The Language of Losers

Political losers can easily be recognised by their propensity to level against their opponents the most far-fetched accusations.

 Up until now, one could rarely see in international politics leaders who debase themselves by calling their opponents names. But this is exactly what is happening lately, starting with Joe Biden's almost daily slur offensive against Vladimir Putin, and on to Zelensky in Kiev who calls the Russian soldiers "animals" in order to rob them of their humanity.

The most outlandish accusation Biden has levelled against Putin so far was to brand him a "war criminal", for the excesses attributed to the Russian army in the field, as if the Russian president personally instructed the soldiers to attack and kill civilians in Ukraine. 

To be sure, I have never heard anyone call George W. Bush a war criminal for the excesses made by the US army in Fallujah or Abu Ghraib, for example. Moreover, the United States refuses to be a member of the International Criminal Court and its military has quite a reputation of engaging in summary executions in all the wars it initiated or participated in, or in rapes even in peacetime.

The real butcher in Ukraine is actually Zelensky. From the outset he called on Ukrainian civilians to carry arms, produce Molotov cocktails and attack Russian troops and tanks. He encouraged women to bake and serve poisoned cakes to Russian soldiers. In so doing, Zelensky has transformed Ukrainian civilians into combatants. As such, he made them legitimate targets of the Russian army. How can any leader sacrifice his country's population this way ? In fact, Zelensky has armed the whole population because from day one he had the intention to provoke a high number of civilian casualties, in order to turn around and accuse the Russian army of war crimes. For Zelensky, the events unfolding in his country are everybody else's fault but his own or his team's. 

What we are dealing with here are two losers who cannot accept that their plans to bring Russia to its knees have backfired. One can recognise losers in domestic or international politics fairly easily. They usually launch outlandish accusations against their opponents and try to make public opinion believe that their targets are psychopaths, or war criminals and the like. Actually, all politicians resorting to such personal attacks have lost or are about to lose the allegiance or respect of their own electorates. Their handling of disputes, both in domestic and in international politics, is usually disastrous and leads to serious trouble for their own country or their allies.

The test of true leadership, however, also means having the guts to assume one's own shortcomings and errors and not blame these on one's opponents. 

Russia's Bismarckian War in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine is in many ways puzzling, not only for the average European but also for seasoned historians who have failed so far to recognise or admit to its nature. This is so because, living as we are in a post-Cold War world and with a distant Atlantic power acting as the military leader in Western Europe, the actual nature of this war has largely been hidden from sight. 

As we all know, there are many types of wars. Hegemonic wars, like the ones France and Germany fought during the 19th and 20th centuries; straight wars of conquest involving the acquisition of real estate at the expense of one's neighbour, which was the main type of war during the Middle Ages; wars of extermination, such as the ones fought by the Americans against the indigenous Indians, or by the Spanish against the Incas; there are also civil wars, which are wars within the boundaries of one country which can provoke significant loss of human life, as it happened during the war of secession in the US during the 1860s. In Europe, we also experienced the ravages and devastation provoked by religious wars, which afflicted the continent for 30 years and ended with the Peace of Westphalia. Finally, there are small-scale wars such as border wars, which mainly involve countries in Asia and which do not represent a major threat for international peace.

The war in Ukraine is exceedingly rare and we can call it a Bismarckian-type war. Such a war takes place within a group of countries that do not only neighbour each other but also share the same culture or language and are part of the same ethnic group. The Germans experienced such a war between Prussia and Austria in 1866. 

A strongly militaristic Prussian state, built around Berlin, wanted to eliminate a second pole of power within the German world, Catholic Austria, which was dividing the German world and was making it impossible for them to unite into a more powerful political unit. This situation led to the " German war of brothers", or Deutscher Bruderkrieg.

The political leader at the time was the well-known Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. He spilled German blood during his war against Austria, but succeeded in his drive to unite most Germans around Prussia and remained to this day one of the greatest political figures in German and European history. (His legacy in international affairs was the advice - unfortunately not followed by his successors - that in order to have peace in Europe, a "good treaty with Russia" was paramount).

