Volodymyr Zelensky (Photo: AFP)
Ukraine convolutions and more
Who can be happy with the way US President Donald Trump belittled Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in full view of the whole world? Pictures of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer with Trump are only a little better. Echoes, I guess, of the humiliation Trump liked to pile on contestants in his Apprentice reality show.
And yet, as with in-your-face racism compared to the covert kind, it reveals the true situation. And we should be thankful for that. The Trump presidency has created a ‘generational moment’ for Britain, Europe, and beyond. The UK is trying, selfishly, to take advantage of its so-called special two-way relationship with the USA. Trump threw that back in Starmer’s face asking, “Could you take on Russia by yourselves?” and laughing with the press at Starmer’s fumbled response of, “Well…”
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What is so terribly wrong with Trump’s dumping of Ukraine is that it was always a proxy war by the USA and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) which has sacrificed a million Ukrainian lives and devastated large swathes of the country. All along, until now, Zelensky has been encouraged to take on Russia and has been provided with ever-increasing supplies of arms and moral support. In fact, he was elected to do just that, take on Russia, following the machinations involved in the Maiden protests in that country in 2014. Now he has been left high and dry, with Europe unsure of its ability to replace the USA as guarantor of fulsome support. Perhaps worse is Ukraine being held at ransom by demands for half of its rare earth minerals, partly as repayment for military support that was given until now with no strings attached.
That is what is wrong with Trump’s approach. What is right, though, always for the wrong reason, is that the war should never have been started — started not by Ukraine, however, but by the eastwards expansion of NATO in contravention of promises made in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). Alternatively, one could say that Russia started the war, but NATO caused it.
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NATO should have been disbanded back in the 1990s and Russia integrated into Europe, as would have been possible. After World War II, France and Germany reconciled and built up trade and other relations to specifically lessen the chances of repeat of wars that went back centuries. This was cheered on by the US with its Marshall Plan, financing Europe’s recovery (whilst enriching itself).
Sadly, US imperialism, and its military-industrial complex, wanted no such thing as a permanent détente. After the collapse of the USSR in 1989, we had a unipolar world utterly dominated by the US, which wanted to keep it that way — thus the retention of NATO. Only the rise of China in the last 20 years has challenged the US, although Europe, with a combined economy as large as that of the US, is now also in Trump’s cross-hairs, threatened with 25 per cent tariffs on its goods, just like China.
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Russia’s economy is now too small to pose an economic threat, between one tenth and one sixth the size of the US or Europe, measured in nominal or purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. As regards Starmer, it is more than disgusting that he is trying to genuflect a way out of the tariffs, upping arms spending (at Trump’s behest), cutting aid and social programmes to pay for it. Those measures have, however, been described as only a ‘down-payment’.
Has Trump now changed that imperialist stance with his desire to pull back from a world role, both of the hard variety (NATO etc) and the soft (USAID etc)? Or is that only until some upstart dares challenge the US’s fading hegemony? Some say Trump wants to concentrate instead on preparations for war with China. Until that happens the US arms industry has other outlets such rearming Europe against phantom enemies and maintaining its stronghold in the Middle East — again, though its proxy, Israel.
So where does this leave Europe and Ukraine with the US out of the picture? A lot depends on how Europe understands Russia’s and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions. Are they really expansionists, wanting to retake as much of the former USSR as possible? Would that then portend ambitions to go even further (as was the original justification for NATO) despite Russia’s now relatively small economy?
Given Trump’s withdrawal from Europe, this perspective would mean increased military budgets across Europe, up to 3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). Perhaps this is part of Trump’s plan, to weaken Europe economically (as has always been the game with Russia) and thus reduce the competition. It would in any case lead to further austerity and further political upheavals, towards authoritarian populism initially, until the nativist agenda is seen for what it is, an empty blame game that has nothing to offer after anti-immigration (and perhaps autarky) has run its course. Whether socialism, anarchism, or barbarism will follow is surely an open question.
