Luc Brunet – 16 October 2023
This article is an essay, trying to find a coherence in the world’s present chaos, to define the lines of fracture and to put some logic on that chaos.
Hopefully it can allow for a better understanding of what is happening, not dealing with details but focusing on the overall trends and tendencies, and trying to assess what the next steps can possibly be.
Many of you read my article published in 2018, “Next War? Pick one in the List!”, and remember how major wars over the past 50 years were mostly started under the impulse of the US and its allies, eager to create chaos to destabilize the regimes that were not docile enough and did not want to contribute to the financial profits of the west.
Many examples are listed bellow, but one aspect common to all of them is that the US never gets involved directly, unless the risk to lose soldiers is very limited, probably still under the political impact of the Vietnam and Korean wars.
Pax Americana track-record
Let’s start with that overview of 50 years of “Pax Americana”, and its results.
- When the USSR sponsored a soviet friendly regime in Afghanistan, the US made considerable effort to finance and train local fighters, that later turned into Islamic groups, and finally generated the Al Qaida group. The operation was initially successful, forcing the USSR to abandon the country, but after decades and many dead (including the World Trade Center ones), it was a failure.
- When the newly created Islamic Republic of Iran, although initially sponsored by the west, turned against them, the US supported Iraq in its plans to gain territories from Iran, in the hope that the new regime would collapse. It took some time and many dead, but it was a failure.
- When Saddam Hussein started to plan military action in Kuwait, he got verbal support from US envoys, then was invaded and killed, not so much because of the invasion of the neighboring country, but because he planned to drop the dollar as oil transaction currency. The plan was of course to install a US friendly regime, and here, the US put the boots on the ground, knowing that the Iraqi army was already on its knees after years of war against Iran. It took some time and many dead, but it was a failure.
- After the collapse of the communist block, the emergence of a non-aligned and Russia friendly Yugoslavia was considered by the west a big danger for the stability of Europe, and the country was pushed into a civil war, supported by the US, NATO and several European countries. The country indeed split in several entities, but the situation around Serbia and Kosovo/Albania is still an issue. Interestingly, this conflict is the first one happening after the collapse of the USSR and is the first clear confrontation between Russia and the US/NATO. At that time, Russia was however not able nor willing to really confront NATO. It was a half success, and the door is still open for a “correction” of the project.
- Also to weaken Russia, the US sponsored Islamic forces to destabilize Chechnya in the 90’s and Russia had to fight two wars to confirm its position in the region. It took some time and many dead, but it was a failure.
- In the same goal of destabilizing Russia on its borders, the west encouraged Saakashvili in Georgia to repress by force the South Ossetian population, leading to a military operation by Russia, that proved successful. The year 2008 indeed marks the starting point of a serious recovery of Russia in both diplomatic and military areas. It took little time and a few dead, and it was a failure too.
- As Libya also started to plan for commercial transactions outside of the dollar system, Qaddafi was assassinated and we all know the chaos in that country since that time. In terms of US interests, it was probably a success, but for Libya, it was definitely a disaster.
- Syria was next on the list, but the courage of Assad and of the Syrian army, with the support of Iran and Russia ruined the western plans. It is also the first time Russia really managed to project its diplomatic and military power outside of its close neighborhood in the 21st century. Here again, after some time and many dead, it was a failure for the US, although they managed to keep control of a part of Syria in the North East, extracting (stealing to be clear) petrol from Syrian underground.
- Also as a way to “contain” Russia, and I am just using that word taken from multiple US documents and declarations, the next move was the regime change in Ukraine in 2014, where Russia managed to react fast to save Crimea from the russophobic Maidan junta. After a failed military attack on Donbass, the situation was frozen until 2022, and we know what comes after that date. In 2023, we see a failed counterattack from Kiev and a certain level of fatigue in the western countries. Most probably we can expect that a complete failure waits for the US and the west, but a lot of time is still needed, and unfortunately a lot of dead.
Times have changed a lot
The year 2022 was however an eye opener for many, and we understood that the confrontation is now clear between the west who ruled the world since 1945 from the US, and from the 15th century from Europe, and the rest of the world mostly lead by Russia and China. The west does not want to lose its position, and seems ready to fight till the end, and the rest of the world does not accept neither the economic dominance (and often exploitation) of the west, nor the new non-traditional moral codex it promotes.
All previous conflicts above are related to the desire of the west to stop all countries planning to get outside of the US economic system, but what was key in 2022, was the decision of Russia to stop the west and resist by all means including massive military actions. The rest of the world for the first time in decades felt the wind of independence for the US system and realized that the fight could be won. Fear of the US military and economic force suddenly disappeared. More details on that can be found in my article “2022: Masks have fallen” published in January this year.
