Ukraine’s two wars
On October 7, 2001, many years ago, the war in Afghanistan began, the major military response to the 9/11 terrorists. We didn’t know it, but this war was not going to end al-Qaeda. We thought that if we deposed the Taliban, it was imperative that that terrorist organization be diluted: we had decapitated the head that supported it.
Error, we still move very conservatively (but it was impossible to think and have done much differently). Marked by the knowledge of experiences, we ignore how to attack efficiently that we didn’t know.
A place, through the effect of fear, has given us to creativity and invention where we should have been quiet. At that time, what I call the theory of two conflicts, designed by the United States and pre-announced to the Security Council at the beginning of hostilities, was applied for the first time.
In the same theater of operations, Afghanistan, the first conflict, against the Afghan state or whoever actually controls it – the Taliban. And, at the same time, the first episode of the war on terrorism (against al-Qaida). Different rules apply. Some combatants, others unrecognized, were that status, it was only said that they would have the right to “humanity”. In one case, prisoners of war, in the other, war detainees, who would only be released when the war on terrorism was over.? That is, probably never.
Of the rest of the story, we all know at least a little. The Taliban were destroyed, Al-Qaeda survived and then continues its brutal cavalcade until we “know” how to deal with it.
More or less twenty years later, the aftertaste that we are left with is a little bitter. The new Taliban, impantes, and we are no longer the Afghans of their fate in the circumstances and the well-known way (nuestime the way there: you can always mark for visas the way we are by those who, as in the case, went from leaving to back).
We have achieved very important successes against Al-Qaeda and we have united against its successor Daesh, with even more horrendous methods. But we have and have Guantánamo and other excesses; Iraq in 2003 and Abu Ghraib; the democratic “roadmap”, with the results that are in sight; and, however, not everything is bad, the United States abandons the perverse construction of “one theater of operations, two conflicts”. They will be, for many, detestable legal trifles, and perhaps they will be. But they have great consequences.
Now, in Ukraine, it is increasingly clear that it is, again, two conflicts, but nothing that compares with the theory of two conflicts. There is rightfully in this there is a lot, a lot of movement of great tectonic power plates, almost converging to crush Russia.
The thesis is as follows. In a first conflict, we have Ukraine, supported by the United States, Europe and others (Australia, Japan), fighting Russia. In a second conflict, we have the United States, Europe and others (Australia, Japan), through Ukraine, fighting Russia. Russia, as the aggressor, is the protagonist in each of the conflicts, and it is the protagonist of anger. As for the rest, Ukraine is the protagonist in one of the conflicts, which appears to us as more evident; and we are the main “participants” of the others, asking Ukraine to “pretend” that it alone is fighting.
Therefore, to say that in Ukraine there is a “proxy war” is correct, but insufficient, because it diminishes and diminishes the role of Ukrainians in the defense of their country; but to say, for propaganda reasons, that this war is (only) between Russia and Ukraine leading to a simplistic and also an insufficient reading to also reveal the time and the way that marked an evolution of the war since its beginning .
It can be said, very quickly, that there are “other” wars underway, all related to what is happening in Ukraine, and many of them in the European Union, within the walls – and their impact will be very lasting. Influence, but only in the European Union and in defence, but only in the influence of the European Union and in the defense of NATO. The group from Ter Visegrad (I can’t say that I shed a single tear) will have imploded, or at least serious blows to the hull, as a result of the “divorce” with Hungary. Germany is being pressured to be the great European power in the military as well, and we will still laugh. Because, when it is, the same ones who are now clamoring will make known their concern with German militarism. In short, nothing that wonderful freedom of opinion cannot accommodate with that complacency that only great freedoms can have.
In the war itself, could we have had a “fusion” of the two conflicts? We could, in principle. It was enough that, right from the start, we had Ukraine here that could count on us, that we would be by its side. Legitimate collective defense, and that’s it.
This was not, and thankfully, the political decision. Doing nothing was unthinkable. Doing “everything” was unthinkable, because in direct confrontation with the greatest healthy powers, and one of them, the aggressor, rationally playing their survival: they are not usually the best conditions for their survival. It is true that Ukraine did everything it could for us, it did at its side, so that the conflict ceased to have it as a nodal. He did what good was good for him (and we did what common sense dictated). But we owe Ukraine our decision to “participate” in the second conflict, because we only ventured forward and redefined what we want when we understood that Ukraine had the strength to do so.
But, in plans, Ukraine would already be much more to us than we would have had to receive at the beginning of the war: for the resistance against the enemy, Ukraine and they became a more credible number. And, by the relentless pressure, by a tremendous and global propaganda, it left us “without” a choice, even the most reticent. The initial support doesn’t come much anymore, very contained, nothing “vocative”, it was necessary. Result: not because of the lack of results: if not because of the absence of fighting alongside the forces, I don’t know what else to fight the Ukrainians, from the most fallible weaponry with means increasingly adapted to each that the conflict has been having .
