Once again, those who underestimated the conflict in Ukraine and its global stakes\u2014and by extension, underestimated the threat Russia poses to U.S. strategic objectives\u2014have been thoroughly refuted in their rush to draw conclusions about Washington\u2019s moves. First and foremost, the Western media were discredited after spending nearly three days (in early July) in a frenzy, sounding alarms that \u201cthe U.S. is halting arms deliveries to Ukraine\u201d and \u201cis preparing to withdraw\u201d! Only to be shocked again upon discovering that Trump had gotten so angry with Putin that he \u201cchanged course\u201d! Just like that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where there\u2019s smoke, there\u2019s fire<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, there\u2019s no need to resort to idealism or personality analysis of Trump to make sense of this \u201ctotal mess\u201d! What it reflects are the retractions of certain centers within Washington, which themselves stem from the impasses faced by American imperialism in advancing its objectives in the Ukrainian conflict\u2014impasses linked to divisions within the U.S. ruling class over how to respond to the central issue: its relative weakening in the face of its adversaries. These impasses and disagreements sometimes intersect with the biases of high-ranking officials and produce even tragicomic outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The decision to freeze the delivery of certain weapons to Ukraine\u2014beyond the fact that it never amounted to a general freeze, as was initially reported\u2014is now said to have been a unilateral move by Defense Secretary Pete Hesgeth, following advice from Elbridge Colby, without informing Secretary of State Mark Rubio, Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg, or even Trump himself! Regardless of what happened, the very mention (or leaked reports) of this decision triggered a \u201cbarrage of fire\u201d from State Department officials, members of Congress, Pentagon circles, and the mainstream media, all of whom directed special criticism at Colby. That\u2019s because Elbridge Colby, Deputy Defense Secretary for Policy and one of the architects of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, is seen (described by a Republican senator as \u201cthat guy\u201d) by a large segment of the American establishment as overly one-sided in his analyses\u2014overemphasizing the Chinese threat and failing to grasp the strategic importance of Europe. In fact, he is already being blamed for putting U.S. Indo-Pacific strategies at risk through the AUKUS revisions he has proposed. Naturally, Secretary Hesgeth is also indirectly under fire, as his March release of the Pentagon\u2019s Interim National Defense Guidelines described China as \u201cthe only threat to the Department.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The consequences of the conflict and its strategic stakes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Aside from the fact that\u2014Meloni didn\u2019t even need to say it publicly\u2014arms shipments to the Kiev regime never actually stopped, it\u2019s important to understand that the strategic apparatus of U.S. imperialism transcends individual biases and personal quirks, even when those involve high-ranking officials or the U.S. president himself. Their actions are grounded in evolving realities and the imperative to advance U.S. interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Within just a few days\u2014and following some loud statements by Trump about how angry he is with Putin\u2014there came the \u201creversal,\u201d Trump-style of course. The new arms package is valued at $10 billion and includes up to 17 Patriot systems the U.S. will sell to NATO for delivery to Ukraine. Not only are the U.S. fighting Russia \u201cto the last Ukrainian,\u201d they are now also fighting \u201cto the last euro,\u201d with their European allies on the front line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is hardly a coincidence, in our view, that during this phase of \u201cambiguity\u201d about weapons transfers, American media resurfaced a lengthy RAND Corporation report\u2014RAND being the think tank that has shaped U.S. policy since 1948\u2014published in late 2024 on the war in Ukraine. Describing it as \u201cthe most destructive conflict in Europe since the 1940s,\u201d with repercussions that \u201chave echoed across the international system,\u201d its first key finding states:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEurope\u2019s strategic orientation has shifted. The main effects of the Russian invasion have been to drive a wedge between European nations and Russia (and to some extent, China), while deepening cooperation between the United States and its European allies. If sustained, these effects would likely be the most enduring strategic cost Russia will pay for the war\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u2019s militarist \u201cshift\u201d and the prolongation of deadlocks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Trump administration, alongside their announcements of generous new arms deliveries to Kiev, made two contradictory moves\u2014moves that simultaneously reflect the severe impasses they face in the Ukrainian conflict and its global stakes, as well as the adventurist tactics they may resort to in attempting to overcome those impasses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, they issued a \u201c50-day ultimatum\u201d to Russia to end the war\u2014failing which they would impose 100% tariffs on products from Russia and its trading partners. The deadline, imposed under pressure and at a moment when, as we will see below, European imperialists are raising the prospect of sending troops to Ukrainian soil, represents an attempt to alter the terms of the war or engineer a compromise that would allow the U.S. and the West to reverse the course of a conflict that is not going well for Kiev\u2014nor for themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regarding the tariffs, the scope\u2014as confirmed by NATO\u2019s Secretary-General after his meeting with Trump\u2014extends to China, India, and Brazil. This aligns with Trump\u2019s statements about the \u201canti-American policies of the BRICS,\u201d whom he accuses of seeking to \u201cdisrupt the global trade balance at America\u2019s expense.