Unexpected echo of US policy
Shereshevskiy's analysis

ANALYTICS  14 February 2023 - 16:42

Military historian Sofya Shirogorova notes that the US administration's policy towards Ukraine is having unexpected effects. The fact is that this policy is based on a combination of the powerful promotion of military supplies for the AFU and bombastic rhetoric about the need to ensure Ukraine's success on the battlefield on the one hand, and the actual refusal to provide critical weapons that would allow the Ukrainian army to achieve parity with the RF Armed Forces on the other.

When US President Joe Biden says that he will do whatever is necessary to ensure Ukraine's success on the battlefield, he is taken literally, for his words are clear enough. And when he refuses to send F-16 combat aircraft or tanks (the US has agreed to supply only 31 tanks against thousands of Russian tanks and only one year later, moreover, by removing special depleted uranium armor plates from them) to Ukraine, it is key to the AFU's ability to conduct successful offensive operations.

Such a combination has multifaceted consequences. The US has touted its support, but because it is insufficient to ensure decisive success for the AFU, the Russian Armed Forces continue to advance. In the eyes of European and world experts critical of the US, as well as in the eyes of the extreme right (alt-right and even more respectable right-wingers) in the United States itself, this leads to the growing credibility of Russian forces and the Wagner PMC. American right-wingers, for example, have already made Wagner something of a fetish.

Such a policy raises questions among Republicans, not all of them, but the part of the most closely associated with Trump and isolationists. They say there is no point in providing tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine since it is useless anyway and Russian troops continue to advance near Bakhmut. The question is whether public opinion in the United States and the European Union is receptive to such ideas. People are growing tired of the endless conflict, Shirogorova points out, and there is a growing desire to end it quickly. In such circumstances, these arguments can have a certain impact on the public.

"Increased military assistance from the US and NATO countries for Ukraine against the background of Kyiv's lack of success has a positive, in terms of Russian state interests, effect on the Arab and generally Middle Eastern area, and through it, on the leadership of states in the region. That is, the tendency that Russia is unable to cope with Ukraine has gradually been replaced by the tendency that it is the entire collective West that is unable to cope with Russia. This is primarily the result of an active information campaign by Western countries themselves regarding military assistance to Ukraine. In the Middle East, it is perceived as direct US and NATO involvement in the war against Russia. And this is not the result of any Russian information policy, but a peculiarity of the perception of the West's own statements and approach viewed through a Middle Eastern information prism. At the same time, the leading Middle Eastern media themselves support this concept in one form or another," orientalist Kirill Semyonov said.

But there is another aspect to US policy. Observing the hesitation of the Americans, seeing their reluctance to supply Ukraine with weapons critical for offensive operations in sufficient quantities, some countries have launched large-scale rearmament programs. This applies, for example, to Poland, which has placed huge arms orders with the US and South Korea.

South Korea itself is considering acquiring nuclear weapons. South Korean President Yoon Seok Yeol said on January 11 that his country may soon develop its own nuclear weapons if the situation with North Korea deteriorates further. The fact is that South Koreans' trust in US policy is falling, both at the ruling and public levels. Only 51.3 per cent of Koreans believe that Washington will actually demonstrate a serious military effort to defend Seoul in case of a contingency on the Korean peninsula.

Thus, developments in the Russia-Ukraine war could have unexpected consequences, a kind of echo in today's world.

The Biden administration vacillates between a desire to provide military assistance to Ukraine to prevent a power undermining the US-led world order from gaining the upper hand, and a fear of escalation - a direct clash between NATO and Russia or the use of nuclear weapons.

Perhaps the US would like a kind of Koreanisation of the conflict, gradual fading along certain lines as the parties' forces are exhausted. This contradictory policy manifests itself in a kind of seesaw: first by reducing the supply of shells during attacks by the AFU, then by denying tanks, aircraft, and long-range missiles, then, by increasing the supply of artillery and shells. Perhaps this is the golden mean, which the US leadership considered the most optimal to achieve their goals (their probable goal is the Koreanisation of the conflict).

But the problem for the Americans is that at the same time, the US has widely advertised its policy as "defending democracy and national independence of Ukraine" and as collective Western support for the protection of international law. These objectives contradict Koreanisation, as the latter means retaining under Russian control a number of territories that the international community, with the exception of a few countries, considers to be Ukrainian. Not only that, as Russia continues to advance (even if without achieving any grandiose results), more and more people, including those in the EU and the US itself, are beginning to ask questions - how strong is the US, what values are it actually defending and how reliable is its protection in principle?

Finally, the nuclear threat policy that the Kremlin has used against the Americans has proven effective. At least within a year of the start of the conflict it has prevented the transfer of Western tanks, long-range missiles, and combat aircraft to Ukraine, weapons that could have helped it offensively.

Taken together, this could lead to increased independence from America for a number of countries, including those in the US orbit of influence, as they see the weakness and contradictions of US policy. In the case of the PRC, the likelihood of an operation to take control of Taiwan is increasing; in the case of Korea and Iran, their nuclearisation is becoming more likely.

Caliber.Az