The defeat of Ukraine in the current war with Russia was a fait accompli from the beginning. There was no way that a much stronger adversary with financial, economic, and political staying power led by a canny, Machiavellian leader was going to lose. Perhaps Ukraine would not surrender militarily but eventually and inevitably, it would cede contested territory, live with the scission of its lands, and make do with what it considers a dishonorable peace.
The real culprit in all this is the United States which after promising the newly emergent post-Soviet Russian Federation that it would never threaten it with NATO expansion, did exactly that, stationing missiles on its border, literally surrounding the country with hostile weaponry and a defiant anti-Russian geopolitics.
Once the Soviet Union collapsed, and the world saw that it was a failed, corrupt, bankrupt state - one far more destitute than any observer even suspected - the West was determined to keep it that way. In the foundering, chaotic post-Soviet period of weakness, Europe and the United States were determined to drive the final nail in the Russian coffin. Never again would Russia or any Soviet reincarnation ever threaten the West again.
It was the Sherman doctrine all over again. Civil War Union General William Tecumseh Sherman led his troops across Georgia and through South Carolina, slashing and burning everything along his way. His intention was not to destroy Confederate military forces, armories, or storage but to teach Southerners a lesson, 'The South will never rise again'.
The United States atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was less a strategy to finally demand a capitulation and surrender of the already defeated Japanese but to send an inescapable message to the Soviet Union. For all your Sturm und Drang, we are the ones who will bury you.
And so it was with the military and political strategists of the West. They were bound and determined that never again would there be a threat from the East. They thought they learned their lesson with Stalin, the gulags, and the nuclear buildup. However when Russia finally sorted through its internecine conflicts in the post-Soviet period and emerged as a renascent, strong nation, they realized they had sorely underestimated the regenerative power of an imperial nation with a strong, implacable leader.
Taking advantage of a defeated Soviet/Russian foe and attempting to humiliate him was not unlike Reconstruction, the post-Civil War program engineered by a radical Congress to assure that slavery would ever take place again. The North’s punitive, harsh, demeaning, and ignorant policies only emboldened former slave owners who were determined to stand up against the North and their defiance guaranteed decades of Jim Crow and segregation that never would have occurred if Lincoln had lived.
By expanding NATO and stationing nuclear missiles on Russia's borders within easy reach of Moscow, and then encouraging Ukraine to become a NATO member, thus assuring more missiles on Russian borders, the West thought that it could corner Putin, and threaten him into submission.
Nothing could have been farther from reality. Just like the old grandees of Mississippi, the powerful leaders of Russia gave a hard 'No!' and the war on Ukraine began.
Washington's complicity in the affair was tantamount to a proxy war. Knowing that Ukraine could never win militarily, Biden still poured billions into Zelenskyy's pockets and sent him all the arms and materiel he asked for. Corruption was rife, thousands of Ukrainian military personnel and civilians died as a result, not to mention Russian soldiers.
So, tired of a stalemate which would only produce more death and destruction, Donald Trump decided to act, and he and Putin recently met in Alaska to chart out a peace agreement which would stop the war and provide the groundwork for a new Russo-American alliance. Pure Machiavellian politics on both sides.
Russia will get Donbass, already a Russian-language enclave of Ukraine whose population will be quite happy to rejoin he motherland, will get a hard and fast promise that Ukraine will never join NATO, and will get an acknowledgement that Crimea is Russian.
Ukraine will be admitted into the EU and receive generous financial support for rebuilding. The vital and valuable rare earth materials, now worth a fortune, will be available on the open market with fair competition for exploration and exploitation.
Donald Trump will be regarded as a peacemaker and courageous statesman while giving no direct concessions to Russia. The world will be a safer place.
Zelenskyy benefits most. He gets to keep all the untold millions he has secreted in offshore bank accounts, and the US promises to desist in an investigation of fraud and abuse. He can retire in the south of France and live comfortably off his vast wealth.
The loudest voice against any Russo-American brokered settlement is Zelenskyy’s but no one listens to him anymore. He is the one who has most benefitted from a protracted war, so naturally he wants it to continue. Only fools think that he is a Ukrainian patriot. Like all petty dictators, he is in it for himself; and like them he doesn't want to see one single cent disappear
He is no different than any of the African big men who have ruled their countries with an iron hand while consigning their people to destitution. Throughout the continent one corrupt ruler after another took millions in bribes - for that was what payment for oil, minerals, and political fidelity was - from the United States that kept them in power.
The free lunch is over for Zelenskyy. All he has to do now is to recarpet the ballroom in his St. Tropez estate.
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