Modern wars become “distributed”
I believe that WW3 actually started in 2022, when the two sides were for the first time openly defined. However I also believe that this war cannot look like the previous ones, and this because of the enormous nuclear arsenal of the major players. In order to avoid nuclear Armageddon, the war is and shall be “distributed”. What I mean with that is that there shall not be a large battlefield in one region, but multiple battlefields in several regions of the globe. This allows to assign the role of “front liner” to various countries that provide the land and the people to be destroyed, without putting the US or major European countries on the front line.
This strategy was used in the past already and is today very visible in eastern Europe, where Ukraine provides the human material, other countries like Poland providing the second line infrastructure, ready to be pushed to the front line in case Ukraine totally collapses.
Let’s mention a few of those potential distributed battlefields, before discussing the hottest one today, I mean of course Israel.
- The Serbian/Kosovo conflict can be reactivated anytime and can become a small but critical battlefield, where the organization of the ex-Yugoslavia imposed by the west could be reworked and redefined.
- Two areas could also be contested, this time by the western countries, both very much in relation with the Ukrainian crisis. They are located around the Transnistrian territories, and in the Baltic region, the Kaliningrad Russian territories.
- Another potential and very much discussed battlefield is Taiwan versus China, the dispute being regularly fueled by the US, sending more weapons and encouragements to Taiwan.
Israel vs. Palestine
But today, the hottest location is of course Israel. Let’s look at it in the perspective of the big fight between the west and the global south, to use that now popular terminology.
Israel is very close to the US for a number of reasons we shall not discuss here. As a matter of fact, Israel can therefore be included in the western group of countries that regularly support US initiatives around the world, and the best example is Ukraine, where Israel support Kiev with weapons and training. This of course makes it a “non-friendly” country as seen from Moscow, as such actions help Kiev and NATO to kill Russian soldiers.
In fact, Israel should logically be attracted by the Global South group of countries, but its links with the US make such a move impossible, even if it showed some restrain in supporting Kiev, probably to preserve reasonable level of relations with Moscow and avoid too many issues with the large number of Russians living in Israel. This also is probably the reason why Russia shall continue on its neutral position and not openly support the Palestinians.
Today’s conflict takes a new dimension after the “eye opening” events of 2022. Israel is logically part of the west and now plays a role similar to Ukraine in Europe. Indeed among the 193 members of the UN, 138 regard Palestine as a sovereign nation. The United States, Canada, European Union, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Israel do not, meaning the political background to non-recognition of Palestine issue is almost identical to the countries that have imposed sanctions upon Russia in 2022. The conflict in Israel is I believe one of the distributed nodes of WW3, indeed the second one for now. Here again we see the same media manipulations in the west, with the same tricks:
- massive PR campaigns, with Israeli flags all over the place, replacing one-to-one the Ukrainian flags
- everyone not following the doxa are disgusting and should be punished, pro-Russians being replaced in a few days by pro-Palestinians in western jails
- should we expect sanctions against countries and people not supporting Israel 100%?
Has peace a chance?
As in all previous conflicts, Russia is asking for negotiations, cease-fire and saving civilian lives, and for the respect of UN resolutions including the creation of two states with international guarantees. This is the only viable option, that was almost implemented after the Oslo agreements, but then constantly delayed or torpedoed by right wing Israeli (Netanyahu in particular) with the support of the US. Extremism has become the rule on both sides, making the 2 states solution impossible (as hoped by Netanyahu friends). Both sides kill innocent people by pure emotional reaction, without thinking about an exit to that situation, unless through ethnic cleansing, all Palestinians or all Israeli killed or kicked out. Russian proposal are positive and constructive, but may be completely ignored by the west, the same way the Minsk agreements were ignored and even sabotaged by the west.
The fear of the US seems to make the situation manageable for Israel, and they plan now to do ethnic cleansing in Gaza. It seems however that they hesitate now, may be realizing that 2022 changed the rules of the game.
As with Ukraine, Europe is the place where most problems shall develop, from a further hike in energy prices, to potential civil unrests from its large migrant population, largely supporting Palestine. As a side effect, several countries may need to leave the western side, like Turkey, Jordan or even the UAE.
Anywhere you go, anywhere you look, Pax Americana always brought economic ruin and/or military destruction to the countries where they intervened. How many more dead and destruction before we put an end to it?
The Israel conflict, if expending to all surrounding countries shall make more victims that the Ukraine crisis, probably millions. If this happens, the real culprits are the ones who accepted to have all diplomatic solutions ignored since 1973, and they do not sit in Palestine or Israel, they sit in WDC and Brussels.
