#Ukraine Peace Flotilla
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Once upon a time, a very long time ago, about two years ago, companies—like the beloved children’s character Winnie the Pooh—lived, if not all by themselves, then at least far from geopolitics.
How rapidly the world has changed since then. Last year, a staggering 93 percent of multinationals reported losses linked to political instability, up from 35 percent in 2020, a new survey from WTW and Oxford Analytica found. Companies should brace themselves for even more turbulence this year. And next year. And the year after that. Businesses, which have for decades operated in a world where they could float above any squabbling among countries, are discovering that charmed era has ended.
Weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, BP decided to let go of its 19.75-percent stake in the Russian oil and gas giant Rosneft and two joint ventures in Russia—which meant it had to write down more than $20 billion in the first quarter of 2022. The German DIY chain Obi Baumarkt sold its Russian stores to local staff for 10 euros. The Italian bank UniCredit has lost $1.3 billion, ExxonMobil has lost more than $3 billion, and H&M has lost nearly $200 million. Indeed, every company leaving the country (and hundreds have made announcements to that effect) is incurring substantial losses—if they manage to leave.
Companies wishing to depart need the approval of Russian authorities, and as of March this year, they also have to make a “mandatory donation” to the Russian government. Meanwhile, companies operating in China, or exporting to the country, know that they risk becoming a target if their home governments say or do something that displeases Beijing; this has happened to companies as diverse as Ericsson and Taiwanese pineapple farms. And when President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan met U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy in California earlier this month, Beijing responded by dispatching an “inspection flotilla” to the Taiwan Strait, where its threat of inspections was certain to wreak havoc on shipping companies and their customers in one of the world’s busiest waterways. This time, the flotilla didn’t carry out any inspections, but global shipping companies and manufacturers rightly concluded there will be more such outings.
Such events have delivered a brutal awakening to companies, which until just a couple of years ago persisted in believing that they could keep operating in a largely peaceful sphere. The 2023 political risk survey conducted by Oxford Analytica for the insurance broker WTW, published on April 18, delivers sobering figures. Last year, 68 percent of companies bought political risk insurance, which provides cover for war, civil wars, coups, government expropriations, and similar misfortunes, up from 25 percent in 2019.
Even compared to last year, the fear of geopolitics has skyrocketed. In the 2022 survey, 16 percent of the executives interviewed predicted deglobalization would significantly strengthen; in this year’s report, 48 percent do (and another 38 percent believe it will simply strengthen). Last year, 12 percent of the executives predicted decoupling from China would significantly increase; now 42 percent do. Beijing has been all too happy to oblige. The Financial Times reported that between mid-February and mid-April this year, China imposed sanctions on the U.S. defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon; launched an investigation into U.S. chipmaker Micron; and harassed the U.S. due diligence firm Mintz, Japan’s Astellas Pharma group, and the Big Four consultancy Deloitte.
A sizable majority of executives have lost faith in globalization. “It’s a sea change in companies’ attitudes about geopolitical risk,” Sam Wilkin, WTW’s director of political analysis, told me. “There has been a huge change in perception, mostly as a result of the conflict in Ukraine and, for U.S. companies, the confrontation with China. Companies have started taking wars and conflicts seriously.” (Full disclosure: I serve as an occasional advisor to another division of WTW.)
Companies are taking wars and conflicts seriously because they’re being affected by both—including conflicts of the less visible kind. Twenty percent of the companies surveyed have sustained political risk-related losses in Russia or Ukraine, and 48 percent have done so in the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. “Political uncertainty manifested in the war in Ukraine and the growing uncertainty around China and a potential war in the Pacific over Taiwan: Link this to continued uncertainty over rogue states like North Korea and Iran, and it’s no surprise that political uncertainty and the impact it has on international business is growing,” said Simon Bergman, the CEO of M&C Saatchi World Services. “The West’s inability to accurately predict large state actors’ behavior has been manifest over the past 12 months, and this will continue into 2024 and beyond.”
Political risk insurance cover was created years ago with the backing of several Western governments to allow companies to operate in riskier countries. Today, though, simply operating in the globalized economy is so risky that nearly 7 in 10 companies are buying this insurance. “Companies’ ability to do business in Russia and China will continue to deteriorate,” Bergman said. “When, and it’s when, China acts on Taiwan, the international reaction will significantly impact global businesses, and many of them depend on China for commercial products. The impact will be significant if not crisis-bringing.”
