ukraine: the illusion of peace.
Globalism with Chinese characteristics.
Putin is not Hitler, and neither is Xi. Putin and China do not represent an existential threat to the Jewish people.
Still, Putin should be opposed, because he has turned Russia into a proxy of China. For anyone who values the primacy of NATO, there are two choices with China: nuclear war or containment. I prefer a policy of containment, and that begins in Ukraine.
Could this all have been avoided?
Putin supporters claim that NATO “forced” Russia into the arms of China. This is not true. It was the Russian army that forced Putin into this position, not NATO.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia had every opportunity to liberalize and join the EU and NATO. It would have been a long painful process, involving humiliation or humbling, and the sacrifice of Russian imperial ambitions, but it was possible:
First, Russia would have needed to allow for the peaceful secession of Chechnya. Russia could have allowed Chechnya to break away on the condition that Russian companies maintain oil rights.
Second, it would have also needed to refrain from intervening in Georgia, a sovereign state.
Thirdly, it would have needed to refrain from invading Crimea.
Fourthly, it would have needed to refrain from funding and arming separatists in the Donbass.
Fifthly, it would have needed to refrain from an attack on Kiev.
The reason why Putin was not able to allow for these concessions was because of the national or imperial pride of the Russian military. If Putin allowed Chechnya to break away, he would have had a coup on his hands. He was forced by his coalition with the siloviki to reassemble the Russian empire.
Imagine if the Poles had a similar attitude among their military hierarchy, and had invaded western Ukraine at the first opportunity, in 1994! It would have gone exactly the way of Serbia: a post Soviet border conflict which would have excluded Poland from membership in NATO. The Serbs refused to allow for the peaceful independence of Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo, and they have been marginalized from the European community as a result. Russia made the same decision, just on a much larger scale. Unlike Serbia, we haven’t been able to contain Russia with air power, due to its nuclear arsenal.
NATO liberalism demands, first and foremost, the surrender of national bigotries, prejudices, and revanchism. The Russian military did have the opportunity to normalize relations with NATO and join this shared globalist vision. It rejected it, first in Chechnya in 1994, and again in 1999, then in Georgia in 2008, then in Crimea in 2014, and again in Ukraine in 2022.
These were wars of choice, not of necessity. Russia could have called upon NATO to act as a mediating party in any of these conflicts and been welcomed into the fold with its economy and core culture (Russkiye) intact. Instead, it chose the path of empire.
Putin and Mussolini
In this respect, we should not compare Putin to Hitler, but to the figure of Mussolini. Mussolini was the junior partner of Hitler. He was not a committed Nordicist or antisemite. But he joined himself with Hitler, and as a result, he had to be destroyed, along with his Italian Imperial project.
Whereas Mussolini tied himself to Hitler, Putin has tied himself to China. In both cases, these were fatal decisions. Had Hitler won the war, the balance of power between Italy and Germany would have been decisive. Mussolini would have no ability to resist Hitler’s demands. In the end, the Italian Social Republic would have been reduced to a mere puppet state at the behest of the Greater Germanic Reich.
Similarly, Putin’s allegiance to China will end with Russia being a mere vassal or proxy state of the Chinese. Russia will lose its sovereignty. Its economy, its corporations, its media, its immigration policy, its culture, and its ethnic makeup will be solely determined by China. There is no other possible outcome.
Poland is still 99% white. Meanwhile, Russia is projected to become minority Russkiye by 2071 because of hundreds of thousands of Muslim immigrants. As China gains greater control over Russia, this process is likely to accelerate. This is reflected by Putin’s rhetoric about the assimilation of “new Russians,” and how Russia must offshore industries to central Asia “to maintain economic growth.”
Here is Putin, 1 hour 56 minutes into his speech on November 7th:
Some of the people who are coming to Russia, well, we need to make sure that they stay at home. But we can build production capacities over there that will be part of the supply chain, so we could give orders to them. They could produce some components and spare parts. We could have the final assembly capacities and then both in Russia and in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, every other country, they would have jobs over there.
