At the moment, it seems clear Russia is winning the Ukraine war, and no matter how many weapons NATO gives, that reality likely won’t change. Still, others have dreamed up a theory of victory for Ukraine that looks nearly impossible, but, nonetheless, should be considered and debated. Indeed, while it might not be a popular […]
Ukraine allowed itself to be used as a NATO proxy and the people of Ukraine are now paying the price for that. People of Ukraine allowed the west to overthrow their legitimate government and to install a fascist regime in its place.
The destiny of Ukraine is to serve as a warning for others going forward. It’s important to clarify that NATO never had any intent to defend Ukraine. NATO used the people of Ukraine to fight Russia as a proxy.
It’s also important to note that Ukraine was already in a civil war before Russia intervened. This lecture that Mearsheimer gave back in 2015 is an excellent primer on the subject. Mearsheimer is certainly not pro Russian in any sense, and a proponent of US global hegemony. First, here’s the demographic breakdown of Ukraine:
here’s how the election in 2004 went:
this is the 2010 election:
As we can clearly see from the voting patterns in both elections, the country is divided exactly across the current line of conflict. Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2015 further shows that there is a sharp division between people of eastern and western Ukraine on which economic bloc they would rather belong to:
The most likely outcome of the war is that Russia is going to absorb Russian majority parts of Ukraine that either actively wish to be part of Russia, or are neutral. Meanwhile, western Ukraine will be left as a problem for Europe to deal with.
As I noted earlier, it’s not simply that Russia is an enemy of the west, but also that it’s currently aligned with the global majority and unlike the west it is not hostile towards socialist states. I also think that both military defeat against Russia and economic defeat in the trade war with China will play a significant role in discrediting neoliberalism within the west. This will create opportunities for new ideas to emerge which is essential for any sort of a socialist movement in the west. I wrote about this dynamic here in more detail.
https://dialecticaldispatches.substack.com/p/the-stress-test-liberalism-never
This makes things much more clearer, thank you for explaining it to me!