Predicting the Ukraine/US Future
By Rick Boettger
Pundits like me rarely make predictions because, though so often wrong, they don’t want it explicitly in print. Well, thanks to Konk Life, here are mine. Explicitly in print.
I love Ukrainians so much that I opposed giving them the extra $61 billion on top of the $67.3 billion we have already sent. Say that I am “Pro Compromise.” Those in favor of the extra $61 billion (including ballistic missiles already being used to bomb Russian bases) are my “Pro Win” opponents. Since they will not debate me even in this friendly forum, I am forced to make what, from their confident public pronouncements, would be their own predictions, were they to make them in print. Corrections gratefully accepted!
So, most important: who will win: Ukraine or Russia?
Pro Win: Ukraine will win, driving Russia out of enough of the disputed territories, and forcing a somehow favorable resolution of the rest, like Crimea.
Pro Compromise: No one. Ukraine has already suffered, even with our $67.3 B and another $110+ B from NATO, leaving over 70k killed and widespread destruction. With Russia losing even more people, around 120k, that looks like a win for Ukraine, but it is a much smaller proportion of the Russian population, and very little destruction of Russian land, so you pick-’em. The best Russia can hope for is keeping what they already have, and they will.
Who will benefit more from the prolonged war, Ukraine and its allies, the US and NATO; or Russia and its allies, China, Iran, and North Korea?
Pro Win: Ukraine and the NATO will crush Putin, threatening his Presidency and putting Russia on its back foot. Ukraine will be a de facto if not official member of NATO, and NATO will be the prouder and stronger for having stood together and forced Putin’s hand.
Pro Compromise: Bad Guys by far. First, the war is fought mostly in Ukraine, with 95% of our bombs (guesstimate) dropping on Ukraine and some, like those ballistics, being used to kill Russians. So a devastated Ukraine just keeps getting more ravaged the longer this drags on. Second, the new bond of Russia with China, Iran, and North Korea, mainly for ordnance and drone production, is added to by their increasing affiliation with the BRICS, adding Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to a growing list this war has taken away from our former international sphere of support.
If Putin wins, will he attack Western Europe?
Pro Win: The by far main argument for giving billions to Ukraine is that if Putin wins, he will next march on NATO, specifically Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Baltics—the commonly used threat is “He’s on to Paris!” like the oft-compared Hitler. When he does, then we will have to mobilize, sending our own dear American boys to fight and die with other NATO members forced to defend each other, cause dang, that’s what we signed up for.
Pro Compromise: No. I predict that the only other state likely to be absorbed is Moldova, not really part of Western Europe (see history lesson below*.)
Who will win the economic war?
Pro Win: Russia is being bled dry, and we can pay for the repair of Ukraine with seized Russian assets. Ukraine will quickly recover and thrive as a Western free-enterprise Democracy.
Pro Compromise: Putin in a landslide. He has already let the vaunted American “sanctions” force him into an unprecedented strength of Russia’s own independent war and business machine, while forging even better relations with our other main enemies, Iran, China, and North Korea. Meanwhile, Europe’s economy has languished, mainly because of petro shortages after someone (certainly not Russia) blew up the Gazprom undersea pipeline, and those “sanctions” forced Russia to sell to China. Further, the sanctions have undermined the confidence of the world in the U.S. dollar, when they see that if any country pisses us off, we go seize not only their titans’ yachts, but their businesses and foreign reserves in U.S. Federal banks.
As for that Western free-enterprise Democracy, will Ukraine change its martial law restrictions?
Pro Win: What martial law restrictions? According to NPR, Zelinsky and Ukraine have become international symbols of democracy and freedom. He is like Winston Churchill, except for the part when England, like the U.S., allowed wartime elections: Winston lost, letting Clement Attlee lead all of the victory parades. I can’t see Zelinsky letting that happen to him.
Pro Compromise: This is a tough one. Zelinsky loves Martial Law, would happily continue to outlaw opposition parties, prohibit elections, ban the main church denomination, close all non-state-run media, and restrict international travel for men as though they were in East Germany. But Zelinsky is savvy and loves his job. I think he’ll run a Putin-style “democracy,” with elections featuring puppet opposition, and will re-open his borders to let the men escape (I mean, travel). He’ll severely limit the media, but will not kill opposition journalists like Putin, merely jail them. I’m undecided about the Ukrainian Orthodox Church coming back. They’ll probably stay underground and be allowed to so exist.
In the near term, when can we expect to see our extra $61 billion finally turn the tide and send the Russkies on the run?
Pro Win: Probably by the end of the year, Ukraine will have stopped the Russian advance, and will slowly claw back edges of the land they’ve lost.
Pro Compromise: Sorry, ain’t gonna happen. Already on Pro Win media, the topic has turned to the effect the upcoming election will have on Putin, not anything the Ukrainians are going to do. And our former Ambassador to Ukraine is already warning that even if Ukraine improbably sends Russia packing, we and NATO should plan on a permanent funding of money and arms to Ukraine as long as Russia exists.
Most importantly, will the aid help scare China away from Taiwan?
Pro Win: Heck, yes. American brujo to send billions of dollars and our best munitions in a hopeless cause means we are Trump-like strongmen too scary to offend.
Pro Compromise: Hell, no. Our decades-long non-stop personal wars with our own soldiers dying didn’t scare the Chinese away from expanding into the South China Sea, crushing Mongolia, and un-democratizing Hong Kong. All they see with our merely proxy help for Ukraine is, first, it doesn’t help, and, second, we’ve blown up Ukraine with most of our munitions that otherwise could have been sent to help a real democracy, one that supplies our chips.
So, while the Pro Win side may refuse to discuss the causes and current options of the Ukraine war, no one can deny the future, which is not a “puppet of Putin.” The future will arrive—maybe fairly soon re: Taiwan—and one side will be right, and the other will have been wrong. Readers, place your bets!
[Boring history lessor relegated to footnote] *and who cares. Moldova was part of Romania until 1812, then Russia until the end of WWI, then back to Romania until end of WW2, then back to the Soviet Union. Only in 1991 did they declare themselves an independent nation and joined the UN. But their main industrial base is a slice of land along the Dneiper river called Transnistria, which declares themselves independent of Moldova and wants to be Russian. Having no history of independence, Moldovans have made a mush of it. More a curse to Russia than a prize.
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