\u201d The real aim\u2014perhaps even more than pressuring Russia\u2014is to change the stance of these other powers towards Moscow. Realistically speaking, India and Brazil are seen as more susceptible to pressure. With Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi informing the EU\u2019s chief diplomat that Beijing cannot accept a Russian defeat in Ukraine, it seems unlikely that China will bow to U.S. blackmail. After all, it didn\u2019t bend recently, when it successfully resisted American tariff threats. That said, if and when the tariff threat becomes reality, it remains unclear whether it will, for example, help win over India\u2014or push it further away from the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, we also had\u2014not once, but twice\u2014statements about bombing Moscow! One allegedly stems from a pre-election Trump\u2013Putin conversation (denied by the Russian side), and the other from a Trump\u2013Zelensky call, in which, according to \u201cleaks,\u201d Trump asked if they could strike Moscow and St. Petersburg, and Zelensky reportedly replied: \u201cIf you give us the weapons, then yes, we can!\u201d Clearly, these leaks\u2014whether from actual or fabricated conversations\u2014are intended to intimidate the other side into accepting a compromise favorable to the U.S. At the same time, they expose the extent of the adventurism being contemplated by Washington in its efforts to avoid \u201closing\u201d this conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To all this, Russia responded calmly, stating that it does not accept ultimatums and that it will take Trump\u2019s statements into account and assess them in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imperialist Diplomacy and War: Two Sides of the Same Coin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It was \u201crevealed\u201d that Trump\u2019s anger and his aggressive rhetoric followed a July 4 phone call with Putin, during which the Russian president is said to have declared that Russia \u201cwill be finished with Ukraine in two months.\u201d Regardless of whether those exact words were spoken, the message echoes earlier statements by Lavrov and Peskov. The former had publicly stated: \u201cThe war in Ukraine cannot end diplomatically unless our interests are secured,\u201d and the latter added: \u201cWe would prefer to do this through diplomacy. But as long as that seems impossible, we will continue the special military operation\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What does all this show us? That just as American imperialism cannot conceive of being defeated in this conflict, neither can Russian imperialism entertain the possibility of losing. Under these conditions, we will continue to see a spiral of escalation\u2014into ever more dangerous and explosive deadlocks. Thus, even as we enter a new escalation, some sort of compromise is being sought in its margins\u2014and yet, as soon as a fragile or temporary compromise seems within reach, it is blown apart, sending us headlong into the next escalation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If one considers that the Trump\u2013Putin phone call took place on July 4\u2014precisely when the Western media were panicking about \u201cthe beginning of the U.S. withdrawal from Ukraine and Europe\u201d\u2014this also serves as a free \u201clesson\u201d for all of us standing on the other side of the capitalist\u2013imperialist system: even in the most contradictory and volatile moments, what matters are the concrete facts, the concrete analysis of the concrete situation, the actual deeds and movements of each player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. and the West on a War Footing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In this context, it is significant that the U.S. and NATO are further upgrading their use of Alexandroupoli. Even more revealing is the preparation\u2014according to the Financial Times\u2014of Europe\u2019s largest port, the Dutch port of Rotterdam (in close cooperation with the Belgian port of Antwerp), for the possible arrival of British, American, and Canadian military vehicles and the transport of war materiel. The plans include \u201cthe possibility of a conflict with Russia, allocating space for military ships and drawing up contingency plans to reroute commercial cargo in case of war.\u201d It also matters that Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states (Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia)\u2014all of which share borders with Russia\u2014have launched a coordinated military buildup, including withdrawal from international treaties, the laying of mines, construction of fortifications, and large-scale arms purchases. At the same time, led by NATO, they are seeking to turn the Baltic Sea into a NATO-controlled zone\u2014what Moscow calls \u201ca zone of acute military confrontation,\u201d warning that this constitutes an extremely dangerous situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Equally important is the fact that European imperialists\u2014after having capitulated to the strategic blackmail of the U.S.