Believing Impossible Things
By
Alastair Crooke
May 30, 2023:
Information Clearing House
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The
endless bitter antagonism to Putin and to
Russia has allowed a self-imagined reality
to detach, ultimately becoming a delusion.
The
recent G7 summit should be understood as
firstly, the shaping of a battlespace in the
‘War of Narratives’ whose principal ‘front’
today is the Team Biden insistence that only
one ‘reality’ — the US-led ‘Rules’ ideology
(and it alone) – can predominate. And,
secondly to underline pointedly that the
West is ‘not
losing’ in this war against the other
‘reality’. This other reality is the
multivalent ‘otherness’ that self-evidently
is attracting more and more support around
the world.
Many in the
West are simply unaware of how fast the
geopolitical tectonic plates are shifting:
The original plate bifurcation (the
failed
financial war declared on Russia), already
has led to a building wave. Anger is
growing. People now no longer feel alone in
rejecting western hegemony – they “no longer
care”.
Are You Tired Of
The Lies And
Non-Stop Propaganda?
In
just the week that preceded the G7 summit,
the Arab League literally ‘went
multi-polar’; It quit its former pro-US
automaticity. The embrace of President Assad
and the Syrian government was both the
logical consequence to the secondary
tectonic-plate shift set in motion by China
with its Saudi-Iranian diplomacy — a
revolution which Mohammad bin Salman (MbS)
then logically extended to the entire Arab
sphere.
MbS
sealed this ‘break-free’ of US control
through having President al-Assad invited to
the Summit to symbolise the League’s act of
generalised iconoclasm.
For
the West, it is ontologically impossible to
tolerate their reality being disassembled:
to see their society and the world split in
two. The narrative reality is so embedded
via the well-honed effectiveness of MSM
messaging however, that politicians have
become lazy. They do not have to argue their
case, and have no incentive to hold back on
untruths either.
The
dynamics are exorable: an over-hyped
‘monolithic reality’ evolves into a
Manichaean fight to the death. Any
backsliding by ‘principals’ could result in
the collapse of the Media narrative ‘house
of cards’. (This notion of a monolithic
reality is not one shared by most other
societies who see
reality
as multi-faceted).
Denial becomes
endemic. So, we witness a hawkish G7,
diverting from the narrative setback (of
Bakhmut falling) by the
casual
embrace of a ploy to supply F-16s to
Ukraine; chastising China for not making
President Putin ‘back off’ in Ukraine; and
using the meeting to set a narrative
framework for the coming confrontation with
China on trade issues and Taiwan.
One
commentator (at the summit) wondered “Am I
still in Europe, or in Japan?”, as she
listened to rhetoric as though lifted from
Von Der Leyen’s earlier speech to the EU.
Von de Leyen had crafted the formulation of
‘de-risking’ with China to disguise the
creeping EU-China bifurcation in production
on the EU Commission factory floor. This
remark does however serve to underline how
Von der Leyen has become a
de facto
member of the Biden Team.
China angrily responded to the G7 summit
allegation that it had become a workshop for
“smearing” and slandering China.
This extensive narrative-shaping for China
confrontation is seen to be necessary by the
G7 as the rest of the world does not view
China as a genuine ‘threat’ to the US:
Rather, they understand that the true
‘threats’ to the US derive from its internal
divisions, and not from external sources.
The
G7 salience lies not so much with the
anti-China narratives launched, but, plainly
said, because the entire episode expresses a
western hubristic denial, which portends
extreme danger in respect to Ukraine. It
speaks to the reality that the West — in
it’s present mental mode — will be unable to
put forward any credible political
initiative to end the Ukraine
conflict.(Recall that Moscow was badly
mauled by the earlier Minsk episode).
The
G7 language abjures all serious diplomacy,
and signals that the imperative remains to
stick with the ‘not losing’ mantra:The fall
of Bakhmut is no defeat for Kiev, but a
Pyrrhic loss for Putin; Ukraine is winning,
Putin is losing, was the G7 messaging.
The
hubris resides in the western perennial
condescension towards President Putin and
Russia. Washington (and London) just cannot
disabuse themselves of the conviction that
Russia is fragile; its armed forces barely,
if at all, competent; its economy cratering;
and that therefore Putin likely would seize
on just about any ‘olive branch’ America
cares to offer him.
