Transmitted below is a link to an interesting interview with my distinguished recipient Noam Chomsky regarding the war in Ukraine.
Like Chomsky, "I claim no military expertise." However, four inevitable consequences of perpetuating this war "for as long as it takes", as President Biden has yet again promised during President Zelensky's whirlwind trip to Washington, should be indisputable:
1. More Ukrainians and Russians will be killed.
2. Ukraine and its economy will suffer more destruction.
3. American weapons manufacturers will rake in more profits.
4. European economies and European citizens will continue to suffer serious and intensifying pain.
These are the least bad consequences. Matters could spiral out of control and produce far worse consequences.
It is easy to understand why the ruling élites in the United States, which, uniquely, are deriving benefits, both geopolitical (a weaker and more subservient Europe) and financial, from this war, would wish to perpetuate it.
It is difficult to envision benefits for anyone else, including Russia and Ukraine, from perpetuating it.
As students of history are aware, wars are not fought only on battlefields, by the competitive slaughter of soldiers, but also on economic and information fronts. A major factor in uselessly prolonging wars has often been the delusional belief of both sides in the veracity of their own disinformation and propaganda about how well the war is going and their prospects for "victory". We appear to be witnessing yet another example of this historical phenomenon at a time when, with both sides literally digging in, an effective stalemate, with only marginal gains for either side, is far more likely than a resounding "victory" for either side.
While it is currently difficult to imagine any near-term end to the deaths and destruction, I can see two long-shot hopes:
1. Either Russia or Ukraine proposes a ceasefire-in-place followed by negotiations. If, as currently seems most likely, the other side were to reject such an offer, it would be clear which side would then be responsible for the further deaths, destruction and collateral damage to the rest of the world, with obvious benefits for the proposing country. If, as seems less likely but is not inconceivable, the other side were to accept such an offer, the deaths and destruction would end and the conflict would be re-frozen on somewhat different territorial lines of control than those held on February 24.
2. Russia formally announces that it has no territorial ambitions regarding internationally-recognized Ukrainian territory beyond the borders of the five Russian-majority regions which are now constitutionally part of the Russian Federation after their respective referendums and annexations. Doing so could constructively defang US/NATO claims that Russia seeks to swallow Ukraine whole or reestabish the Russian empire and might constructively lead to serious thinking, both among Ukrainians and among the citizens of NATO countries, as to whether seeking (with no serious likelihood of success) to maintain western Ukrainian rule over the Russian-majority regions of eastern and southern Ukraine is really worth the further deaths and destruction which such an effort would guarantee.
Ever since the US/NATO contemptuously dismissed Russia's requests for serious negotiations toward a new mutual security architecture in Europe, under which all countries could feel secure and no country would feel threatened, and Russia responded by extending diplomatic recognition to the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics and launching its invasion, there has been no hope for a "good" or "just" ending to this eminently avoidable war.
One must hope, notwithstanding President Zelensky's worshipful reception by the U.S. Congress, that wiser minds will increasingly focus on realistic, if inevitably imperfect, ways of bringing the deaths and destruction to an end.
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It’s now
more than 300 days since Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine, and the conflict has intensified rather
than subsided, with Ukrainian leaders expressing
fears of impending mass infantry attacks from
Russia and U.S. Secretary of State Antony J.
Blinken announcing this week that the U.S. will
send Ukraine $1.8 billion in military aid,
including a Patriot missile battery.
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