Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: Russia and Eastern Europe Page 18 of 19

Does Russia invade the Ukraine?

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On May 4, 2014

16 Comments

It really comes down to the balance between these two factors:

For every advance that the Ukrainian government made, it seemed to lose ground elsewhere. Angry pro-Russian crowds seized control of more government buildings in Donetsk, and pro-Russian forces in Luhansk, a city just 15 miles from the Russian frontier, vowed war on Kiev, declaring a curfew and seizing weapons inside a military recruitment center.

Which is to say, does Russia need to intervene or can the rebels, its proxies, win without it?  The massacre of pro-Russian protesters in Odessa has likely hardened the lines: I’m betting that more and more of those who wanted to stay in the Ukraine but a federalist Ukraine, will want to just join Russia.

Meanwhile, the US and Germany have promised energy sanctions on Russia if Russia does invade.  If real, those will throw Europe back into a full blown economic crisis, but US commercial interests desperately want those sanctions, even if they don’t have the ability to fill European natural gas demand right now.  Not only is a future market, but the fracking boom requires higher natural gas prices than they have right now to make much of it profitable.

If Putin is to invade, it seems more likely he’ll invade before the election, though, of course, with fighting spreading across Ukraine, he could simply say that no fair, representative election was possible. Still, for him, before seems better.

And as the deaths mount, Putin can simply claim that he is acting on a responsibility-to-protect (R2P) those who are being killed by Ukrainian military and pro-Ukrainian mobs.  R2P is a Western doctrine, used to justify Western invasions; it must amuse Putin to no end to throw it back in the West’s face, not that the West has the grace to blush at its own hypocrisy, or even notice its own hypocrisy.

What’s happening in Ukraine is vastly important.  It will determine the shape of the blocs facing each other down during the end of America hegemony, and as it is playing out now, it ensures that China will have Russia’s support and likely moves up the timeline for creating an alternate, non-dollar payments system.  I expect future historians will scratch their heads in the same we do when looking back at the Kaiser’s mistakes isolating Germany in the run-up to World War I.

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If I were a Russian Strategist I’d say “invade the Ukraine”

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On April 26, 2014

26 Comments

Really.  Too much talk about joining NATO, and that’s too close to Moscow, plus the West’s unremitting hostility to Russia pulling the sort of stunts that the US pulls frequently, indicates that the West is a real danger and that if they waste this opportunity, they won’t get another one.

I’d advise Putin to go.

(For the thick, I hope they don’t, and I’m not a Russian strategist.  Just saying that just as losing Sevastopol and Crimea was something Russia could NOT tolerate, that Ukraine joining NATO is an actual red line.)

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The Prelude to the End of the American Era

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On April 25, 2014

22 Comments

And so it begins.  Russia is not restraining the separatists, the Kiev government is finally really sending in the troops, Barack Obama and EU leaders claim they will impose real sanctions and Russia and China are set to ink a deal to export Russian Gas to China, the world’s industrial heartland.

If the sanctions are imposed, for whatever reason (Russian invasion or not), they will force the creation of a second economic, non-dollar bloc.  Russia is not Iran, and China is not going to cut off Russia to please the West, rather the contrary.  The creation of a real non dollar bloc which can make almost anything people want, and which has access to essentially all key resources from oil to rare minerals, metals and food is an existential threat to the hegemony of the West and its allies like Japan and Korea.

Be clear, real sanctions will impose real costs on Russia, but they can bear them.  They do not need to borrow money from the West, they cannot be Troika-ized. They have key resources that someone will buy, even if they can’t buy in dollars, because Yuan or rubles can, actually, buy most of what most countries need to buy.

Absent China, Russia cannot be isolated.  Cannot.  China is unlikely to cooperate.  Sure, they could view eastern Russia near their borders as ripe, but Russia as a subordinate state in the Chinese sphere means they get everything they really need from the Russians anyway, plus backing in a military confrontation with the current developed world.

