... has already arrived .
Aloha,
Even though the last two posts on the list are mine, I have no intention to become (again) nettime's #1 poster! So this will be my last one for now.
This said I still wanted to share my thoughts - was it only to be relieved of them - about 'the situation' with fellow nettimers.
ExecSum: I think that war in Western Europe is now inevitable, and it will descend on us sooner than we all would wish for.
In my mind, there are three options about when NATO will actually go to, or be dragged into a war against Putin's Russia.
Option Zero: There will be no war. Putin will enslave Ukraine after having laid it to waste, annex part of it, and transform the rest in a vassal state, or whatever 'solution' he has in mind after achieving 'victory'. And 'we' in the West, will accommodate with the new situation and try to make the best of it, even if it won't be fun at all on many front. And yet I would feel insanely optimistic if I gave it half a chance of happening - or even less than that.
Having put his war machinery in movement, there is no turning back for Vladimir Putin, save a number of scenarios for his demise that have been discussed here and there and which are all entirely speculative. So by keeping it strictly to the current state of the situation, I see only three possible outcomes, all based on the assumption that the political and military deciders in the Western alliance (but also outside of it) have by now concluded that a war can no longer be averted, the only question being when it will start 'for real'.
So there are in my mind three 'moments' when NATO will become involved in an armed conflict with Putin's Russia:
Moment 1: The situation in Ukraine becomes so dire, the 'Grosnyfication' of Ukrainian cities so blatant, the masses of refugees into Ukraine's neighbours, fleeing the violence under the bombs so colossal, that 'in the West', populations, politicians, media, and even the military brass get so agitated as to decide that enough is enough - and that 'we will be next' any way. So there will be more and more support pouring into Ukraine that will less and less distinguishable from direct military intervention, a stage that in the eyes of Putin has been passed long ago in any case.
Moment 2 happens if Putin indeed achieve his goals in Ukraine, at whatever cost to the Russian and to the Ukrainian people without NATO actually intervening, it having be paralysed by the fear of consequences Putin has repeatedly, and unequivocally threatened with. In which case there is no reason whatsoever to assume he will stop at that and now will go to menace, and, if unsuccessful, attack both ex-Soviet, but not NATO members Moldova and Georgia. Russia annexing Moldova will make Romania very angry and very anxious, doing the same with Georgia will rattle Turkey to an even larger extent, and greater consequences. And both Romania and Turkey are NATO members. At which stage the same 'we'll anyway be next' conclusion might prevail after all ...
... or not. Moldova and far-from-Europe (if not from Turkey) Georgia will be left to their fate of post-Soviet & pre-Imperial vassal states, whether they have resisted invasion (& be destroyed in the process) or not. Moment 2 in any case represents a 'between-in' scenario that could be triggered by the outcome of Moment 1, ... or not, or might just as well merge with ...
Moment 3 which will happen when Putin's Russia will directly threaten NATO countries, arguing yet again that NATO, not Russia, is the 'structural' aggressor. Unfortunately, the trigger to make it is there, in plain sight, on the map: it is called the 'Suvalky gap' and it consist in the 90km long borderline between Poland and Lithuania that separates the Russian (semi-)exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast from Russia's vassal Belarus - by now, and surely by then, a nation in name only. No doubt Putin will demand a 'corridor' to put an end to this insufferable situation, itself the result from the evenmore insufferable existence of the formerly Soviet Baltic states as independent countries. And all NATO members, just as Poland.
There will be no Czechoslovakia 1939. Having gone that far, the analogy with the precedent of Nazi Germany will have become too stark. NATO will go at war. What happens next is for any one and everyone to imagine.
I am aware that there are a lot of holes that can (and will) be shot in my presentation. The most obvious one being whether Putin can hold Russia together as it is dragging it into a fratricidal annihilation war with Ukraine - with the economic disaster that it entails. And whether he can hold his power (and even his life) in the face of possible (probable?) mounting discontent, both of the Russian people and of his own clique. Beware of the Ides of March (in 6 days time!) and the 'Tu quoque' bit they say ... but this wishful thinking is surely part of my sentiment, but not of my reasoning.
Conclusion: We - and this time without speech marks - are toast. Sorry.
Cheers all the same,
p+7D!
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