Ukraine War at One Year

Heading Toward Multipolarity

For this first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I thought I’d take a positive view. What’s happening is the end of American “unipolarity.” That’s where post-Cold War America became the Unipower, the “sole remaining superpower,” and what the Chinese call the global hegemon. Multipolarity was inevitable. And it should have happened 30 years ago.

I was the coldest of the cold warriors, absolutely hating the Soviet Union and communism. I didn’t even believe it was over with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Only with the dissolution of the Soviet Union on that happy Christmas Day in 1991, with the abolition of the Communist Party, did I accept the Communist Era was over. North Korea and Cuba were irrelevant holdouts. The reason was communism wasn’t just a dictatorship, but an ideology. That ideology was maintained by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which spread its demonic beliefs throughout the world. End the party, and the ideology is dead.

I then hoped my country, the United States, would ease the world into multipolarity, meaning an era of general peace. Russia would go back to markets, this time without the czarist autocracy. China, which ditched communist ideology, despite retaining the name of the Chinese Communist Party, back in the late 1970s, would continue its phenomenal economic growth, maybe develop democracy. In any case China would become a reliable global junior partner maintaining global order, much as how the British Empire, which ruled the globe from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18^th Century, in the 20^th Century chaperoned the U.S. into becoming the world’s premier power.

That didn’t happen. Why? Because of President Bill and lovely Hillary Clinton, co-presidents. President George H.W. Bush had promised Nato would not expand “one inch” to the east. But the Clintons, to cadge the votes of Poles and Balts in America to win the 1996 election, pushed Nato expansion anyway. And let’s not forget, the First Couple sold us out by giving U.S. satellite technology to the Chinese Communist Party, as even the New York Times reported in 1999. And ABC reported in 2015, “FBI Arrests Chinese Millionaire Once Tied to Clinton $$ Scandal.”

But all that’s in the past. Let’s now look at the positive. We are rediscovering the “grammar” of nuclear weapons. The first tenet of that “grammar” is: Each superpower has a sphere of influence. For America, it’s the Monroe Doctrine: don’t mess around in the Western Hemisphere. That was reinforced with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. For Russia, it’s called the “near abroad,” meaning Ukraine doesn’t join Nato because then Nato nukes would be 300 miles from Moscow – about three minutes away. For China, it’s the “one nation, two systems” policy on Taiwan, meaning Taiwan never can be independent.

In each of those three cases, violating this nuclear grammar risks almost certain nuclear war, and annihilation. First President Obama violated that grammar with the 2014 coup against Ukraine’s elected, democratic, pro-Russian regime, then began heavily arming that putschist regime – even as that regime began shelling the Donbas, killing 14,000 people the subsequent eight years. The Donbas is heavily Russian in language and culture. After the coup, Russia invaded Crimea, which had been Russian until Soviet dictator Khrushchev “gave” it to Ukraine in 1954, to preserve Russia’s naval bases.

In 2015, the Minsk 2.0 accords arranged a peace that, as Angela Merkel revealed last year, only was agreed to so the Kiyv regime could be armed heavily to invade the partly independent Donbas. It was a ruse.

The situation continued under President Trump, who might have worked out a lasting agreement with Putin, but acted under the cloud of the Russiagate scandal, since revealed to be a total hoax, something I said from its beginning in 2016.

Finally President Biden violated that nuclear grammar by even more heavily arming the Ukrainians in preparation for a major invasion of the Donbas, on the way to attacking Russia in Crimea, and Kiyv eventually entering Nato.

Biden and the neocon ideologues in his administration also hoped to collapse Russia’s economy, leading to a coup against Putin, then the breakup of Russia, and the looting of its natural resources, much as previously happened in the 1990s. That’s why a year ago Biden exulted, “The ruble is rubble.”

Well, it didn’t turn out that way. Instead, we’re getting multipolarity. The dollar won’t collapse, as some say; it will remain the premier global currency. But it will have a rival now as Russia, China and other countries are establishing an alternate monetary system. Which means something really good for America: no more inflation. The recent spate of higher prices will end soon. Because the dollar now has competition, it has to be kept on solid footing. The ruble and the Chinese renminbi will be based either on gold, or a basket of commodities. The dollar will have to be as well, even if unofficially. Competition is good because it keeps you honest; in this case, providing honest money. Those warning of dollar “hyperinflation” are wrong.

The Ukraine War is hideous and will kill several hundred thousand Ukrainians, and tens of thousands of Russians, possibly leading to the demise of Ukraine itself. But it has sobered up at least some people to the realities of nuclear war. Biden, Putin and others are talking about it. That’s good. Here’s Feb. 23 Los Angeles Times headline: “News Analysis: Putin leaving nuclear treaty is a reminder that he has — and can use — nuclear bombs.”

The more we talk about it, the less likely it will happen. In 30 minutes a Russian nuke could explode over your head, killing you, your family, and everyone in a radius of 20 miles. That’s just one 10 megaton nuke. And there’s nothing anybody can do to stop that. I don’t want that. Do you?

When the Cold War ended, there were some deaths in Romania in 1989, and in Vilnius and Moscow later, from crackdowns by communist authorities. In Romania it led to the independence of that country from the hideous Ceausescu regime. In Lithuania, to the independence of that country, and of Estonia and Latvia. In Moscow, to the end of the Cold War itself, as mentioned above. It could have been much, much worse, with tens of millions killed in the Soviet Union and America.

I’m hoping the Ukraine War will be like that, something that, however horrible, wakes people up and prevents nuclear annihilation. The war soon will enter a new phase as Russia’s forces, basically doubled and reinforced with new weapons, will begin a major offensive. Some say soon, others say in late summer. I have no predictions on whether it will succeed.

But as I have said all along this past year, Ukraine only can exist as a neutral country, never joining Nato. Now either it will cease to exist as a country, or will become neutral only on terms Moscow dictates. America and Nato, as even the pro-war Western press have been reporting, have given Kiyv some great weapons, but not enough of them. And they cannot be replenished in sufficient quantities to meet the insatiable needs of this war. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s available manpower has been decimated. Its birthrate is 1.2 per woman, so there’s no large cohort of young men turning fighting age to replace those lost.

It's still possible American fighting troops could get involved. But there are not enough of those to make a difference, either. Our forces still are excellent, despite the P.C. and “woke” nonsense pushed on them. But they’re spread across America’s vast global empire. And their ammunition stores have been depleted, too.

Conservative Republicans like me have been the first to wake up to this new reality, of the need to end this war quickly. President Trump speaking in East Palestine, Ohio, to the victims of the chemical spill, while Biden was in Kiyv and Warsaw, then stumbled again climbing the stairs into Air Force One, was symbolic of the new political reality. Trump has been leading the peace push. His main GOP rival, Ron DeSantis, recently started questioning spending on the war. Congressional hearings on the war and much else, such as whatever Ukraine gave Joe and Hunter, will be revealing.

But one way or another, multipolarity is here. Let’s hope peace is, too.