Ukraine: the coming war

It seems like the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in end-August has not been a triumph only of the Taliban. Putin — who perhaps harbours in his heart a return of the glory days of the Soviet Union — is also treating the withdrawal of arch-enemy US from yet another battle-front as a victory of its own.

“It was the disintegration of historical Russia…,” Putin laments on the 1991 event, which was, in his words, “the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20^th century”. It was indeed in the sense that the US was rendered the sole superpower of the world and the US quickly turned into a unilateral exploiter in this new unipolar setup. But even in spite of its dissolution, Russia tried to keep it influence in the post-Soviet-space, and kept resisting the US in evolving ways. Now after the US/NATO’s failed wars in the MENA region where Russia’s sub-military involvement has been eminent, and in Afghanistan where it has facilitated the Taliban stance in its own initiated peace talks — it has reason to jubilate.

With China at its side, it seems like Russia has been successful in splitting the unipolar world into a bipolar one, but the predicted era of regionalisation seems closer, yet there is a danger of Russia becoming the new sole-power because that is the nature of power — by its nature, power has to keep building and accumulating, stagnancy is its death-call — and that is the reason power never lets its possessors remain in peace. Russia, after seeing success in Syria and Libya, and after the ultimate humiliation of Afghanistan, is seeing Ukraine as its next logical front, and that it cannot afford a lagging between two victories, for that would depict only its weakness and unpreparedness. Many who may be happy with Russia’s victories, just because it has come as a countering force against the US and its allies, must be cautious that a power-tussle between multiple poles is better than power’s concentration in a single one. A multipolar world is one where all can find space to breath.

Nevertheless, Russia is blowing the bellows of war against western Ukraine, with 92,000 troops, tanks and hardware already stacked up against the Ukrainian border. Already, Russia has been siding with the east Ukrainians in the Donbas War since April 2014, when Russia accused the US and EU to be behind the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and the Euromaidan Movement, and already the US has been slapping sanction on Russia and its friends in the post-Soviet-space in Belarus and eastern Ukraine.

After upping the ante, Putin has asserted that unless the US pledges that Ukraine would not be admitted to NATO, war would be waged on Ukraine. Ukraine’s Intelligence Chief Budanov has warned that the Russian side is preparing for the attack on Ukraine in late January or early February.

All this is not without historical precedence though, Russia accuses the US of perpetrating over 10 colour revolution in post-Soviet-space, trying to topple one Russia-friendly regime after another. And all these attempts were made in the years when US troops and CIA were stationed in Afghanistan. And furthermore, NATO has kept Russia agonised with its continuous expansion in the post-Soviet-space that it wants to complete by engulfing Belarus and Ukraine. All this in spite of the promise that Secretary of State James Baker under the Bush administration had made with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989 — when the US wanted the Soviet forces to withdraw from East Germany and allow the reunification, and he promised that “there will be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction or NATO’s forces one inch to the east”.

All this shows that Russia has all the reasons to retaliate in Ukraine, and also because NATO has installed ballistic missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, once Ukraine becomes a member of NATO, a ballistic system in Ukraine would have Moscow in its firing range.

But how do all these right reasons to fight — with the EU and NATO on one side and Russia on the other — bid for Ukraine and its people? Or for that matter how do such wars that are meant to empower the two sides of superpowers bid for all the east European states that have entered NATO and who will all be soon laced with anti-Russia missile systems — who will suffer in this war of the titans if not the common people of these already economically shattered countries.

War is bad at all accounts, it obliterates the value of life, brings sufferings, distress and disaster, blood and injury — but it is the worst of all evils when fought, not to rid a people from oppression, but only to cater to the unsatiable urge for power and more power! And the people of Ukraine are bracing for such a war!

The truth of the matter is that Ukraine benefits with peace with both EU and Russia. Russia remains Ukraine’s biggest trading partner, all the gas that Russia sells to EU states passes via Ukraine, all the development that Ukraine is looking forward to with its increasing BRI projects with China pass via Russia, and Ukraine’s prospects to trade with both east and west remain bright as long as there is peace in the air. But the problem is that President Poroshenko, who was brought in in the Euromaidan, has a completely pro-EU stance and has been treating his own people in east Ukraine as enemies for the last seven years.

What is needed is a balanced approach from Poroshenko — his politics should not be based on fear of losing coming elections, rather he should be fearful of losing the peace of his country and of the devastations war will bring upon his people. He must understand that the US and NATO have as yet not been able to demonstrate strong foothold in any of the wars they have initiated in the last two decades, usually leaving those they came to save in much more instability and chaos that they were in before.

Now perhaps is not the right time for Ukraine to settle scores with Russia on past failings, nor is it a time for annoying the EU. Rather Ukraine must look for a delicate diplomatic balance, taking what the EU has to offer, embracing the fruits of the BRI, while still remaining under Russia’s blessings.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17^th, 2021.

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