Like today, Bismarck's war was fought after the European continent experienced a long period of peace which followed the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars in 1815. The similarities do not end here. Prussia, like Russia, was no fan of liberal democracies, but rather an authoritarian state managed with an iron fist by its emperor and its chancellor. Like Russia in the nineties, Prussia had been  affected by the 1848 revolutionary wave in Europe - similar to the 1989 revolutionary wave - which sought to bring to power liberal-minded governments on the whole continent and generally democratise European political life. 

The Slav world also oscillates between two religious poles and two nations that would like to be considered as leaders. One is Russia, a militaristic Slavic "Prussia", which has weathered many national crises and defeated two major enemies in modern times (the French and the Germans). 

The second is - since the election of Karol Wojtyla to the Papacy - Poland. Its contribution to bringing about the fall of communism during the eighties, the implosion of the USSR, and its accession to NATO have rather adversely affected the minds of Polish politicians. Their hope is that by initially building Ukraine up as a client-state which is to be ultimately led by the Catholic element in that country, they would in time be able to challenge Russia together, for the leadership position of the Slav world. This is the main reason why Poland, which is militarily weak, is the most strident advocate of NATO intervention on behalf of Ukraine. But not being able to fight the Russians by themselves, the Polish leaders believe they have the cunning to push the Alliance to fight the war with Russia for them.

Russia felt that its primacy within the Slav world was being challenged by the Poles, who enlisted not only Ukraine's help but that of the Czechs and Slovaks as well, and in the end was forced to initiate a Bismarckian-type war in order to quell such plans. The Russians correctly assumed that such inter-Slav rivalries were a godsend to the advancement of Washington's unilateralist agenda, and to the final triumph -via Russia's defeat- of the neocon unipolar world project with America on top.

The only major difference now compared to Bismarck's times, therefore, lies in the existence of an extra-European superpower, the US, who has tried hard over the last twenty years to remain the sole leader in world affairs after the disappearance of the bipolar world. Still, it would be hard to believe that Americans would risk an all-out nuclear war with Russia, which is one of the champions of a multipolar world, in order to enforce their claim. For all practical purposes, by assisting Ukraine in its fight against Russia, the US and the EU are playing the role France played in 1866 in supporting Austria diplomatically. That, to be sure, will not make Ukraine win this or any other war against Russia.

 

A Manifesto to the Ukrainian People

 The horrendous suffering in Ukraine prompts me to speak to you from my heart, as a concerned neighbour, but also as a Romanian-born historian, fully aware that your country is the scene of a tragic confrontation with your much larger neighbour Russia. 

When you started your nation-building process back in 1991, your leaders could have taken a close look at the way the Romanians built their state 163 years ago. Unlike Ukraine, Romanians had lived under Ottoman rule and started their unification process in 1859, in a much more agitated international environment than that of the 1990's. The leaders who built the nucleus of contemporary Romania were, however, learned, skillful and dedicated to the task of building a united and independent state. The state-building process was completed in 1918 at the end of the first world war, when Romanians living under Austro-Hungarian and under Russian rule were united in a single state for the first time in their history. 

Alas, 22 years later Romania was forced to give up Moldova and northern Bucovina to the Soviet Union and northwest Transylvania to Hungary, following the conclusion of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. 

After the 1946 Peace Congress in Paris, Romania recovered its lost territories in Transylvania, but not Moldova and northern Bucovina, which continued to be incorporated into the USSR. 

With very few exceptions, the Romanian nation-building process, which took some 60 years to achieve, was guided by outstanding and committed political leaders who tried to limit loss of life on the battlegrounds of Europe to a minimum. When Romania, like Ukraine today, faced a similar kind of predicament in 1940, it was enough for Stalin to send an ultimatum to the Romanian government and the politicians of the time gave in to his demands. I can assure you that they did not do that out of cowardice, but simply because the Romanian army was no match for the Soviet army. Romanians have always believed that dying for a cause is commendable, but also that sacrificing one's life stupidly is a mistake. You might be told by your leaders that you are braver or smarter in battle than the Romanians, but this is just not the case.

