Self determination in the Ukraine

The extraordinary determination that has maintained the efforts of the Ukraine military and their population is not the reason that Putin will still have lost. Even if the Russian military manage to blow the main Ukraine cities apart Putin will still fail. This blog (see West Wars 4 March) argued that the Ukraine citizens and their leadership should have surrendered to Russia's threat of war. So far thousands of Ukrainian and Russian injuries and deaths could have been avoided. The reality is that Putin would still have failed in his determination to fix his Russian-based subaltern leadership of the Ukraine, even if there had been not one Russian shot. 

Ukraine, with its large and politically active population and its developing facilities would have eventually broken down Russia's capacity to manage this nation. Russia has a large army with 11% of its money dedicated to military strength and the ownership of the majority of nukes in the world. But Russia's real resources (absence of nuclear oblivion) are something else. Here is a table of resources of the main countries in the world

1.China $113 trillion, 2.United States $50 trillion, 3. Germany $14 trillion, 4.France $14 trillion, 5. United Kingdom $7 trillion, 6. Canada $7 trillion, 7.Australia $7 trillion, 8. Japan $3 trillion 9. Mexico $3 trillion, 10. Sweden etc., etc,. Russia is ranked 43rd among 45 countries in the Europe region and its overall score is below the regional and world averages. 

Russia's attempt to create a new regime, which is smashing up buildings and will continue to kill thousands, will never be able to run a massive country, particularly one that it has been locally developing its productivity. The many WW2/Nazi parallels that have been thrown at Putin's war are utterly absurd. The real Nazi organisation in the 1930s and 40s Europe was easily the most successful war machine in history. It required years and at least the 3 world-leading nations to defeat it. 

And what of nuclear war? It is no longer the cold war. The US (and the UK when it comes to the new subs floating in Australia pushing back China) together with a massively advanced NATO (where we all get the bomb) has already created a hot war. Putin therefore has now put his nukes on the table. A real threat to block the expanding NATO permanently. The West (read the US) have actually used nuclear wars twice; once to save their unbelievably difficult control over Japan and the Pacific, and second to warn the USSR's expansion in 1945. 

Most of the West (again see the US) have played NATO's pretended caution as the signal to the world (and particularly the Chinese) that there are no intentions for any sort of NATO military action that might 'provoke' a nuclear Putin.This sounds like lies to Putin. So, what Putin wants is not nukes but the vast implications of his enormous stockpile of nukes (much of it in dangerous decline) to increase the weight of Russia's borders. Putin's demonstration of his nukes is the fantasy that he has the power and the kit to grab what really would be a broken fence against NATO. Putin is mad for power, like Trump or the bad days of Boris. But he wants to be in History, not its absence.

The best thing for the Ukrainian people was to endure Putin's half-witted desire for 'Russia' to be extended - albeit from a poor and declining Moscow centre. Some years perhaps would open up new alternatives for the Ukraine. The Ukrainian war will inevitably expose Putin's role and leadership and will increase the breaking away of the Russian people from their own leaders. But thousands are already dead and dying to no ultimate cause. The only version of what was and what could have been, at least in part, was a new country with an independent view against both Putin's Russia and the West's NATO. Starting with the slogan 'No War for Putin or NATO.'    

Instead the faltering slogan offered to the death and misery for the Ukrainians, especially in the West, still flies first. 'Self-determination.' What a brazen offer, without any real significant support against the actual chaos in the clash between Putin and NATO. The history of capitalist countries and their subordinates, virtually all of the major and minor nations of our globe, have emerged from bitter wars over wealth and power. The large majority of the nations were created by external warriors named 'traders' that made their nations for their personal property and wealth. Even the longer term nations have distributed additions, seizures and destructions to decide their 'self-determination' via the struggle of one ruling class over another. 

Most successful nations have fought to the core against, not years, not decades but centuries in order to establish themselves. But the 20th century has begun to change new types of nations. The new and real 'self determination' became decisions, universally fought by bitter battles, led by the common people. Then 'self-determination' would apply in a common, genuine democratic, development, as with the battles to win a country and society based on the popular, democratic common-wealth. And as the huge struggles battling imperialism, the most successful nations that have fought and won their genuine 'self determination' against the domination of the previous external (and subordinate toadies) are precisely self determinated' on that premise.

West's wars.

The western wars have begun (see blog 23 January 'Preparing for wars'). The latest weekly briefing about the war in Ukraine, written by Lindsey German from 'Stop the War', is a rock solid explanation of how the dominant west smashed and grabbed its way into countries across the world for centuries up to today. Lindsey also focussed on the political purposes of war - to re-group and reorganise the status quo in the centres of capitalism. The immense danger of the battle in Ukraine, led by Putin's grab for his Russian empire and by the constant enlargement of NATO, may be enormous in its consequences but, as Lindsey spells out, the same old function of the capitalist system will strengthen its capacity, promoting the spoils of death and destruction.

