by Kumar David

Ukraine joining NATO or stationing nuclear weapons is intolerable. It is a threat to Russia’s security but much, much more serious it is a stage in the realignment of global power relations by neo-imperialism and finance-capital and a step towards future wars. Otherwise it is not possible to understand why NATO does not give Russia a formal guarantee that Ukraine will never be allowed to join. It’s not that Biden, or NATO or finance-capital want wars; it’s that stuff just happens when conducive circumstances materialise. I have provided a map of how Russia and China are strangled by a multitude of American and NATO military bases.

Having made this crucial concern explicit I add that the invasion that Putin launched on 24 February was premature, unpopular, excessive and the outcome is doubtful. Diplomatic and tactical options had not been exhausted. The 190,000 troops he sent are inadequate for the onerous task of taking and holding Ukraine for any length of time. Frustrated by slow progress and dogged Ukrainian resistance, flummoxed by a tornado of sanctions and illegal acquisition of Russian bank assets, and flustered by a blanket ban on Russian TV and broadcasts throughout the West whose citizens are only aware of half the truth, Western media now alleges that he has unleashed the full force of aerial bombardment and artillery. Yes, this is half the story.

For a long game Putin needed a larger force, deeper pockets, preparation of the Russian people and strong global alliances. He did none of this and is now pretty much isolated. He is said to be a master strategist but this time he has blundered. He promised the world that he would not invade and then did just that and blew his credibility. Russian economic and financial arrangements are being scorched by the West’s economic might. Imperialism’s hope is to bring Russia to heel and eventually forge a grand alliance against the alternative superpower, China. Ukraine and Putin are small change in this grand game of global domination. The West’s objective is to crush a Russia that is not under its control and to this end even a transition of leadership in Russia is possible in the months or year ahead.

It is true that the US, NATO, capitalist Europe and the government in Kiev have for months, if not years brushed aside Russia’s unquestionably justified security concerns. In one of the best analysis I have seen a certain Vladimir Pozner, who I have not heard of before, argues that the West created Putin to be what he is today:

Russia has offered Kiev conditions for stopping the offensive; an undertaking never to join NATO and a promise to never station nuclear weapons in Ukraine; similar to what the Americans did to Cuba in 1962. Kiev should accept the conditions though it will anger America and NATO. In truth, I wonder is it Putin who is being naïve? Has he not learnt from repeated false promises since 1991? But he has no alternative now; he wants sanctions which are biting deep lifted. The West is to blame for not making it clear from the beginning to Ukraine that it would never be allowed to join NATO. Why did it not do so? Because it needed a handle to screw the Russians; but the sorcerer’s apprentice has now broken out of control.

Global strategic and more important economic relationships have entered a period of profound change. The China-Russia economic equation will be transformed in the next decade into an aiya-malli (China-Russia respectively) relationship. The tens of billions China is pouring into the Second Silk Road can be more profitably and reliably invested nearer home. The high points will be energy, Chinese industries in Russia (why waste good money in god-forsaken Africa, Pakistan and Lanka?), high-tech and military high-tech to blunt the edge of American leadership, and most important, enabling a new global financial system that will bypass dollar-dominance. Yes, it’s a decade long process but it will start now. Furthermore, events in these weeks are a dress-rehearsal for when China physically acquires Taiwan; there is nothing Beijing sees more clearly than that.

But Putin should have persisted in diplomatic efforts unless Kiev made a practical move to NATO membership. A decades old clause in the Ukrainian Constitution does not amount to an imminent move. Yes, if Ukraine’s accession to membership was imminent it is tantamount to a declaration of war but that was not the case. However, what is more sinister and dangerous is that the US and NATO have lied time again promising not to expand NATO up to the Russian border and broken that pledge every time inching ever closer. While condemning Putin’s heavy-handed humanitarian, military and diplomatic blunders, Russia is justified in refusing to let anyone cross the aforesaid red-line. But I think Putin could have stopped NATO from enlisting Ukraine without going to such extremes.

The Red Cross estimates that 2.5 million Ukrainian refugees have fled the country. Damage to buildings is extensive (the two sides blame each other), civilian deaths add up to several hundred and thousands of soldiers on both sides have perished. Large anti-Putin demonstrations take place all over Europe each day and sizable spontaneous ones in many Russian cities. The tussle between NATO and financial powers that set its agenda on one side, and the you-know-who other side, seems endless. Please permit me unpoetic bowdlerisation:

Greed and power, ranging for payoff,

With the devil by their side have come hot from hell,

Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war

While carrion men will soon groan for burial.

