- William Schryver: In for a Pound Archived Message
Posted by sashimi
on January 4, 2023, 8:45 am
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Lede: Russia is in it to win it, and will settle for nothing less. 23 December 2022 (quote) I have been following the excellent war historian Michael Vlahos for a good portion of the ongoing Ukraine War. I have benefited from his perspectives on history and his well-considered geopolitical insights. Dr. Vlahos' formal credentials and subject matter expertise are unimpeachable - and unquestionably shade the autodidactic musings of an obscure voice speaking from a rural backwater at the southern rim of the Great Basin. But with that deservedly flattering preface, I shall now presume to critique and rebut his latest hypothesis in relation to what he seems to believe would be a mutually acceptable resolution to that war on the part of the United States (ostensibly "NATO") and the Russian Federation. I will be responding to the latest brief discussion in a podcast series featuring John Batchelor and Dr. Vlahos. The discussion begins with Mr. Batchelor articulating a series of hypotheticals apparently founded on an assumption that Vladimir Putin is operating from a tenuous position of power and full control over both his generals and the fundamental strategic aims driving the prosecution of this war. In my studied opinion, there is emphatically zero basis for the assertion that Vladimir Putin is not securely in control of both the Russian military and Russian foreign policy. Nor is there any credible evidence that powerful elements within the Russian military oppose Putin and have even remotely contemplated the idea of deposing him. Indeed, to the extent these notions have any traction in the west, I attribute it entirely to the #EmpireAtAllCosts cult, the arms industry-funded think tank propagandists, and the unbridled intrigues of quasi-supranational western intelligence agencies. Nevertheless, parting from the premise described above, Batchelor and Vlahos proceed to hypothesize a "peaceful solution" to the war in Ukraine founded in a Russia/NATO partition of Ukraine, with an undefined NATO-controlled western portion juxtaposed against what they indeterminately denominate "Novorossiya" in the east. Frankly I was shocked by the proposition. In my judgment, it is not only geopolitically incoherent, but inexplicably naïve. To their credit, both Mr. Batchelor and Dr. Vlahos appear to acknowledge that the only meaningful parties to this war (and its eventual cessation) are those of the waning American Empire ("NATO") and a Russian Federation that long-resisted and has now decisively rejected assimilation into the hegemon-dictated "rules-based international order"; a Russia that is convinced the brief epoch of American global hegemony has ended, and that a return to a balance-of-powers multipolar world is both inexorable and imminent. But I am thoroughly persuaded that the "solution" Batchelor and Vlahos propose would be utterly unacceptable to both parties - and would represent not only an unearned victory for NATO, but an unmitigated defeat for both Russian geostrategic interests and Vladimir Putin's domestic political support. Many geopolitical analysts have commented to a limited degree on Putin's bold address to the world delivered even as Russian forces had commenced their "Special Military Operation" in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, but few, if any, have focused their attention on the equally portentous address Putin delivered three days earlier. In his February 21, 2022 speech, Putin meticulously recounted the relevant history of the region dating back multiple centuries, and focused specifically on the events that followed in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. (see End Note below) In addition to Putin's history lesson, he makes particular reference to a detailed proposal Russia delivered to the United States and its NATO allies in mid-December 2021 - a proposal that effectively amounted to a "final warning"; a last-ditch effort to avoid war in Ukraine. Consider his words carefully, and particularly in light of how Russia has unswervingly adhered to the three primary war objectives Putin articulated in his February 24th speech. (/quote) -- Cont'd at https://imetatronink.substack.com/p/in-for-a-pound |
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