Russia Untethered (Revised)

My latest reflections draw considerably, as I show, on the most recent broadcast from Alexander Mercouris. Together with other recent developments and reflections, I want to highlight the following, as they seem to me to be of very great significance for the future of the world (at least up until such time as human beings burn themselves up through either nuclear weapons or climate change):

(1) A global war - World War 3 for those who like things neatly lined up - is emerging, and it has three major trigger or trip points: Ukraine, Iran and Taiwan. The major contestants in this war are the USA, other NATO powers and EU powers against Russia and China. These two blocs will ally with others, but the pattern of alliances is not totally clear. Alongside the USA/NATO/and EU we can certainly add Australia and New Zealand. Alongside Russia and China we can add Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Hungry, Belarus, and North Korea. India’s final positioning will be extremely important. We can expect to see a broad linking up of Latin America’s Left regimes with Russia and China; possibly, Brazil will join their number, especially if Lulu is returned to power. The final destination of many African, Asian, and Middle Eastern countries may reflect where they are and how well they are faring through participation in China’s Road and Belt network and just how nauseous they are with the constant imperial Washington neocon stream of lies, hypocrisy and moral decay.

Conflict is very hot in Ukraine, and is simmering both in or around Iran and Taiwan.

(2) US and EU sanctions against Russia have had staggering and, for the Western cabal’s clutch of incompetent, vain and ignoble leaders, unforeseen blowback consequences. These threaten Europe with deep shortages of oil and gas as Europe approaches winter. They contribute enormously to inflationary pressures already embedded in the economic system by QE and by global subservience to a public-private Health establishment that foisted fatally bad decisions on gullible or complicit governments worldwide over the Covid crisis. To the problems of inflation are added those of food insecurity, also embedded in the pre-crisis situation (e.g. by disruption to global shipping following Covid) but now greatly exacerbated. Critical to food insecurity is the shortage of chemical fertilizer which is now affecting yield globally except for those countries that are self-sufficient in fertilizer namely, Russia and China. To these problems are now added the heat wave that has struck the northern hemisphere with record and harvest-damaging temperatures, reminding ordinary people everywhere of the utter weakness and incompetence of their leaders in the face of global destruction by climate change.

(3) Western policy makers, intellectuals, foreign and military advisers, etc. have proven themselves inept in the face of real warfare (i.e. that goes beyond trying, usually in vain, to smash up poor nations with advanced weaponry and brutal counterinsurgency tactics). This real warfare involves large armies in confrontation. The intelligentsia misread the background to the Feb 24 Russian invasion; they have misconstrued or deliberately misrepresented the personality of Zelenskiy - a neocon toady who has needlessly and without provocation destroyed or put at at grave risk the health of his own country and its people; they miscalculated the means by which that invasion was implemented, and they continue to get everything wrong in their assessments of what is going on in the battlefield. They appear to be both clueless and reckless with respect to the increasing dangers of nuclear annihilation. They have no idea of an end-game that makes any sense to any constituency.

(4) The failure of US and EU sanctions regimes to work in the way that was intended, or to work at all, has liberated Russia to do whatever it deems necessary on the global stage - hence my title, Russia Untethered. Russia has nothing now to lose in fostering stronger ties, military and other, with Iran and with North Korea, and continuing to strengthen its ties to Syria, Lebanon, Venezuela and Cuba or with any country that values sovereignty, dignity, internal strength and unity. Neither Russia nor China see that they have much to lose in the long run by accepting now the inevitable - that they must unite and conquer the monster (Mindless Washington Neocon Debauchery of the World and its People - MWNDWP). It would be better for them to do this while they together enjoy a brief window of nuclear superiority. The vehicle of their conquest, still very much in formation, is the BRICS alliance, now not much better than a talking shop, possibly one day to become a tool of international and perhaps global governance where rationality at the service of the global public good is the anchor for every action, every thought.

And now to some grittier detail:

A gathering of Russian forces for a major offensive is reported (Mercouris 07.19.22). Zelenskiy has ordered troops to hold Seversk, where Russians are already present and have passed by on their way to Bakhmut, and which is difficult for Ukrainians to defend. Zelenskiy’s decision to order troops to stand and defend it might appear to fall in that long line of instances where Ukrainian armed forces are told to try to hold on to the indefensible, against the odds, rather than simply retreat back to the next line of defense.

This is done either with a view to playing out a narrative of gallantry for domestic and international consumption (with a particular interest in how it plays to the gallery of NATO/EU financial patrons) or with a view to delaying the Russian advance by all means available, no matter the cost in lives, or both. Or perhaps the order is merely a deception to indicate that Ukrainians still hold something that they do not. Russians are very likely to encircle any Ukrainian groups that are being told to stand their Unauthorized retreats meet with severe punishment from Kiev, but they happen, and the more they happen the close is the regime to collapse. Russians now have more drones to monitor such situations. Mercouris speculates that Zelenskiy is trying to draw a line in the sand, which Zelenskiy almost certainly will not be able to do.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian attempts to advance in Kherson appear to have been repulsed. Ukrainians are either testing Russian air defenses in this territory or are trying to soften up the area before their much talked about counteroffensive. There is talk of Ukrainian ambitions to destroy both a local dam, and a local bridge in Kherson in an attempt to cut off Russian communications across the Dnieper river. But destroying bridges and dams, opines Mercouris, is not as easy as one might think. These things are built with considerable redundancy precisely in order that they can survive more than one bomb, or one HIMAR rocket (which are comparatively small: they have to be launched from the rocket tubes of a conventional multiple rocket system). Nothe that Russian Iskander-Ms are considerably heavier and have much more devastating strike power, and its Iskanders that will retaliate against HIMARS. Either a bridge or, especially, a dam would probably require quite a few HIMARS. It now appears confirmed that Ukraine has indeed been supplied by the West with the longer-range HIMARS (300km range).

