As many of you are well aware by now, the so-called European right wing has made significant, if not surprising, gains in the European parliamentary elections. This looks like it will take the wind out of the sails of those who want to go up to Russia. But we will explain the situation below that they can pursue and use the right wing gain to justify. In other words, as Lambert would put it, this is still an extremely flexible situation.
French President Emanuel Macron, after the National Rally of Marine Le Pen won the majority of votes in the MEP seats, and the exit polls show 32% compared to 15% for Macron’s allies, is taking a surprising gamble by calling snap elections. Given Macron’s political poverty, I wouldn’t bet on this working out well for him.
The German Greens also took a nosedive, with preliminary figures showing it has dropped from second place in 2019 with 20.5% to fourth place now with 12.8%. The CDU/CSU is on top with 30.9% and the AfD has gained from 11% to 14.9%. In Italy, Georgia Meloni’s Italian Brothers are estimated to have received 26-29%, beating the left-wingers who came in at 21-25%.
In Austria, the far-right Freedom Party took the lead with 26.7%, but in the Netherlands and Hungary, the far-right fell short of expectations.
The Guardian sums it up: “Despite the gains of the far and hard right, mainstream, pro-European parties were about to hold a majority.”
Still, this result should add to the growing problem of voter apathy towards Project Ukraine despite efforts to raise fears of Putin’s imminent takeover across Europe. Granted, we’ve probably seen a lot of sloppy analysis of why so many voters refuse to eat centrist dog food. In many countries, the reasons are likely to be local and thus oversimplified in attempts to make broad definitions. In the absence of better facts, James Carville’s “Economy, stupid” speech is probably as good an assessment as any.
But again, to put it bluntly, these “popular” right-wingers are nationalists, which means they are not keen on NATO adventurism and alleged Putin stooges. And European and US leaders may now be quietly panicking about the danger of LePen and Trump winning. But what can they do?
It is true, as Aurelien said at the outset, that all Europe can do in the long run is engage in spectacular explosions. Absent an escalation of nuclear war or a series of spectacularly bad military actions, Russia is well on its way to crushing Ukraine’s military and can call the shots. Even if the Collective West was not showing cracks in its former anti-Russian unity, the means seem to be lacking. Ukraine’s allies have been scraping the bottom of their arsenals to try to keep supplies. Bold words about increased weapons production have been met with little to no results, as Russia has ramped up production in major categories of equipment.
As experts have pointed out, even if US/NATO forces continue to supply Ukraine with weapons, Ukraine is running out of men, especially men who are more than cannon fodder. I don’t know how representative these pictures are, but the fact that something like this is telling:
Earlier this year, the Sunday Times wrote that the average age #Ukrainian #soldiers previously he is 43 years old. These are middle-aged personnel of the 43rd Infantry Brigade in the Kharkov region. These soldiers look much older than 50.#Adults being taken. #motivation #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/RL4Zv3bU8d
— Best Health 4 You (@besthealthyou) June 9, 2024
Putin also discussed the stability of the Ukrainian military during an interview with foreign journalists:
According to our calculations, the Ukrainian army loses about 50,000 people a month—both sanitary and irreparable losses, about 50/50. Current summaries do not solve these problems. They mobilize about 30,000 people a month—most of them by force. There are few volunteers.
In the last two months, they have gathered about 50-55,000 people, according to our data. But this does not solve their problems because this merger only covers their losses.
This problem leads to lowering the age of conscription: from 27 to 25. We know from Ukrainian sources that the US administration insists on gradually lowering the limit from 25 to 23, then to 20 years, and finally to 18 years. They already require 17-year-olds to sign up for the scheme. This is a demand from the US administration to the leadership of Ukraine.
Putin also said that, in effect, the US would keep Zelensky around to use unpopular methods such as registering 18-year-olds and replace him when his apparent career is over. Zelensky appears to have eliminated immediate threats, so for now he is relatively safe.