Nowadays, Romania is - as you know- a stable country in southeastern Europe and a member of both NATO and the EU. This was made possible by the fact that Romanians are part of the larger, Latin group of countries, like France, Spain and Italy, but also because Romania does not have a common border with Russia, having allowed Moldova to become an independent republic which acts as a buffer state between Russia and Romania. For Romania that has meant a loss of some 34,000 square km and a population of 3 million people, 20% of whom are Russian speakers.

Sadly, I think Ukraine's misfortune lies in the fact that it has not been blessed with competent and selfless political leaders. Your leaders should have been able to select the best possible administrative formula to run the country so that it behaves as a non-threatening neighbour to Russia. Although the key to Ukraine's independence would have been its strict adherence to a neutral status, like Moldova's, after 2014 and the Maidan upheaval Ukraine's leaders preferred to seek an alliance with the United States, a distant superpower from some 8,000 km away. To make matters worse, various Kiev governments refused to offer the inhabitants of the Donbas the autonomy they were asking for, choosing to fight and kill some 14,000 of them over the last 8 years. 

The situation worsened after the election of Zelensky in 2019. The changes that were made to the Ukrainian constitution enshrined as national objectives the country's adherence to NATO and the EU. Moreover, the new national security doctrine of Ukraine, adopted at the same time, stipulates that the country must try to recover Crimea from Russia and annihilate the armed resistance of the people in the Donbas. 

This explosive mix of mistakes prompted the Russian army to mobilise for almost a year on Ukraine's border starting with 2021. The Kremlin's hope was that the Zelensky government and its American backers will agree to scrap the NATO membership provision in the Ukrainian constitution and that they will apply the Minsk II agreement. 

Time and again, however, the diplomatic negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and the US have led nowhere. Both the US and the Ukrainian governments proved intractable during negotiations and refused to even acknowledge Russia's security concerns at its western border with Ukraine. Ultimately, Russia was left with no alternative but to invade Ukraine, which is - I am convinced - the last thing it wanted to do. 

Even now, with the Russian army in the country and 4 million Ukrainian refugees at the borders, the Zelensky government refuses all meaningful talk or compromise to end the conflict. The heroic resistance of Ukrainians is instead being used by Zelensky in order to become what Andriy Yermak said recently in London: "a leader of the free world". This objective, to be sure, shows that Zelensky's oversized ego is impairing his judgement and that he is not sound of mind.

I wish to remind you that Zelensky is but a TV actor and Andriy Yermak a film producer and that their lack of experience in government means that they do not realise how destructive it is for Ukraine to fight Russia. As you have probably noticed, however, the leaders of the 30 countries that compose NATO do realise it, and that is why they will not indulge Kiev's requests for a no-fly zone or additional tanks and heavy military hardware. These leaders are both experienced and protective of their populations, unlike Zelensky, Yermak & co. 

Unhappy with this, Zelensky is now actively trying to undermine their leadership by addressing the Western public directly by videolink in the street, "instructing" citizens to pressure their governments to give him what he wants. This, to be sure, is an unheard-of attempt to undermine the governments of nations which provide humanitarian help for Ukraine and shelter for its refugees.(The only other known example of this was when Stalin mobilised Western factory workers during the Great Depression against their bosses and political leaders, but in more subtle ways)

As a concerned neighbour, I find this behaviour to border on madness. It is now up to you, the Ukrainian people, to individually and collectively try to get Ukraine out of this mess. For a month now, you have proven your valour on the battlefield. It is now time to stop the destruction and the deaths by putting your weapons down. Unlike the Ukrainian army, I am sure that the Russian soldiers won't shoot you in the kneecaps or resort to castration if you do. 

For the time being, Ukraine is used by the US and the UK as a pawn against Russia. Both the American and the British leaders are trying to deflect the anger of their citizens from scandals at home, by focusing their attention on the tragedy in Ukraine. They also supply more weapons and ammunition to Ukraine in order to prolong the war. As one American politician put it, the US is willing to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian, if necessary. Now, you would agree with me that this geopolitical battle between nuclear powers has nothing to do with the Ukrainians, and no Ukrainian should have to die for it either.

The Zelensky government's advertised plans to "defeat Russia" and make Ukraine the arbiter of a new security architecture in Europe are both unrealistic and outlandish, and no Ukrainian soldier or civilian should lose their life over them, simply because that will not happen. 

