HOW TO END THE WAR OR KNOWLEDGE FROM THE BUBBLES OF UNTHINKING
Today, almost every clairvoyant, not to mention students of political pathology, is involved in the spell of war victory. A search of the internet reveals thousands of soothsayers and prognosticators whose predictions are as different as Medvedev's mood before and after a pint of vodka in the morning and evening. Each person looking for an answer finds a prophet who fits his or her personal opinion and follows him or her diligently, believing in new revelations that have nothing to do with the scriptures.
The situation of the seeker seeing and hearing what he wants to see and hear by shutting himself up in a select circle of opinionators is called a bubble of communication or perception. A bubble of non-thinking.
In the good old days of the wired telephone, bubbles were severely limited by physical capacity. To make it easier for the younger generation of our readers to grasp, let us take the usual celebration of a family holiday. Uncles and aunts, cousins and cousins of some kind are there and they start telling you the truth about their lives. And so insistently that you want to go to the toilet for the eleventh time (What's wrong with you, maybe you've eaten the wrong thing? And if there are one or two people you can talk to at such a gathering, it's lucky that the next family holiday is only five years away.
Now, in the days of virtual communication and unlimited media penetration via TV, internet, magazines and radio, you can choose every day a family party with not just one or two, but all the very, very cool dudes and girls you like. That's it. There are countless bubbles like that now. To suit everyone's taste, colour and deviation.
All these bubbles are very closed, the participants do not see what is going on in the other bubble, and everyone believes in their own truth. And their victory. Even the major players in the world, the countries, and all their leaders, live in bubbles of a kind. This is evidenced by their increasingly weak ability to produce any kind of coherent joint statement, a detailed communication on issues of importance to the whole world. It is no wonder that, through the thick haze of the bubbles of perception, different countries and their blocs see the end of the war and the triumph of victory differently.
The clearest perception of the war and the most logical scenario for its ending is offered by Ukraine: Russia withdraws its armed army of vagabonds and marooned soldiers from the captured territories, and then negotiations take place on the reparation of the damage caused by the aggressor. Kyiv, of course, wants Moscow to pay heavy reparations for a long time for the destruction of the country and for the killing and maiming of its citizens, as well as for the trial of the war criminals, the brutalists, the Prigozhin, and the terrorists who brought the Russian death to Ukraine. This scenario is correct in terms of values, but it has one downside. It is not feasible now, and is therefore, and unfortunately probably will be for a long time to come, only in the aspirational phase.
Terrorist Russia is not going anywhere from Ukraine. It imagines that it can and plans to seize the Donbass this year, possibly Zaporizhia, hold Kherson, freeze the conflict, and then assess the situation next year to see whether it can move on. Somewhere in the plans for the future is a Moscow puppet sitting in Kiev, Lukashenka. In the event of active resistance, martial law will be declared and the whole of Russia will work for the war effort, including mobilisation of the living force. Moscow does not doubt its success in Ukraine, and is preparing to fight to the last man in Russia, of which there are more than one and more than two million. Especially if a fractious and uncontrollable China comes into play. After a temporary victory, NATO and the US will again be given, or rather reminded, of the ultimatum to withdraw from the territories of the EU countries, which would mean that the whole of eastern Europe would once again become a zone of Russian influence. Or, to put it more simply, it will be demanded to be handed over for the dessert of Mordor.
In Führer Putin's perverse fantasies, the triumph of victory is Russian soldiers raping froilen in Berlin and a Europe without NATO. That is roughly the ultimate goal of today's Russian war, as imagined by the collective caveman with the nuclear stack.
The flaw in this scenario is that it is, in principle, the delusions of a 'Russian' made up of 180 Russian nations and peoples, and backed up by neither diplomatic, economic nor military power. The Western security structures and the Alliance are designed precisely to ensure that the European continent is safe and that such a bloody orgy never happens. The whole scenario that Russia is putting together, with its operational plans and variations of tactical moves, is a dead end, because it is not feasible now, tomorrow or ever again. Unless the world goes completely mad and, led by China, commits suicide.
Brussels and Washington see victory as a permanent support for their partner Ukraine, but there is still no deep understanding that Russia's real and great war is not against Ukraine, but against the whole West. It is somewhere in the sixteenth drawer of Scholz's subconscious survival reflex. The West does not even know what it wants more - Russia's defeat but Putin's survival, or Putin's ouster but Russia's non-defeat. In a word, they are aiming for some kind of abstract abracadabra - Russia's defeat without defeat. The West wants to save Russia from being eaten by China and to prevent the nuclear monster from disintegrating into a multitude of principalities ruled by nuclear lunatics. That is why support for Ukraine is being provided in a cautious, limited way, after a thorough understanding of the Kremlin's reactions and possible responses.
