Ukraine, Politics--The Downward Spiral Continues

As of today, with no end in sight, Russia continues to be driving events surrounding Ukraine. The latest development in the Zhou regime’s farcical foreign policy is that the US now finds itself in the position of mounting rhetorical attacks on the supposed focus of American solicitude—Ukraine itself. The regime is trying to coax Ukraine into stirring up the war panic to greater heights:

Now, the White House itself is taking shots at Zalensky, not for stoking the flames of war, but for not whipping his people up into enough of a panic. Over the last few days, the Ukrainian president has pushed back on the US framing of the threat, insisting he knows more about the situation than Joe Biden.

Per CNN, that led to a public response that Zelensky is “downplaying the risk,” something the White House apparently finds unacceptable.

It’s almost as if Ukraine—which has taken a huge economic hit from the crisis—has figured out that serving as the Neocon/Globalist stalking horse against a confident and assertive Russia isn’t in Ukraine’s best interests. Maybe, Zelensky seems to be thinking, Ukraine needs to take charge of its own affairs rather than trusting the Neocon/Globalist to look after them. 

Worse, a petulant DC Establishment finds itself more or less going it alone in this adventure, with little support from NATO “allies”—and what little support is on offer is decidedly ambiguous.

The problem, of course, is that Putin’s Russia is focused on clearly defined goals whereas NATO is divided. Russia also has real geo-strategic and military advantages on its side. The divergence between the US and EU countries is growing by the day. Germany is determined to maintain its energy link to Russia. France is suggesting a continental European security arrangement—which sounds rather like a project to set the US at arms length. England, of course, would like to pursue its traditional policy of dividing the continental powers, but finds itself increasingly isolated with a hopelessly incompetent and disrespected American regime—a losing hand. Other major EU contries simply don’t have a dog in this fight—what could possibly be in it for, say, Spain or Italy—a fact that Russia is deftly exploiting.

What’s next?

Gilbert Doctorow has some ideas, which he expounds in a rather incisive article today:

Russia and the Collective West: What Comes Next?

Up until now the Neocon/Globalist cabal has felt that it could bully and bait Russia more or less with impunity. For example, NATO has ten military games scheduled for 2022 in countries bordering Russia, including non-NATO Ukraine. These “games” include simulated attacks on Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave between Poland and Lithuania as well as provocative naval activity in the Black, Baltic, and Arctic seas.

Putin has turned the tables. Having issued comprehensive security demands in two draft treaties, he is demanding written security guarantees from the US—openly offering an exit strategy for key EU countries like German that my wish to assert more independence with regard to the US. At the same time, Russia is conducting its own series of provocative maneuvers around Ukraine.

Putin, of course, has always shown himself to be highly prudent and cautious. He has a strong hand now that he’s playing aggressively, but he’s hardly likely to embroil Russia in a mess like Ukraine—something the Neocon/Globalist cabal would welcome at this point. Putin, a martial arts aficionado, is playing a type of diplomatic judo against Zhou’s white belt team. Doctorow details how well this has gone so far:

Russia has gotten the rapt attention not only of European capitals but of global media. ... This, of course, has a certain collateral effect which the Russians surely do not mind: the economic harm war fever has on the Ukrainian economy and on Western investment there now that the U.S. and others are withdrawing their diplomatic missions. It may well be that the strongest voice for Western concessions on security will ultimately be Kiev, to stem its losses.

Sergei Lavrov and other spokesmen for the Kremlin insist that their country has no intentions to invade while every few days Russia is adding additional forces, equipment and capability to their positions near the Ukrainian border. ... It is throwing back at the US and NATO the in-your-face NATO line that it poses no threat to Russia and is just a defensive alliance while NATO stages highly provocative war games …

But ultimately …

One side has to capitulate in substance if not in appearances given the divide separating the principals. The capitulation can be masked for consumption by Capitol Hill through deft diplomacy, but its reality will nonetheless be seen in the concrete actions of the sides which follow.

It certainly looks like it will be Zhou’s couldn’t-shoot-straight gang capitulating—not Russia. Judging from some of the Sunday talk shows, the exit strategy for the Zhou regime will run along the following lines. When Russia doesn’t invade Ukraine—which it has always stated it will not do—Zhou will claim victory: We stopped Russia in its tracks!

