After 24 February, NATO focused on arms supplies and intelligence operations (implemented by radars, satellites, spy aircraft specified as RC-135 and AWACS), recognising that this time air operations, as previously in Yugoslavia and Libya, are besides risky, even over the territory controlled by Kiev.
Weapons are delivered under the supervision of advisers from the United States and NATO on site. Washington and another NATO countries supply air-ground missiles, Javelin anti-tank launchers, Switchblade kamikaze drones, armored vehicles, and advanced artillery systems, including HIMARS launchers. As before during the war in Afghanistan, portable Stinger anti-aircraft launchers have already appeared on the black market. According to the March 19, 2022 fresh York Times newspaper, supplies of U.S. weapons for Kiev were monitored by the CIA to fall exclusively into the hands of those appointed to do so. The authors of a paper aired by the American CBS channel estimated that 70%, or nearly 3/4 guns, never scope the front. Even medicines that are sold on the road to drug dealers do not scope the wards.
$ 126 billion
In late November 2022, the value of Western aid to Kiev reached 126 billion dollars, almost as much as the country's GDP. Among the equipment supplied were russian tanks, which were disposed of by the countries of the erstwhile Warsaw Pact in exchange for payments from another NATO countries. The erstwhile east bloc states, especially Poland and Romania, besides provided mercenaries who were to fight in Ukrainian uniforms. After the Russian invasion began, the United States withdrew its military advisors, but the 10th U.S. Army peculiar Forces Unit, which trained tens of thousands of Ukrainians at the base in Jaworów, moved to a fresh coordination centre in Germany, which co-created about 20 Western countries.
However, the West, which has not waged long-term wars against more serious opponents in fresh decades, will be disadvantaged if Kiev's support continues. The military-industrial complex of the United States, the United Kingdom and France is mainly geared towards orders bringing the top gross to fresh weapons specified as aircraft. As a result, it is incapable to supply spare parts and ammunition to existing systems. The weapon supplied to Kiev to sustain the war against Russia comes from supplies that are limited after all.
According to a survey by the British Royal Institute of Joint Services (RUSI), NATO countries do not have any ammunition production or facilities where specified production could be launched quickly, and as a consequence the alliance will be forced to reduce supplies to Ukraine. The study states that during the first 3 months of the conflict, the United States provided 7,000 Javelin anti-tank kits, or 1/3 of its supplies, with Kiev consuming 500 of them per day. Lockheed-Martin produces 2100 of them per year, in exceptional circumstances it may increase production to 4000, but this would require respective years of expansion of production capacity. Kiev has consumed all production from the past thirteen years in 10 months. In addition, according to this RUSI report, many crucial producers of conventional ammunition and firearms have ceased their activities in connection with the simplification of orders from the Pentagon, and the fact that so far there are facilities in the United States producing them can only be attributed to the American culture of arms ownership by citizens.
It can so be predicted that, with the desertification of NATO arsenals, the quality of weapons supplied by the West to Kiev will fall.. This applies to both outdated weapons from the alliance arsenals, specified as Hawk's anti-aircraft division, which were decommissioned in the United States 20 years ago, and frequently equally outdated weapons from the Warsaw Pact. Although it cannot be concluded that the Atlantic military-industrial complex does not make money from this war, this is mainly due to future contracts to supplement the arms and ammunition transferred to Ukraine.
Russia’s Predominance
Russia presently has a decisive advantage in the clash with NATO in Ukraine, which involves a structural difference between the dominant neoliberal speculative capitalism in the West and the capitalism of competitive formation. Even if the function of the capitalistic oligarchy in Russia has led to systemic “outflows” of investment funds, the state has retained instruments guaranteeing sovereignty against the imperialist West, which is not without an impact on the economical sphere. The public sector in Russia, as in China, Iran and respective another countries, is somewhat protected from privatization pressure, so that it can stay independent of the profitability standards of neoliberal capitalism. This besides matters for the war in Ukraine.
