It has become increasingly more evident that in the twenty first century the central battle for political power will not be between competing ideologies as much as it will be centered on the way nations are governed - either by participatory consent or by a powerful elite. It is thus serendipity that as the world wrestles between the opposing governmental systems of democracy and autocracy that the war between Russia and Ukraine is being fought by protagonists of each system. It is also obvious that the ability of the United Nations to effect its peace keeping mandate is even more ineffective in the twenty - first century in response to this change. The central figure in these transformative events is the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
Renowned political scientist Francis Fukuyama has gone as far as to say that the outcome of the titanic Eastern European battle will determine whether autocracy or democracy will triumph as the dominant political structure henceforth. On the one side there is the poster child for autocracy Russia’s Vladimir Putin and on the other the newly designated leader for democracy Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky. The former behaving like a brutal sociopathic imperialist “warmonger” while the latter surprised the world by emerging as the de facto luminary of democracy both in his country and the world by his determined fight for freedom..
However the outcome of this conflict and how it can be resolved is still very much up in the air. On the one hand Putin cannot tolerate any outcome that does not allow for him to declare some sort of victory and on the other Zelensky will continue until such time that Ukraine’s independence, direction to Western democracy is accepted and security is ensured.
ZELENSKY
On its face it is amazing that an unassuming personage, who had no previous political or military experience, who is the head of a nation with the population of the order of California, could within the space of six weeks become the moral leader of the values that the Second World War ostensibly fought to attain and that the United Nations had been founded to preserve. In assuming this role the Ukrainian President has illustrated his unparalleled skills as a communicator inspiring his country to bravery, deprivation and even giving their lives for the objective of freedom. He has made addresses almost daily in legislative chambers throughout the world. Each was tailor made to the respective nation’s history and conflicts, The bottom lines however were the same - gratitude for the help so far but a warning that should Ukraine not receive the weaponry needed they will see the flattening of Ukraine and the wholesale slaughter of its peoples. His peroration has been, “Give us the wherewithal and we will do the fighting”, implicitly for Western democracy as well. Zelensky leads the resistance from the front, exposing himself daily to potential harm as he moves among the military and the citizens.
Superlatives have rained down as he dominates the world stage. Some critics have been derogatory in their assessment claiming he was just playing a role that his training and experience had prepared him for. Coincidentally, Sean Penn the Oscar winning actor and film producer was in the process of creating a documentary about the Ukrainian premier. He was there before the war and at his beginning. Penn, who is an activist on many fronts and has seen many in the forefront of causes and catastrophes, spoke of Zelensky almost in messianic terms, summing up that “he was ‘born for this”.
What is fascinating is the praise the military leaders have heaped on him, although they freely admit that he was helped by Russian incompetence. A former head of NATO compared him to George Washington whose military savvy with a ragbag army defeated the British and then he went on to be the political leader that put together the country after somehow persuading the disparate groups to join in the fight.
However what really amazes Jay H. Ell is that he has basically called for a new world body of like thinking nations and rattled the cages of the complacent dysfunctional UNO. George Brown the former British Prime Minister has in the wake of this conflict mooted an organization of like minded democracies joining together in a new body presumably with trade and defense arrangements.
ZELENSKY AND A NEW WORLD ORDER.
It stands to reason that a body that had sought to maintain peace during the cold war when competing ideologies were the order of the day would be even more ineffectual when the system of government per se would be the central point of controversy. Whether state directed, run by corrupt cronies or open to the free market, capitalism in one form or another has been adopted. (Again to a lesser or greater extent social welfare schemes have been introduced even in the most capitalist of countries including the United States).
The Charter of the United Nations was designed to uphold peace between nations, a principle that all members had signed onto. While the UNO had to a lesser or greater extent not been able to hold the participating nations to this objective its impotence is currently even more pronounced as brutally pointed out by Zelensky. He made it clear that if the body could not expel a naked genocidal aggressor such as Russia it should call it quits - only a non politician could exclaim that the “Emperor had no clothes". In effect he was calling for a new world body that would uphold the ideals of protecting a member state against aggression. The current organization was powerless to caution a member who had been appointed, as all the allied powers were, with veto privileges, With authority Zelensky called out the United Nations Security Council who accepted his sweeping admonitions, affording him the respect that might have been reserved to a seasoned world statesman like a Mandela.
