From Escalation to De-Escalation, Containment to Multipolarity
Latest Escalations
At the G7 summit this week in southern Italy, the US and Ukraine will be signing, or have already signed a 10-year joint security agreement that will provide military assistance, training, cooperation in arms production and will release more money. I think this money comes from the $61 billion package passed recently by Congress, but I am awaiting confirmation. I was remined this morning that Ukraine’s previous commander in chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, and rival to Zelenskiy, is on record as saying that in order to win, Ukraine would need five times the US Congressional package.
The security agreement between the US and Ukraine runs along the lines of several other such agreements between Ukraine and NATO members. Their purpose is to endorse NATO support for Ukraine even while NATO continues to tell Ukraine that it cannot yet join NATO. They provide Ukraine with some of the (in)security that NATO membership would provide, without seeming to cross Russia’s most important “red line,” which is that of Ukrainian neutrality.
G7 members have agreed on a plan to give Ukraine a $50 billion loan to help it buy weapons and rebuild damaged infrastructure. The loan is expected to be repaid using interest earned on $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, which are mostly in European banks. The plan is for the loan to be underwritten by the United States which expects its allies to provide some of the funds. So far as I understand the situation, this announcement is the announcement of a plan, not the actual implementation of that plan, and is subject to legal challenge by Russia, perhaps in Asian courts, ands to other legal and diplomatic opposition from countries of the BRICS and global south who may now no longer entrust their holdings with financial institutions of the collective West. Furthermore, the $50 billion would be paid out over several years in the form of annual interest. To what kind of regime would this money be channeled: one led by an illegitimate President, one that is knowingly among the most corrupt of the so-called developed world, one that faces imminent military defeat (that may be hastened forward by Russia precisely in order to forsetall the impact of more aid to Ukraine), one whose very future existence is in the balance?
Zelenskiy visited Saudia Arabia today or yesterday, just as Saudi Arabia has announced that it will not renew its 50-year petrodollar agreement with the US, so that Saudi Arabia will be selling its oil in many currencies, somethat that is likely to be assistance to Russia.
Changing Balance of Power
The G7 is not what it was, and what it is, is declining by contrast with the rise of the BRICS. The following was posted by Adebisi in Investing Strategy in August last year (BRICS v G7). The BRICS have overtaken the G7 in share of global GDP and share of growth of global GDP and represent four times as many of the world’s population.
BRICS
Combined GDP (2022): $26.03 trillion
GDP per country (2021): China ($16.86 trillion), others below $3 trillion
Share of global GDP (PPP): 31.5%
Share of global GDP growth (2012-2022): 16%
Total population: 3.24 billion
Share of world’s population: 40%
Share of world’s trade: 16%
FDI inflow as a percentage of GDP (2017): 2.3%
FDI inflow growth rate (2010-2015): 59%
G7
Combined GDP (2022): $45.9 trillion
GDP growth rate: 1.1%
Share of global GDP (PPP): 30%
Share of global GDP growth (2012-2022): 14%
Total population: 0.8 billion
Share of world’s population: 10%
FDI inflow as a percentage of GDP (2017): 1.7%
Share of global gross national income: 45%
The Battlefields
Most of the Ukrainian casualties show a pattern that has been a long time evident namely, that the bulk of the fighting continues to be in the Kupyansk, Chasiv-Yar and Avdiivka areas. It is not inconceivable that Russia’s invasion from the north in Kharkiv and, perhaps, in Sumy, is intended as a distraction, stretching Ukrainian forces over a much longer line of combat and reducing Ukrainian ability to resist in areas to the east, possibly with a view to a major Russian invasion from Kupyansk, Donetsk, or Zapporizhzhia areas.
For the past few days reports had given us the impression of significant Ukrainian counterattacks against invading Russian forces, leading to stalemate north of Lyptsi and confining invaders to only the western end of the northern sector of Vovchansk above the Volcha river.