Nearly two-thirds of the executives surveyed by Oxford Analytica are concerned about state-backed cyber aggression, and nearly 60 percent worry about sanctions targeting individuals and companies. More than 50 percent worry about state-backed manipulation of financial markets, and more than 40 percent are concerned about state-backed intellectual-property theft.
So dire is the situation for the corporates surveyed that Russia and China now account for the largest political risk losses, followed by India, Brazil, and (thanks to Brexit) the United Kingdom. In 2020, companies sustained their largest political risk losses in Iran, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Libya—a much more predictable bunch of countries, and much more manageable losses because most companies had smaller operations there than in Russia or China. China taking the place of the Angolas and Libyas of the world, measured in business risk, is a dramatic turn of events.
“The risk the business community is most worried about is the West vs. China, because Western countries are showing that they’re willing to treat China as a systemic competitor,” Wilkin said. “And now it’s possible to imagine a major economy leaving the globalized economy. In 2020, we still had some of the usual suspects ranking as the world’s riskiest. Back then, you could operate in politically risky countries because you had diversified operations including many countries with no or little political risk. Now political risk has shifted major world economies that used to be major investment destinations. Companies are worrying about going out of business as a result of political risk.”
It has come to this: Businesses are worried about going bust not as a result of misunderstanding the market or making foolish investments—but as a result of geopolitics. Western companies in particular are extremely vulnerable now that globalization’s ultimate prize, China, is not just battling the United States over global power but also battling its own private sector, lest it become uncomfortably powerful. So severe was Beijing’s recent crackdown of China’s most successful tech giants that the companies’ shares plummeted when President Xi Jinping was reelected to a third term last fall.
“If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near,” GE’s legendary CEO Jack Welch said. It’s not looking good for the companies that have done precisely what they were supposed to do and spent the past three decades integrating themselves into the globalized economy.
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Ukraine Peace Flotilla On Its Way With Call To Freeze Oligarch Assets
Ukraine Peace Flotilla On Its Way With Call To Freeze Oligarch Assets
The “Ukraine Peace Flotilla” set sail from Auckland this morning with “No War” banners flying.
Before sailing, Greenpeace Aotearoa programme director Niamh O’Flynn said: “Today we depart Tamaki Makaurau for Helena Bay in the far north. We sail to join the peace flotilla heading to the luxury retreat of Alexander Abramov, and there we will renew our call for sanctions against the billionaire…
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Trump suggests Chicago police use stop and frisk. [Link]
Google announces that it will not seek a contract from the Pentagon to build a cloud network. [Link]
The hawkish Trump administration is pushing the world closer to annihilation. [Link]
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley resigns. [Link]
Justin Raimondo explains why the US envoy to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison must resign. [Link]
Venezuela claims that a man – who is alleged to have attempted to assassinate Maduro – committed suicide. [Link]
The US and some NATO allies are holding air exercises with Ukraine. [Link]
The Russia Navy will increase its presence in the North Atlantic. [Link]
A destroyer and F-35Bs can fill the role of an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. [Link]
Gareth Porter explains how Saudi Arabia is exposing its weaknesses. [Link]
Daniel Larison argues the US and Saudi relationship needs to end. [Link]
Senator Rand Paul threatens to force a vote on future weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. Paul made the announcement after a Saudi journalist disappeared after entering the Saudi consulate in Turkey. [Link]
Turkey announces plans to search the Saudi consulate where a journalist was last seen. [Link]
49 Palestinians were injured by Israeli soldiers while trying to flee Gaza by sea. [Link]
A US envoy says the Trump peace plan will focus heavily on Israeli security. [Link]
A suicide bomber in Afghanistan killed eight people. One of the dead was running for office in an upcoming election. [Link]
The US doesn’t have to win in Afghanistan. [Link]
Congressman Ruben Gallego calls for US troops to withdraw from Afghanistan. [Link]
61% of Americans support withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan. [Link]
Assad offers amnesty to Syrian Army deserters and those who avoided their mandatory military service. [Link]
Saudi claims to have killed about 80 Houthi with airstrikes over the past two days. [Link]
[Read More] (https://immersionnews.com)
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3 Heavyweights in the ring: As US-China hostility escalates, what role will be played by the world’s other great power, Russia?