The Biden Administration (not just Biden but Blinken too, who seems to be Victoria Nuland’s Mini Me) despises Putin with the love of a thousand burning suns. They will never face negotiations with him or the Russian government. Macron and the leadership of NATO, the UK, Poland, and the Baltic States are also showing great hostility.1
So Putin’s intel is consistent with the US and major allies refusing to back down and continue to pressure Ukraine to continue fighting, regardless of the cost to Ukraine, even the cost of more deaths and disabilities among Ukrainian men, and more loss of territory. .
However, we warned in advance that Russia could win the war and lose the peace. The problem is that Putin’s main motivation for launching the Special Military Operation was the prospect of continuing the conflict in Donbass and the eventual installation of long-range missiles in Ukraine, either as an official member of NATO or in some unofficial capacity. , was a direct threat to Russian security.
How does Putin achieve the end of hot conflicts and improve Russia’s security?
Even though Russia has a large military presence, it still faces two problems. Another thing is that absolutism in the West seems likely to lead Russia to achieve higher territorial gains compared to what the Russian leadership has signed to be interested in. The West is really willing to fight the last Ukraine. It is already on its way to disarmament.
From a management point of view, Russia does not want to try to occupy hostile territory. That would seem to prevent what it would like to combine with Russia to reach a little West of the Dnieper to protect the major cities along the river, such as Kiev, Dnipro, Zaporzhizhia, and Kherson and the Black Sea coast. in Odessa.
Realizing that Russia is defending what used to be Ukraine’s Black Sea Coast has the potential to trigger extreme Western responses. But that is dangerous for Russia to measure, which is why Putin calls Odessa “the apple of discord”. Recently, however, Putin and other leaders have been describing Odessa as a Russian city. Nor does it mean that if Russia were to control Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea, it would control Ukraine economically.
But that doesn’t mean the West doesn’t have resources. Even if the US/NATO coalition succeeds in getting Ukraine to send most of its remaining young men to death and injury on the battlefield, it retreats in its ranks, the Ukrainian, Russia-and western hatred of Ukraine will remain. Russia does not want to take it. But other methods can be even worse.
As people with demons, especially Trump gained in the election, the current leadership in the US was using methods to limit Trump. From CNN in February:
Lawmakers of both parties last December may have anticipated former President Donald Trump’s NATO trash talk when they spoke quietly limiting the president’s ability to withdraw the US from the alliance in the annual defense policy bill, which was passed with bipartisan support.
That kind of first step is likely to go further. Here’s a mild spoiler. If yours comes with this type of item, chances are there are many more.
Earlier in the war, Colonel Douglas Macgregor discussed that the US could form a “coalition of the willing” that could reach around 100,000 in total, between US, Polish, Romanian and UK commitments. He then thought that it was an offensive force to help Ukraine, stressing that it would be too small in number to have a good chance of changing the war (this was said if I remember correctly before the defeat of the summer offensive, so Russia looked weaker than now).
But what if the US reframes this as a strictly defensive operation, to save the rump Ukraine? They may try to achieve their so-called conflict freeze by declaring the boundaries of the DMZ and placing coalition forces on the other side of it, in western Ukraine.
And then with the West firmly in control of the area and the pretext for a serious military presence, there is always the potential to install the kind of long-range ballistic missiles that Russia absolutely did not want in Ukraine.
Students are welcome to shoot holes in this idea. But Mark Sleboda, who tends not to eat (as a bias of “the worst consequences for Russia”) in his analysis, volunteered, without elaborating, that it would be the best option for Russia to take over Western Ukraine, although he had thought otherwise until now. recently.
Of course, as John Helmer said earlier, Russia could build a large DMZ, the width of which depends on the type of missiles the West sees fit to use, by eliminating electricity. And that unlike building a “coalition of the willing” can be done very quickly.
Please keep in mind that the point of this post is not to suggest that the West will act on any particular plan. But the unexpected gains of the right wing and Trump’s (slightly?) lack of confidence in his convictions are likely to focus on a few minds. And another thought is that they may be pursuing a way to create facts on the ground that will interfere with their actions.
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1 It is not clear why Macron moved away from his willingness to engage Putin in hostilities. Was it because Putin defied him by letting word get out that he found Macron’s long phone calls a waste of time? Or because Macron blames Russia for France’s latest problems in Africa?