Wars — a product of Anglo-Saxon imperialism
The writer is associated with International Relations Department of DHA Suffa University, Karachi. He tweets @Dr M Ali Ehsan
The assumption that “if Putin falls than Russia disintegrates” is a strong political assumption and unlike the Western world that would celebrate such a political fall with huge merrymaking and great drumbeating, the Eastern world considers it a Western conspiracy the roots of which are embedded in history. Today the condition of USA and its allies is like a man who likes a woman at a party but is too timid to make a real move. The result — not only the opportunity but the woman is also lost.
No matter how much weapons are supplied and no matter how many mercenaries are pushed in Ukraine to fight for that country, unless the Western world makes the real move — which is to conventionally get involved in this war — this war cannot be won. President Putin is settling down to play the long game; and why he wants to play this game was made sufficiently clear by him when he addressed the joint meeting of the ministry of Russian Defence on 21 Dec 2022.
President Putin’s political narrative sells with his people. Selling a political idea means changing the way people think. But in case of Putin, majority of Russian people already believe in what he tells and sells them. The minority that doesn’t has hard time embracing their beliefs, given the relentless Western political, economic and military support to Ukraine’s aggression against Russia and the consequent weakening and another likely disintegration of Russia.
In the two decades of unipolar moment lasting from the early 90s to the end of the first decade of 21st Century, the US indulged in executing the concept of on-shore balancing, invading countries to make a mess of their social, political and economic system all on the pretext of defending a liberal world beyond its shores. Even today it is committed to defending Taiwan and Ukraine but if Russia and China want to defend their spheres of influence that is not acceptable to the US.
No one wanted to invade the US during WWI and WWII. No one wants to invade the US even today. The best the imperialist powers could do in both the world wars was in WWI when the German Foreign Office sent a secret telegram to Mexico, famously known as ‘Zimmermann Telegram’, in January 1917 proposing Mexico to start a war against the US with the objective of recovering Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. The telegram was intercepted and became one of the reasons for President Woodrow Wilson to join the war. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was not meant to invade the US, it was in the centre of Pacific and 2000 miles away from the American mainland.
History tells us how Russia tried its best to become part of Western world, WTO, G-8; supported the US war in Afghanistan; remained neutral in the US war in Iraq; supported the US by abstaining from UNSC vote on resolution 1973 authorising the US intervention in Libya on humanitarian grounds; and even managed a face saving for the US in Syria by diplomatically resolving the crisis of use of chemical weapons by Syria — an event that President Obama had declared as his red line for military intervention in the country. The hard truth is that the US considers both the big land powers Russia and China as the emerging geopolitical threats of 21st Century and will do anything and everything to subvert their political system and ensure their disintegration. The Anglo-Saxon facilitation of such disintegrations of Austro-Hungarian Empire and Ottoman Empire in WWI and the USSR as a consequence of Cold War are the bitter part of the world history.
The US grand strategy is to limit and contain both Russia and China where they belong and if possible, execute political subversion and regime collapse in both the countries by forcing them to fight prolonged wars under economic sanctions, demoralise their militaries and weaken their popular leaders’ hold on power. China knows this and will wait for an appropriate time to annex Taiwan to mainland China but Putin doesn’t enjoy that strategic leverage. Russia has been surrounded, and the unending Western encroachment of its sphere of influence continues and necessitates its response. Those that judge President Putin’s response from the lens of violation of sovereignty, territorial integrity and human rights may also view the entire crisis from the lens of ideology.
Americans fight an ideological war — the war of defending the ideology of liberal internationalism beyond its shores. Russia’s ideological war ended when the Soviet Union disintegrated and the spread of communism was halted. After the brutal 30 years’ war in Europe, the entire European countries, under the Treaty of Westphalia, agreed to respect each other’s religious and ideological differences. The whole idea was that the national interest and their preservation should ensure territorial security and sovereignty and not the defence of religious beliefs and ideologies that were causing brutal wars. The best way to avoid wars was not to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries and to accept balance of power as the best way of ensuring peace. There is no doubt that German and Japanese imperialism had to be fought against and contested but what about the follow-up Anglo-Saxon imperialism?
Today the Anglo-Saxon war by other means has created a very polarised and disunited world. The simple question that needs an answer is whether Ukraine is more important to Russia or is it more important to United States, Britain or the Western world? Is Taiwan more important to China or is it more important to the Western world? For President Putin and President Xi Jinping, Tahir Square, Maidan Square and Tiananmen Square are the same link in the Anglo-Saxon chain of conspiracies and so are the various colour revolutions in the former Soviet republics.
Both Russia and China favour order in their societies more than the personal rights and freedoms. For them it is the only way to protect their culture and proud civilisations. The Anglo-Saxon method of creating and siding with the strong regimes on the fringes of these great powers is creating Anglo-Saxon ideology of hegemony of liberalism that threatens and surrounds them.
It is better that the outside powers respect the political system of these great land powers and stop interfering with the objective of destruction of their state system. Such an approach will lead to more chaos and rise of extremism and terrorism — something that the world can ill afford.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 25th, 2022.
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