Things keep ratcheting up in Ukraine, with France continuing its saber-rattling escalatory spiral. Let’s quickly run down the new separate signals being sent from all across NATO: In a new Le Parisien piece, Macron reportedly reiterated the eventual need for ground troops to save Ukraine:
As with every other move they have made so far to try and stick it to Russia, this too will backfire against them, possibly even more disastrously so than the sanctions. In that sense it is likely that such a move would just accelerate Russia and the global south’s victory and the end of Western hegemony. However that does not mean that it is not a dangerous escalation. Indeed i wouldn’t much care if a Mr Kinzhal shall we say “presented his business card” to Macron or Scholz in their offices tomorrow, but i do care that regular working class people would be caught in the crossfire, literally and metaphorically. It is working class people who would be mobilized to go fight their stupid war, it’s working class people who would suffer deprivations of goods and repressions against anyone who would be against the war, it’s working class people who don’t have bunkers to hide in when the bomb drops…
Luckily there is still a good chance that this is just a last ditch desperate bluff, as Europe’s militaries are in critically under-maintained, under-manned and under-supplied condition. Also, Russia has consistently acted like the adult in the room throughout this entire conflict and shown very mature restraint in the face of some extreme provocations. There is reason to trust that they will handle any possible trial balloon of western troops with the necessary finesse to manage the escalation responsibly.
Good comment…
You are oc correct, and I can’t really argue seriously for an escalation that will hurt the wrong people. However, I DO feel that we must have some sort of finale on this. The western right wingers have done evil for decades/centuries, they never stopped the colonization but just changed the methods. They must not walk away from this manufactured Ukraine project as ‘innocent bystanders’. If they do that, they’ll never loosen their propaganda grip on western news/information, and they can continue propagandizing the population for new liberal/hegemonic attacks down the line.
So, one part of me wants peace asap, but the other knows that if the liberal elite/believers doesn’t get a serious beating, they’ll never learn, and everything starts over in a handful of years. This shit must end now, but it doesn’t have to be a military defeat as long as the western population wakes up and get rid of their elite and their infantile combative ideology. Perhaps a huge economic crash will do the trick (which again hurts the wrong people)…
I also agree with you that Russia have been extremely professional/calm in everything they’ve done in this conflict. They seem to be acutely aware of the right time to push further without giving Nato an excuse to rally their citizens. Always one step ahead, and definitely the reason things haven’t gone really bad already. Russia have done very well…
Reality seldom delivers to us that kind of catharis.
They will probably never learn even if they do get that beating.
Look, on the whole i agree with your sentiment, but i also know to temper my expectations because life is messy and imperfect and the outcomes of complex geopolitical processes are also most often imperfect. It is likely that not everything will turn out exactly as we want. But at the end of the day what matters is the trajectory, the direction of evolution for the balance of power in the world, and regardless of the details of the exact outcome of the Ukraine conflict that trajectory is already clear and set. The outcome of this conflict can at most accelerate or slow down that already ongoing process, but can never reverse or stop the trends that are already in motion, which are those of the global south rising alongside China. Russia has been playing a long game in Ukraine but China is playing an even longer game across the entire world.
The West’s hegemony is falling one way or another. The Ukraine conflict is not the cause of that fall, it is a symptom of it (while of course also being a powerful catalyst too).