To the editor,
Who will win the war between Ukraine and Russia?
Thanks,
Lindsay.
[Sent via Bluesky]
Hi Lindsay,
The war between Ukraine and Russia is another item of a catalogue that demonstrates the futility of warfare in this 21st century of cheap drone weaponry. Russia began the war by opening a broad front along the north, east and southern borders of Ukraine. Their subsequent drive on Kyiv and Kharkiv suggests that Russian leadership had banked on a swift military victory and regime change. Obviously that did not happen. Over four years later, Russia has been largely expelled from northern Ukraine, military lines have consolidated in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine and fortified defensive zones have engulfed the field of battle. Although Russia has fought through fierce counteroffensives to capture about 20% of Ukrainian territory, their pace of advance has been achingly slow.
Deep rumination on the causes of this war is beyond the scope of your question but it suffices to say that there are ethnic dimensions to the conflict that trace back centuries. From a materialist point of view, both Ukraine and Russia can be characterized as run-of-the-mill corrupt capitalist kleptocracies: the imperialist NATO alliance backs Ukrainian oligarchs aligned with western capital, while Moscow has sought to shore up its own capital interests in eastern Europe. Working people sent to their doom by capital wrapped in a nationalist disguise is an old and horrible story. Noble causes do not abound here.
There are concrete geopolitical implications worth flagging. Just as the US-Israeli war on Iran has been a cocktail shaker for the regional politics of the Middle East, so too has the Russia-Ukraine war had a similar effect on Europe. The European Union has largely severed key Russian inputs from their economies, creating stagnant economic conditions. At the same time, European countries have committed to a large-scale military buildup in order to counter the “Russian threat” that has failed to topple Ukraine. And this is on top of a whopping $400 billion in aid spent by NATO countries to prop up the Ukrainian war effort against Russia. As for the Russian side, the math gets worse: over $1 trillion dollars lost to sanctions and frozen assets plus hundreds of billions more in direct military expenditures.
Karl Marx wrote in the Grundrisse that the economic effect of war “is exactly the same as if the nation were to drop part of its capital into the ocean.”1 By that standard, none of the principal actors in this war can possibly emerge a “winner.” Any victory declared by the principal belligerents could only be considered Pyrrhic at best. As with the Iran war, the primary political benefits have accrued to the one major power smart enough to remain neutral: China.
China has managed to retain a robust trading relationship with the United States, European Union, Ukraine and Russia throughout the war. With Russia politically and economically ostracized from Europe, China has deepened ties with their large northern neighbour and destroyed America’s containment strategy in the process. Ukraine has set fire to western resources across the board and kneecapped any faint hope of Europe achieving economic sovereignty independent of the United States—itself a sinking ship. The relative strength of China increases each day the conflict drags on.
In The Art of War, Sun Tzu said that it takes “the acme of skill” to win wars without fighting. China clearly possesses this skill. The imperial world must crumble before it can do the same.
In sols,
Your editor.
Karl Marx, Grundrisse (Penguin, 2005): 129. ↩︎