\u2014have for some time now been moving in a distinctly anti-Russian direction, vying for a role and a place within the Western alliance at a moment of severe crisis for second- and third-tier imperialist powers. Even when they attempt to differentiate themselves, they quickly fall back in line. An illustrative example is how little time it took for Macron\u2014who had seemed ready to reopen a channel of dialogue with Moscow, however hesitantly\u2014to return to the trenches. And it\u2019s not just his statements that \u201cRussia is a dangerous country and a major threat to Europe,\u201d or that \u201cEuropeans will remain in Ukraine forever.\u201d It\u2019s also the joint reintroduction\u2014by Macron and UK Prime Minister Starmer\u2014of the Franco-British plan to: a) send 50,000 troops to Ukraine (Russian Foreign Intelligence puts the number at 100,000), and b) deploy warplanes to patrol Ukrainian airspace. This is a plan Russia has categorically rejected, with Lavrov declaring that \u201cthere is no possibility of compromise on this matter.\u201d On the German front, Merz has quintupled the rearmament budget of German imperialism compared to Scholz\u2019s 100-billion-euro decision (which remains largely unimplemented). He maintains that \u201cthe diplomatic means to resolve the Ukrainian conflict have been exhausted\u201d and is preparing to sign an agreement with the UK that includes a mutual military assistance clause in case of a \u201cstrategic threat.\u201d In this climate, Germany\u2019s defense minister provocatively declared that \u201cGerman troops would be ready to kill Russian soldiers in the event of a Moscow attack on a NATO member state\u201d!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Battlefield and Russian Movements<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout this period, Russian forces have been advancing in all key directions, creating \u201csecurity zones,\u201d while Russia\u2019s Aerospace Forces have been striking almost daily\u2014and with considerable intensity\u2014temporary deployment points of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and foreign mercenaries, as well as numerous critical facilities and infrastructure belonging to Ukraine\u2019s military-industrial complex, its air defenses, and its airfields. At the same time, according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, Moscow is awaiting Kiev\u2019s proposals for a third round of negotiations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not that the prolonged war isn\u2019t costly for Moscow\u2014there is steady attrition, and the problems caused by Western sanctions are real, even if Russia has thus far managed to absorb them at the lowest possible cost. Nor is it ignoring the strategic consequences of the deep rupture in Euro-Russian relations. But the war in Ukraine concerns its very identity as an imperialist power\u2014and through this war, it openly challenges American and Western primacy, even on the battlefield. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov put it after attending the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro: \u201cThe West has long claimed more positions than it deserves, based on the real balance of power and the correlation of forces in the international arena.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Therefore, without forgoing necessary tactical maneuvers, Russia remains firmly aligned with the core strategic directions it set with its invasion of Ukraine. And it shows no willingness to enter into a compromise that would require it to abandon any of those goals \u2014though it does not rule out negotiations, both tactically and in substance. In fact, according to Lavrov again, it is bringing to the table\u2014from a position of strength, we might say\u2014\u201ca new and different approach\u201d to the Ukrainian issue, the details of which have yet to be disclosed. In any case, the Russian leadership believes that time is on its side\u2014both on the battlefield and because it anticipates that existing rifts within the Western bloc will widen as the war continues and escalates. As Lavrov noted: \u201cThere are deeper disagreements\u2014a form of quiet mutiny is brewing on board\u2014as more and more countries want to be guided not by imposed ideological directives from the owner, but by their own national interests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We are entering an even more dangerous phase of escalation in this unjust war, with a renewed extension of explosive deadlocks for the U.S. and the West. The search for a compromise remains a faint prospect \u2014 on a horizon that does not exclude adventurism of every kind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once again, those who underestimated the conflict in Ukraine and its global stakes\u2014and by extension, underestimated the threat Russia poses to U.S. strategic objectives\u2014have been thoroughly refuted in their rush to draw conclusions about Washington\u2019s moves. First and foremost, the Western media were discredited after spending nearly three days (in early July) in a frenzy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-documents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iabulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iabulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iabulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iabulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iabulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/iabulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":600,"href":"https:\/\/iabulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions\/600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iabulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iabulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iabulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iabulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}