More than virtue could fate

During World War II, the German General Staff had planned an invasion of Britain that, if successful, would have given Germany unchallenged power over all of Central and Western Europe, from Lisbon to the Russian border. From there, it would have been very difficult for everyone to remove them. Instead, after Goering failed to destroy the British air force as he had promised, Hitler decided to cancel the plan and instead attack the Soviet Union, a country more populous and immensely larger than Germany with which he had just signed a non-aggression pact to put his back to safety. Why such a risky decision? It was probably not unrelated to the (silly) ideas about race that obsessed him. The British were brothers of Germanic stock and one could come to an agreement with them; the Russians, on the contrary, were sub-humans who existed only to be exploited by the chosen people. It is a fact that in this way the classic strategic nightmare of German generals, that of having to fight on two fronts, was again realized.

In February of this year, the highest point of covid madness was reached in Italy: special government authorization was needed in order to work, to have a coffee at the bar, to ride the bus, to enter a store, or the post office. What is more, the head of government had not been elected by anyone, but sent from abroad as a governor. Yet anyone would have been able to see that there was no health crisis in the country, other than a chronic one due to the deficiencies of public medical services, certainly no epidemic raging to justify such drastic measures. Of the old Italian liberal democracy, with all its flaws, virtually nothing remained; in its place had arisen a repressive and totalitarian state centered on the worship of a drug produced by an American corporation, of uncertain composition and effects, called a “vaccine”, and of the elusive disease terribly similar to the flu that it was supposed to cure. A State in many ways more oppressive than the fascist State, already based on the cult of the Duce and the empire. The phenomenon, moreover, was not just Italian, but worldwide. Yet, just when all over the world the new dictatorship seemed unchallengeable and opponents reduced to civil death, there was a beginning everywhere to loosen the measures, a loosening that, inevitably, was reflected, reluctantly, also on our country. I say unwillingly not only on the part of the government, but also on the part of the most extremist devotees, who continue to walk around with a rag on their muzzles despite the fact that the obligation has fallen.

The war in Ukraine began eight years ago when the U.S. government staged a coup backed by ultranationalist neo-fascist sectors in order to wrest the country away from Russian influence and install in power a puppet government that would obey Washington in everything, since it was totally dependent on Washington for its survival. Ukrainian nationalists professed a racist belief that Russian speaking, about 40 percent of the country's population, should be considered inferior and persecuted in endless ways. Following the coup, some areas with a large Russian majority rebelled against the central government and proclaimed independence. The revolt succeeded perfectly in Crimea, which through skillful minimal intervention and was annexed to Russia with a referendum, and halfway in Donbass, which was partially liberated but where the war for independence continued almost uninterruptedly for eight years. It failed instead in Odessa and Kharkov. The independence war was, of course, supported by Russia, although it never intervened directly and did not even officially recognize the two Donbass republics, despite the fact that in 2014 the conditions for defeating what remained of the Ukrainian army and regaining hegemony over the country were very favorable. The basic mistake, the original sin of the Ukrainian situation, seems to have been precisely this failure to act, which will certainly have its own reason. Never a surprise action to liberate the Donbass was ever conducted in the eight years that followed, until February of this year, just when the Americans had decided to provoke Russia to intervene after preparing the ground well.

Throughout this period of low-intensity warfare, many geopolitical and military commentators against the tide presented the events of 2014 almost as a victory for Putin's Russia, which had succeeded in staving off the U.S. attack, retaking Crimea and taking part of the Donbass from Ukraine. No mention was made of the fact that the country as a whole had in fact been removed from Russian influence, under which it had always been, constituting, indeed, an important and among the most advanced parts of the old Soviet Union. Throughout these eight years, these analysts continued to argue that Ukraine was a failed and ruined country and that Putin, a fine strategist, would be wary of invading it or simply bringing it back under Russian control in whole or in part, because that would mean a huge economic effort that the Russian economy could in no way afford. They also let it be understood that militarily Russia could, if it wanted to, easily destroy the Ukrainian army in a few weeks even without even entering the country, but simply using the overwhelming ranged weapons. If they did not liberate the Donbass it was because they “didn't need to”, to avoid civilian casualties and for geopolitical calculations.

The fact is that even without intervention, civilian casualties were never lacking.