My advice to you is to cut your losses short and refuse to play in Zelensky's latest film "How I Became Leader of the World". From my part I can assure you that a majority of Western politicians are quite fed up with Zelensky's antics, even if they humor him because they feel a lot of compassion for the ordinary Ukrainian people.

From where I stand, the way your leaders went about building the Ukrainian state was wrong and led to catastrophic consequences not only for you, but for our entire region and for Europe as a whole. Please stop and rethink it all, taking into account the interests of your neighbours as well.

Spare a Thought for Joe Biden

 " Errare humanum est, sed perseverare diabolicum"

The American president is in big trouble, both domestically and internationally. After only one year in office, Joe Biden is considered one of the most unsuccessful presidents since George W.Bush. On the home front, the Democrats' fortunes are going south in all major polls, the party risks losing a significant number of Congressional and Senate seats in the fall. Former allies are deserting the party in droves and no wonder: the current administration has mishandled both the pandemic and the American economy, with inflation having risen to a 40-year high long before the Ukraine conflict started. The president's approval rating is one of the lowest ever, proving that Obama's advice - who told Joe Biden he did not have to run in 2020 - was both prescient and timely. 

The bad news on the home front is more than matched by disastrous news from abroad. As soon as he moved into the White House, Biden brought the ill-famed team of neocons Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Victoria Nuland into the State Department and the national security apparatus, together with whom he had masterminded the so-called Maidan "revolution" in Ukraine back in 2014. This team did not waste any time in botching diplomatic negotiations with Russia throughout 2021 and provoking it to intervene militarily in Ukraine. They are currently undermining any bilateral talks which might lead to a peace treaty being signed, if Blinken's declarations are any guide. As Victoria Nuland recently told Congress, they envisage a long drawn-out conflict in Ukraine. This would suit the neocons' strategy to torpedo Russia's economy and leadership.

European political leaders, like Emmanuel Macron, were shocked when Joe Biden launched his savage personal attack on Vladimir Putin in Poland, advocating for regime change in Moscow. This, however, was consistent with the neoconservative agenda regarding Russia, despite Blinken's official denials. By calling Putin a "butcher", Biden is desperately trying to determine American feminists to vote Democrat in the midterm congressional elections. Sure enough, the importance of geopolitics in international affairs is hard even for seasoned politicians like Olaf Scholz to grasp, let alone for feminists. This is the reason why they have reduced the entire Ukraine situation to an issue they have been nursing for some time, that of Vladimir Putin's "toxic masculinity". According to leading American feminists, a kind of hormonal reaction of the Russian president explains Russia's intervention in Ukraine. 

Neoconservatives deserve another special mention, however. Affected as they are by the virus of global hegemonism that destroyed Napoleon's France in the 19th century and Hitler's Germany in the 20th century, they continue to push a "USA uber Alles" unipolar agenda in international affairs. Their hate towards Russia is not racial in nature, rather it is based on the realisation that the two other major hegemonic drives in the West's modern history were stopped only with the help of Russia. By refusing to accept NATO's expansion up to its doorstep, Russia - together with China - became the biggest obstacle to their global hegemonic plans.

Any sane American administration would have relegated the neocons to the dustbin of history long ago, not recycled them as they did. Instead, Joe Biden gave them center stage in framing American foreign and defense policies once again, and the results are nothing short of disastrous. Small wonder, therefore, that leading neocon figures are calling this period in US political history "the neocon moment". Walking back American foreign policy from its current predicament seems to be a tall order, which, unfortunately, will have to wait until the next US presidential elections. Let us hope that after so many decades of overseeing US foreign policy, Joe Biden will at least be able to avoid igniting World War III.

The United States' Mad Drive for Unipolarity

 After the collapse of the USSR, unipolarity was supposed to last for no more than a decade. By extending it for two more decades, the US got embroiled in wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and now Ukraine. This has to stop before it's too late.