The reality of the wave of murder in the Ukraine is the beginning of a potential, momentous part of our new history to come. But first we have to burst the dreadful approach that is starting to build up, particularly in the UK, which cries for more war and more infant heroism, as Prime Minister Boris tries out his Churchillian verbosity, added byTory MPs' fiddling with their toy soldiers. What is the real truth for Britains now seeing and thinking about the worst war in Europe since WW2? The answer is the war must stop at all costs and if necessary with all the concessions. The terrible battle in the Ukraine cannot be won by its people. All should be aware that besides the actual damage of this war, the immense increase by NATO since 1990 has created the prospects and purposes that have now been used by Putin and which has multiplied the fear of the Russian people. It is likely that Putin will eventually fall. But not before the increasing terror and destruction that will now grow wide and high unless all call for the stopping the war under all the conditions.

Wider developments will flow out of the Ukraine and Russia that will shift the whole world. Putin is only the beginning. First, It is a fantasy that the war against the Ukraine is converging and uniting the west. In fact it is demonstrating its fragility.  

The capitalist west is already under large-scale pressure since the lack of a resolution of the Banker's crash in 2008; the failure of austerity (named differently in different countries) from 2010 to now and the Covid pandemic. The decline of the west is outlined by the tremendous success of China' state capitalism, the rise of India and south Asia, the imperialist chain-of-failures across the globe that were launched by the US and related supporters and, finally, the increasing contraction and centralisation of the EU. The biggest western disaster however is globalisation.

Globalisation was always meant to be another word for the new type of concentration of profit/wealth in the hands of the US. It was never designed to bump up SouthEast Asia or to unite Europe. The US banks held more and more of the wealth of developing sectors of the world, particularly through Japan and China, which then allowed the US to press down competition if necessary. The immensely cheap labour that was drawn out of the worlds' wealth via the East and South and into the US banks, was accepted and called 'globalisation'. 

But the US has now failed to dominate the world's most important gains, aside from money. High tech is sovereign but smothered with more and more US tariffs, installed by both Trump and Biden. The US now demands the stop of  'unfair' state capitalism (known and understood from the very first proposals for US importing cheap labour based Chinese goods.) Globalisation is over. And the European war will show it.

The impact of these developments and now with the Ukrainian war, changes the balance of post WW2 global conditions. Greater pressures will push the US beyond its shaky global hegemony. And it will be expressed in the US itself, summed up by the drastic failures of first Trump and now Biden. Internal combat will replace the external military hostilities as the American states press their leadership inside the US government. The internal battle in the US is now fast approaching and the response to Ukraine in Putin's hands will lose interest in the US. Trump got around his antipathy of NATO by pretending that NATO was ok but the members had to pay. In reality Trump was and remains hostile to NATO. Some believe he has a 'thing' with Putin. Who knows? What is true is that Trump opposes NATO as an essentially European counter block to the US. Trump has sought the weakness of Europe. And this has a massive base.   

The Chinese are also re-assembling their military geography. The Putin initiative is not sought as some good global effect in the Chinese context except for one critical consideration. Xi Jinping has already dealt with the weakness of the UK regarding the reorganisation of Hong Kong. It has become, in part, a solidified and one China. The other part of China is more difficult. But equally Taiwan is crucial to China's future and the new shifts in Russia, the US and the EU might provide an essential, much wanted Chinese leadership step.

The closest short-term shift following Putin's step is the movement which is now essentially required of Germany. Already the German Chancellor is banging up military costs, currently through NATO. NATO may have a rash of nations behind it but all who care to look will be nervously considering the core of the EU plus the UK, to build up a common military. The UK would rather run around the US, but the US is not necessarily going to both fight their own difficulties and, at the same time, fight for Europe. The battle in Europe is going to be fought in Europe with NATO waving the flag, but with the likes of Trump, the hard work will stay in Europe. And Germany will lead. 

The comments suggested above are the potential part of the changes likely to emerge. There will be others. At the centre is the collapsing of the Western society and its last basic throw of Western capitalism. Globalisation, the US progenitor and its EU followers, is over; now led by the US! More obvious arising to the surface are the many changes in politics and economics some of which have been considered above. These shifts and others that emerge which will also recreate thinking and acting about what is now the real meanings of our societies, their states and governments and their futures. It is in this context that the second wave of socialism will become primary.