Introduction
When I was in school I was very fond of reading the Norse Myths. These are exciting tales about supernaturals and gods and their interaction with mortals. I recollect reading a statement by the god Loki, who is reported to have said that those whom the gods wish to destroy first make them mad. Sometimes I feel this applies to the West. One cannot continents how the West led by the USA has got sucked into the abyss of the Ukraine conflict where all the portends to lead to World War III
Most people in Europe and America realize that they’re sitting on top of the nuclear volcano with the way the conflict is escalating in Ukraine. Readers will remember that World War I and World War II commenced with similar misconceptions and rivalries. The world has seen only two world wars and the sad fact remains, the epicenter of both these wars was Europe.
The first world war led to the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire and the subjugation of Germany; it also sowed the seeds of the destruction of the British empire and the rise of America as a world power. World War II was more devastating and in the end, the results were catastrophic as the age of imperialism and colonialism ended. It also saw the rise of two superpowers namely, the USSR and the USA
The rise of the Soviet Union ss a counterpoise to the United States did bring about realism and led to ‘detente’, in other words, to live within one’s spheres of influence. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of China created new opportunities in the world and gave hope for Americans to dominate the world for the next one hundred years. In this dream, the Americans and the British aided by the small EU countries decided that they had to obliterate all comparable powers in the world. They decided that Russia the inheritor state of the USSR must be destroyed as a power. They further concluded that after Russia was finished as a world power they would take on China to ensure their hegemony over the world.
Harold Robbin once wrote a wonderful book “dreams die first. The American dream was not likely to happen because everything is not as per the book. They expanded NATO to the borders of Russia; The aim being to surround it and chose Ukraine as a front-line state for this purpose. Sadly for the people of Ukraine, their elected president Zelenskyy played into the hands of the Americans. Little did he realize that his actions would destroy his people and country. The Americans despite promises to Russia not to expand NATO Eastwards disregarded all assurances and incorporated the former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO thus creating an existentialist crisis for the Russian regime. It must be mentioned here that Russia had applied to join NATO in 1992 when Boris Yeltsin was the president but Bill Clinton assured it is not required
The present problem has its roots in the thinking of the West that probably as Russia was alone in Europe it would not dare to attack Ukraine but as I wrote everything is not by the book. The Russians attacked Ukraine and the battle is on for one year now. I’m struck by how naive the Western leadership has been and have not taken any lessons from world history. We saw the destruction of Europe with two World Wars, yet the omens portend the beginning of WW 3.
Beginning of the end
Once Russia struck Ukraine the United States and the EU were surprised but they quickly decided to support Ukraine; in other words, the West decided that Russia must be destroyed and the American think tank concluded that if they put sanctions on Russia and took it out of the international monetary system, the Russian state would collapse economically. They failed to realize that almost the entire Europe was dependent on Russian oil and gas and whatever sanctions they were going to put on Russia would be like a double edge sword and affect the European powers as well.
They also failed to understand the geo-political role and aspirations of China and India. China is militarily allied to Russia while India has a long-standing friendship with Russia that goes to the time of Nikita Khruschev. The Russians sided with India by vetoing the American resolutions in the Security Council favoring Pakistan on Kashmir at least 12 times. They also backed India in the Indo- Park war in 1971 when President Nixon decided to tilt toward Pakistan and the Soviet nuclear fleet intervened. India was more on the side of the Russians and began to buy Russian oil and gas. Both India and China constitute 2.8 billion people and I fail to understand how the west did not realize that with such a large chunk of humanity not condemning Russia the chances that Russia would collapse economically were zero.
The battle is raging in Ukraine and as per the latest reports Russians have unleashed their latest weaponry of missiles, drones, and rockets and destroyed the infrastructure of Ukraine as well as inflicted thousands of casualties. They are in occupation of 20% of Ukrainian territory despite all the help given by NATO and the USA. As per the last report, The Russian offensive is moving forward.
This has alarmed the Americans who have now decided to give more offensive weapons to Ukraine. in other words, there will be greater escalation. American leadership I think has not learned any lesson from world history where they have lost every war they fought after 1945 I would like to be corrected on this if the Americans did win any war in the last 78 years.
The supply of more weapons to Ukraine will only increase the misery of Ukraine and luckily the Americans have a yes man in Zelensky who is lapping up everything from them and at the same time leading his people to doom. Nobody can deny that Ukraine is destroyed; it is no longer the granary of Europe and 8 million refugees are floating around Europe.
There are no simplistic solutions because the Russian character is a little different from the French and others and they will not give up. People are blaming Putin for everything but let us assume if Putin was not there, would any other leader do anything differently?
The seeds for World War III will sprout and I do not doubt that if the Americans continue with this escalation they are playing with fire.
World war 3
We have now the classic scenario repeating what happened in 1914 and 1939 but those wars were child’s play compared to what will happen now and I feel so sorry for the small European countries like Belgium, Holland, England, the Baltic states, etc. who will require just a few Thermo-nuclear bombs to get wiped from the world map. There was something called Mutual Assured Destruction MAD but that is not relevant now. Russia is a massive country and perhaps survive a nuclear strike but what about the countries of the EU? one should not forget the statement of Nikita Khrushchev 1961, the first secretary of the Soviet communist party, that all he required is 5 to 6 H-bombs and England would cease to exist on the world map, it must be noted that many Russian leaders including the Prime Minister of Russia have already said that they will have no hesitation in using nuclear weapons in case Russia is threatened.
World War III under any circumstances must be avoided because this is not child’s play. It is incumbent on the people of the EU and the American public to rise against American help to Ukraine and look for a negotiated settlement where Ukraine can live in peace; at the same time, there’s no question of incorporating Ukraine into NATO. If Brezhnev and Reagan could have detente why not the same thing now? America must look more towards China than waste time and energy fighting Russia.
There is always a silver lining to the dark clouds and now we have the news that NATO is not united in arming Ukraine and two major powers of NATO Germany and France are not willing to go the whole hog to arm Ukraine. Germany I think has not handed over the leopard tanks (despite the American pressure) to the Ukrainians. NATO is thus heading for a division. The chance that even now the NATO powers will see reason and not escalate the conflict is bright and there is a good chance that World War III could be avoided.
© 2023 MG Singh emge
Originally published at https://discover.hubpages.com on January 20, 2023.