Over the last few days I have watched in disgust the sorry spectacle of an American president visiting the Old Continent in order to prove to the world -and probably to himself, too- that Western countries stand united behind the US in its latest proxy war. On Friday he met up with young American soldiers deployed in Poland at the border with Ukraine, he ate a pizza with them and had the cheek to lie to them with a straight face as he tried to explain why the United States are putting them in harm's way, some 8,000 kilometres from their home country. He told them that they are there to  fight for democracies against autocracies, which - it goes without saying - the US is ready and willing to spend blood and treasure to defend.

Well, not quite. The real reason why US soldiers are being posted in Eastern Europe is to defend American unipolarity against multipolarity, which has been the natural state of affairs in international relations for centuries. As we know from the examples of Napoleon and Hitler, power is a heavy drug which makes political leaders act in dangerous, if not always catastrophic ways. Unchecked, unrestrained power - because this is what unipolarity is all about - is far worse, however, and that's what has brought the world to the brink of a fully-fledged nuclear war this time.

I have also watched in disbelief over the past few weeks how the US - which has interfered irresponsibly in Slav and in European affairs since 2014 - is propping up a Kiev regime bent on starting WWIII in order to weaken its larger neighbour, Russia. The US has not made the slightest effort to lean on the Ukrainian leadership to sue for peace, but is instead using Ukrainian people as cannon fodder, and the rest of Europe as a refugee camp only to provoke regime change in Moscow. Russia's cardinal sin, it appears, is that of being one of the main challengers to the unipolarity of the US in world affairs.

Unfortunately for all concerned, unipolarity cannot be saved. Regardless of how many allies the US enlists in this quest and how many inept sanctions they pile on Russia, (which are sure to be extended to China in the future, as well). As no sane political leader can disregard geopolitical imperatives in the conduct of foreign relations, like the US has for the past few decades, nor can unipolarity be enforced for long against multipolarity. Thus, although Zelensky wants Joe to be the "leader of the world", the truth of the matter is that this is not his choice or Joe's to make. 

After Joe Biden was inaugurated as president, an American geopolitician friend of mine, who shall remain anonymous, described him as "not the sharpest knife in the drawer". After watching the American president for about one year go about "solving" international crises from Afghanistan to Ukraine, I can now confidently confirm that my American friend's assessment was an understatement. The US president is not only overwhelmed by the crisis in Ukraine, but his neocon team is a menace to world peace, and his monumental misunderstanding of the US's place in international affairs is there for all to see.

For most of us from Europe, the conflict in Ukraine is an internal problem of the Slav world. The other major ethnic groups that compose the EU - the Latins and the Germans - do not exhibit such fratricidal tendencies and get along fine with each other and with Russia. Similarly, an armed conflict between the countries of the Anglosphere has been inconceivable for more than 200 years. The attitude of the Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs and Slovaks in this conflict is -for the rest of the Europeans - puzzling, to say the least. Furthermore, neighbouring countries like Hungary and Romania see no valid reason why they should become involved in the Ukrainian mess, were it not for American pressure. In hindsight, the inclusion of Slav nations of Europe in NATO might have been another major error, on top of the admission of Baltic states.

I cannot call myself a Trump supporter, but I have to admit that his loss of the 2020 elections proved to be an unmitigated disaster, both for the United States and the world as a whole. As a businessman, Donald Trump at least understood the fact that the US cannot go about invading countries indefinitely or sponsoring pointless resistance movements, like in Syria or now Ukraine, and he was willing to adjust American foreign policy accordingly. With Donald Trump in charge of the White House, the Russian intervention in Ukraine would possibly have never happened.

The sooner American elites and foreign policy circles can acknowledge the huge risks involved in keeping up their claim to unipolarity, the better it would be for the world as a whole. I say this because by keeping up the fight to remain sole hegemon, the US runs the risk of not only losing its current (undeserved) status, but also of destroying large areas of the world in the process.

Rolling Back NATO

 Rolling back NATO is not proof of weakness, but of the existence of superior American statecraft skills, as well as a willingness to avoid nuclear catastrophe.

In the fall of 2008 I happened to be in Toulouse studying in the city's library. It is there that I saw a poster announcing a public conference organised at Sciences po on the 11th of November, featuring the Estonian ambassador to Paris. I decided to attend, only to realise that for the ambassador, the conference was an exercise in Russia-bashing, intended to elicit French sympathy for the poor Estonian people having to put up with life next door to their vastly bigger neighbour.