‘Don’t expect a new world order to emerge post-Covid-19. It will be the current big three who dominate, with an informal alliance between Russia and China crucial to reining in American ambitions’ — Artyom Lukin
By Artyom Lukin, associate professor of international relations at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia.
— 18 May, 2020
Main: American and Chinese flags © Getty Images / Simon Lehmann; inset: Vladimir Putin © Reuters / Kremlin / Mikhail Klimentyev
Don’t expect a new world order to emerge post-Covid-19. It will be the current big three who dominate, with an informal alliance between Russia and China crucial to reining in American ambitions.
When Covid-19 began to consume the world a few months ago, there were hopes that maybe the pandemic would moderate geopolitical rivalry and encourage international collaboration. What we have seen instead were a spike in US-China tension, a US-British naval flotilla entering the Barents Sea in proximity of Russia for the first time since the 1980s, clashes on the Sino-Indian border, and other developments showing that even a shared disaster is not capable to bring peace among nations, especially among major powers.
What is a great power?
It is difficult to deny that we live in an era of intensifying great-power competition. This is now the central premise of US foreign policy and national security strategy, while other major nations have, openly or implicitly, adopted the same proposition.
But what is a great power? International relations theory is pretty straightforward on this: “A great power is a state that can contend in a war against every other state in the system and thus can independently provide for its own security vis-a-vis any other country.”
In his book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Paul Kennedy defines a great power as “a country which is willing and able to take on any other” state in the international system. And in U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic, Walter Lippmann argued that only “the great powers can wage great wars. Only the great powers can resist a great power.”
Is the US abandoning its war on Iran to focus directly on the so-called China threat? A US Navy Marines member during mixed maritime exercise with US Navy and Saudi Royal Navy, at Saudi Military Port, Ras Al Ghar, Eastern Province, in Jubail, Saudi Arabia February 26, 2020 © Reuters / Hamad I Mohammed
Soft power may be important in the modern world. But it is first and foremost military might – and the willingness to use it – that makes a great power. You can be rich like Saudi Arabia, have an enviable quality of life like Canada, be technologically advanced like South Korea or have vast natural resources and a huge population like Brazil or Nigeria. But none of that will give you the status of a great power unless your country achieves military preponderance over all other nations – except, of course, your peer great powers.
Unfortunately, we still live in a world where the ability to kill, maim and destroy on a massive scale constitutes the single most important leverage of power. And it is not in a fit of absentmindedness that some nations pursue military primacy. They do it because they want to be able to impose their will upon others – an inherent urge the founder of international political theory Hans Morgenthau called ‘animus dominandi.’
The list of the contemporary great powers is pretty short: the United States of America, Russia and China. It is these three nations that are far ahead of others in their capacity to wage war. The US, admittedly, has the strongest military among the three, giving it superpower stature, but that does not annul the great-power status of Russia and China: the former is the only country in the world capable of obliterating the US with a nuclear strike, while the latter, steadily building up its nuclear forces, is approaching such a capability.
US muscle-flexing threatens to open Arctic front in new Cold War with Russia. The Royal Navy Duke-class frigate HMS Kent (F78), right, replenishes from the fast combat support ship USNS Supply (T-AOE-6) in the Barents Sea while training in the Arctic Circle. © U.S. Navy photo courtesy of the Royal Navy by Royal Navy Photographer Dan Rosenbaum
In 2008, Russia got involved in a military conflict with Georgia, a partner of both America and NATO. In 2014, Vladimir Putin changed the borders of another Western ally, Ukraine, by reclaiming Russian-populated Crimea.
China has been less audacious so far, but its salami-slicing tactics in the South China Sea have been quite a success, with the Americans essentially powerless to prevent Beijing’s growing dominance in that strategically crucial body of water.
Don’t write Russia off as a great power
The current great-power roster of three is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Germany and Japan could theoretically seek to regain the great-power ranking they once had. However, Berlin and Tokyo, as well as London and Paris, are firmly incorporated into the structures of the US-led alliances, having exchanged full sovereignty for the comfort of an apparently safe existence under American hegemony.