Nobody in Western capitals will believe that—they all know better already. Nor will the international business and financial sector believe that, and they will structure their affairs accordingly, having duly noted the Zhou regime’s feckless incompetence once again. And, in fact, on the domestic front that line probably won’t work any better than current denials of inflation.

But Putin may not be inclined to let Zhou off that easily. Doctorow suggests that Russia’s next move could be a safe but effective challenge to American claims that the US can act unilaterally throughout the world without pushback:

I wager that the next step in Mr. Putin’s game will be in the Americas. This is ... because establishing formally Russian air and port facilities in the Americas calls out the Big Lie embedded in Washington’s refusal to accept buffer states or a Russian sphere of influence at its borders and the neutering of countries like Ukraine and the Baltic States: the US reserves to itself the sole right to a sphere of influence that takes in the entire Western Hemisphere and is known as the Monroe Doctrine.

... Better to roll out for threat a project that is only partially realized so far, a project that involves not creation of Russian bases but use of existing local facilities to host Russian strategic bombers and surface or submarine vessels. Such arrangements would in the not too distant future enable Russia to maintain a permanent presence in the Caribbean Sea that is as threatening to the Continental USA as the stepped up presence of US navy and air force in the Black and Baltic Seas is to Russia. The time prior to realization would give breathing space to the negotiations for capitulation to end in a finessed public explanation.

It certainly appears at this juncture that the Neocon/Globalist cabal has overplayed its hand—and in the end the losers are the American people. Will Congress—and the Senate, in particular—finally get serious about foreign policy?

In the meantime, all of this is going down at a time when the Zhou regime increasingly appears to be circling the drain at home. That’s the obvious takeaway from the latest ABC/Ipsos poll—you just can’t walk these numbers back in a few months. Red State covers the polling—New Poll: Biden Gets Rejected Big Time on Ukraine, SCOTUS, Economy. In fact, Zhou’s flailing attempts to get out of his hole appear to be only succeeding in digging it deeper:

Only one percent of Americans believe that the economy is “excellent.” Only 23 percent think it’s “good.” Meanwhile, 75 percent think the economy is “not so good/poor.” Sixty-nine percent of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of this key issue. ...

Then Biden said he would consider only a black woman candidate to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, without reviewing all the possible candidates. That got a very negative reaction in the poll, with just 23 percent being supportive of it and 76 percent wanting him to consider all possible nominees.

Although the poll’s sample size was not large enough to break out results for Black people, only a little more than 1 in 4 nonwhite Americans (28%) wish for Biden to consider only Black women for the vacancy. Democrats are more supportive of Biden’s vow (46%) than Americans as a whole, but still, a majority of Democrats (54%) also prefer that Biden consider all possible nominees.

So, if Biden thought that was going to re-engage voters on his behalf, that doesn’t seem to have worked.

In terms of another big story in the news — Ukraine — Biden’s moves are not going over well either. On the issue of sending ground troops to Eastern Europe to discourage Russia’s actions against Ukraine, 32 percent of Americans “don’t know” enough to say, 38 percent oppose sending troops, and only 29 percent support it. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

And bear this in mind—how many of that 29 percent that wants to send troops to Ukraine could find Ukraine on a map or, for that matter, could find their own asses using both hands? In the last days I’ve heard news readers variously pronounce Ukraine’s capital as “Kive” and “Keev”. Not auspicious.

Worse for him is that he has 56 percent disapproval of his handling of Russia and Ukraine in general. So, if he’s trying to “wag the dog,” the dog is having none of it. It doesn’t help when the Ukrainian president has to tell him to calm down the hype about an invasion, and Biden reportedly takes the toughest sanctions against Russia off the table.

His disapproval numbers seem to be getting worse across the board – with them now in the 60s, including handling of gun violence (69 percent disapproval), crime (64 percent), immigration (64 percent), and the country’s economic recovery (56 percent).

I’ll bet officials in Russia and every major EU country have already read these polling results by the time you do—and are just as impressed.

The thing about politics is, when you’re down everyone wants to kick you. Dems know that, too.