In the meantime, the Americans continued to supply Ukraine with armaments and to rebuild its army, fearing entry into NATO and the deployment of nuclear missiles, not so much because of their interest in the country, but with the obvious purpose of provoking Russia into a reaction that should have allowed the following ends to be achieved: to bog Russia down in a long war of attrition in Ukraine; to start a harder economic war such as to destroy Russia in the commercial sphere to the point of obtaining a change of government in Moscow as they had already succeeded in Kiev, since the purely military option was impractical; to create a barrier between Russia and Western Europe so as to prevent the formation of a Eurasian trade union between Lisbon and Beijing that would become the heartland of the world and inevitably marginalize them.

Still following the cited analysis, it concluded that Putin would not fall into the trap: he would yes do something, but it would be an “asymmetrical” response, a “political Judo move”, that would displace the enemy in an unexpected way. An invasion into Ukraine was not likely: even the number of troops on the border was insufficient for such a move. I must say that I had also followed this line of thinking, so much so that when, in February of this year, the Russians, triumphantly announced for months by all Western television stations, actually invaded Ukraine, I was unfavorably surprised. One thing was certainly true in those analyses: the troops were indeed insufficient to liberate the Donbass and neutralize Ukraine with the prospected blitzkrieg. I got the idea that the operation, which directly threatened Kiev, was most likely to be very quick and lead to some sort of coup d'état at the instigation of “sleeper” Ukrainian forces, essentially military forces, which would have to manifest themselves in the circumstance, oust the government, seize power and promote peace talks in which they would establish the irreversible cession of Crimea, the independence of the Donbass, the demilitarization of Ukraine and the dissolution of all neo-Nazi bodies with prosecution of crimes committed up to that point. After all, President Putin, who almost always tells the truth, had openly announced almost all of these goals.

Except that, evidently the intelligence reports were not very accurate, in fact the Ukrainian forces that were supposed to be working for regime change did not show up and indeed the army took to reacting with doggedness and conviction. So now Russia finds itself fighting (still apparently with insufficient forces) a war of attrition that is not likely to last a few weeks. Suffice it to say that more than two months after the start of the operation, the Donetsk front has remained largely unchanged and the Ukrainians are quietly continuing to shell the city with artillery as they have been doing for eight years. In short, what has happened is more or less what the Americans wanted, so they rub their hands together, send in weapons and have started the much-desired total economic war by convincing their European subjects to participate in it as suicide bombers. At this point the Russians are well set up and, if they do not want to succumb, are forced to continue the war to the bitter end, win it and also take large chunks of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the counter narrative has adapted to the facts above. Now there is no trace of Putin's asymmetrical responses, nor of the implied prediction that an eventual war would be easy and short, now the war is divided into phases, the first with threats to Kiev and Odessa to distract the Ukrainians from replenishing troops in Donbass, the second involving the encirclement and rapid destruction of the stationed army and finally the liberation of the rebel provinces, the third to be specified. Except that the hammer blow that was supposed to follow the victory at Mariupol did not happen this time either, and the latest version argues that the best option is a war of attrition, since it allows them to exploit Russian artillery superiority, minimize their own losses and those of civilians, and instead maximize damage to the enemy. And also, because, I would add, the forces on the ground continue to be insufficient for any other option. On the other hand, the bulk of the army must be kept in reserve for the possible event that NATO actually decides to intervene.

In today's analyses, I do not seem to see any sign of the old alleged Russian reluctance to take over Ukraine, or significant parts of it. Apparently, it would no longer be an unacceptable economic burden. At the point at which things have reached, it seems to me, winning the war cannot but mean the conquest of the entire coastal strip, the Donbass, and perhaps Kharkov, otherwise it will be necessary to grasp at straws to claim to have won and the victory will take on a resemblance to NATO's victory in Afghanistan. It remains an absolute mystery to me why the Russians are not seriously destroying Ukrainian infrastructure, especially that related to transportation, especially since the supply of weapons from abroad is a major factor: okay humanitarian reasons, but do they want to win this war or not? Trains should be stopped from the first days, bridges over Dniepr should no longer exist, taking school trips to Kiev should be considered inadvisable and instead everyone comes in and out as they please. What do they think they are doing, a war or a picnic?

Be that as it may, everything suggests that the American trap has worked well: all of Washington's wishes seem to be coming true. Even Europe has willingly agreed to commit suicide to please them. However, the story goes, there is an ancient Chinese curse that goes something like this: may your every wish come true. In other words, one must be very careful what one wishes for.