India is probably the most plausible candidate to become another great power. It has both the potential and ambition to reach for the top tier of the global power hierarchy. However, it will still take a while for Delhi to make it to the premier league of world politics.
If India is the most likely candidate to enter the great power ranks in the future, isn’t Russia the most obvious one to drop out soon? It is almost a conventional wisdom that Russia is a declining nation, with poor demographics and a shrinking share of the world’s economy.
Yet reports of Russia’s impending demise as a great power may be exaggerated. Let us not forget that great powers are primarily defined by their war-fighting capabilities. Russia’s stock of formidable weapons and military-related technologies, accumulated over many decades, as well as the wealth of its war-fighting experience, will allow Moscow to continue as a first-rate geopolitical player for a long time yet.
It also matters that Russia is the most experienced of the three contemporary great powers. The notion of a Great Power first came into being after the Napoleonic Wars, when the four victorious powers of Russia, Britain, Austria and Prussia established the Concert of Europe, later joined by France. Tsar Alexander I, along with the Austrian Foreign Minister Prince Metternich and the British Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh, was a founder of the great-power concert that secured relative peace and stability in Europe for almost a century.
America became a great power a century later, whereas China is only now learning the art of a modern great power. Putin and his foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, are full heirs to the Russian tsars’ foreign policy that combined military muscle with adroit diplomacy, even though debacles, such as the 1853 Crimean War, did happen from time to time.
The great-power entente of Moscow and Beijing
The dynamics of the modern great-power triangle are determined by the primordial law of international politics – the balance of power – whereby lesser poles pull together to counter the strongest force. This is why Russia and China have formed a quasi-alliance in opposition to the American superpower. Their entente has much less to do with the supposed commonality of domestic political regimes in China and Russia, the so-called “axis of authoritarians.”
In fact, Russia and China established their “strategic partnership” in 1996, the same year the Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who was seen as a liberal by the West, was running for re-election with the aid of American political strategists.
And Russia’s hybrid-type political system of the present day is no more similar to the Chinese party state than it is to American liberal democracy.
Speaking of historical continuity, in the late nineteenth century Tsarist Russia formed an alliance with republican France to prevent Germany from dominating Europe. This makes it unlikely that the Sino-Russian entente will end any time soon. It will continue, and will probably become even more solid, as long as Moscow and Beijing see the US as the overweening power. Alexey Navalny, the leader of the anti-Putin opposition in Russia, bears many hallmarks of a great-power nationalist. Should he or someone like him move into the Kremlin, Russia’s foreign policy will not change that much.
Vladimir Putin and XI Jinping © Sputnik / Ramil Sitdikov. Western media is WRONG, Russia & China are NOT going to clash over Covid-19
The great-power mission in the twenty-first century
Unlike in the nineteenth century, it is now impossible for a few great powers to run the world. If there is to be a global concert of powers in the twenty-first century, it needs to include many more states, not only those that possess military pre-eminence but also those that play major economic and social roles. However, as Paul Kennedy observes, the primary responsibility of the great powers is “to prevent any actions that might lead to a world war. Their job is simply to hold firm the iron frame that keeps the international system secure.”
Alas, as things are shaping up now, the great power triangle may not live up to this task.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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QINGDAO, China: China showed off the first of its new generation of guided missile destroyers on Tuesday as President Xi Jinping reviewed a major naval parade through mist and rain to mark 70 years since the founding of China’s navy.
Xi is overseeing a sweeping plan to refurbish the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) by developing everything from stealth jets to aircraft carriers as China ramps up its presence in the disputed South China Sea and around self-ruled Taiwan, which has rattled nerves around the region and in Washington.
The navy has been a major beneficiary of the modernization, with China looking to project power far from its shores and protect its trading routes and citizens overseas.
After boarding the destroyer the Xining, which was only commissioned two years ago, Xi watched as a flotilla of Chinese and foreign ships sailed past, in waters off the eastern port city of Qingdao.
“Salute to you, comrades. Comrades, thanks for your hard work,” Xi called out to the officers standing on deck as the ships sailed past, in images carried on state television.
“Hail to you, chairman,” they replied. “Serve the people.”