That situation appeared to be breaking by Thursday, June 13. Russian forces claimed to have secured the industrial zone of the northern sector, making it more difficult for Ukraine to maintain its supplies to troops at the eastern end of the northern sector. Ukraine is now focusing on recovery of the high ground that lies between Vovchansk and Tyke to the east, with a view to maintaining its supply lines to Ukrainian forces in Vovchansk. In the meantime, just north of Vovchansk, Russian forces are moving both eastwards from Pletenivka, towards Bochkove (above Zybyne), while to the west, Russian forces are building fortifications between Pletenivka and Vovchansk in anticipation of a possible Ukrainian counterattack in that direction.
Elsewhere, in Kupyansk area, Russian forces now surround Stepova Novoselivka on three sides, with a view to taking the settlement, quite soon, and advancing on the H26 highway to the immediate west and, behind that, Pishchane. Russia is acquiring more territory west of Orlianka. All this occurs in the train of a recent successful Russian advance on Kyslivka. In Siversk area there is still evidence of fighting in or around Bilo Horiivka and the landfill area to its south, even though Russia claimed to have established control over the settlement some three weeks ago. Russia appears to prevail overall. Russian forces continue to move successfully along the railway lines towards Vyimka. Russia’s attack on Rozdolivka has begun snd, if and when successful will help create a large new swathe of Russian territory between the small village of Rozdolivka, Pereizne (towards which Russian forces may already be moving) and Russian-held Vesele.
In Chasiv Yar, the eastern microdistict is still the main focus of clashes. Avdiivka area, west of Ocheretyne, Russia has control over most of Novooleksandrivka and of Sokil, and is moving towards Lozuvsatske, has taken Novopokrovske and soon likely to move on to Novoselivka Persha. There is a high Ukrainian abandonment of vehicles in this area because Russia has destroyed many of the bridges and pontoons that would offer them exit. A little further south, Russian forces have taken control over the Karlivka resevoir and are acquiring territory between Karlivka and Yasnobrodivka (which lies between Russian-controlled Umanske to the north and Netailove to the south) and Yasnobrodivka is under operational encirclement. Russia has established control over Nevelske. The situation around Kostyantynivka and Vuhledar is unchanged. Staramaiorske and the south of Urozhaine are under Russian control and Russia is bombing Velyka Novosilka to the immediate north.
There were heavy Russian missile and drone attacks on Kiev over the past 48 hours. A fuel depot is still burning in an industrial site in Kiev, and another fuel depot has been hit in Dnipro. The degradation of Ukrainian energy supplies is leading industrial and commercial enterprises to depend more on local high-polluting diesel and other such engines. Russia has almost completed its new rail links between Rostov-on-Don and Mariupol, something which will greatly increase is mobility and flexibility of movements of men and materiel. Russia is also reported to be moving S-500 Prometheus anti-aircraft systems into Crimea.
Casualties
Russian MoD calculations of Ukrainian losses are extremely high (over 2,000 men, dead and wounded, a day). I cannot say I have huge faith in Russian methodology (intercepts of Ukrainian reports) or in the accuracy of their numbers. This time last year, Russian MoD figures and other sources were indicating over 400,000 Ukrainian dead and seriously wounded since the beginning of the SMO; so I am therefore inclined, one year later, to think that there is a very good chance that these figures are now around 600,000.
I note that the Mediazona/Meduza calculation (Mediazona) for Russian deaths at the end of 2023 was 75,000 deaths among men under the age of 50. These are deaths as opposed to casualties and they are minimum figures. Were they to include the seriously wounded (say 2 times the numbers of dead), and military personnel of the People’s Republics of the Donbass, perhaps they would add up to 250,000.
On the war’s second anniversary, we applied this method again to assess the excess mortality rate up to the end of 2023. Our findings indicate that, by January 1, 2024, the war had resulted in the deaths of 75,000 Russian men under the age of 50. This figure does not include the military personnel from the units of Russian-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (Mediazona).