Prof. Kees van de Pijl
If the war is conducted by conventional means, it will end in a Russian victory. But will the United States and NATO accept that? We must never forget that the war is not only about the endurance of Russia, but for the United States and their vassals its stake is the persistence of the social order at which they stand. This is clearly highlighted in military doctrine. On October 27, 2022, the Pentagon announced in the Review of atomic possible that the existing restrictions on atomic weapons usage would cease to apply. The rule of non-displacement of this weapon as the first (‘No First Use’) cannot proceed to be applied in a situation where opponents have non-nuclear weapons, but, according to the Pentagon document, capable of causing strategical harm to the United States (China and Russia have a doctrine that allows them to usage atomic arsenal only in the event of a atomic attack or threat of a state).
Although the Pentagon does not say this explicitly, its concerns concern primarily Russia and China's supersonic weapons, which the Americans are incapable to defend themselves against. Given the enemy's possession of specified weapons, the full atomic weapons carrier triangle must be upgraded. Ground-based systems of Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, rockets on Columbia class ICBM submarines, and long-range rockets launched from the air, including with decently adapted F-35 fighters stationed in Europe – all of them are besides slow to penetrate an excellent Russian rocket defense.
The atomic heads of the next generation that the United States wants to deploy in Europe show that the origin of their possible emergence – the defeat of Ukraine's defence against Russia – seems increasingly probable. However, it is not said that the "first strike" will take place only after replacing existing US systems with fresh ones. Defender Europe 21 exercises were held among rumors of possible deployment of atomic weapons. In October 2022, 14 NATO states participated in Steadfast Noon exercises, during which they trained to handle atomic weapons. A period later, the United States strategical Command (STRATCOM) commander-in-chief, Admiral Charles Richard said that "something large is coming," referring to the possible usage of atomic weapons. After all, in November 2022, erstwhile an anti-aircraft rocket fell in Poland, causing demolition and killing civilians as part of an apparent effort to provoke NATO intervention, The Pentagon immediately declared it a Ukrainian missile. ...
BRICS
We have already seen that the evolution of BRICS in the competitive block has updated the experience of the fresh global economical Deal (NOO) from the 1970s. In both cases, the nonsubjective of the emerging blocks was not to challenge the West; rather, it was to make a political component of equality and economical improvement without questioning capitalism as such. These were the intentions of the leaders of BRICS countries, with their plan to set up their own improvement bank and the associated currency fund, after the coup in Ukraine in 2014.
Meanwhile, the NATO war against Russia in Ukraine and sanctions caused the block to besides form at financial level. If the embargo against the world's largest exporter of natural materials causes it to shift its trade exclusively to Asia (as well as Africa and Latin America), this could consequence in the fresh Bretton Woods. The first specified arrangement arose in this town in the state of fresh Hampshire and created a post-war gold-based dollar settlement system, set up the IMF and the planet Bank; the second (informal) 1 active the separation of the dollar from the gold reserves and the transition to flexible exchange rates in 1971 and 1973 erstwhile its safety guaranteed agreement with a key energy producer, Saudi Arabia, and thus formed a "petrodolar".
The author's book is published in the Vectors Publishing home
The 3rd "Bretton Woods" can be successfully created without the participation of the United States. 1 script assumes that the dollar will be replaced in planet trade by Chinese yuan, but a somewhat different proposition is made by Russians. Sergei Głaziev, an crucial figure of progressive intelligence there, drew the thought of creating a composite billing unit based on a basket of 19 goods, including gold, and currencies participating in the country's project, including a Russian ruble. It could become a means of payment in the Eurasian economical Union and beyond, for example in the BRICS countries and countries akin to this group. The Głaziewa plan, which assumes the creation of a currency based on the prices of real goods, or a kind of transfer ruble, would let importers to trade abroad. Additionally, a ruble utilized in the interior marketplace would gain a gold back.
This represents an expanding threat to the United States and, in particular, to the dollar, which has become a revalued paper currency by the central bank buying questionable collateral against fresh money ("quantitative loosening"). It is no different with the euro, the British pound and the nipponese yen, but the dollar derives its value as a petrodollar from the agreements accompanying the "second Bretton Woods" which establish it as a unit of account in global trade in natural materials, primarily energy. Meanwhile, in June 2022, at the BRICS summit, not only Vladimir Putin announced the creation of a single currency, but in addition, it turned out that Argentina, Egypt and Saudi Arabia were considering joining the group. As a consequence of the collapse of Petrodolar and as a consequence of respective trade agreements (creation of supply chains with India, imports of Chinese cars) Russia and China can take a key function in global monetary relations. The clash in Ukraine is so not just a question of Russia's survival. For the United States' ruling money, triumph in this war is simply a substance of life and death. Here, too, the difference between the 2 models of capitalism plays a key role.
