Crescent International
By now only the misinformed will deny that Russia and NATO are fighting a proxy war in Ukraine.
Political and military dynamics of the war have acquired a pace of their own and no side has the requisite capabilities to control developments fully.
This is usually the case for most wars, Syria being the most recent example that has gone on for 11 years and counting.
What makes the war in Ukraine different is its surprisingly strong conventional war characteristics.
Even Crescent International did not expect it to turn out this way!
Over the past 12 months, the conflict has escalated and will continue to do so as the actions of all participants show.
Thus, Russia-NATO clash via conventional and proxy methods is likely to intensify.
It will also spread to other parts of the world at different levels and with differing intensity.
On February 15, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that Moscow aims to focus on ending the west’s monopoly on global affairs.
It appears that NATO has made a strategic decision to make sure that Russia not only fails in its objectives in Ukraine, but that internally it resembles the early 1990s.
Significant western backing of pro-independence Chechen organizations fighting on the Ukrainian side and facilitation of the Russian opposition meeting in Poland last November indicate a determined policy to make sure that Russia’s current territorial composition also changes.
Even the anti-government exiled forces backed by the west openly declare that they will allow for certain ethnic republics making up the Russia Federation to separate from Russia.
This is quite a rarity in Russian domestic politics.
Such a policy, however, indirectly plays into the hands of the Russian government which has successfully sold the war in Ukraine to the majority of its people as an existential threat.
Thus, any hope of the war ending soon is unrealistic.
It will continue to escalate in a semi-controlled fashion for some time.
Both sides will try to downplay the threat of direct NATO-Russia confrontation or even admit it publicly to maintain a face-saving exit from military mishaps which are bound to occur.
Whether this controlled strategy will work is difficult to predict, including by those implementing it.
Although the Russian economy has performed far better than many western policy makers had predicted, it must be stated that overall, the western economies are stronger.
The NATO regimes will, therefore, try to exhaust Russia economically by prolonging the conflict and increasing economic pressure on it as they did during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (December 1979 – February 1989)
Further, NATO regimes will attempt to drag Russia into protracted conflicts in other parts of the world.
This concept has been propagated by Washington officials for many years prior to the war in Ukraine.
Moscow likely realizes that what it cannot offer on the economic front, it can compensate for by making western economic pressure costly to the instigators via its geopolitical responses.
It is no secret that West Asia is one of the key locales from where the US exerts global influence.
Russia is, therefore, likely to attempt to compensate for its economic weakness by stretching NATO geopolitically.
Moscow realizes the political influence of apartheid Israel in US domestic and foreign policy calculations.
If American policies in Ukraine cause significant damage to Israel, the White House occupant, whoever that might be, will begin to feel the heat from the zionist lobby.
The pro-Israel lobby exerts inordinate influence over American policy and can cause significant damage to any politician who does not prioritize Israel’s interests.
The American people will have to wait, as they have been doing for decades, while zionist Israel is showered with billions of dollars in largesse.