The Chinese are not stupid, they know that if a real war breaks out, it will be between them and America.  They are the rising power, the naturally most powerful and militarily powerful state in the world, recovering from a hiatus of a few centuries where they lost their status.  Russia has a lot to offer them, and the Chinese cannot be coerced by sanctions.  Sanctioning China would backfire so hard that the US was go into a real economic collapse: China makes the goods.  Sanction them, and they WILL break the patents and just make them anyway.  Reestablishing the manufacturing and distributing base back to the US and its allies under such circumstances would be unbelievably difficult, especially as Russia, China and its allies control certain key resources like rare earths (other people could mine them in quantity, but don’t, because Chinese rare earths are cheaper and we are stupid and greedy.)

Russia is already planning how to survive economic sanctions: how to sell its goods in rubles.  People will buy, Russia is too big a producer to ignore.  If Europe doesn’t want the growth which comes from using Russian gas and oil, well, China and others will be  happy to take it.

And once a second bloc is created, it will no longer be possible to pull stunts like breaking Iran with sanctions: the Chinese/Russian bloc will have a veto.

Over Ukraine?  I guarantee that if this is done in 50 years historians will look back on this like we do on WWI—what were they thinking?  The Balkans wasn’t worth WWI.  Ukraine isn’t worth destroying American: Western, hegemony.  Well, not for America.  Others might think this is more of a good thing than bad.

But it is also the potential glide path to war, real war.  WWIII.

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Clown College as the Ukrainian military effort “sputters”

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On April 16, 2014

22 Comments

The Ukrainian military clearly doesn’t care enough to actually fight:

The day began inauspiciously for Ukrainian forces as they sought to establish an operating base in the city of Kramatorsk, moving in units from a nearby military air base. According to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and a witness who spoke by phone, a column of six armored vehicles was stopped by a mob of civilians and then commandeered by heavily armed men wearing military-style uniforms.

Not willing to kill civilians: that actually speaks well of the Ukrainian military.

The East is Putin’s if he wants it.  Also, take note of the sheer competence of Russian actions, both direct and through proxy forces, in both Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.  The Russians have a plan, and are executing it more than competently right down the line.  I would say that NATO and everyone else should take note.

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Ukraine Counterattacks

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On April 13, 2014

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Pro-Russian “militias” seized the city of Slovyansk, now Ukraine is attacking to take it back.

This is a profoundly dangerous situation.  On the one hand, if the Ukrainian government had done nothing, Russia would have de-facto control over the East.  But Putin has repeatedly warned Ukraine not to attack pro-Russian militias.

And, if these pro-Russian militias include Russian troops, well Russia really can’t afford to have any captured, can they?  “On a leave of absence” explanations only go so far.

If Putin gives the word, a very large Russian army will overrun Ukraine’s East.  If Ukraine does not immediately back down in such a situation, Russia is more than capable of overrunning the entire country.

NATO can then either do nothing but mouth impotent threats or can itself intervene militarily.  NATO does not have enough forces in position to win the initial clash, but would certainly win a longer conventional war.  Victory by either side, however, risks a nuclear war, as generations of Cold War planners understood.

Ukraine’s orientation to Europe, and the opening of its economy to destruction by the IMF and looting by Westerners, is not a cause worth risking nuclear war over.

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“Pro-Russian Militias” Seize Police Stations and a City

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On April 12, 2014

8 Comments

I guess Vladimir Putin really objects to the current Ukrainian regime:

Pro-Russian activists carrying automatic weapons seized government buildings in Slaviansk and set up barricades on the outskirts of the city. Official buildings in several neighboring towns were also attacked.

Imagine that.  I’m sure that some of them are activists.  The rest are very likely “activists”.

