AND SO, THE
WARRING FACTIONS after MANY MONTHS and much death and destruction, and fears that
weapons of mass destruction, that some call “harbingers” of the Apocalypse, might be unleashed
if the conflict continued, had at last resolved their differences. The war was
over and a new architecture for global stability and peace is established, and…oh
wait. You didn’t think I was talking about the war in Ukraine, did you? No, dear
reader, I’m afraid I had in mind the final chapter of Ada Palmer’s Perhaps
the Stars science fiction novel. Would that real life imitated art in this instance.
FOR THOSE ON
THE SIDELINES, such as myself, it’s helpful to read about a fictional war at
the same time a real one rages. Fiction broadens your perspective and hones
your analysis of current events. Solutions to seemingly intractable problems
are uncovered while you read. Positions and political arguments are more
clearly defined, and winners and losers are sensibly apportioned or at least made
understandable. Why can’t what’s so obviously necessary and spelled out in
black and white on a page not have more convergence or effect in the real world?
Palmer’s fictional canvas is global, even including the Moon and Mars! Isn’t
that enough? Her fictionalized world is a place where industrialized warfare,
mass mobilizations of populations and the wholesale destruction of lives and
property have become things of the past. Perhaps permanently. Isn’t such a
powerful, hopeful vision enough to show us a way out of the quagmire we find
ourselves in? Can’t fictional solutions be applied to real-world problems? Don’t
our leaders read?
NOT OFTEN ENOUGH and
not today. It seems we humans have a considerable penchant for violence and
mayhem still. War must act as a catharsis. But for what exactly?*
AND YET, almost
without exception, the 27 member countries of the European Union, along with
the United States and its client states (including Canada) continue to send
tens of billions of dollars in aid and weapons to Ukraine to prop up its war with
Russia. (In reality, this is a proxy war between the United States and
Russia, using Ukraine’s land and the blood of its citizens to accomplish its
aims of weakening Russia and removing President Putin from office.) That there
are increasing strains in this NATO-US-collective West alliance against Russia
is clearly seen in their inability to keep up the pace feeding Ukraine’s war
machine and the failure of their sanctions regime to bring Russia to heel. In a
sense, they are “demilitarizing” Europe as their own armouries become depleted
by Ukraine’s incessant demands for weapons and supplies. As mentioned, their
economies are experiencing high rates of inflation, and many are entering
periods of recession and economic degrowth. As an aside: It is interesting that
the United States directly benefits from Europe’s hard-pressed economies through
expanding its liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade with the running-on-empty continent.
ADDITIONALLY, President Biden’s recent “Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act”
legislation offers incentives for businesses to develop manufacturing facilities
in the US. This has resulted in much concern across Europe that manufacturers and
businesses will decide to jump ship and relocate to the United States (as some
already have) where, along with subsidies and tax breaks, oil and gas prices
are much cheaper. There have been discussions among European nations to create
their own subsidy programs to counteract the Americans.2 (And
I thought everyone was on the same side in this ball game!)
A FINAL POINT I’d
like to make on this whole business is one that was raised by political
commentator Alexander Mercouris on The Duran podcast, when he referred
to the collective West as the “hermetic West” because of its lock-step response to
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Western political leaders, almost to a man or
woman, say the same things, they all sign off on sanctions (no matter the resulting
harm to their own countries' economies), and they do everything in their power
to destabilize Russia.
All in the collective West sing from the same song
sheet, with few off-key notes from the choir. And this includes the mainstream media which has
become a bought and paid for mouthpiece of neo-conservative governments and
elites throughout the collective West. Mercuoris uses the word “hermetic” in
describing the West to suggest it has become closed off, airtight, an “echo
chamber” with everyone repeating the same tired platitudes and doing the same
things, over and over. This view is the opposite to how we normally view the “West”
as the open, prosperous, and free civilization, not some isolated “hermit
kingdom”.
AND HE RAISES AN
ADDITIONAL POINT: The song everyone sings is from an American song sheet.
Since the end of WWII, Mercurois elaborates, America has been the dominant
world power whose influence was felt globally. For a long time it carried a “big
stick” and used it when necessary. The Monroe Doctrine (1823) made it clear
where the American sphere of influence extended (Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Canada, too, if we’re being honest) and within the Western
Hemisphere, America was the dominant player. This supremacy over other nations and peoples
gave elites and the political class a sense of superiority, a sense that
America was exceptional, the “indispensable nation” to quote the execrable Madeline Albright, former Secretary of State during the Clinton administration. This
sense of “American exceptionalism” carried over as it grew into a global
hegemon. It’s political relations and diplomacy with other nations had as their
common drum beat this belief that America was the country the world must emulate
and follow. For American administrations of the previous and current centuries
this was a self-evident truth that everyone should, or rather must, see and
accept. [Mercurois further NOTES that America's experience in diplomacy does not have roots as deep as those found in Europe, where diplomats from peer and near-peer nations have negotiated treaties and arranged state-to-state relations in times of wars and peace for centuries.]