Is there another way for a Europe which recognises Russia’s eclipse as a military and ideological threat, one which would mean an end to the proxy war in Ukraine, one which avoided the austerity that would follow from increased military spending? It is a war like that which occurred in Vietnam, unlikely to end in the defeat of the US’s/NATO’s enemy, even despite Russia’s comparatively limited resources. Yes, the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine three years ago was illegal, but so is what the US has done overtly or covertly so many times in the last 70 years, including right now by using Israel as a willing proxy. Be that as it may, two wrongs don’t make a right.
What is more compelling, for those not blinded by Western propaganda, is the provocation by NATO and also the history of Ukraine. Putin’s main excuse for crossing Ukraine’s border is NATO’s expansionism since the 1990s, as described above. Is there any reason for this reignition of cold war sentiments, other than the hope of economic gain by destroying Russia, just as the Zionists (and now Trump) would like to do with Palestine, in that case gaining access to offshore petroleum reserves and valuable real estate? How would the USA react if either Canada or Mexico built Russian or Chinese military bases, or even had socialist governments? Little Cuba was enough of a challenge, but sensibly the Cuban Missile Crisis was settled without a nuclear World War III by the USSR backing off, as was the US expected to do in Turkey at the time, also on Russia’s border.
The Donbas region of Ukraine, where the war is raging, is also on the Russian border and it has a large Russian population. If it were not for NATO’s expansionist agenda, with a promise of eventual NATO membership for Ukraine given years ago by former US President George W Bush, a way forward could perhaps have been found, giving some autonomy to that region, little different to what prevails in the various states that make up the US. The Minsk II agreement provided a path towards that resolution, but it foundered, each side accusing the other of bad faith. Many defend Ukraine’s right to self-determination and quite rightly so (if only Palestine was offered the same – the hypocrisy of the US and the West is mind-blowing) .
However, a strongly nationalistic, anti-Russian Government came to power in Ukraine some 10 years ago in controversial circumstances. Previously, much of the population was accepting of a neutral, non-NATO status. Ukraine joining the EU did not represent a similar red flag to Russia. In fact, given the will, Russia could have been invited to join as well, at least back in the 1990s. Putin, as a hard-liner, was not a factor until well into the 2000s. There is a great deal to learn on this from Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who has been intimately involved in these events and an advisor to many governments in the region, including Russia.
As it stands, Ukraine will have to return to the Minsk II table, possibly in a weaker position than it had before the war. Europe cannot and likely does not care to provide Ukraine with a blank cheque for a war that cannot be won, if winning means pushing Russia back to the pre-war borders. Without the threat of a US-backed NATO, and better still without NATO at all, Russia might agree to a withdrawal that also guaranteed partial autonomy for the Donbas region.
Yet as George Monbiot has written in the Guardian newspaper, “All the talk now [in Europe] is of how we might defend ourselves without the US. But almost everyone with a voice in public life appears to be avoiding a much bigger and more troubling question: How we might defend ourselves against the US.”
The same surely goes for Jamaica and every other country in the world. We might all worry about possible Chinese imperialism (surely not a Russian one), but breaking from US hegemony may not only be necessary but forced on us. A likely downturn in the US economy, and Trump’s approach to migrants might well mean less tourists coming here and fewer job opportunities there. We should also give some consideration to joining the BRICS (an intergovernmental organisation consisting of 10 countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates) currency arrangement.
The US is no longer a beacon of hope and good values. According to the Economist magazine, it is a flawed democracy, 29th on a world scale. And even worse as regards inequality, 98th from the top of 169 countries, according to Global Finance. China is better, in 87th place, and Russia better still at 48th.
This is indeed a ‘generational moment’ for Europe, and the whole world, a chance not to be missed. Should we, by an overabundance of caution, collectively allow the US to continue with its evermore-tainted hegemony or make some bold moves, together?
pgward72@gmail.com
