The crisis of the power of United States has begun. Its
economy is tipping over, and Western financial markets are
quietly panicking. Imperiled by rising interest rates, mortgage-backed
securities and US Treasuries are losing their value. The market’s proverbial
vibes —feelings, emotions, beliefs, and psychological penchants—suggest a dark
turn is underway inside the US economy.
The US
power is measured by its military capability as well as economic potential and
performance. There is growing realization that the US and European
military-industrial capacity cannot keep up with Ukrainian demands for
ammunition and equipment. It is an ominous signal sent during the proxy war
that Washington insists its Ukrainian surrogate is winning.
Russian economy of force operations in southern Ukraine
appear to have successfully ground down attacking Ukrainian forces with the
minimal expenditure of Russian lives and resources. While Russia’s
implementation of attrition warfare worked brilliantly, Russia
mobilized its reserves of men and equipment to field a force that is
several magnitudes larger and significantly more lethal than it was a year ago.
Russia’s
massive arsenal of artillery systems including rockets, missiles, and drones
linked to overhead surveillance platforms converted Ukrainian soldiers
fighting to retain the northern edge of the Donbas into pop-up targets. How
many Ukrainian soldiers have died is unknown, but one recent
estimate wagers between 150,000-200,000 Ukrainians have been killed in
action since the war began, while another estimates about 250,000.
Given the glaring weakness of NATO members’ ground,
air, and air defense forces, an unwanted war with Russia could easily bring
hundreds of thousands of Russian Troops to the Polish border, NATO’s
Eastern Frontier. This is not an outcome Washington promised its European
allies, but it’s now a real possibility.
In contrast to the Soviet Union’s hamfisted and
ideologically driven foreign policymaking and execution,
contemporary Russia has skillfully cultivated support for its cause
in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.
The fact
that the West’s economic sanctions damaged the US and European
economies while turning the Russian ruble into one of the international
system’s strongest currencies has hardly enhanced Washington’s global standing.
Biden’s policy of forcibly pushing NATO to Russia’s borders
forged a strong commonality of security and trade interests between Moscow and
Beijing that is attracting strategic partners in South Asia like India, and
partners like Brazil in Latin America. The global economic implications for the emerging
Russo-Chinese axis and their planned industrial revolution for some 3.9
billion people in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are profound.
Washington’s military strategy to weaken, isolate, or even
destroy Russia is a colossal failure and the failure puts Washington’s proxy
war with Russia on a truly dangerous path. To press on, undeterred in the face
of Ukraine’s descent into oblivion, ignores three metastasizing threats:
1. Persistently high inflation and rising interest
rates that signal economic weakness. (The first American bank
failure since 2020 is a reminder of US financial fragility.)
2. The threat to stability and prosperity inside European
societies already reeling from several waves of unwanted
refugees/migrants.
3. The threat of a wider European war.
Inside presidential administrations, there are always
competing factions urging the president to adopt a particular course of action.
Observers on the outside seldom know with certainty which faction exerts the
most influence, but there are figures in the Biden administration seeking an
off-ramp from involvement in Ukraine.
Even Secretary
of State Antony Blinken, a rabid supporter of the proxy war with Moscow,
recognizes that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s demand that the West
help him recapture Crimea is a red line for Putin that might lead to a dramatic
escalation from Moscow.
Backing down from the Biden administration’s malignant and
asinine demands for a humiliating Russian withdrawal from eastern Ukraine
before peace talks can convene is a step Washington refuses to take. Yet it
must be taken.
The higher interest rates rise, and the more Washington
spends at home and abroad to prosecute the war in Ukraine, the closer
American society moves toward internal political and social turmoil. These
are dangerous conditions for any republic.
From all the wreckage and confusion of the last two years,
there emerges one undeniable truth. Most Americans are right to be
distrustful of and dissatisfied with their government. President Biden comes
across as a cardboard cut-out, a stand-in for ideological fanatics in his
administration, people that see executive power as the means to silence
political opposition and retain permanent control of the federal
government.
Americans are not fools. They know that members of
Congress flagrantly trade stocks based on inside information,
creating conflicts of interest that would land most citizens in jail. They also
know that since 1965 Washington led them into a series of failed military
interventions that severely weakened American political, economic,
and military power.
Far too many Americans believe they have had no real
national leadership since January 21, 2021. It is high time the Biden
administration found an off-ramp designed to extricate Washington DC, from its
proxy Ukrainian war against Russia.
It will not be easy. Liberal internationalism or, in its
modern guise, moralizing globalism, makes prudent diplomacy arduous, but now is
the time. In Eastern Europe, the spring rains present both Russian and
Ukrainian ground forces with a sea of mud that severely impedes movement.
But the Russian High Command is preparing to ensure that when the ground dries
and Russian ground forces attack, the operations will achieve an unambiguous
decision, making it clear that Washington and its supporters have no chance to
rescue the dying regime in Kiev. From then on, negotiations will be extremely
difficult, if not impossible.