THUS, Ukraine
has been an American project for some time, a potential tool used in the
service of dismantling a rival peer, namely Russia. For, to have peer nations, rivals on the world stage,
is anathema to America's political class. Potential rival hegemons such as Russia and
China must be vanquished at all costs. Within the hermetic echo chamber of the collective West, all
members sing this American tune. For now.
AND TO CONCLUDE,
the war in Ukraine may be a turning point in world affairs, akin to others
in the historical record that I’ve mentioned (Thirty Years War, etc.). We may
be witnessing the rise of what many commentators call a “multi-polar world”,
a world of several dominant peers (China? Russia? India? Brazil? the United
States?) Such a change will affect how diplomacy3 is conducted and
international relations are managed going forward. Diplomacy, tact, respectful conduct, respect for international law, a give-and-take realism, and a reassessment of what policies are truly in each nation's interest, all are watchwords that might become kit for clear headed diplomats and make for the practice of a genuine and more honest form of international diplomacy.
SO, ARE we headed for a “smash”, as some
say, with America desperately striving to maintain its position as the world’s hegemon?
Or will facts on the ground and the march of history persuade this Leviathan of a country to take
another path? Time, as always, will tell the tale.
Cheers, Jake.
___________________________________________________
* RECENTLY,
academic Richard Sakwa commented during the above-mentioned
Duran podcast, (at the 1:40 mark) that major wars of the past have brought
about new political orders and a reshuffling of international relations.
The Thirty Years War of the Seventeenth Century, for example, ended with the Peace
of Westphalia and the rise of the modern nation state. The Napoleonic
Wars were followed by the Concert of Vienna in 1815, ushering in the age of
modern diplomacy and Great Power relations. WWI and the 1919 Paris Peace Treaty
established the first iteration of the United Nations (and the final phase of
European colonialism, it must be said), while the aftermath of WWII birthed
today’s United Nations with its Charter and a stronger and more effective organizing
body. HOWEVER, since the end of the Cold War in 1991, there has been a
withering away of the United Nations’ system and currently there does not
appear to be any legitimate replacement for it or any process to reinvigorate
this important institution that has regulated international affairs since 1945.
And the question asked by Sakwa and his fellow
commentators is: Will the war in Ukraine usher in a strengthened and more
peaceful international order or one that is filled with heightened tensions and
turmoil. Place your bets, folks! Place your bets.
1. I DISCUSSED THE DRAWBACKS of using sanctions as a method
of achieving political ends in an earlier post. That more people are not critical
of their use is interesting, given the obvious "blowback" and chaos resulting
from the eight (soon nine) sanction packages against Russia that have been legislated by the
European Union and the United States. In a maddening, boomerang effect it is the economies of European nations, not Russia, that are
increasingly in disarray due to the increased costs of imported petroleum
products (gas, oil). The EU leadership’s short-sighted and rash decision
to no longer source these (cheaper)natural resources from Russia has Europeans facing a rising cost of living and even rolling blackouts if electricity production is affected by natural gas shortages in the not too distant future.
IT SHOULD BE NOTED that the UN has not sanctioned
Russia directly. (It probably can’t with Russia’s veto power at the Security
Council, which authorizes such actions.) However, the world body has condemned
Russia’s invasion and continued occupation of
Crimea and now several eastern regions of Ukraine. But it should be noted that a mid-November,
non-binding vote at the UN General Assembly to demand war
reparations from Russia for its invasion of Ukraine saw 94 nations in
favour with 73 abstaining and 14 voting against—hardly an overwhelming
endorsement of the motion. Point is, that many countries are increasingly
skeptical when it comes to sanctioning Russia and condemning, in totality,
its actions in Ukraine.
2. SOMEONE ONCE SAID that you should be afraid to be America’s enemy and that you should be
even more afraid to be their friend. With the sabotage of the NordStream II undersea
gas pipeline from Russia to Germany in all likelihood done in co-ordination
with the Americans or green-lighted by them, and with the recent legislation
passed in the American congress making it attractive for European industries to
move across the pond to the United States now posing a real threat to the
continent’s industrial base, with friends like the Americans, who needs
enemies?
3. IT IS SOMEWHAT AMUSING, though in a sad way, to note that during the recent G20 meeting in
Indonesia there was debate and discussion around how the delegates would handle
the appearance, in person, of Vladimir Putin: Would they sit or eat with him;
how would he be addressed and/or dressed down, etc. Putin wisely chose not to
attend a meeting that would display such farcical, high school-ish antics. What
a disappointing display for leaders to present to the world. What a sorry state
of leadership and diplomacy!
AS A SIDE NOTE: one commentator suggested
the decades-old institution of the G7 will soon become irrelevant and be superseded
by the G20 which has among its members a number of rising powers that may some
day prove to be genuine rivals, or in more diplomatic terms, peers of
the United States. Would that be such a bad thing?
Palmer,
Ada. Perhaps the Stars. Tom Doherty Associates. Tor Books. Macmillan
Publishing Group. New York, NY. 2021. Print.
 |
Letting the Outside In
|
No comments:
Post a Comment