The unorthodox head of state reminded the Security Council that there had been a pattern of this behavior by the Russians - Syria, Chechnia, Georgia, Muldovia and Crimea as well as in Eastern Ukraine which the Council had apparently been powerless to respond too. The body was not constituted for the task it had espoused as its number one priority - world peace. A new organization was obviously needed of like minded nations.
THE RESPONSE OF NATIONS
There have been responses on many levels to the crisis engendered by the Russian invasion depending on a host of factors reflecting the situation of the countries themselves. The former USSR countries who voted with their feet to join NATO have accepted nearly four million refugees with Poland taking the lead. The spirit of welcome has been only matched by the organizational expertise that was needed to accommodate all these displaced persons. As has been highlighted again and again the EU and NATO have consolidated behind Ukraine in a manner undreamed off. They have been joined by nations across the globe including Switzerland who for the first time have dumped their neutrality role which they have used to great effect to become the funk hole of generations of wealth. Then there have been the group who are condemning the atrocities but are beholden or dependent on Russia to varying degrees so they are staying out of the line of fire without taking the tough public line like the rest. (Some still voting for sanctions in the General Assembly but most abstaining).
Finally there are those nations who should be the natural allies of Putin’s autocratic stance such as Hungary, Turkey and even Poland. Poland have already jumped ship and Orban, (still Putin’s friend), and Erdogan have publicly let it be known that they have told Putin to call it quits and have offered to broker a peace. It is also fair to say that even in the most ardent proponents of democracy there are strong movements for autocracy. To name just two - the Putin/Trump wing in the USA’S Republican Party and France’s Marine Le Pen who is mounting a serious challenge to President Macron.
China, who recently signed an extensive pact of Kumbaya, cooperation and shared values and objectives with Russia, have become increasingly frustrated at their best friend’s behavior and isolation. While paying lip service by referring to the naked aggression as a “Special Military Operation” they have not voted for the Russians at the UN rather abstaining on motions of condemnation and even sanctions. While Putin’s objective is to bring back from the dead the old USSR, China’s vision is the whole world so that the longer this battle proceeds the more disenchanted the People’s Republic will become. They also must be making a mental note of what the response may be to a Taiwan grab.
So there it is Russia for practical terms more and more isolated but still getting revenue from energy and what trade it is still has going with China, India and a few others.
WHAT IS THE SITUATION NOW?
It is widely acknowledged that Russia is losing the war on the ground largely due to an inept uncoordinated attack with no logistical support to the troops whose morale is low. The Ukrainian defenders have witnessed destruction of their cities, large scale civilian loss including over two hundred children. Brutal crimes against humanity have been documented against Putin’s forces. Putin’s intelligence that he would be hailed as a liberator and within three days insert a puppet regime in Kiev has been shown to be hopelessly off the mark.
Russia has been driven from the North. That massive armored column that stretched for forty miles has been decimated with air power and anti tank missiles. Putin has claimed that the withdrawal is a goodwill gesture to promote peace talks but the consensus is that Russia has retreated, been defeated and is regrouping in Belarus for the fight in the East. On March 25, nearly four thousand Russian vehicles of war had been destroyed which included one hundred and twenty three aircraft, one hundred and twenty seven helicopters, five hundred and eighty four tanks, seventy - three fuel tankers, seven boats, sixty six unmanned aerial vehicles and eleven hundred general military vehicles. Recently it was revealed in the Washington Post that Russia had already lost nineteen thousand soldiers and an unknown number were wounded or captured. Putin’s Chief of Staff in a rare interview only seen in the West admitted that the Russians had sustained “significant” losses.
From the Ukrainian side it was acknowledged that thirteen hundred soldiers have died. There was no figures given for the wounded or captured. The Ukrainian devastation was its loss of civilians, buildings and infrastructure including the raising to the ground of Mariupoi a city of four hundred thousand. The Ukrainians have lost one city to the Russians, even the ruins of Mariupol are not in the enemy’s hands.
At present there is a relative lull in the fighting interspersed by the Russian long range missile attacks while they regroup for their Eastern assault in an attempt to create a land corridor from Russian held Donbas to Crimea. Odessa a sea port city in the South has to be a prized objective by Putin but much like Kiev it is a fantasy to think he could take it much less hang on to it. There are reports that Russia is to be joined by Chechnians, Syrians and the infamous Wagner group of mercenaries.
