Tag: perpetual war

The highest stakes in the Ukrainian offensive into Russian territory in Kursk may turn out not to be how far they advance nor whether they can hold it. The advance seems already to be running out of gas and few in the U.S. or NATO have any expectation that Ukraine can hold onto the territory they so quickly took.

The highest stakes in the Ukraine offensive may turn out to be the moral that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is spinning that he says should be learned from the incursion.

Zelensky says that two things should be learned from the Ukrainian armed forces incursion into Russia. The first is that the West must remove its restrictions on the use of long-range weapons into Russian territory. Had Ukraine been able to fire into Russia, Ukraine would not need to have marched into Russia: “If our partners lifted all the current restrictions on the use of weapons on Russian territory, we would not need to physically enter… the Kursk region.”

The second is that there is no longer a need for the West to maintain those restrictions. The purpose of the restrictions is to avoid direct western confrontation with Russia by not crossing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s red lines. But “just a few months ago,” Zelensky said, people would have said that invading Russia “would cross the strictest of all the red lines that Russia has.” Now “the whole naive, illusory concept of so-called red lines regarding Russia, which dominated the assessment of the war by some partners, has crumbled.”

The Ukrainian invasion into Russia is being presented by Zelensky as the final argument that the West should dismiss all Russian red lines, remove all weapons restrictions and allow Ukraine to fire long range missiles into Russia. The highest stakes in the Kursk offensive may be whether the U.S. is persuaded by the argument.

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The Washington Post cited unnamed administration sources to report that “U.S. debates support for Ukraine’s surprise offensive into Russia”, which suggests that some policymakers doubt that Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk advances American interests. To be sure, the US knew about this move ahead of time (if not actively participated in its planning) but didn’t thwart it, thus tacitly approving it. Nevertheless, five arguments exist for why this actually harms American interests, and they are as follows:

1. Russia Might More Easily Gain Ground In Donbass

One of the reasons why Ukraine invaded Kursk was to force Russia to divert some of its forces from Donbass to this new front, yet that hasn’t happened. Instead, Ukraine diverted some of its own highly trained forces from there to Kursk, which could make it easier for Russia to gain ground in Donbass. The optics of Russia continuing to advance are already bad enough for the US’ soft power interests, but they might also adversely affect the Democrats’ electoral plans if this trend accelerates before November.  

2. A Diplomatic Solution Is Now Much More Difficult

Whatever faint hopes might have previously existed of diplomatically resolving this conflict were shattered by Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk since it prompted Putin to rule out the resumption of peace talks. Some American policymakers want to “Pivot (back) to Asia” sooner rather than later in order to more muscularly contain China, ergo their interest in some sort of compromise with Russia, but that’s not possible as long as Ukraine continues occupying Russia’s universally recognized territory.

3. Ukraine Might Feel Emboldened To Expand The Conflict

Regardless of the degree to which the US might have helped plan Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk, the very fact that nothing was done to stop this despite the US obviously knowing about it in advance could embolden Kiev to further expand the conflict into Belarus, Moldova, and/or other Russian regions. It now knows that the US will go along with whatever it does regardless of some policymakers’ fear of tensions with Russia spiraling out of control, and therein lies the supreme danger.

4. Russian-US Tensions Risk Spiraling Out Of Control

Putin won’t radically respond to Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk since it hasn’t yet crossed any of his non-negotiable red lines, but in the event that it does (such as if Kiev captures more territory or expands the conflict), then Russian-US tensions could spiral out of control depending upon what he does. That scenario will remain as long as the invasion lasts, plus it raises the chances that Putin might start listening to “hardliners” and consider a radical response without any of the aforesaid lines being crossed.

5. Other US Client States Could Follow Ukraine’s Lead

The last way in which Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk actually harms American interests is that other client states might follow Ukraine’s lead by striking or invading their neighbors with whom they’re feuding in order to create a fait accompli in the expectation that the US will then feel pressured to back them up. The US doesn’t want conflicts breaking out unless it’s able to control the dynamics to a large degree, which it would struggle to do if a client state like Somalia suddenly sparked one.

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One of the most tragic consequences of the war for Ukraine is the demographic crisis. On the one hand, more than 700,000 soldiers died or were seriously injured on the battlefield, while on the other, 12 million Ukrainians have emigrated, leaving about 20 million people in the country and creating a population deficit that will be difficult to overcome. At the same time, pressure from Western elites for Ukraine to open its borders to immigration is becoming increasingly strong, which is likely to create even more problems in the future.

Ukrainian demography will never be restored to the pre-war situation. No matter how hard the Kiev regime and its international supporters try to repatriate some of the millions of Ukrainian refugees around the world, it is extremely difficult for these measures to succeed. In order for Ukrainians who have emigrated to Europe and the US to return to Ukraine, authoritarian policies, such as arresting and expelling them from the country, may be implemented. This would make it impossible for these countries to continue maintaining their “democratic” mask. Furthermore, it is important to remember that most Ukrainians have fled to Russia itself, and are actual opponents to the Maidan junta.

In the meantime, the war machine does not seem to have an end. Zelensky has agreed to obey the Western plan to “fight to the last Ukrainian.” Even with more than 700,000 casualties on the battlefield, surrender is still not an option for the regime. Despite knowing that defeat is inevitable, Ukraine continues to recruit new soldiers every day. Elderly people, women, people with serious health problems and even teenagers are already being targeted by the draconian mobilization measures, making the future of the Ukrainian population even more critical.

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