The West understands that it is engaged in a long-term war, both militarily and economically, but it does not know how to end this war. The West does not have a plan to end the war. What is more, individual Western states would be very happy for the war to end as soon as possible, even if Russia were to seize the whole of the 'other Russia', up to and including Kyiv. Other Western states in the East would very much like to take out the craters in Ukraine with a few blows, and to do so they are buying and shipping home thousands of tanks and hundreds of artillery systems from South Korea.
All in all, there is a macabre vision hovering somewhere in airless space, monitored by Biden's space intelligence satellites, in which it is somehow hoped that Ukraine will perhaps attack. Then somehow, perhaps, they will win, the Russian so-called troops will perhaps flee Crimea, then Putin will hopefully be forced to negotiate. Well, if he does not negotiate, maybe someone, maybe Erdogan, will force him to negotiate. Maybe there will be a coup in Moscow, maybe somebody will replace Putin, because there are people in Russia who are of sound mind and who realise the futility of this war. In other words, the hope is that by feeding Ukraine with arms and financial injections and strangling Russia with sanctions, the situation will be resolved by the Ukrainians. Somehow. Naively waiting for a Christmas miracle.
The flaw in this scenario is, firstly, that it does not include the loss of Ukrainian lives on the battlefield, secondly, that for the vast majority of people in Russia, the sanctions act like a naked matador on a drunken bull, and thirdly, that it relies too much on chance. "Wishful thinking in the hope that Russia will be finished off by the Leopards and sanctions shows that the West has no idea who Sasha and Seryozha are, who the three-leafed fur hat is and who the balalaika is, and that this strategy is therefore also a partial dead end.
In a separate bubble lives the Kremlin opposition, which, despite being deeply divided, is already writing a new Russian constitution and working on joint plans to take power in Moscow. Putin's opponents are waiting for Day X, when he will be knocked out, and then all the opposition and the Russians fighting on the side of Kiev in Ukraine will come to Moscow and somehow take matters into their own hands. They will take power, arrest all the war criminals, convict them, carry out lustration, hold democratic elections and start paying reparations to Ukraine out of the production and economy that Russia has restored under the Marshall Plan.
This scenario is all very well and good, but a bunch of people who declare themselves to be the democratically elected government of Russia in exile have no connection whatsoever with the rest of their society, 40% of which lives without toilets and 60% without paved access roads. Moreover, a thousand oppositionists armed with automatic weapons are as dangerous to the Kremlin as two mosquitoes are to a hippopotamus. The fact that this scenario envisages democratic elections in Russia and does not contain a plan to bring down the entire pyramid of the Russian military party of today is not even worth mentioning. So, another dead end.
China is rubbing its hands as it watches the Russia-Ukraine plus West war. China plans to take advantage of this war and siphon off as much benefit as possible from it. Beijing has already been asked many times to support Russia with arms, and is probably planning to do so, seeing how for a year the West has been pissing its pants over Ukraine, drawing red lines in its own head. Of course, the weapons and components will not be supplied for a thank you, and certainly not directly. The Chinese Communists are tempted by Russia's inexhaustible resources and resources, so aid will only be given on condition of their appropriation and, very likely, via Belarus.
Beijing has long been dreaming of the US getting involved in a conflict with Russia and, at the same moment, China occupying Taiwan. Within months, the US and NATO crush Russia, partition begins, and China takes the inexhaustible resources of Siberia. And from that moment on, a united China rules the world. A temple, a colossus, hanging gardens are built for the Great Xi and the moon is renamed after him.
This scenario is also not feasible, as the US and the EU are China's main economic partners. Moreover, if the West engages in a direct war against Russia, a third world war involving India, Pakistan, Brazil, Japan and Australia has the potential to end up with no one and no one to call Xi's name. The world is too global. Beijing understands this. For now.
Political personalities, who behave according to the principles of personal gain, honour and vanity, are also a major influence in this whole game. Respectable politicians enjoy ovations from the crowd, publicity from the public, and so the leaders compete almost every day to see who can put on a better and cooler show and make a speech. It is all a show of war or a dance on the bones of the slain, with no thought for the future victims.
If the leaders raised up by the masses could find peace in themselves, in their own minds, could get down from their pedestals and take a realistic, sober look at the situation from all sides, see the reality of the prospect of war, they would not be making a show, they would be making plans to end war.
Will the showmen of war find the strength, the wisdom to stop (not to fight) and start thinking? The most rational project would be a joint project between the opposition in Kiev, Washington, Brussels and the Kremlin, where all the ingredients are glued together to produce a viable and quite realistic scenario. Clearly, China still needs to be reassured somehow. If you think about it, what does China want with an island that is tiny in scale? It is time for Xi to take a well-deserved rest.
And at the heart of all this unthinking and the resulting conflict and war is the unspeakable stupidity and greed of humanity. Although they are, by the way, one and the same. If only the world would stop and think for a moment where it is! Thoughts rule the human world. But how to make the unthinking think - that is the question to which we have no answer.
Photo source: Asia Society.
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