THE UPSIDE OF THE WAR IN THE UKRAINE

by Colin Liddell

The war in the Ukraine has been a disaster for both countries involved. My prognosis is that Russia will enter into a "slow collapse" (as intended by the US Deep State to minimize nuclear fall-out) followed by a change of leadership and a peace deal along the 1991 borders.

The main goal of Russian involvement in Ukraine, namely keeping the naval base of Sebastopol, looks increasingly redundant due to the obvious obsolescence of the Russian navy, much of which has been sunk by a nation without a navy.

The breaking up of Russia to some degree is also possible, but will probably be limited - maybe just Chechnya.  The Ukraine will then head towards becoming a relatively typical EU+NATO "globohomo" state, while Russia will continue to baffle the experts and avoid obvious categories. 

This, or we could have a nuclear war.

So, is there any upside to this whole, dirty mess? Yes, there is always an upside. In this case it is in what the world has learned about the limitations of democracy. To some of us, the limitations of democracy is hardly a new concept, but it is nice to have clearer-than-ever examples of this. The wider war between the West and Russia over Ukraine has provided this. 

The Ukrainian War has two levels: a hot war, mainly limited to a sliver of Ukrainian territory, and a borderless global "meta-war," fought in the various realms of politics, economics, (dis)information, mass psychology, etc. 

While Russia is struggling in the hot war and will probably struggle even more in the months ahead, in the meta-war it has fought a particularly effective and impressive campaign, particularly in the political sphere. By my reckoning, it has largely destroyed two of the main political parties in the Anglo World, namely the old Republican Party and the UK's Conservative Party. It has also achieved considerable penetration of French, German, and other NATO political ecosystems. These efforts predate the war in the Ukraine by several years.

This Russian "meta-assault" has naturally generated some pushback. In some respects, NATO has grown stronger with the accession of Sweden and Finland. These are real military powers unlike those weaker countries that have been sheltering in NATO for decades, like Luxemburg and Germany.

Also, while the Kremlin has destroyed the Republican and Conservative Parties, its earlier targets, the Democrats and Labour parties, have largely been recaptured and strengthened by their respective Deep States. Also, Trump, the main battering ram being used by the Kremlin to cause chaos, has been weakened by stinging lawfare attacks (and advancing age).

But overall, the picture that has emerged is of the utter porousness and fragility of Western societies to Kremlin ops.

The reason the US hasn't been able to supply Ukraine with decisive weapons for the last six months is because the Kremlin has manipulated the GOP to prevent this. Meanwhile, in the UK, the Conservative Party is set to be wiped out in a few months, assisted by ex-Russia-Today regular Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party. This will set the scene for a Labour landslide that will then open the way for similar tactics there to cause division and isolationism. 

"Open society" democracies that rely on the mass of low IQ, low info, and high impulse voters to make reasonably intelligent and restrained choices, guided by established politicians who have a wider understanding of the various factors involved, has been revealed as a house of cards. Even a small amount of subversion can unleash an enormous amount of "dark energy." Democracy, as it now exists, will have to be radically rethought in the years ahead, or even scrapped.

Run for your lives, its an algorithmic bubble!

While Putin has proved a failure overall, and will probably be hanging from a lamppost shortly, there is much to learn from how he has controlled Russia, its people, and its information space in the last 20 years or so. The big question, I guess, is this:

Is it possible for the West to create a more robust system without veering towards the outright croneyism and corruption that has defined and undermined the Kremlin?

Either way, it is a good thing that the inherent failings of Western democracy have been exposed by this meta-war. Let us see if they are now addressed. 

____________________

Follow @cbliddell

Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying it here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia).