Whether the war in Ukraine will lead to a global disaster will depend mostly on whether Washington decides to support Ukrainian efforts to regain the Crimean Peninsula. – writes Anatol Lieven in the American diary Jacobin.
The Crimean issue represents the top threat to the atomic disaster that mankind has always faced. In fresh months, the Ukrainian government and military have repeatedly promised to regain the territory that Russia took over and annexed in 2014. The Russian establishment, like most average Russians, considers that maintaining Crimea is crucial for the Russian identity and position of Russia as a large force. A Russian liberal who is not Putin's fan said: “At last America utilized atomic weapons to save Hawaii and Pearl Harbor, and we should usage it if essential to save Crimea.”
For Ukrainian authorities to regain Crimea and the naval base in Sevastopol would mean a full defeat of Russian aggression. In this way Russia would be prevented from blocking Ukrainian Black Sea ports, and any future Russian invasion of Ukraine would be much more difficult.
The Antonowski Bridge collapsed after Russia withdrew from Kherson to prevent Ukrainian forces from crossing. The bridge was the only transport way from Kherson, Crimea.
This second position seems at first glance wrong, as Russia would have maintained a 1,200-kilometre-long border with Ukraine in the east and north. However, specified an opinion is linked to the belief that the failure of Crimea by Russia would mean a triumph over Russia in this war, and the humiliation of Russia would lead to Putin's fall and then to a drastic weakening, and even a complete collapse of the Russian Federation.
This is besides what the governments of Poland and the Baltic countries and hardheads in Western Europe and the United States want. They want to destruct Russia as an crucial origin in global relations, which would lead to the isolation of China and the strengthening of the global primacy of the US. Hence, the expanding usage of rhetoric (a cynically borrowed from the left) about the "decolonization" of Russia – an undisclosed intention to destruct the existing Russian state.
The American strategists have more concrete reason to hope that Russia can be disowned from Crimea. Sevastopol is the only Russian deep-water port in the Black Sea. Transforming another Russian ports into profitable sea bases would require large effort, time and costs. The failure of Sevastopol would so practically destruct Russia as a crucial power not only in the Black Sea, but besides in the neighboring Mediterranean.
But possibly these American losers should be more careful about their wishes. A brief look at the map and politics of the Erdogan government in Turkey should explain to the American strategists that it is Turkey, not the United States, would most likely benefit most from Russia's failure of Crimea. The abrupt increase in Turkey's power would not necessarily be beneficial to the West.
It should besides be noted that many of Russia's goals in the mediate East and the Mediterranean were not in fact contrary to the interests of the United States. If the Bush administration had listened to Russia (and France and Germany) and not invaded Iraq, thousands of Americans would have been saved and the United States would not have lost billions of dollars. The mediate east nations would be spared infinitely greater losses and suffering.
If the Obama administration had listened to Russia and failed to overthrow Gaddafi's state in Libya, civilian war in Libya and the spread of civilian wars and muslim extremism in most West and Central Africa could have been avoided. Nor would there be a large wave of illegal migration to Europe. If the Obama administration had succeeded in destroying the Assad government in Syria, it would almost surely have sunk into another disaster, specified as the 1 in Iraq, but without a Shiite majority in Iraq, which would have provided any basis for rebuilding the state. All of these actual or possible disasters were the work of Washington, not Moscow.
As far as Biden's administration is concerned, it seems to be divided as far as defeating Russia is concerned. According to information leaked from the White House, published by the fresh York Times and another media, Biden's administration wants to strengthen Ukraine adequate to be able to reliably endanger Crimea. But, like the Pentagon, the White home does not believe that Ukraine could regain the Crimea and thus hazard atomic war.
Biden's administration seems to believe that if the Ukrainian military had managed to penetrate the Azov Sea, Moscow would have been frightened adequate to agree to a deal (which Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenski had already offered in March), which would have allowed Russia to return to its positions, which it held from 2014 to February, and the issues of the formal position of Crimea and Donbass were postponed for future negotiations.
However, this strategy is highly risky due to the fact that it requires advanced levels of military and political control over Ukraine's activities, no of which is guaranteed. Moreover, without full designation of Russia's sovereignty over Crimea, Russia would be very hard to retreat completely from the ‘land bridge’ in Crimea, as this would put Ukraine in a much more favourable position to launch a fresh war to occupy the peninsula at any point in the future. The failure of the ‘land bridge’ to Crimea would mean that the Kerchen Strait would be the only Russian option to supply Crimea by land – and Ukraine had already demonstrated its ability to destruct this bridge.
Furthermore, 1 of the reasons for the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year was that Ukraine blocked the channel from Dnieper to Crimea, causing serious harm to the peninsula agriculture. If Russia wants to preserve Crimea, it must fight to keep or recover the "land bridge".
The importance of Crimea for the Russians can be mostly understood if the above-mentioned Western hard-headed targets are taken into account. The Russian establishment and most of the average Russians are determined to keep Russia's position as a large power. However, there are 3 another factors. The first is the emotional importance of Crimea, which stems from the memory of Sevastopol's heroic defence against the French, British and Turks in 1854–55, and Germany and Romanians in 1941–42. The Red Army lost more men in Crimea than the American Army lost on all fronts of planet War II combined. Second, between the conquest of Crimea in 1783 by Catherine the large of the Ottoman Empire (and its allies of the Crimean Tatars) and the annexation of Crimea by russian decree in 1954. Crimea was part of Russia. Until the last date, at no point in Crimea's past was part of Ukraine. The Russians claim – not without reason – that if the situation had turned around and Crimea had been transferred from Ukraine to Russia, most Western public opinion would sympathize with Ukrainian demands for its return. Third, Crimea has an cultural Russian majority. In January 1991, an overwhelming majority (94 percent) of Crimea voted to make a separate “federal republic” of the USSR, which would mean that Crimea would become an independent state along with Ukraine and Russia after the collapse of the russian Union. In December this year, a tiny majority (54%) The Crimeans advocated an independent Ukraine, but subject to the autonomy of Crimea, which the Ukrainian government unilaterally overturned 4 years later.
The defence of Sevastopol is 1 of the pillars of the Russian national story of the Patriotic War
There is no certainty that Russia would usage atomic weapons as a last hotel to keep the Crimea. It seems likely that the Russians will begin with a little dangerous, unconventional attack—such as the shut-down of American satellites—which could lead to escalation towards atomic war.
However, there is absolutely no reason to uncertainty that the Russian state would be willing to take a colossal risk, for itself and for humanity. Therefore, we should remember president John F. Kennedy's words in his "peace speech" at the University of America in June 1963, reflecting the lessons he learned during the Cuban crisis: "First of all, by defending our vital interests, atomic powers must prevent conflicts that lead the opponent to choose between humiliating withdrawal or atomic war. Taking specified a course in the atomic age would prove the bankruptcy of our policy – or the collective desire to destruct the world.
Anatol Lieven
The article was published on February 10, 2023 in the American left-wing diary Jacobin. The author is simply a British writer and polytologist, 1 of the best Western conflict experts in the russian space.
Crowd. Jacek Mędrzycki