China’s first domestically produced aircraft carrier, which is still unnamed and undergoing sea trials, was not present, though the carrier the Liaoning was, the report said.
The Liaoning, the country’s first carrier, was bought second-hand from Ukraine in 1998 and refitted in China.
State television also showed pictures of the Nanchang at the review, the first of a new fleet of 10,000-tonne destroyers, though details of that and other ships were hard to determine from the footage, due to the intermittent thick mist and rain.
China had said it would also show new nuclear submarines, and state television did show submarines taking part in the display.
Read More: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan
Singapore-based regional security expert Collin Koh said that based on the available evidence, the larger submarine on show was a modified version of China’s existing Jin-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines – a key part of its nuclear deterrent.
The navy has four Jin-class submarines, which are based in Hainan island in the south, and the Pentagon says it believes construction on a new generation of ballistic missile submarines will start in the 2020s.
“It does appear that this is a modified version rather than an entirely new submarine, something which would have been a more significant development,” said Koh, of Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
“Outside analysts still don’t have a complete picture of the precise modifications.”
China’s last major naval parade was last year in the South China Sea, also overseen by Xi.
Tuesday’s parade featured 32 Chinese vessels and 39 aircraft, as well as warships from 13 foreign countries including India, Japan, Vietnam and Australia.
A total of 61 countries have sent delegations to the event, which includes a naval symposium on Wednesday and Thursday.
Long for Peace
Earlier, meeting foreign naval officers at Qingdao’s Olympic sailing center, Xi said the navies of the world should work together to protect maritime peace and order.
“The Chinese people love and long for peace, and will unswervingly follow the path of peaceful development,” Xi said, in remarks carried by the official Xinhua news agency.
“Everyone should respect each other, treat each other as equals, enhance mutual trust, strengthen maritime dialogue and exchanges, and deepen pragmatic cooperation between navies,” he added.
“There cannot be resorts to force or threats of force at the slightest pretext,” Xi said.
“All countries should adhere to equal consultations, improve crisis communication mechanisms, strengthen regional security cooperation, and promote the proper settlement of maritime-related disputes.”
China has frequently had to rebuff concerns about its military intentions, especially as its defense spending reaches new heights.
Beijing says it has nothing to hide, and invited a small number of foreign media onboard a naval ship to watch the parade, including from Reuters.
China’s last naval battles were with Vietnam in the South China Sea in 1974 and 1988, though these were relatively minor skirmishes. Chinese ships have also participated in international anti-piracy patrols off Somalia since late 2008.
The United States has sent a low-level delegation to Qingdao, led by the naval attache at its Beijing embassy, and no ships.
However, the USS Blue Ridge, the command ship of the Japan-based U.S. Seventh Fleet, is visiting Hong Kong, having arrived in the city on Saturday.
A senior U.S. naval official aboard the ship said the Seventh Fleet would continue its extensive operations in the region, including so-called freedom of navigation operations to challenge excessive maritime claims.
China objects to such patrols close to the Chinese-held features in the Paracels and Spratlys archipelago in the South China Sea, where U.S. warships are routinely shadowed by Chinese vessels.
The U.S. official said he believed an incident last September, when a Chinese destroyer sailed within 45 meters of the American destroyer USS Decatur, was an isolated event and other routine interactions with the PLA navy had proved more professional.
The post China displays new destroyer to show off military might appeared first on ARYNEWS.
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Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà
New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/this-is-how-wars-start/
This Is How Wars Start
by Rostislav Ishchenko for Actual Comment
Translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard
http://www.stalkerzone.org/rostislav-ishchenko-this-is-how-wars-start/
Russia keeps its most powerful grouping of troops in the western direction. Just according to official figures the equivalent of ten divisions under the control of three army HQs – not counting the grouping in Crimea, airborne divisions and forces of special operations, and also two (Baltic and Black Sea) fleets, the Caspian flotilla, the revived Mediterranean squadron, and the grouping in Syria – is concentrated in the space from the Caucasus to the Baltics. I think that I wouldn’t be mistaken if I said that over half of the fighting capacity of Russia is concentrated in the Western strategic direction. And the Ministry of Defence continues at a fast pace to increase forces in this direction. At the same time it is necessary to take into account that in recent years the Russian army gained the highest mobility, i.e., the grouping can be quickly additionally strengthened by transferring forces and means from other regions.