That President Xi could – or would –
pressure Putin ‘to back-off’ in Ukraine, and
accept a ceasefire on EU terms — which are
the ‘Zelensky terms’ — is delusional. Yet
some key EU leaders genuinely seem to think
Putin can be arm-twisted by Xi or Modi into
exiting Ukraine on terms wholly favourable
to Kiev. These European leaders simply are
dangerously hostage to the psychological
processes fuelling their denialism.
Russia is ‘winning’ on the financial war
front, and on the global diplomatic front.
It has the overwhelming advantage in force
numbers; it has the advantage in weaponry;
it has the advantage in the skies and in the
Electro-magnetic sphere. Whereas Ukraine is
in disarray, its forces decimated and the
Kiev entity is crumbling fast.
Don’t they ‘get it’? No. The endless bitter
antagonism to Putin and to Russia has
allowed a self-imagined reality to detach;
to drift further and further from any
connection to reality; and then to transit
into delusion — always drawing on
like-minded peer cheerleaders for validation
and extended radicalisation.
This is a
serious psychosis. Because instead of
addressing the conflict rationally, the West
consistently comes up with ‘non-starters’
such as a ‘frozen
conflict’.
Do they seriously think that Russia will
‘sit back’ whilst the West ‘stands up’ an
‘armed to the teeth’ NATO proxy in the West
of Ukraine? A proxy that will stand as a
festering sore in the Russian side, and
bleed Russian resources, over the long
term? Do they imagine the lesson of
Afghanistan is lost on the Russian High
Command? I can tell you,it is not. I was a
part actor in
that tragedy.
What next? Russia likely will wait to see
whether Kiev is able to mount an offensive —
or not. If Kiev does launch an offensive, it
would make sense for Russia to let the
Ukrainian forces throw themselves upon the
Russian defensive lines, and expend their
forces further, in a new ‘meat grinder’.
Moscow will test whether Kiev’s patrons are
then ready to acknowledge ‘facts on the
ground’, rather than some imagined reality,
by acquiescing to Moscow’s terms. If not,
the Russian attrition might continue, and
continue, right up to the Polish border.
There is no other option — even if it be
Moscow’s last choice.
The
F-16s diversion will not change the
strategic balance to the war; but of course,
it will extend the war. Yet the European
leaders at the G7 grabbed at the proposal.
Lt Col. Daniel
Davis, Senior Fellow at
Defence
Priorities in Washington, has
warned:
“There
is no reason to expect a dramatic change in
Kyiv’s fortunes in the war because of them
[the F-16s]. Even the 40 to 50 jets Ukraine
is reported to be requesting, will not
fundamentally alter the course of the war.
The bigger question “Americans should be
asking of Biden, however, is this: to what
end? What does the Administration expect the
delivery of the F-16s to accomplish? What do
we hope to physically accomplish? What
end-state does the president envision for
the war, and how would the presence of F-16s
improve the chances of success?
“So
far as I can determine, these questions
haven’t even been asked, much less answered,
by administration or Pentagon officials” …
Washington should start to focus far more on
concrete means of safeguarding American
interests and ending the war, and less on
inconsequential weapon deliveries which
don’t seem to be part of any coherent
strategy”.
The
same question should be posed to the EU: “To
what end?” Has the question even been asked,
much less answered?
Well, let’s answer it: What will 50 F-16s
accomplish? European leaders say they seek
an early end to the conflict, yet this
initiative will achieve the very opposite.
It will represent yet another milestone in
escalation towards the ‘forever war’ against
Russia for which some earnestly wish. Russia
then likely will see little alternative but
to proceed to full war
versus
NATO.
The
Europeans seem incapable of saying ‘no’ to
America. Yet Col. Davis warns clearly that
the US intention is to “shift the burden for
physical support for Ukraine to our European
partners”. Implicitly, this suggests ‘long
war’ in Europe. How did we reach this
point, for heaven’s sake? (By not thinking
things through from the start, with
financial war on Russia so enthusiastically
and unreflectively embraced by Europe).
Recently, the
Financial Times
wrote that
Ukraine has five months to demonstrate some
“advances” to the US and other Western
backers, to convince them of its plans for
the conflict with Russia: “If we get to
September and Ukraine has not made
significant gains, then the international
pressure on [the West] to bring them to
negotiations will be enormous”.
Well, Col Davis says “there is little
likelihood the [the F-16] fighters will see
combat over the skies of Ukraine this
year”. So, Biden just casually extended the
war well beyond September.
If
Europe wants an early end to the war, it
must hope for the Kiev ‘project’ to implode
soon. (And it might do just that, F-16s
notwithstanding.)