This would be a cooperative process, to a large extent. We have to reestablish and rebuild the cooperative chains of supply which used to exist back during the Soviet times... It'll improve the economic growth rates for all participants of this process, nor is there going to be such a high level of [ethnic] tensions right now [as a result of mass immigration].
Empires since Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus the Great have always used mass immigration to dilute the national sovereignty of their vassals. Russia and China are no different.
The choice isn’t between “globalism or nationalism.” The choice is between NATO globalism and Chinese globalism. The Russian military, in forcing Putin’s hand, made the wrong choice.
Isn’t Ukraine just another Vietnam?
Between 1946 and 1975, Vietnam had a population between 20 and 40 million. As many as 4 million Vietnamese died in the various post-colonial conflicts in those 30 years, or between 10% to 20% of the total population.
By comparison, the total population of Russia is 143.8 million, and the total population of Ukraine is 37 million. Altogether, the population of these two states totals 180.8 million people. If NATO were to approach this conflict with the same attitude we took toward Vietnam, we should expect between 18 million and 36 million casualties as a result of this war. So far, only 1 million people have died.
I don’t mean to belittle the tragedy of the loss of any single life, but we have to dispense with the notion that peace in Ukraine is possible. A ceasefire in Ukraine represents a mere resting period of maybe 20 years. Eventually, China will push Russia, once again, to invade, this time supplied by Chinese tanks. The result will either be the Chinese domination of Europe, or the destruction of the Russian state. There is no third option. Pushing this war onto our children, when it will result in even greater casualties, is not moral.
In retrospect or hindsight, the war in Vietnam seems like a catastrophic failure with no obvious benefit. Isn’t it insanity to do the same thing twice, expecting different results? Why couldn’t we have just let Vietnam be communist? Why not just let Putin take Ukraine, if the result is going to be the same?
Opposing communism in Vietnam turned out to be a massive waste of resources and human lives. Vietnam was a war of choice, not of necessity, and the American public got tired of the war and gave up. America could have made their peace with the Vietnamese, never launched the war, and focused their resources elsewhere. This was the position of the far left, as well as George Wallace.
The principle differences between Communist Vietnam and Putinist Russia are as follows:
Vietnam did not have nuclear weapons.
Vietnam did not contain the world’s largest oil and agricultural resources.
Vietnam was not a springboard for a Chinese invasion of Europe.
At the peak of American deployment in 1969, the ratio was one America for every two South Vietnamese (ARVN) soldiers. Ukrainian soldiers outnumber American “military contractors” by a ratio of 1000:1.
The Nixonian Strategy
Richard Nixon amplified the Sino-Soviet split with his visit to China in 1972. Nixon understood that Maoism could be an ally in the fight against the Soviets. He was ideologically opposed to communism as a form of atheistic leftism, but he prioritized pragmatic geopolitical strategy.
The Vance wing of the Republican Party seems to believe that, in a conflict with China, the reverse is true: Putin can be peeled off from China, a new Sino-Soviet split will occur, and China will be contained. If only!
The problem with the Vance strategy is that it misunderstands the fundamental economic realities underlying the relationship between Russia and China. During the Sino-Soviet split, China was a third world country with very little power projection. China’s GDP was less than $100 billion; Soviet GDP was over $1 trillion. The Chinese economy was, I repeat, one tenth the size of the Russian economy.
Today, the roles are reversed. Chinese GDP is $17.79 trillion, and Russian GDP is $2 trillion. So why can’t America pull off the same feat twice?
The answer is structural. In 1972, China had cheap labor, and America had a demand for cheap goods. By contrast, the Soviets were really directly competing with the Chinese. The Soviet and Maoist economies were too structurally similar to be a good fit. Because America was wealthy, and China was poor, the two structures were complementary and cooperative. “Chimerica” was born.
Today, China and America still have a huge amount of trade. China imports agricultural and energy products from America, as well as sophisticated electronic equipment that the Chinese have trouble producing. America still imports low-grade electronics from China, like microwaves and refrigerators.