A green light has been given for Ukraine to use HIMARS for attacks on Crimea, which will provoke massive Russian retaliation - at the very least, against western and other bases scattered across Ukraine. This may help explain the US embassy’s recent alert that all US citizens should leave immediately. Ukraine is talking about destroying the entirety of the Russian Black Sea fleet, a threat which Russia says in itself justifies its entire campaign. One would also assume that it would elicit a devastating response.

Russia calculates it is inflicting massive casualties which, many sources suggest, are likely far greater than those inflicted on Russian forces by Ukrainian strikes.

The reason for Zekensiy’s recent decision re. Seversk is probably reflective of Washington neocon pressure and Washington fear that support for Ukraine will wane if Zelenskiy fails to deliver some visible sign of success. This might explain why Zelenskiy is ordering troops to take punishment they should not have to do. If no counteroffensive in Kherson actually occurs, that may very well be an end to European support (if Europe can still muster any sense at all), perhaps even American.

So Ukraine may be demonstrating desperation as time runs out. By mid-October, at this rate, the Russians will be on the Dnieper river, constituting an existential threat to Ukraine as it has been since 1991.

All this ties in with Zelenskiy’s strange purge of security and intelligence personell, perhaps in their hundreds, something that is itself triggering concerns in the West that Zelenskiy’s position is growing increasingly insecure as he talks of treason in every quarter. Yes, there are indeed hints of paranoia. Perhaps the sackings offer Zelenskiy an excuse for being unable to proceed to a Kherson counteroffensive. Perhaps they offer an excuse for evidence of Ukrainian sales of western arms to Russia (if that is indeed is true). They are not suggestive of a confident or competent leader.

Zelenskiy’s grip on Ukraine may be starting to slip, therefore, and may be reflective of a slow-motion coup that would possibly favor the return of Poroshenko. The new acting head of the SBU is a former associate of Poroshenko.

Ukraine appears to be getting fewer weapons and less financial aid from the West (or less than Ukraine would like). The European Commission is finding it difficult to justify to its auditors its recent scale of aid to Ukraine.

Putin, meantime, in Moscow, has been in a series of meetings to discuss the advance of Russia’s high tech sector, with its own minister, looking to the development of a complete production cycle (like China) of the high tech equipment that Russia needs to guarantee its sovereignty and security. This approach has given China enormous resilience, and it makes sense for Russia to try to do the same (and, in any case, I would add, Russia can import from China). Meanwhile there is no sign of the slowing down in Russian delivery of weapons and ammunition to its troops in Ukraine as the WMM tirelessly suggest.

Russia seems to think it can handle its problems, problems that appear to be routinely overstated by western commentators, reflecting a lingering and dangerous western fancy (projection?) that Russia is a backward and incompetent power.

Putin is in Tehran where he will meet with Turkey’s Erdogan, will likely talk about releasing Ukrainian grain and how to resolve pressure points in Syria caused by both Turkish and US occupations.

There will also be discussion about Iran joining BRICS. Turkey has shown interest in doing likewise. Because Russia is a major member of BRICS, BRICS is likely to be a singularly important focus of conversation. A related topic is the establishment of mechanisms for interbank convertibility netween BRICS and EurAsian powers, and in other ways facilitating a process of integration of Iran and Turkey into EuroAsian institutions and alliances. This is more complicated in the case of Turkey which is a member of NATO, and has candidature status, still (!), to become a member of the EU. There may also be a discussion with Iran about improving relations with Saudi Arabia, which has also expressed an interest in BRICS membership.

There is a concern of course about the dynamics in interactions between Iran, Israel, and US sanctions on Iran (which have been quite successful up until now). Russians are now showing much more interest in being a part of the Iranian economy, involving among other things more Russian supplies of weapons to Iran, amid other commodities. This, by the way, will lead to shrieks of indignation from Israel, which has over 200 nukes and yet is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, thus imposing enormous pressure on the USA for further escalation of tensions between the US and Russia.

When the Iran nuclear deal was in effect, the Russians were very cagey about relationships with Iran because they did not want to be hit by secondary sanctions. Those inhibitions have gone, because the Russians are now so sanctioned in any case and because the nuclear deal has not been renewed. The result may be an eroding of the efficacy of sanctions on Iran. Similarly, sanctions may grow less impactful on North Korea. North Korea has recognized the independent republics in the Donbass, which implies a closer relationship between North Korea and Russia.

The US has thrown away the leverage it previouslh exercised over Russia through sanctions and this is changing the geopolitical opportunities for Russia, Iran and North Korea. This in turn may persuade Turkey to fix its gaze Eastwards, and to join with Russia and China in a Turkman-relevant development of EurAsian institutions and development projects, via the Shanghai Cooperation group, Asian Development Banks and so on.

All these considerations raise the stakes of the conflict in Ukraine.