Ukraine is blustering about using armed force to kick them out, but if they do, they’ll kill some, and that will give the large army on their border a pretext to march in to “protect” Russians in the Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the Ukraine refuses to pay higher prices for natural gas, is 2 billion in arrears anyway, and the Russians are saying “well, the contact says that if you don’t make payments in time, we can raise the price.”

Sub voce, of course, the message is “we offered you subsidized gas, and you decided to make nice with the IMF, Europe and America.  Get them to pay for your gas, we don’t subsidize countries hostile to us.”

Now all this could be prelude to invasion, but it could also be prelude to negotiations.  Russia wants a Federal Ukraine with regions having great autonomy.  Going to the table with the message “we already OWN the Eastern Ukraine, it’s federalization or we officially annex it” is a strong bargaining position.

Possession is, as they say, 90% of the “law”.

The West can either accept what Russia is offering, or it can ramp up sanctions.  Be clear, sanctions could really hurt Russia, but they will hurt the EU as well, both those countries that rely on Russia for natural gas, and those who launder Russian money (London, in particular.)

Of course, the US probably doesn’t mind if Europe gets hurt, and American commercial interests are pushing to be allowed to sell natural gas to Europe.  The fracking boom isn’t going as well as its propaganda, and a bigger market would be nice.

Hard sanctions, though, will push Russia hard into China’s orbit, ensuring that when the real confrontation between the West and China occurse, that Russia, which is still a powerful nation, rich with natural resources China needs, back China, not the West.

In geopolitical terms, the West has acted like idiots.  The status quo of a Ukraine which was somewhat more in Moscow’s pocket than Brussels or DC was not harmful to the West, they will lose much to gain part of the Ukraine than it is worth.

Again, the real threat to American hegemony is no longer Russia, it is China.  American foreign policy which does not orient around this fact is jejeune and idiotic.

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Russia claims American Mercs are in the Ukraine

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On April 7, 2014

10 Comments

Not a good idea, if true:

“We are particularly concerned that the operation involves some 150 American mercenaries from a private company Greystone Ltd., dressed in the uniform of the [Ukrainian] special task police unit Sokol,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “Organizers and participants of such incitement are assuming a huge responsibility for threatening upon the rights, freedoms and lives of Ukrainian citizens as well as the stability of Ukraine.”

Remember when US mercs got strung up in Fallujah?  Using Americans, even “deniable” Americans, could blow up badly.

Humor in the Ukraine

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On April 7, 2014

6 Comments

As you may be aware, it seems that protestors have seized government buildings in Eastern Ukraine and demanded a referendum on joining Russia.  Ukraine claims that these protests have Russian backing.  Now the protestors in Donetsk have declared independence and declared they will hold a referendum on joining Russia.

Quelle Horreur!

It is wonderful that the current, Ukrainian government, which was certainly, absolutely, not installed by protestors seizing legislative buildings, and was definitely not backed by the US, no sirree, is in a position to be outraged by government buildings being seized and outside interference in the Ukraine’s business.*

And how dare Eastern Ukrainians demand a vote on whether or not they should be able to join Russia.  There was certainly no vote on their current government.  No vote on whether to cut pensions in half, as the Ukrainian government plans, or to increase natural gas prices by 50%.  Why should they have a vote?

This material, it writes itself.

Oh, and the US is threatening further sanctions, because it is determined to expand NATO right up to Russia’s border and force Russia into long-term, hard alliance with China, so that the between them they have both enough manufacturing and enough natural resources to form an bloc independent of the West, and peel off most of Latin America and Africa.

Notes

* I doubt they have the ability to hold such a referendum, since they don’t actually control the local government.

** For those who might have been in a news blackout, of course the current Ukrainian government was formed, by, oh, protestors forcing their way into a legislature, seizing arms from government arms depots, votes by legislators while protestors who had seized weapons and forced their way into the legislature stood over them; and, of course, with the energetic backing of the US, and probably of some European countries. Given the precedent, the complaints by Washington and Kiev are highly amusing.)

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