Let us also leave aside, on the other hand, the finer analysis of what the “volunteers” from different countries are who fight on the side of each of the parties in this war. Few will have noticed, for sure. But the British veteran who died a few days ago in combat (poor guy, a 22-year-old veteran) wasn’t there by chance. He’d been hired by a private security company—an obnoxious understatement, to be sure, that wasn’t raised by his sons in that war out of simple love for the cause.
The strategic objectives of the two conflicts may not all coincide, from the point of view of time, they converge. Ukraine does not at all want to negotiate a peace that results in a concession, territorial or otherwise, to Russia. Therefore, it no longer responds to the opponent’s proposals. We don’t want Ukraine to negotiate anything with Putin’s Russia, because we know that with each passing day, Russia will have more difficulties. With each passing day, it will be less “this” Russia for the future. And then we want it to be shredded for good in Ukraine. Translating and putting the matter on a clean plane: the conflict will last much longer than initially expected, because none of the three parties can now get the bone, forgive the vulgar expression.
Russia cannot, from the outset, because, as much as it was thought to happen with Ukraine, survival as a regime is at stake here. He will never, willingly, back down if he cannot say he has won something. Ukraine never knows that now, and once and for all, its back is hot, and Russia is alone and isolated. And never us, because our conflict goes far beyond the conflict on the ground. This, we suppose, will have to be our “final war” with Russia, and I just don’t say the war to end all wars because the historical example from which the expression is taken didn’t give much result.
Reminds me of this again, “The Perfection of Shot”, by Mathias:
“We walked for a while by the sea, in silence, and suddenly Myrna asked me:
– Do you think the war will last long?
– I don’t know. It’s possible.
– One would say that nobody wants it to end. For it to end, they would all have to die.
Smile. Bottomless, he was right.
“Or someone else would win,” I added.
– And will you fight while the war lasts?
– Yes No doubt. You never know… unless there is a change.
I didn’t see what could change, but I didn’t say anything else.
He stopped and looked me in the eyes.
– This war is created by people like you.”
It is also all this that explains, for example, the more than likely requests for NATO membership from Sweden and Finland, which, of course, did not come out of his head alone. They are a calculation, not suicidal. And there will be such a favorable window of opportunity. On the other hand, in “our” conflict with Russia, it is yet another barb stuck in the animal. Barb, but none the less, for its truth, can be considered important.
On the ground, there is a result already achieved, in our favor and in favor of Ukraine. No matter how many casualties it has or may, unfortunately, have, Ukraine will henceforth be a state with very strong defense capabilities. At its cost and at the cost of a lot of blood of its own, in the trenches and in the streets and alleys of cities and towns, trained by the best and armed by the best, Ukraine will emerge from this conflict very strong. I do not see, in the context of our continent and in the face of this type of opponent, another recent case that even comes close. This result is good for Ukraine, and it’s good for the continent, and it will be good for when peace returns. However, it will only be a lot at the cost of a significant devastation of the country.
Then there are the internal political effects of the conflict that are of interest to us, but which, for Kiev, are of infinite importance. At the head, perhaps, put Azovstal. The Azov battalion, as everyone knows, is much more than a simple force on the ground, it is one of the main pillars of Ukraine’s war effort – as was confirmed when Volodymyr Zelensky (incidentally, with special annoyance for many) was accompanied by a joint organizational element when presented before the Greek Parliament.
For this reason, the fate of the fighters of that battalion that, it seems, is inside the Azovstal installations is so special. There is no shortage of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian hands; there is no shortage of Russian prisoners of war in the hands of the Ukrainians. There have already been prisoner exchanges. These, however, have a different “status”, and that is why they say that they will not surrender and demand to leave Azovstal free and with their weapons. A doesn’t make sense from the point of requiring less and less armed rules, as well as credible that civilians in Az don’t want to leave. It is, therefore, a battle with different rules, in which each one is pretending to believe the other’s version. Of one thing we can be sure.
I don’t think Russia could get its hands on them, but I don’t want to guess. However, if Russian prisoners will be taken, this tremendous defeat for Ukraine. If that happens, how their faces, origins and tattoos, nationalities and “sins” will be displayed by Russia. They are the dream trophy, the denazification of Ukraine in streaming.
So as not to go on too long, one last question. As it is, confirmation in Ukraine with two support each other; it results in an escalation of the means involved which, I hope, you know when to stop; it transforms the combats into something more and more irreducible and without limits; radicalizes positions; makes dialogue unfeasible, and will have enormous humanitarian costs.
In the end, the balance will be made, but it will be made by whoever wins (it is always whoever wins who writes the history books). I think Ukraine will catch up, I think it will catch up with Russia. We will soon see how many lives it was necessary to lose to reach that goal. Without forgetting one thing, because we are not phlegmatic and impartial observers who erase the trace of time: it was Russia that, on February 24, decided to launch an armed attack against Ukraine. From there, his world changed, and ours changed.