Western rejection of a peace on the basis of an agreement in Ukraine necessarily brings Russia into an all-or-nothing condition, and old Clausewitz would not advise leaving an enemy with no way out, least of all if the enemy is an atomic power. Fortunately, a war of attrition, in spite of all the weapons that can be provided by the West, does not seem reasonable that it could lead to any other outcome than a Russian victory, albeit not a very quick one. The Russians have an advantage in means, men, logistics and tactics: it would seem only a matter of time. Reasonably, Ukraine can only be worn down long before Russia and it seems inevitable that it will end up divided into several parts, the most important of which are controlled directly or indirectly by Russia. And a reunited Russia and Ukraine will return to a potential similar to that of the Soviet Union, plus freed from the ball and chain of the various -stans.

The trade war, on the other hand, does not seem to be bearing any fruit at all, yet it was the one that was most counted on. If there is one country in the world that can do without the others, it is Russia. The sanctions will force it to develop its own productions and systems, including financial ones, becoming freer from the control of the globalist powers. The situation will also push it closer and closer to the other world power that could potentially be its enemy, China, and to Asia in general. Perhaps Westerners, rather than isolating Russia, will isolate themselves. Moreover, the war does not seem for the moment to have weakened Russian power from within so much as to bring about the coveted regime change; on the contrary, it seems to have led to a strengthening of the government by reawakening traditional Russian patriotic resilience and fostering the removal of additional “friends of the West” among those still in the leadership. Finally, Russian counter-sanctions tend to cast doubt on the international role of the dollar and meet with favor in many important countries that were apparently looking for nothing more than an opportunity to finally escape the tyranny of the American currency.

What's more, the inevitable economic crisis could permanently destabilize the European union, which is currently nothing more than the political side of NATO (and thus exclusively American-led), and prospectively lead to a loosening of the U.S. grip on the continent. Hitler and Mussolini, after all, came to power under circumstances that had parallels with those now being created. On the other hand, direct NATO intervention on behalf of Ukraine in an attempt to defeat Russia on the ground does not seem possible, not only because of the danger of nuclear war it would entail, but also because of the difficulty of finding a truly serious fighting force in Europe and whose creation overseas would require months and months of preparation. Moreover, previous performance, see for example the long Afghan war, does not seem at all encouraging. NATO intervention, however possible, seems to be one of the reasons why Russia does not currently engage the bulk of its potential in Ukraine. Finally, the recent rollout to Western society of the “pandemic” and, in general, all the paraphernalia of the so-called “great reset” has resulted in further internal weakening.

In short: not even the West seems to have a really solid position.

Years ago, walking in a cemetery, I happened to read on a tombstone this epitaph “more than virtue could fate”. In our lives, we often make projects and plans for the future believing that we are acting for the best and often even in the most rational way possible, given the premises. However, our rationality is not always really rational, it is greatly affected by emotionality and unconscious depths, moreover, things change rapidly and seem to have their own inertia: what really remains under our control is not then a large part of the whole. Plans fail easily and it is often necessary to reshape them to the circumstances that have arisen. Therefore, when the game is over, someone feels the need to write such phrases on graves. The same thing seems to be true on a larger scale for major world plans, for States, statesmen, oligarchs and economic powers: almost never do things, let alone wars, go as planned, control remains limited, it is necessary not only to have very good plans but also not to get too attached to them, to know how to change them as needed, and above all it is necessary that things, with their inertia, do not get too sideways.

Will the American trap work? Will the United States be able to retain hegemony? Will the new Anglo-Saxon oligarchs be able to impose the “great reset” and confirm the primacy of great economic powers over politics? Will Pfizer defeat parliaments? Will Bill Gates be anointed a prophet? Will Europe manage to avoid the most damaging consequences of sanctions and perhaps regain its own margin of sovereignty or will it sink deeper and deeper? Will Russia succeed in reversing its beleaguered statehood from its victory in Ukraine? Will Russia and China succeed in establishing themselves as powers of equal and perhaps superior standing to the United States?

The situation today is wide open. How it will end is doubtful. After all, if the outcome is a foregone conclusion, what would be the point of fighting? I certainly do not have prophetic gifts like the ineffable Bill [Gates] and of course I cannot answer any of these questions, but I am inclined to think that no one is in absolute control of events. Perhaps, more than virtue, “fate” could.

*****************************************************
Original column by Nestor Halak:
https://comedonchisciotte.org/piu-che-virtu-pote-il-destino/
Translation by Costantino Ceoldo