In answer to the Russians regrouping, weapons are pouring into Ukraine. Secretary of State Blinken claimed that for every Russian tank there are ten anti tank missiles. Finally, Biden has agreed to replace Slovakian S - 300 missiles with a Patriot system which they would provide training for. The UK’S Boris Johnson, who has to date provided effective anti missile weaponry, on a visit to Kiev upped the anti missile support and they with others, notably Australia, are providing armored vehicles. Johnson was the fifth world leader to enter Kiev in support of the Ukrainian effort.
WHAT NEXT?
Russia has become more and more isolated on the world scene - a reality which was acknowledged by Foreign Minister Lavrov when he retorted to the press that the only people he needed support from were the Russians. Internally Putin has to fear the economic deprivation that has already taken hold in Russia. The sanctions have resulted In an imposed financial iron curtain around Russia as well as inflation and scarcities being endured by the faithful. Sooner or later the narrative that Russia is the liberator and the atrocities are staged has to be questioned as information seeps in and families don’t hear from their loved ones in ever increasing numbers.
Now that annexing the whole of Ukraine as part of Russia is off the table the only choice left is consolidating Donbas and forging a land corridor to Crimea. With that in mind bombing that Ukrainian part of the country to the Stone Ages still appears to be the playbook of the Russian autocrat. However there is only one alternative to gain ground and that is a ground fight. In the process he will carry out his willful attacks on civilians and refugees seeking out gathering places such as train stations. But that does not secure territory. The Ukrainians will be strengthened by forces that can be released from the North as there is as much chance of Putin returning there soon as the UN Security Council passing a resolution that Ukraine belongs to Russia.
There is talk of this going on for years. Putin cannot sustain his internal situation for years. In the light of the fact that it has already been proven that he can’t begin to match Ukraine on the ground the obvious conclusion is that he is going to lose the war. An option that the media find very difficult to articulate. This outcome will have a weighty consequences in the world order.
Putin can of course resort to chemical warfare or even limited nuclear weaponry but he has no idea as to what that will bring upon his head. If that was what he had in mind he would have let loose before he had to ignominiously retreat from Kiev.
The democracies need not hold back for fear of escalation, Russia is not the Russia when this contest began nearly seven weeks ago.
IF PUTIN LOSES
Leaving the internal Russian political situation aside for the moment as to whether Putin is able to survive by blaming everyone else how does this outcome impact the world situation. At this stage it no longer matters what Russia thinks about Ukraine joining NATO and the EU and maybe that is how it will end. If Francis Fukuyama is right Russia losing will strengthen democracy throughout the world, Certainly the former USSR countries will be safe to pursue democracy without constantly worrying about Russian aggression.
Most significantly Russia will have lost its gravitas. Zelensky’s suggestion of taking their veto power away from them will not become that controversial. Nor will Gordon Brown’s proposal for a new world body. The existing order has already been challenged. Already the almost unprecedented action of throwing Russia, one of the five veto powers, off the Human Rights Council has been enacted. The last time this happened was in 2011 when Libya was removed. Axing a major power is a big big deal and is a marker of the loss of standing the Russians have sustained in less than two months.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Whichever way this is viewed the future ain’t what it used to be. The powerhouse of the united Sino Soviet axis has to be wobbly. Russia is on its way to being a third rate banana republic with nukes. (At least Pakistan is a democracy). China has to rethink its designs on Taiwan. NATO and the EU have been rejuvenated and all those who are sanguine about the seductive choice of having an autocracy have to once agin be reminded that it is the slippery slope to hell.
In 2005 Putin opined that the collapse of the USSR was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century. How will he characterize the collapse of modern day Russia?
Ultimately this is a very difficult situation to predict with any degree of certainty. Jay H. Ell was wrong from the word go never believing that cold pragmatic Putin would be so stupid as to embark on this risky venture. Putin fantasized that it would make him look like Peter the Great but it has ended up in making appear more like Ivan the Terrible.
The good news is that the Russian armored column to the East is only four miles long. The bad news is that they will be joined by the Russian separatists and the supply lines will be much closer than in the North.
Finally Putin has done his greatest admirer Trump another favor. By starting a war attention has been diverted from the daily revelations of Trump’s role in the 1/6 attempted coup
No comments:
Post a Comment