US strategy in Ukraine

No love lost between Obama and Putin

It’s a year since the Maidan protests began in Ukraine, and a civil war has ensued with the East since then. What began as a civilian protest that overthrew the then president Yanukovic, eventually degenerated into a fierce civil war that has claimed more than 5000 civilian lives and continues unabated despite a truce signed in August.

Can there be a war in this world without a US hand? To many the questions is not worth an answer, the US interests are everywhere. The Maidan protests were fueled by the millions of dollars from White House. The question to ask is whether the Americans are there for all the good reasons, benign hegemony as they would like all of us to believe. What is the underlying motive of the US administration in Ukraine. It would be naive to assume that the Obama administration is in Ukraine to advance good governance, democracy or Ukraine’s sovereignty. Ukraine gives the US an important leverage in its geo-politics
with Russia.

The Americans are not in Ukraine to keep Russia in check nor to camp on Russia’s borders, but the motive is to destabilize Russia and weaken it economically. Pentagon’s scheme in effecting  a regime change in Ukraine was to entice a direct military intervention by Russia that would, in the eyes of the Russophobia west, threaten the territorial integrity of the rest of Europe. Nothing that occurs in politics is a coincidence. Washington knows fully well that Ukraine is too strategic for Russia and Moscow would never accept an American sponsored government in Ukraine. One way or the other the war mongers at pentagon knew that Russia would have to do something (something not acceptable in the west) to defend its strategic interests in Ukraine. The grand scheme of Washington was to push Moscow to intervene militarily in Ukraine and then wage a war of sanctions against it. Give a dog his name and hang him.

A strong Russia poses a great threat to the west and Washington had to clip Moscow’s wings before it became all too powerful again. Just as European powers lose sleep over a strong Germany so is a strong Russia to the United States. A $700 billion military budget for Moscow in five years has shaken Washington and forced it to rethink its military strategies, sending fears that another cold war is beckoning on the horizon, only this time it will be colder and may actually end up in a nuclear war.  So Russia indeed fell into the US trap. The Ruble has since lost more than 30% of its value against the US dollar. Coupled with this, the US has entered into an alliance with Saudi Arabia to cut oil prices, a major source of Russian revenue. Low oil prices will have a huge negative impact on the Russian economy. Oil is currently trading at $80 a barrel, far from the $100 a barrel floor price that the Russians would want. Reports also indicate that Russia is set to lose $140 billion per year because of the sanctions.

The question is, was there any other way that Moscow could have reacted to the crisis in Ukraine besides supporting a breakaway Eastern republic? To many in Russia, a war hungry America on their doorstep is a far worse devil than the foreseeable economic repercussions. Putin’s popularity at home has soured regardless of the economic consequences, and almost everyone of political significance in Russia concurs with Putin that annexing Crimea was the best move. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that no amount of pressure or sanctions will force the Russians out of Crimea. It appears more sanctions will push Russia deeper and deeper into Ukraine. That Eastern Ukraine is now estranged from the rest of Ukraine is unquestionable and no amount of reassurance will make the ethnic Russians in the East trust Kiev again. That Ukraine will eventually split is inevitable.

The split of Ukraine was never in Washington’s grand scheme of things. The annexing of Crimea caught the west by surprise. The Americans expected the Russians to intervene during the Maidan protests to prop up Yanukovic’s rule. That did not happen and it put their plans into disarray until Putin started supporting the rebels. No one in the west Knows what goes on in Putin’s mind. The former KGB and Judo master says one thing and does another.  He always hits out a blow when Washington least expects it. It came as no surprise when Time magazine named Putin the world’s most powerful man for the second consecutive year. The judo master seeks to restore Moscow to its glory of the past.

Now worse still for the Americans, the sanctions have actually pushed Moscow into the hands of the Chinese. The benefactor of all this American bullying is definitely not America itself but a China lurking in ambush. To counter the impact of the sanctions imposed by the west on its economy, Russia has sought alternative deals with the Chinese. Any deal negotiated under such circumstances will inevitably favor the Chinese. Russia has little leverage to bargain. All China is interested in is the military technology of Russia, and recently Russia has agreed to sell its latest fighter aircraft to its new found ally. It wont take the Chinese long to re-engineer it. Contrary to American beliefs that Russia is their biggest enemy, I strongly believe that China should be their greater enemy. That China is fragmented and poses a lesser challenge to the world order is an underestimation to china’s expanding superiority and growing influence not only in the far east but across the globe also.