The Science po conference came only a few short months after the Georgian war from August 2008, during which another minuscule European country hoping for NATO accession dared to attack the Russian army stationed in Abkhazia and Ossetia. I also knew that the Estonians had previously stoked up inter-ethnic tensions in their country, including by provoking the Russian minority in Tallinn with the removal of the monument erected in honor of the Soviet soldiers from the centre of the city to its outskirts.

At the end of the conference I was allowed to speak to the audience, reminding them that the 11th of November was Armistice Day, marking the end of the First World War, which resulted in more than 50 million victims. I also reminded the Estonian ambassador that WWI was sparked by an incident provoked by Serbs, who had wanted to expand into Bosnia-Herzegovina but couldn't because it was administered at the time by the Austro-Hungarian empire. The cataclysmic event which followed, I said on that occasion, made large countries in Europe, like France, become extra cautious about being dragged into conflicts with other large nations by insignificant countries, like Serbia, Georgia or Estonia. Naturally, as an historian I knew that behind the bellicose stance of such stamp-size nations are some circles of freemasonry who use them as triggers for starting wars with enemies whose countries they intend to destroy or take over. In our nuclear age, however, this practice does not justify repeating the errors of the past, allowing major European nations to be tricked into yet another major conflict with Russia.

When it comes to Russia, what American policymakers fail to realise is that this country is currently engaged in an existential fight for survival as a state, with the US and its NATO allies. This fight is not about the preservation of its status as global hegemon, as is the case of the United States, or about any desire of Russia's to acquire such a status. No, this is a fight that Russians cannot afford to lose and will not lose. 

Furthermore, for American policymakers it would be an illusion to think that Russia, in order to defend itself, will use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, or in any other European country for that matter. It follows that the most effective strategy to eliminate the threat posed by NATO on Russia's doorstep would be to deal a mortal blow to the country chiefly responsible for the problem, which is the United States. The 2 "generals" who always protected the US against invasion, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, make America more vulnerable to a nuclear attack than any other continent except Australia or South America, which do not possess nuclear capabilities and are not a target of Russia's ire. The experts who think this is a repeat of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis are, therefore, dead wrong. A comprehensive nuclear attack against the US is very much on the table if it continues to be on a collision course with Russia over NATO expansion. 

The current predicament in US-Russia relations, however, should not have to reach that point. American policymakers have the option of announcing a rollback of NATO from the Baltic states, preventing the Russians from starting another military conflict with the same objective. By extending an olive branch to Russia in this way, the US would prove that it does have the statecraft skills needed to correct its mega errors in the field of geopolitics, made by State Secretaries from the euphoric nineties, and that it finally understands the importance of Russia's security. (Unfortunately for the Anglo-Saxon powers, Spykman elaborated his Rimland theory before the end of the Second World War and the existence of nuclear bombs or guided missiles. )

From time immemorial, small nations like the Baltic states have had to learn to live in peace with their much larger neighbours, regardless of whether they succeeded in preserving their independence or not. In the case of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, including them into NATO was a catastrophic mistake which should be corrected as soon as possible. After all, a status of neutrality similar to that of Finland or Sweden and membership of the EU are sufficient to guarantee their safety and prosperity.

By now everyone agrees that: first, NATO is overextended, and second, that there is no place for the US and its NATO allies in Russia's backyard. By formally acknowledging this through the announcement of a NATO rollback, US policymakers would show the world that their country still has what it takes to act as a responsible and peace-loving nation. This shouldn't be regarded as a sign of weakness on America's part, but rather as proof that the US has the ability to manage international crises, like the one we are going through right now. This is so because not assisting Ukraine militarily in this conflict is just a small step in the right direction, but not nearly enough to prevent a future nuclear conflict with Russia.

The US is about to Cancel Itself

 After initiating bombing campaigns over the last 23 years in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, and fomenting "color revolutions" in Eastern Europe, American politicians have lost the moral authority necessary to lecture the Kremlin about its military actions in Ukraine.

