Where does this lead? To war!
I follow the Evening with Vladimir Solovyov
shows as a professional duty, not for fun. The host is very often boorish and
the panelists are variable in quality, with too many duds among them. However, every several days I am pleasantly
surprised by the analytical talents of one or another panelist who gives us a
fresh and often persuasive understanding of the drivers of global events.
One such case was last night when a panelist
from MGIMO, the higher educational institution that has educated Russia’s
diplomatic corps for decades, gave us his take on the danger of a new world
war, meaning a nuclear holocaust, that we presently face. It is all because the
political leaders in the United States and in Europe enjoy very low domestic
ratings, face elections in the coming year or so and are desperate to hold onto
power. For some losing power can mean being sent before courts for various crimes
they have committed in office. War is the solution they seize upon in the hope
of diverting attention from their personal failings and economic woes, as well
as to clamp down on free expression of opposition to the powers that be.
So it is for Joe Biden. Tucker Carlson and
Donald Trump have said as much in public over the past several days. But it is just as true of the European
presidents and prime ministers. They are all buffeted by economic head winds,
by rampant inflation, deindustrialization and falling living standards that
they unleashed with their ill-considered imposition of sanctions on Russia.
They all are highly unpopular. We know,
for example, that German Chancellor Scholz is now among the least regarded
politicians in his country. Macron is now rivaling former president Hollande,
who came in at single digit numbers in polls before he abandoned his hopes of
reelection. And what is the result? Scholz has become a war hawk and repeatedly
has agreed to supply ever more deadly materiel to Kiev. Macron has come out as a hawk not only on
Ukraine but now is a caricature colonialist on the question of participating in
military operations against Niger to reinstall the French-backed comprador
government.
Over in Poland, where an election is looming,
the government of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is fighting for its life
against a resurgent Civic Platform party. It has put in place a law aimed at
sidelining the former prime minister and CP leader Donald Tusk over charges
that he was soft on the Russians. Losing power might result in the chairman of
the Law and Justice party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski being sent to trial, as is now
demanded by Lech Walesa. The result? Poland
has been building up its military forces on the border with Belarus and is
preparing the public for an imminent outbreak of war.
And then there is the most recent example
supporting the given line of analysis:
what is going on in Estonia. Let us recall that in the past week there
has been a political storm in Estonia when it became known that the husband of
the viciously anti-Russian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, has been making
millions of euros of profit from his logistics business assisting an Estonian
company that has production in Russia. When confronted with this outrageous
violation of the cut-off of relations with Russia that she has demanded of her
fellow citizens since the war in Ukraine began, Kallas just shrugged it off as
something she knew nothing about.
However, we note that the drone attack that destroyed Russian military
aircraft at the Pskov airport in Russia’s northwest region a day ago is said to
have been launched from Estonian territory.
So far, Moscow has not reacted to what could
and should be a casus belli with a NATO Member State. But how much longer will
Putin show forbearance?
These are very dangerous times and the weakness
of Western leadership points to more, not less war.
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