National Sovereignty vs Values-Based Orders

EU Dissidents Slovakia and Hungary

Slovakia’s prime minister Robert Fico (recently in Moscow for talks with Putin) has reportedly disclosed a failed attempt by Ukrainian President Zelenskiy to secure Slovakian support for Ukaine’s bid for NATO membership with a proposed compensation (bribe?) to Slovakia of $500 million in acknowledgment of the damage to Slovakia of Ukraine’s proposed cut-off of Russian gas supply to Slovakia across Ukraine. If true this may be just the tip of the iceberg so far as how the politics of neocon war alliances are constructed.

Ukraine has threatened to block Slovakian access to Ukrainian pipelines that carry Russian oil and gas to Slovakia. Slovakia and Hungary are the major oppenents in the EU to the current politics of escalation even as the US President elect has consistently signalled his intention to pull the US out of involvement in the Ukraine conflict. Supplies of Russian oil and gas to Hungary are so far continuing. Prime Minister of Viktor Orban of Hungary has predicted the fall of Ukraine in 2025. He notes that with the money spent on Ukraine, Europe could have considerably modernized the entirety of Europe.

The politics of national sovereignty in Slovakia and Hungary run against the prevailing “values-based” principles that underline the Western bloc. In a recent post, Gilbert Doctorow notes how the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which is commonly credited with establishing the modern system of sovereign national states, was a repudiation of the previous values-based conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism.

The principle of national sovereignty instituted a formal equality between nations, big and small, a principle that was wedded to the corresponding idea of non-interventionism, a principle that has been badly eroded in recent decades, perhaps nowhere as dramatically as in Syria.

The Syria Factor

Kit Klarenberg exposes (Klarenberg) how the new, fragmented Syria will be broken open to Western economic exploitation as signaled by HTS promises of commitment to a free-market model and the integration of the country into the global economy. He cites Alexander McKay in Global Delinquents to the effect that HTS are allied with US imperialism and that their economic approach will reflect this. In July 2022, HTS leader al-Jolani issued a series of communications about HTS’ plans for future Syria, containing multiple passages in which finance and industry loomed large. Many passages, says Klarenberg, read as if they were authored by representatives of the International Monetary Fund, and/or US State Department. McKay fears that Syria will replicate the model of the fall of Yugoslavia, and that it will be forcedly made “dependent upon imports from the West” evermore.

My post yesterday identified the role of the US in supporting the Turkish-HTS advance on Damascus, the sharpening of tensions between Turkish and Kurdish/US forces in the north east (with Turkish President Erdogan fondly recalling a time when Jerusalam was in the Ottoman empire) and Israel’s advance beyond the Golan, into and through the UN buffer zone to Mount Hemron and Daraa. It also discussed the weakening of Russia’s position in Syria, the possible relinquishment of its bases in Tartus and Khmeimem, and the implications for Iran, now more vulnerable than before to US-supported Israeli aggression against Iran. Putin has said that should Russia remain in Syria it would have align with the new governance of Syria and that it is in conversation with neigbors such as Turkey.

In a recent blog post, Indian former diplomat Bhradukumar writes:

“Putin warned that “further complications down the line” are to be expected, as the Israeli occupation could “ultimately result in the fragmentation of Syria.” In this regard, Russia shares the same perception as Turkey, Iran and the Arab states.

Interestingly, Putin exuded confidence that Russia is on the right side of history with a policy reset that aims to harmonise with Turkey and Iran as well as the Arab states. Indeed, this diplomatic feat enhances Russia’s standing in West Asia”.

A Russian disengagement from Syria may undermine Iranian confidence in the proposed new defense alliance between Russia and Iran that is otherwise due to be signed early in the new year. This is difficult to assess. For the moment, Israel’s ambitions against Iran appear mainly directed at the removal of Iran as a potential future nuclear threat to Israel’s ambitions for a “Greater Israel.” Iran has a poplation of 100 million.

By contrast a more positive relationship between Azerbaijan and Russia, on the other hand, may see a strengthening of Russian support for both Azerbaijan (which in the 1990s had moved away from Russia in its promotion of pipeline deals with BT for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhand piepline to Turkey) and for Iran that could compensate for the loss of Syria. Azerbaijan’s President Aliyev has established warmer relations with Moscow. So too has President Tokayev of Kazakstan. All this as Russian advances in Ukraine continue, albeit with some exceptions. The main exceptions come in the form of Ukrianian advances across - or south of - the dried-up reservoir to the north of the Zapporizhzhia nuclear plant and, secondly, in the area of Siversk where Russia has experienced a number of recent reverses). The fortunes of the Ukrainian army, overall, look dismal. It is reasonable to expect a Russian expulsion of Ukrainian forces from Sudzha in Kursk.