The average European or American TV viewer can naturally be excused for believing that Russia, and especially its president Vladimir Putin, bears the blame for what is happening in Ukraine. After all, citizens of Western countries are being bombarded on a daily basis with sickening images of buildings in ruins, crying women with babies, with the occasional cat or dog being thrown into the mix for good measure. To top it all off, Putin's latest actions in Ukraine are being presented as the acts of a madman, a bloodthirsty dictator, whose expected downfall justifies the adoption by Western countries of the harshest possible sanctions ever devised. The objective is clear: Russian people have to suffer for supporting their president, until they take to the streets to bring down those responsible.

The sorry spectacle of Russian bombs falling over Ukrainian cities and of millions of refugees heading towards the borders cannot obscure the fact that the heaviest responsibility for these horrors belongs to the neoconservative-dominated US foreign policy establishment. As known, they are now the main backers of the Zelensky regime, the ones writing his speeches and the ones opening doors for him in the West.

The harshness of the sanctions against Russia is the result of applying woke ideology to the field of international relations. Indeed, these sanctions are not meant to lead the Ukrainian conflict to a resolution, or the Russians to the negotiating table, far from it. The true goal of American neoconservatives is, astoundingly enough, to "cancel" Russia both as a country and as a menace to America's status as sole hegemon left after the demise of the bipolar world.

Taken together, the US' actions directed over the past few years against Russia and especially against China can only be explained by the desire of American foreign policy circles to keep America on top, at the expense of all other military and economic powers, established or emerging ones. To this end, crippling entire economies and vast geographical areas of the world and reigniting the spectre of war in Europe seem a small price to pay for the initiators of American unipolarity in world affairs.

There is currently talk in Washington about hegemonic transition and the Thucydides trap which, if not carefully managed, could finally erupt into an all-out war between the US with its NATO allies, on the one hand, and Russia & China on the other. This time around, however, the leadership of the would-be hegemon supposed to replace the US, namely China, is a hell of a lot smarter than American policymakers ever were. To be sure, China deserves a much more important role in world affairs than is currently the case. To their credit, however, the Chinese do not want to replace the US as the world's sole hegemon, but instead prefer to see the world run in multipolar fashion, by a kind of revamped G7 in which nobody is at the head of the table, but where all major participants share into decisionmaking concerning global affairs. 

In the first decade of this century, the US hoped that they could enlist Russia to organise a Washington-operated balance of power aimed at containing China's rise. American policymakers sensed, rather correctly, that no policy of containment towards China can be successful without having Russia on board. This was the main reason why , between 2009 and 2012, the Obama administration tried to mend fences with Moscow during the so-called reset. Fortunately, the Russians felt the danger of being used for the wrong ends and refused the US's overtures, siding over the last decade with China instead. As Russia refused to come on board, America's architects of unilateralism in international affairs, the neocons, have supported the 2014 upheavals in Ukraine and practically took over the political management of that country in order to turn it against Russia. What we are now witnessing is Russia's military reaction to the threat on its western borders. Regardless of how strident the Biden administration is now in framing the resulting competition as a fight between democracies and autocracies, from an IR point of view the strategy is shallow and is backfiring.

Coming back to the sanctions regime and NATO's posturing in the media, these have only proved to the Western public and to the new allies in Eastern Europe how ineffective the US has become in managing global affairs, especially in Europe. As much as American neocons would like to treat Putin like Saddam and Russia like Iraq and sanction them out of existence, the truth of the matter is that the use of the financial A-bomb (cutting out Russia from SWIFT) and of the financial H-bomb (freezing its central bank reserves in Western banks) is hugely counterproductive and can be fully met by the Russians -if pushed too far- with real atomic and hydrogen bombs. 

Now everyone would agree that this is not the type of global leadership with which the world could put up for long. America's extreme tactics call into question the current arrangements in global affairs: the fact that most commercial transactions are conducted in US dollars, and that all countries have to obey US diktats or else. In fact, all the US has succeeded in doing by interfering in Ukrainian internal affairs since 2014, and by supporting the war against Russia, has been to speed up its own demise as the sole world hegemon. By "cancelling" Russia, the US has initiated the process of cancelling itself.