will die. Probably tens of thousands would die.
Aftermath
Then we have the Cuban Missile Crisis II moment. The question will then be for the editors of the major Western news outlets. Do they go into outrage, or realise what they are doing? Do they provide the political space for diplomacy to actually operate, or do they condemn god knows how much of the world into conflict? They have already been playing the Might Wurlitzer of War, and I have little hope for them to come to their senses. Forgive them, for they know not what they do. Needless to say, the loss of trust mentioned above will instead burn like phosphorous.
Luckily, the vast majority of the citizenry of the USA and Europe have no desire whatsoever to see a war happen in Ukraine. Some national leaders in Europe, particularly from Germany and France, also understand just how dangerous this moment is. If this goes down, the economic shockwave will make the 2008 Global Financial Crisis look like an art gallery tour. I pray that the regular Ukraine military will not follow orders if a major attack is commanded such that if this offensive is begun, it will devolve into the first scenario. Then, it will just be the fanatics who die for no reason and we are left to to reflect on the suffering of those left behind, their children, spouses and families; the scourge of war.
We're already in a new Cold War. The best outcome above, in terms of minimal lives lost, is a heightened Cold War II. The worst case is unthinkable.
If it is an elevated Cold War II, it will not play out like its predecessor. Then, China was still an agricultural economy, Russia had just lost 25 million people, and the USA held 50% of the world's wealth and produced 50% of its goods. Today, China is the leading economy in some metrics, and Russia's economy is diversified and strong with extensive foreign reserves, to say nothing of her advanced military technology. Cold War II shall not even be close to a replay.
Empires in decline tend to do irrational things, as we are seeing now. Sadly, they don't learn quickly from these errors. The political lessons from Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003, followed by Libya, Ukraine, Venezuala, Syria and Yemen are non-existent. The financial lesson is “make money from war”.
What political leadership, or even intelligent economic leadership, do we have to avoid this precipice? Brave leaders have been long absent from USA politics. There is a little hope in European national leadership. The perennial problem is the Brussels Bureaucracy. Can the European national leaders combine to sideline the European Commission and shunt around this potential disaster?
The end equation begins to look like European leaders saying to the USA either back off, or you lose NATO.
Its that stark.
Sources
Culture
In times of doom and gloom a little humor, even if its dark, can help:
Putin Calls Out Biden Over Ukraine Aggression, Dore and Guest, The Jimmy Dore Show, 2022-01-27
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