It is clear that this happens not because Sergey Shoigu decided to play with toy soldiers and not because Dmitry Medvedev has to spend budget money, and especially not because Vladimir Putin, showing external peacefulness, secretly plans bad things. The deployment of such a grouping of troops that is especially fully completed during war-time, as well as supplying them with the latest weapons systems and constructing modern military camps and training grounds from scratch, is an extremely expensive luxury for a country that is under sanctions and its economy showed only the first signs of growth and can be easily brought down back — to stagnation. Respectively, if such expensive actions are made, then it means that from this side Russia feels real military danger.
But what is this danger?
Our “dear partners” don’t strongly exaggerate when they claim that neither any European NATO army taken by itself, nor all of them taken together are able to resist the Armed Forces of Russia. It is also not a problem to prevent, with the help of the Air Force and the fleet, the transfer of troops from the US by closing, during a special period, access for convoys to European Atlantic ports. The US isn’t able to deploy in Europe a contingent much bigger than the existing one. And this isn’t even because it is expensive – some countries are ready to pay extra for the deployment of the American troops on their territory, but because of the difficulties in supplying a large group (and without a supply of everything necessary, the army is non-operational).
In general, the existing fighting potential concentrated by Russia in the western direction is enough in order to reach not just Kiev and Lvov, and even not just Warsaw, but even the Atlantic. Even if it isn’t in a week but in 2-3 months, and not without problems and losses.
So why is its further strengthening and improvement happening? After all, by 2025-2030, having not increased in number much, the Russian group in the West must increase its potential two-fold (and perhaps even more) only due to the completion of rearmament and the mastering of new control systems and the principles of conducting combat operations. And here we aren’t even taking into account the nuclear arsenal, which makes any attack on Russia suicidal.
Let’s start with smaller things that are closer to home. Recently Mikhail Denisenko – calling himself the Patriarch of Kiev and all Rus-Ukraine – stated that the expected reception from Constantinople of Tomos of Autocephaly will allow the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate not just to sharply increase its numbers at the expense of parishioners of Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, but will make it “the only lawful Ukrainian church”. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, in his opinion, will be forcibly renamed into the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The most symbolic temples and monasteries – in particular, the Kiev-Pecherskand Pochaevskaya Lavras – will have to be expropriated from it.
It is clear that Denisenko won’t be able to solve this problem without violence. But violence means the start in Ukraine of a religious civil war. Groups of militants that will have to put the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate into a new framework now train themselves using Romanis, but are already ready to expand the area of terror to other ethnic minorities and to the Russian national majority, and also to use their acquired skills in the race for power among the Ukrainian clans.
I want to highlight that Denisenko himself, like most acting Ukrainian politicians and especially radical nationalist militants, can’t refuse terror, which provides the monopoly on power. They committed too many crimes in order to simply find themselves in opposition due to a loss of power. They risk going to prison, but taking into account that the international tribunals for war crimes more often than not use punishments that aren’t provided by national codes, so then it is possible that it can be the death penalty.
It must be kept in mind that Denisenko, irrespective of receiving Tomos, will realise his program of capturing absolute power in Ukrainian Orthodoxy. The legalisation of his public organisation [the unrecognised Kiev Patriarchate – ed] by the Constantinople patriarchy, the recognition of it as the canonical church would give him additional benefits, but time is limited — Denisenko, and especially his militants, can’t wait infinitely. It is necessary to solve this issue before the termination of the next electoral cycle in Ukraine, which, by the way, most likely can end ahead of schedule and without elections in general. While the conflicting political camps (Poroshenko, on the one hand, and his political opponents who formed an oligarchical anti-Poroshenko consensus on the other hand) are busy fighting each other and need support, the window of opportunity for a forceful solution to the question with church buildings and status starts to open. If there is a delay, politicians, having solved their problems, can be much less inclined to look through their fingers at the forceful actions of Denisenko’s “patriarchate”.
As the question concerning power in Ukraine can be solved without waiting for elections, in the summer-winter of the current year Denisenko should also hurry and meet this deadline.
I.e., a multilayered conflict can appear in Ukraine, when the intra-Kiev civil conflict will be superimposed on civil war between Kiev and Donbass, and also religious war will start to flare up on top of all of this.
