IN this last the article, we
will look at the current and future state of the conflict between Russia and
Ukraine.
Ukraine is currently under
siege. According to reports, Russian troops have already reached Kyiv,
Ukraine’s capital. Ukraine’s military were battling a full-scale invasion on
multiple fronts.
As expected, Russia had also
vetoed the United Nations (UN) Security Council resolution on its aggression
against Ukraine yesterday.
Both sides have acknowledged
casualties and a number of civilians from Ukraine have died as a result of the
invasion. War is not a viable option for resolving differences between
countries. In many conflicts, the biggest victims are innocent people such as
women and children, not the leaders who began the strife.
The true intention of the
US-led North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is not to attack Russia as I
have explained in previous articles. This is because they are aware of Russia’s
technologically advanced military.
During the Cold War, the
warfare zones were always far away from the US. Consider the Vietnam War and
the Afghan War. The innocent Afghans and Vietnamese people were the unfortunate
victims of such wars. Ukraine’s condition is very similar to that of Vietnam
and Afghanistan.
According to international
media reports, the US and its allies have assured Ukraine that they will stand
by its side to safeguard its sovereignty. Unfortunately, they have yet to
fulfil the promise until now.
When Russia launched its
attacks two days ago, many people, including Ukrainians, assumed that NATO
would send troops to help and safeguard the country’s sovereignty.
President Joe Biden has made
it apparent that the US is unwilling to fight, and he has even ordered the
withdrawal of troops stationed in Ukraine as military advisers and monitors.
His actions ran opposite to
those of his predecessors, who had authorised US forces to enter other
countries’ conflicts by participating in their hostilities.
Notably, the war that followed
Yugoslavia’s disintegration in 1995, the Libyan civil war in 2011, and the
international alliance to drive Iraq from Kuwait in 1990.
Last year, the US and its
allies hastened their withdrawal from Afghanistan, destabilising the country
and causing humanitarian concerns. Afghans are still suffering as a result of
the Biden Administration’s miscalculation.
NATO’s non-participation in
the current crisis is owing to Ukraine’s dearth of membership in the alliance
by invoking Article 4 of NATO treaty. This contradict with the reasons given by
US and UK to invade Iraq in 2003 to remove Saddam Hussein.
When a member state feels
threatened by another country or a terrorist organisation, Article 4 of the
NATO treaty applies. At the request of the threatened member, the 30 member
states begin formal talks.
The discussions focus on
whether a threat exists and how to address it, with decisions made unanimously.
Falling
for NATO’s “falsehoods”
In addition, Article 5 of the
NATO Charter outlines the alliance’s military aid in the event that one of its
members is attacked, and this pact only applies to member states.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy stated before the Russian invasion that NATO was on his side and that
he was not adhering to President Putin’s demands that Ukraine not become a
member of NATO.
In essence. Zelenskyy pawned
his country and his people on NATO’s “false assertions”, and now he is “paying
the price for it”.
Economic sanctions and the
prohibition of sports events will not dissuade Russia from stopping the
invasion as it is a self-sufficient country that can easily navigate the
obstacles with the support of its “new friend”, China.
This, I believe, is the US’
grand strategy. As I previously stated, the imminent threat to the US is China,
not Russia.
President Putin’s recent
closeness to China has prompted the US to instigate a crisis on Russia’s
western border. As Russia is preoccupied with the issue, the US may beef up its
force to undermine China in the Indo-Pacific region.
As a result of the situation,
Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Pakistan have forged a “shadow new
axis”. The world has now shifted to a bipolar state. The US foreign policy,
which has as its sole purpose the perpetuation of US hegemony, has indirectly
built this coalition.
Let us be clear, the writer is
not defending Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Ukraine is a sovereign nation. The
Ukrainians, not anyone else, must determine the direction of their country. The
over-involvement of the US through NATO in the former Soviet Union’s
ex-republics, including Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, has made Russia insecure.
This is because Putin has
stated repeatedly that NATO should be kept away from Russia’s border. He
understands why NATO was formed, as well as how NATO and the Warsaw Pact were
involved in proxy wars throughout the first Cold War, which ended with the collapse
of the Berlin Wall.
Russia was convinced that
NATO, was attempting to undermine its sovereignty by encouraging former Soviet
countries and Warsaw Pact members to be part of NATO. The ultimate blow was
Ukraine’s tenacious bid to join NATO and the EU, putting Russia in a position
to invade Ukraine.
Again, this is not the ideal
fit, but it is the strongest one available for Russia to defend itself against
old and new Western adversaries.
Then there is the question of
why the US never went back to the technique it used to resolve the Cuban
Missile Crisis in 1962.
In October 1962, during the
Cuban Missile Crisis, US and Soviet officials engaged in a tense 13-day
political and military standoff over the deployment of nuclear-armed Soviet
missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from US coastlines.
If these missiles are allowed
to become operational, it will drastically vary the nuclear rivalry between the
US and the Soviet Union.
US
and allies’ “scheme of things”
Despite the high degree of hostility, Soviet and American leaders were able to find a way to end the stand-off.
To resolve the issue, the US
and the Soviet Union corresponded, and on Oct 26, Soviet President Nikita
Khrushchev sent US President John F. Kennedy a message in which he offered to
withdraw Cuban missiles in exchange for a guarantee from US leaders not to
invade Cuba.
He also wrote to Kennedy a
letter proposing that the USSR remove its missiles in Cuba in exchange for the
US removing its missile systems from Turkey. The US administration complied
with the request, and the issue is resolved without any bloodshed.
In this case, Putin was
willing to come to the negotiation table with only one request: a guarantee
from NATO, led by the US, to not accept or enable Ukraine to join the pact,
which was flatly denied.
This reinforces up my argument
that the war was engineered to divert Russia’s attention away from China, which
is now regarded as a close ally.
Because the US and its allies
cannot fight on two fronts at the same time, they must undermine their most
powerful foe by instigating internal instability and inflaming tensions along
its borders.
Therefore, the Indo-Pacific
region will be the next battleground. This region includes Malaysia. Are we
prepared for this showdown?
Malaysia and other Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries should avoid being entangled in
the tensions between these superpowers.
Malaysia can play a crucial
role by reactivating the declaration of the Zone of Peace, Freedom, and
Neutrality (ZOPFAN) and encouraging Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) members to
declare this region a war-free zone. – Feb 26, 2022
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