One instrument of hybrid war is sanctions. On 24 February, they covered the financial and banking system, making payments to and from Russia virtually impossible. On 26 and 27 February, the White home announced the disconnection of respective Russian banks from the SWIFT interbank settlement system. He besides informed about the creation of a transatlantic task force liable for detecting assets sanctioned by Russian companies and oligarchs. In the West, the gold and abroad exchange reserves of $300 billion were frozen there by Russia, according to the Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov – accounted for almost half of the $640 billion in reserves of this country. This step was intended to prevent the United States and the European Union from mitigating the effects of sanctions by expanding imports from China.
In late January 2022 the Russian central bank itself had reserves of $469 billion, of which 22% were held in US dollars and 29% in euro.. Confiscating these reserves abroad made it pointless to proceed to settle for oil, gas, coal, titanium, palladium, diamonds and another resources in dollars and euro. Therefore, there was a request for payment in rubles, which accepted any partners. Thus, sanctions caused an unexpected effect in the form of an increase in the ruble course.
In addition to sanctions, Russia's drag into the long-term civilian war in Ukraine besides aimed at the economical exhaustion of Moscow. A akin method has been utilized before for Syria. The 2019 RAND corp study pointed out that the American business of the east part of Syria (a region rich in oil deposits, profits from which they were found in American pockets) and a military presence consisting, among others, of supporting jihadist rebels may be a way to put Russia on its knees. Supporting maintenance Bashara al-Assad In power, despite the successes in this field, it was expected to become a war for Moscow to run out, but on the another hand RAND warned that in the long word it could be more costly for the United States than for Russia. The same applies to the war in Ukraine: the chances of it dragging Russia down are decreasing. Contrary to sanctions and dense financial blows, the Russian economy proved to be highly resilient.
The war script for exhaustion...
calls for the elimination of any compromise between the parties, as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom are guarding in NATO. According to Niall Ferguson, the goal of the Americans is to proceed the war until the government changes in Moscow. A akin pursuit is determined by the politics of London. little than a period after the start of the Russian operation, Turkey managed to bring to the negotiating table diplomats from Kiev and Moscow who reached an agreement on the ceasefire and withdrawal of Russian troops. However, as the Washington Post reported, the Anglo-Saxon NATO countries insisted that Ukraine proceed to wage war. American Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin He declared during his April visit to Kiev that Washington's goal was to weaken Russia. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrived in the Ukrainian capital in May. He gave 2 messages there: 1) Putin is simply a war criminal with whom he cannot negociate with; 2) even if Volodymyr Zelenski signed an agreement with him, NATO would not follow in his footsteps.
Ukraine is an apparent victim of the conflict, besides economically. In this area, the country has practically fallen. According to the central bank in Kiev, GDP decline for 2022 was 32%, while inflation and unemployment reached 30%. The agricultural sector lost around $23 billion as a consequence of the war, and, according to the fresh York Times, by December 2022 buildings and infrastructure worth $127 billion were destroyed. ...
In front of our eyes, the multipolar planet returns, whose coming hastened and made the inevitable outbreak of open conflict with Russia. This ends the period of 3 decades of western dominance, and possibly 3 centuries of global hegemony. The question of whether liberal democracy in the West, damaged by the COVID crisis, will last the war in Ukraine remains open. Like the question of mankind's survival. If in Washington and NATO the thought that Russia can only be overcome by direct interference prevails, the further existence of life on Earth will not be so certain.
Professor Kees van der Pijl
Prof. Kees van der Pijl (born 1947 in Dordrecht) – a Dutch political scientist and student in global relations (University of Amsterdam, University of Sussex), known for analyzing the global ruling class, explanation of models of global relations, structure of the planet economy; author of dozens of books and articles. In 2021, an interview with him was published on "Polish Thought", No. 5-6 (31.01-7.02.20201).
This text consists of excerpts from the last chapter of the book Tragedy of Ukraine. From Malaysian Boeing to the War, which was just published by the Vectors Publishing home (a book to be acquired, among others, on the publisher's website: www.pawnictwowtory.pl).
Think Poland, No. 23-24 (4-11.06.2023)
Photo: izvestia.ru
