By Dimitris Konstantakopoulos*
We are facing probably the most dangerous crisis in human history and the war in Ukraine is only one of its manifestations. We say this is the most dangerous crisis in human history, because it is the first time that humans posess productive forces and technologies able to destroy life on earth.
Responding to the Russian military intervention in Ukraine the West has launched what amounts to a kind of a sui generis world war against Russia. It is a world war because of the extent of the economic, military, international and information measures adopted against Russia and because its dynamic is already influencing all the globe. It is a sui generis world war, not a “usual” one, because the two sides, Russia and the West, have avoided, up to now, the direct military confrontation of their armed forces, out of fear of a nuclear war able to annihilate humanity, including US and Russia. In reality this form of Cold-Hot War now unleashed was already prepared many years ago, with the international campaign to demonize Russia, the succesive enlargements of NATO and the repudiation of the most fundamental Arms Control agreements by Washington.
We are not going to examine here the veracity of the western arguments or go back to the roots of the Ukrainian crisis (among other factors the way the USSR was dismantled, with no respect of the will of its peoples and nations, the deep division of Ukraine in an anti-Russian and a pro-Russian part, the continuous enlargement of NATO, the US-backed coup d’ etat in Kiev or the critical role played by various neo-nazi militias in Ukraine). We are not also going to remind of the direct or indirect western interventions which have destroyed whole countries, like Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen etc., during the last 30 years alone.
Let us assume for the sake of this analysis, that all Western arguments against Russia are correct. Even if we make such an assumption, will the measures adopted against Russia help the Ukrainian people? What will be their global consequences?
1. An Ukrainian military victory is impossible
By delivering massive help in armaments, “technical assistance” and mercenaries the West cannot accomplish a military defeat of a power like Russia. To claim the opposite is simply ridiculous.
It cannot also lead to a “regime change” in Russia. If such tactics have failed against Cuba or Iran or North Korea, and if the Taliban are now ruling Afghanistan, it is incoceivable that such tactics will succeed against Russia.
By the way if there will be a “regime change” in Russia, it will be to the opposite direction of what America hopes. And if it will mean some distancing of the country from the oligarchic capitalism which had hijacked in the past Gorbachev’s experiment, with the help of the US, it will be a very positive “regime change” for both Russia and the whole world. Because this “oligarchic capitalism” is not a privilege of Russia, it is the ultimate stage of Capitalism itself and it represents the gravest threat to humanity.
Under the concrete circumstances, the military help provided to Ukraine will help prolong the conflict and it will make Zelenski even more unwilling to compromise (if Zelenski has any margin of autonomy and if he is not a mere insrument of the more extremist western forces, something we doubt seriously). All that military help will have as a result to further destroy Ukraine and bleed Russia.
The only way to help Ukrainians is to put pressure on Zelenski and on Russia to search a negotiated compromise solution. Now, the Ukrainian President is not interested in peace. He believes, or he pretends to believe, or he is ordered to say so, he will win over Russia.
2. Increasing the risk of Nuclear World War
The West and Russia are now engaged in a very dangerous poker game, which can turn, at any moment, to Russian roulette game.
The international political climate created, the open or dissimulated calls for overthrowing the Russian regime or kill Putin, the portraying of Russia as a “criminal” country and the indirect still very real military involvement of NATO has undermined seriously the foundations of the “peaceful coexistence” of the two nuclear superpowers (that is their mutual respect and recognition) and sharply increased, objectively and even irrespective of intentions, the probability of a nuclear world war and of the extermination of mankind.
Such a war can happen as a result of accident, miscalculation or provocations by the international extremist party of war, as both camps are pushed to a situation any retreat will be considered an unacceptable humiliation and the level of mutual hate and suspicion is getting to new highs.
We know there is an extremist War party in the “system” even since WWII (when US state officials and personalities begun negotiating with German Nazi state officials a probable change of alliances and a common offensive against the USSR). It has also manifested itself during the first cold war (around the Committee for the Present Danger), with the wars in the Middle East (Neocons, Project for a new American Centrury etc.) and is responsible for the use of a biological weapon (anthrax) in September 2001. They are most probably behind Bannon’s strategy of favoring nationalism everywhere and disseminating conflict and the chaos of the “war of all against all”.
The dismantling of the nuclear arms control structure by the USA and the gradual increasing of relying on tactical nuclear weapons are also aggravating and destabilizing factors. There are no tactical nuclear weapons. The use of any nuclear weapon will have strategic consequences.
In the mean time, all negotiations on arms control between the US and Russia are suspended and it is difficult even to imagine that they will resume while the Ukrainian conflict is continuing.
We must also remember that there are not only nuclear arms in the world. Very important dangers are also related with all means of mass destruction including chemical, biological, space, cyber and all other sorts of weapons.
3. Making certain the climatic catastrophe
According to all scientific data, including the latest IPCC reports, and if we don’t adopt immediately and globally very radical measures, the climate change will become irreversible. Whatever measures we will adopt later will not be able to reverse it. This situation is representing a mortal threat not only to human civilisation and prosperity, but to the very survival of Humans.
Even before the Ukrainian crisis, most governments did not seem ready and willing to adopt such measures. As long as the local conflict in Ukraine and the global conflict between East and West goes on it will be even more difficult to adopt any measures to this direction. It is simply impossible to adress the climatic and other existential threats to humanity without strong cooperation between all great powers and all states of the world.
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