RUNNING ON EMPTY
It is surprising that many are surprised that the pseudo-negotiations on Ukraine have fallen flat. They are over before any substantive exchanges between Moscow and Kiev started. Trump’s much heralded initiative to stop the fighting never
carried the necessary understanding or conviction. Yes, he did say a few things during the campaign and the transition that correspondent to obvious realities absent from the prevailing American/European fantasy narrative. However, those comments – like all
of Trump’s utterances are more in the nature of impulsive verbal ticks than the considered conclusion of a serious thought process. Optimistic forecasts overlooked these fundamentals:
a) a) The United States’ claim to the status of mediator is specious. It has been a belligerent from Day One. The Ukrainian military was financed, trained, armed and prepared for a war to regain control of the territories that seceded after the 2014 coup
or annexed by Russia (Crimea) by Washington. The Pentagon and CIA have had thousands of personnel in the country running Intelligence operations, providing tactical advice, servicing sophisticated equipment, and operating weapons systems like HIMAR which the
Ukrainian army would be unable to do on their own. Last week’s audacious drone strikes depended crucially on American electronic Intelligence and guidance.* Moreover, we now know that the big offensives of June 2023 around Kherson, the amphibious operation
across the Dnieper in Kherson oblast, and the Kursk incursion were planned and directed from the Pentagon. Those abject, costly failures do not nullify their significance as telling evidence that this has been an American war on Russia throughout.
b) b) The positions of the Ukrainian and Russians leaders were diametrically opposed, providing no prospect of their possible reconciliation. For they were firmly rooted in what each side sees as its core national interests
c) c) Russia clearly was in a dominant position, holding all the high value cards – a truth never fully accepted by Trump, Zelensky or the Europeans
d) d) The obsessive pushing of a ceasefire (self-evidently a non-starter fot Moscow) as the immediate objective was the tip-off that Trump
et al either sought only a quick ‘win’ and/or was blind to military and political realities
e) e) Any chance of reaching a successful outcome would require the exertion of enormous pressure from Washington on Kiev and its die-hard European backers to accept the essence of terms set down – repeatedly – by Moscow
f) f) Doing so would meant expending an enormous amount of poitical capital on a matter that did not figure high on Trump’s agenda
g) g) Not least, resolution on Russian terms would be experienced by all as a humiliating Western defeat – above all, defeat for the United States that instigated and directed the war as the culmination of a strategy conceived in 2008
and born in 2014 to force Russia into a box on the periphery of Europe from which it never could break free. America’s ego has become too fragile, its diffuse sense of vulerability too acute, its compulsive need to demonstrate that it is still the world’s
Number One has a too tenacious hold on its political elites – including Trump personally - for American elites to tolerate the stigma of such a defeat. The United States that was resilient, self-confidence enough to absorb the blow of defeat in Vietnam 60
years ago is gone forever.
*[This was not the first Americo-Ukrainian attack on a strategic Russian site. Last year, drones struck a radar complex in southern Russia whose sole purpose is to identify incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles. Boys will be boys – if they left unsupervised
and feel a sense of impunity]
II.
Flight from reality is the hallmark of present-day American attitudes about the country’s place in a changing world. Escapism is the norm. The flatlining of thinking as to national interest and global strategy among the foreign policy community is confirmed
by a scanning of the journal FOREIGN AFFAIRS – the flagship publication for the entire American Establishment. A look at the most recent issue reveals two notable characteristics. First, the uniformity of general outlook on the world that serves as
the framework for the analysis of various topics conveys the impression of an AI composition more than it does probing intellectual inquiry.
Second, the numerous articles and reviews manage to fill a thick volume with zero reference to the following: the stunningly successful Trumpian campaign to impose on the country an autocratic, neo-Fascist regime; the United States active complicity in the
Palestinian genocide being recorded in graphic images daily for 10 months – punctuated by scenes of grotesque human abuse and the genocidal goal loudly advertised by those ordering these crimes; Washington’s routine indulgence in arbitrary, unilateral actions
that cavalierly violate all norms, rules, precedures and laws of international intercourse; the all but officially declared war on China without justification or debate; the demonstration of Russian superiority in weaponry across the board which both indicts
the corrupt, incompetent Pentagon leadership and highlights our addiction to cartoonish images of Russia and Putin personally.
The authors of these articles are affiliated with elite institutions &/or held senior policy-making positions. There is not the faintest whiff of neo-isolationist sentiment. Instead, there is the conventional American-centric outlook on the world and an atendant
retreat from realities. Therefore, highly instructive as to the prevailing mentality and the notions that animate the country’s foreign engagements.