In this situation neither Russia, nor the western neighbors of Kiev from the EU can remain on the sidelines. However, the European Union is already going through a rough patch – contradictions between the poor South and the rich North constantly amplify, the contradictions between the pro-American East and the pro-European West of Europe are superimposed on this. In every individual state of the EU the conflict between nationalists, who demand an urgent restoration of relations with Russia, and globalists, who want to continue the confrontational policy of sanctions, smoulders and gradually inflames. The intervention of some EU members in the Ukrainian crisis can lead to an aggravation of all these contradictions to the limit and raise the question already not about the unity of the West, which was buried by Trump during the last G7 summit, but about the unity of the European Union itself and about the stability of separate national regimes of European countries.
Having become, willingly or unwillingly, the initiator and the catalyst of the disintegration of Ukraine, Europe risks repeating its fate during the next cycle of history, having caught an incurable infection from the corpse of Ukrainian statehood. Both Russia and the US have interests in Europe that are too serious in order to let matters drift, therefore intervention and the collision of interests will also be inevitable.
At the same time it should be kept in mind that not only in Ukraine, but also in the majority of European countries the acting political elites in a similar kind of crisis situation can’t refuse power without having exposed their lives and freedom to the most serious risk. And here we absolutely don’t even take into account the factor of foreign culture (Afro-Asian) migration, which will certainly significantly contribute to the destabilisation of both certain states and the European system in general.
We are in a situation when the world that is habitual to us can fall like a house of cards across all the space from the Atlantic to the Narva and Don. Any attempt to stabilise the situation at an early stage of the crisis before the EU has finally turned into Somalia, Afghanistan, or Ukraine will demand from Russia to immediately extend a hand to Germany as the economic and political center of Europe, and without involving Germany’s potential the fight against the European crisis will unambiguously turn into a Sisyphean task.
Germany is a weak country militarily, and its importance in controlling Europe is understood not only in Russia, but also in the US, which, should the European crisis start, will become an objective opponent of Moscow in the fight for the right to define the future of the continent. I.e., it is necessary for Russia to breakthrough and provide a corridor to Germany from the flanks. At this time there must be enough reserves should there be a need to support intermediary efforts aimed at preserving Germano-French unity. There will be a need to act quickly, anticipating the geopolitical opponent in three strategic directions at once (the main one: the Western direction and the accompanying Southwestern and Northwestern flanks). The number and qualitative predominance of the grouping must ensure, first of all, the suppression of any resistance of illegal and semi-legal formations. Secondly, it must nip in the bud any thoughts about possible official resistance inside all state structures. And, lastly, is mustn’t allow the US to involve in the conflict the troops that are already placed in Europe, because of the senselessness of such an action.
In this case it is not about aggression, but about ensuring the radical interests of both Russia and the European Union, preventing Europe from slipping into a long bloody crisis that destroys the economy and the population in the huge once prospering territories. Moreover, the existence and increasing weight of this grouping serves as a good argument forcing any provokers to think three times before realising their criminal plans.
And nevertheless we can’t but take into account that a considerable part of the European elite dirtied itself by committing crimes (both war crimes and crimes against humanity). Being people who easily go back on their word, they are capable of not believing any security guarantees and making an attempt to resist up to the end. That’s why the grouping must not only look menacing, but it must be really capable of achieving objectives in the shortest possible time. The effectiveness and also low resource intensity of any operation directly depends on its brevity. The shorter the blitzkrieg is, the more effective it is, and the lower the losses and expenses are. The best blitzkrieg is the one that didn’t take place, when everything was decided only by the projection of force.
The demonstration of force and the quiet readiness to use it acts in our case as the best diplomatic argument. But it is necessary to understand that if in Germany or the US this argument is clear to all and was properly evaluated long ago, then for example, in Ukraine, owing to the progressing marginalisation of both society and the political class, there isn’t even anyone to evaluate it. Owing to the general geopolitical situation that developed around this country, which the West, by its actions, artificially attached key importance to, it is precisely Kiev where the launch button for an all-European conflict is, and, by all accounts, within the framework of existing political and diplomatic possibilities it is unlikely that it will be possible to peacefully deactivate this charge.
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