Next let me do a thought experiment to give my Lankan readers a grasp of what’s similar and what’s not in our own story. The ethnonym Ukrainian is recent, just 20th Century (post-1917); previously, since the 14 hundreds the people called themselves Ruthenian. Afterwards they called themselves Little Russians (Malorossy) especially after Catherine the Great annexed the eastern portion – the two provinces now recognised by Russia as independent countries and the Crimean Peninsula in the 1770s. The larger portion in the west was overrun by different kingdoms till 1917 when all Ukrainians were recognised as a “nation” and the territory incorporated as a republic of the USSR. Compared to the old-Sinhalese, and Chola and Pandya periods of Sri Lanka it was a more recent, complicated and messy story. Nevertheless, the country does have two linguistic groups, about 80% Ukrainian speakers and about 20% Russian speakers.

The cultural relationship, apart from being more recent (one millennium in Ukraine as opposed to a little over two in our case) it is also thornier. Kiev, historically, was the religious, cultural and dynastic epicentre of Russian society since about 900AD. That is, it was Russia’s Anuradhapura but located in the “Tamil part” of the country. Catherine “took it back” nearly two millennia after Dutugemunu took back Anuradhapura. The Russian speaking portion, the Donbas region in which the two independent new states (Donetsk and Luhansk) are located are in the east and border Russia. An interesting thought experiment is, what if the Palk Strait was land, what if the Jaffna Peninsula was joined to India by land as it was for most of the 80,000 years prior to 10,000 BC? In my estimate the history of Lanka, Eelam and the IPKF (a Putinesque invasion) would have been immensely different. It’s not productive for me to speculate but readers can picture all sorts of outcomes in that scenario.

Nevertheless, I do not believe that India has any wish to incorporate our Lanka into the Union. It would have to be mad to wish to acquire this nation of loonies; neither Delhi nor Madras are that insane. India’s motives are related to geopolitical strategy; it does not want China or any great power to secure military facilities on its southern flank. In this the approach is akin to Russian strategy in Ukraine. Those who suggest that Putin is motivated to resurrect the Soviet Union, or a Russian Empire encompassing Russia, Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine must imagine that Putin is stark raving mad and has no grasp of the difference between the possible and impossible. Putin has blundered (see my “Putin’s self-inflicted fiasco”, Colombo Telegraph March 2) but he is not looney. “Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO; no nuclear weapons can be stationed there; it will have to remain a neutral buffer state”; that’s it. This bottom-line I support. What about a nuclear war? Well the way Putin sees it a nuclear stand-off is already here. Russia’s options are certainty of nuclear war down the line as the West expands its strategic, imperialistic-finance-capitalist options, or a hard bargain now.

In this context then the conditions India has set out for a billion-dollar loan if Basil’s oft deferred visit to Delhi is to materialise are tougher. The demands include maritime security agreements to strengthen India’s strategic interest around Trincomalee, surveillance aircraft for the Air Force, a ship repair dock in Trinco, posting an officer at an intelligence centre, the reopening Palaly airport for commercial operations and cultural projects in the Jaffna peninsula.

In respect of post-Soviet Russia, the question can be asked “Is Putin a communist?” The answer is a resounding NO. Putin’s faith is known and never in doubt; he is a is a devotee of the Russian Orthodox Church. He has helped and channelled huge funds to the Orthodox Church, the rebuilding of churches and to the spread of its tentacles. You may think this good or bad – are the saffron-obsessions of all our presidents and PMs since independence, good or bad? I think bad (ditto Putin), you may think otherwise. That’s not the point; the point is that he is not a communist in theory, ideology or practise; OK fine, that’s his right. Incidentally he is also an anti-Leninist and says the “thesis of the right of nations to self-determination” is harmful and responsible for the fragmentation of the USSR in 1991. Ukraine is confronted by an Orthodox Christian; we have a Hindutva fanatic on our doorstep.

Living next door to a big power is knotty. Infamous instances where war was/is certain if a line is crossed are:

The United States, the Monroe Doctrine and Cuba 1962.

China, the 9-dash line and refusal to permit any foreign forces to be stationed in Taiwan.

Russia and Ukrainian membership of NATO.

India and the point-blank stipulation of no Chinese military bases in Lanka.

The information blackout imposed by both sides turns the Western and Russian public into ignoramuses. Russian TV and broadcasts are banned throughout the EU. YouTube, Google, Meta and all the others prohibit Russian content. Western intelligence has successfully jammed RTV (the Russian channel) from many parts of Asia. The vapid BBC and mouthpiece-Economist are Western tools reminiscent of the Bush-Blair days where no counterpoint was heard. Likewise, Russia has introduced draconian laws including hash prison terms for anyone who opposes Putin’s way of talking or thinking. It is important for the citizens of the world to know all this and not swallow the daily doses of misinformation and false “analysis”. Humanity at large, not just Lanka’s hungry, electricity and fuel deprived masses, is passing through one of the worst of all possible times.

[Wednesday, 9 March 2022, noon GMT]