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Tomaso's avatar

Glad to have found your Substack, Edwin.

We truly live in Clown World now.

In the end, tho, I believe that God wins. I'll put my faith in that, as I've lost nearly all faith in our so-called leaders.

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Peter Nayland Kust's avatar

The "World War III" scenario relies on Putin largely deciding to go out in a blaze of glory. In every scenario put forward, Putin throws nukes at the west only after he's lost the war in Ukraine.

While the extent to which Russia was pressured to invade Ukraine by NATO is problematic at best (Russia had potent economic levers at its disposal that arguably would have been far more effective than invading Ukraine), the reality is not only that Russia DID invade Ukraine (and Russia has never conducted a successful invasion of a European power since the advent of modern warfare), but they are performing true to historical norms--i.e., very badly.

Putin miscalculated on the invasion in several ways, but by far the most egregious miscalculation was that the invasion reminded Europe of NATO's original mission--prevent a Russian invasion of Western Europe. Putin made that threat very real and very probable.

NATO's strategy is simple and cynical: turn Ukraine into a meatgrinder war of attrition and bleed the Russian military dry. That Ukraine is now launching counteroffensives and may even succeed in retaking Kherson was an unexpected bonus for NATO. Ukraine can't yield to peace talks because if they stop fighting Ukraine ceases to exist as an independent country. Putin has already said as much. The Ukrainians are quite literally the ones with their backs to the wall, and while Russia may fear NATO wants to defang Russia permanently (they do), their existential crisis is still largely only perceived at present, while Ukraine's is immediate and real.

Thus NATO supplies Ukraine with weapons, Ukraine supplies the cannon fodder and soaks up the casualties, all the while inflicting maximum damage on the Russian military. NATO is getting a chance to see how well NATO weapons systems perform against the Russians, and the outcomes have been quite good.

As I pointed out the other day, Russia's great strategic vulnerability is its pipeline network, and the fact that not only does most of it run to the west instead of the east, but that nearly all the logical customers for Russian petroleum exports are in Europe, not in central Asia.

https://newsletter.allfactsmatter.us/p/russia-has-a-pipeline-problem

Had Russia been able to execute a massive thunder run to Kyiv and end the war in a matter of days or weeks, Europe likely would have had to accept Russian conquest of Ukraine. That didn't happen, and that gave NATO the strategic opening which they have exploited fairly effectively.

Yes, this strategy ignores Ukraine's massive problems with corruptions and human rights violations on par with Russia's. That is the essence of realpolitik: the sins of one's allies are excused, and the sins of one's adversaries are exaggerated.

However, NATO has a compelling reason for making this play: it's a two-for-one deal. If Russia collapses in Ukraine or shortly thereafter, even if they "win" on the battlefield (which is still the most likely outcome unless the Ukrainians retake Kherson soon), and if Europe can hold out without Russian energy through the winter all of Putin's geopolitical leverage is gone.

Where that gets interesting is that if Russia collapses in or after Ukraine, and their oil exports are even just majorly curtailed, the big loser is China. China cannot import by pipeline enough Russian oil and natural gas to sustain their industry--the pipelines to the east just do not have that capacity--and the Chinese know it (which is why they still buy more natgas from Central Asia than from Russia).

Remove Russian oil from the marketplace and China, which imports upwards of 75% of its oil, is facing an oil supply shock many times worse than what the US experienced in the 1970s. The inevitable price hikes alone will see to that. The only way the price of oil does not rise at that point is if China's economy collapses and they just don't have the demand for oil (which is a possibility at this point).

By bleeding Russia dry in Ukraine, NATO has a very good chance of not only eliminating Russia as a regional threat but China as a global one.

Does that make the strategy moral, or the war just? No. But it just might make the strategy successful. Draw your own conclusions what that means for the rest of the world.

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