But there is no similar economic opportunity between Russia and America. Russia, like America, is an exporter of energy and agricultural goods. America has nothing to offer Russia. Rather, the two are competitors. The result is that, even if we were to revive Nixon from the dead, he could not entice Russia to split from China. Russia is structurally and geographically tied to China. China needs Russian oil and food, and Russia needs China’s capital markets. “Peeling” isn’t possible.
Every empire fights wars.
The idea that NATO civilization can survive without fighting wars is ludicrous and ahistorical. Every empire fights wars. Allowing Russia to take Ukraine is just kicking the can down the road 20 years.
China is taking over Russia. The consequences of this over the next two decades will be immense. It will be China who decides Putin’s successor. When Russia is flooded with five million more fighting-age Muslim immigrants, what will be left of the old siloviki? What Russkiye spirit will remain to oppose Chinese domination?
Critics of America have said, “this is not a country, but a shopping mall.” In kinder terms, Russia is not a country, but a space. In crueler terms, Russia is not a country, but a patchwork of central Asian ball-bearing factories. Russia does not have the option of being an independent country any longer, any more than Italy or France have the option of being truly independent. Every country is sucked into the orbit of dominant superpowers. This was true in the ancient world, and remains true today.
Russia has made its choice, and we can appreciate the logic of this choice. Structurally, the economies of Russia and China fit together neatly. They need one another, and cannot survive independently. Russia cannot be “peeled off” peacefully, but only through force. If Russia is allowed 20 years of peace, it will only mean an additional 20 years of creeping Chinese control. The end result is the same: we will be forced into a confrontation with Eurasia.
Why did Russia invade Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine? The answer is very simple: the Russian military refused to restrain itself. Rather than forming equitable, fair, and free trade agreements with sovereign partners, the Russian military demanded a bloody defense of old imperial honor. This is the ethos of all military hierarchies.
In China, it is the same. China is a hostile, ethno-nationalist, racialist, expansionist, and authoritarian state undergoing an economic and spiritual crisis. This isn’t going to end well.
In the best case scenario, Russia will be forcefully opposed in Ukraine, resulting in a collapse of the Russian economy and political system. China will lose access to the Baku oil fields and the agricultural output of the Russian bread-belt. China will be contained, unable to expand by land or sea.
In the worst case scenario, Trump gives Ukraine to Russia, which ends the killing, but sets the stage for the next world war. China will wait until the moment is right, and then, with full control over the Russian military, launch a simultaneous strike on Kiev and Taiwan. At that point, America will be forced either to fight a two front war with both Russia and China, or accept that China has broken out of the Pacific Containment Line.
China currently has no free access to international waters. The East China Sea is encircled by the southern islands of Japan. The South China Sea is encircled by Indonesia and the Philippines. The shortest distance for China to access international waters is through Taiwan. Once this is achieved, China will finally become a global independent power.
If Russia is defeated in Ukraine, the Ukrainians will join NATO, and Russia will have no role to play as a distraction during a Taiwanese operation. If Russia is granted peace, then it has time to regroup and serve as China’s attack dog, splitting American forces.
The role of Israel is unfortunate. America has a limited amount of resources, and Ukraine and Israel are competitors for this pool. As a result, the most partisan forces have come out against Ukraine at the worst possible time. Is this just a coincidence? Or have Russia and China, through their connections to Iran, induced the attack on October 7th?
Unlike the war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza holds little geopolitical significance for NATO. China cannot invade Europe through Palestine, but it very well could supply an invasion of Europe through Ukraine. Pragmatically, Israel should be restrained in its desire to confront Iran, so that the war in Ukraine can receive the full share of available NATO resources. Netanyahu, fearing prosecution for corruption by the Israeli justice system, has engineered a global campaign to dump Ukraine so that the war in Iran can forestall the end of his political career.
Those who believe they are ending a war in Ukraine for the sake of peace will soon discover that one war is replaced with another. The forces which undermine the Ukrainian campaign are not pacifist humanitarians, but Israeli partisans seeking a war with Iran. The choice is not between war and peace, but between war and war.
Bonkers BS, not to be taken seriously.
How is Bibi to blame for Ukraine. It sounds like an anti-semitic conspiracy lunacy, on the level of "the Jews did 9/11.."