Russia has lately been in offensive mode, so the rates of Russian dead and wounded are very likely to have significantly increased. Against that, on the other hand, I would argue, the Russians have shown greater caution with their troops’ lives than has Ukraine; further, Russian troops are better trained, better equipped and better protected. There have been multiple indications of distress among Ukrainian troops for several months. These include insufficient numbers available for mobilization; lack of morale; impacts of corruption on fortifications and equipment; degraded batallions and brigades (some down to 30%) as the result of losses; over-insistence by Ukrainian commanders that territory be held against overwhelming oppositional force; and serious problems in the leadership including what is now Zelenskiy’s illegitimacy given that he failed to call elections in March and yet has stayed on in office following the expiry of his presidential term.
The Limits of Mobilization
An article today by Nicolai Petro (Petro) discusses the challenges of Ukraine’s recent mobilization law which:
Lowers the minimum draft age from 27 to 25, requires that all men aged 18 to 25 complete basic military service, and mandates that all military-age men currently abroad return to Ukraine to register.
In theory, this takes the total number of Ukrainian men eligible for mobilization to 3.7 million.
The number that actually enlist, however, is likely to be only a small fraction of this. One reason is demography: Fewer than 420,000 males born in Ukraine are today in the 25-27 age category.
And a significant portion of these may already be among the 800,000 Ukrainian men who have either left the country, are already serving in the military, are exempt or are deemed unfit for military service…
By contrast, Russia has a population pool far larger than Ukraine’s, with four times the number of active military personnel and a quarter-million reservists.
It is also adding 30,000 new contract recruits every month”
Containment and Polarization
An article today by Petro and Moeini notes a revival of enthusiasm in US foreign policy circles for the retooling of anti-Soviet/anti-Russian strategies of containment. This would create a cordon sanitaire around Russia globally, contest Russian influence in the Global South and simultaneously contain China as well as Russia. Europe would have to cough up more money for the fight against Russia so that the US could focus more on China. Ukraine’s absorption into the West would (magically, I would infer) help it achieve western victory over Ukraine. There would still be mutual discussions on arms control, cyber-warfare, and regional conflicts, and climate change.
All this amount to the “new containment.”
The “old containment” no longer applies. This is because (1) NATO is now contesting Russia in areas where Russia power is far greater than in the past and where Russian “Red Lines” have been articulated with vehemence; (2) the US no longer enjoys the superiority of technology and the prestige in the Global South that it once did; (3) nor does the US any longer enjoy a monopoly of international influence, since the emergence of the BRICS; (4) in today’s conditions of Western manicheanism, the West’s vision for the future finds no room outside the neoconservative box for an independent Russian civilization.
The old containment doctrine had two variants: the political containment of a political threat (largely involving propaganda, ideology and soft power); and containment achieved by hard power and military force. The first sought a “cultural capture” of Russia through the supposed allure of a liberal Western lifestyle. The second hit back at Russian foreign policy interests with the use of both direct and proxy force as in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Syria, and the establishment by the US of “an empire of bases”. Today, I would say that both these forms of containment remain in force.
The authors argue that since the end of the Cold War we have seen the emergence of a third form of containment which takes the form of containment of Western culture by the Global South, and which has been galvanized by NATO’s proxy war with Ukraine. The West’s Manichaeism has produced an equivalent Russian Manichaeism:
As such, since the end of the Cold War, we have slowly witnessed the genesis of a third kind of Containment, mostly theorized outside of the West, that interprets the concept in civilizational terms. The supposed goal of this new variant of containment is to defend or inoculate traditional and non-Western societies against the homogenizing force of Western progressive values and the deracinating effects of the liberal form of life.
Petro and Moeini argue for an entirely new approach, one that is informed by what they called “cultural realism,” one that affirms both the uniqueness of different forms of life and their plurality, based on strategic empathy, civilizational engagement, and diplomacy - a “concert of civilizational powers.” Clearly, this must entail, on the part of Washington, the abandonment of its sruggle to maintain global hegemony as the world’s sole permanent superpower, and the embrace of the transition to multipolarity. This struggle weakens, does not strengthen, the US.
By posing a threat to Russia’s existential security interests, a threat to which Russia believes it must respond, the struggle for US dominance paves the way, I would add, to nuclear annihilation.
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