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\u00a9 Photo: g7.japan-photo<\/p><\/div>\n
The endless bitter antagonism to Putin and to Russia has allowed a self-imagined reality to detach, ultimately becoming a delusion<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The endless bitter antagonism to Putin and to Russia has allowed a self-imagined reality to detach, ultimately becoming a delusion.<\/em><\/p>\n The recent G7 summit should be understood as firstly, the shaping of a battlespace in the \u2018War of Narratives\u2019 whose principal \u2018front\u2019 today is the Team Biden insistence that only one \u2018reality\u2019 \u2014 the US-led \u2018Rules\u2019 ideology (and it alone) \u2013 can predominate. And, secondly to underline pointedly that the West is \u2018not losing<\/em>\u2019 in this war against the other \u2018reality\u2019. This other reality is the multivalent \u2018otherness\u2019 that self-evidently is attracting more and more support around the world.<\/p>\n Many in the West are simply unaware of how fast the geopolitical tectonic plates are shifting: The original plate bifurcation (the\u00a0failed<\/a>\u00a0financial war declared on Russia), already has led to a building wave. Anger is growing. People now no longer feel alone in rejecting western hegemony \u2013 they \u201cno longer care\u201d.<\/p>\n In just the week that preceded the G7 summit, the Arab League literally \u2018went multi-polar\u2019; It quit its former pro-US automaticity. The embrace of President Assad and the Syrian government was both the logical consequence to the secondary tectonic-plate shift set in motion by China with its Saudi-Iranian diplomacy \u2014 a revolution which Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) then logically extended to the entire Arab sphere.<\/p>\n MbS sealed this \u2018break-free\u2019 of US control through having President al-Assad invited to the Summit to symbolise the League\u2019s act of generalised iconoclasm.<\/p>\n For the West, it is ontologically impossible to tolerate their reality being disassembled: to see their society and the world split in two. The narrative reality is so embedded via the well-honed effectiveness of MSM messaging however, that politicians have become lazy. They do not have to argue their case, and have no incentive to hold back on untruths either.<\/p>\n The dynamics are exorable: an over-hyped \u2018monolithic reality\u2019 evolves into a Manichaean fight to the death. Any backsliding by \u2018principals\u2019 could result in the collapse of the Media narrative \u2018house of cards\u2019.\u00a0 (This notion of a monolithic reality is not one shared by most other societies who see\u00a0reality<\/em>\u00a0as multi-faceted).<\/p>\n Denial becomes endemic. So, we witness a hawkish G7, diverting from the narrative setback (of Bakhmut falling) by the\u00a0casual<\/a>\u00a0embrace of a ploy to supply F-16s to Ukraine; chastising China for not making President Putin \u2018back off\u2019 in Ukraine; and using the meeting to set a narrative framework for the coming confrontation with China on trade issues and Taiwan.<\/p>\n One commentator (at the summit) wondered \u201cAm I still in Europe, or in Japan?\u201d, as she listened to rhetoric as though lifted from Von Der Leyen\u2019s earlier speech to the EU. Von de Leyen had crafted the formulation of \u2018de-risking\u2019 with China to disguise the creeping EU-China bifurcation in production on the EU Commission factory floor.\u00a0 This remark does however serve to underline how Von der Leyen has become a\u00a0de facto<\/em>\u00a0member of the Biden Team.<\/p>\n China angrily responded to the G7 summit allegation that it had become a workshop for \u201csmearing\u201d and slandering China.<\/p>\n This extensive narrative-shaping for China confrontation is seen to be necessary by the G7 as the rest of the world does not view China as a\u00a0 genuine \u2018threat\u2019 to the US:\u00a0 Rather, they understand that the true \u2018threats\u2019 to the US derive from its internal divisions, and not from external sources.<\/p>\n The G7 salience lies not so much with the anti-China narratives launched, but, plainly said, because the entire episode expresses a western hubristic denial, which portends extreme danger in respect to Ukraine. It speaks to the reality that the West \u2014 in it\u2019s present mental mode \u2014 will be unable to put forward any credible political initiative to end the Ukraine conflict.(Recall that Moscow was badly mauled by the earlier Minsk episode).<\/p>\n The G7 language abjures all serious diplomacy, and signals that the imperative remains to stick with the \u2018not losing\u2019 mantra:The fall of Bakhmut is no defeat for Kiev, but a Pyrrhic loss for Putin; Ukraine is winning, Putin is losing, was the G7 messaging.<\/p>\n The hubris resides in the western perennial condescension towards President Putin and Russia. Washington (and London) just cannot disabuse themselves of the conviction that Russia is fragile; its armed forces barely, if at all, competent; its economy cratering; and that therefore Putin likely would seize on just about any \u2018olive branch\u2019 America cares to offer him.<\/p>\n That President Xi could \u2013 or would \u2013 pressure Putin \u2018to back-off\u2019 in Ukraine, and accept a ceasefire on EU terms \u2014 which are the \u2018Zelensky terms\u2019 \u2014 is delusional.\u00a0 Yet some key EU leaders genuinely seem to think Putin can be arm-twisted by Xi or Modi into exiting Ukraine on terms wholly favourable to Kiev.\u00a0 These European leaders simply are dangerously hostage to the psychological processes fuelling their denialism.<\/p>\n Russia is \u2018winning\u2019 on the financial war front, and on the global diplomatic front. It has the overwhelming advantage in force numbers; it has the advantage in weaponry; it has the advantage in the skies and in the Electro-magnetic sphere. Whereas Ukraine is in disarray, its forces decimated and the Kiev entity is crumbling fast.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t they \u2018get it\u2019?\u00a0 No. The endless bitter antagonism to Putin and to Russia has allowed a self-imagined reality to detach; to drift further and further from any connection to reality; and then to transit into delusion \u2014 always drawing on like-minded peer cheerleaders for validation and extended radicalisation.<\/p>\n This is a serious psychosis. Because instead of addressing the conflict rationally, the West consistently comes up with \u2018non-starters\u2019 such as a \u2018frozen conflict\u2019<\/a>.\u00a0 Do they seriously think that Russia will \u2018sit back\u2019 whilst the West \u2018stands up\u2019 an \u2018armed to the teeth\u2019 NATO proxy in the West of Ukraine?\u00a0 A proxy that will stand as a festering sore in the Russian side, and bleed Russian resources, over the long term?\u00a0 Do they imagine the lesson of Afghanistan is lost on the Russian High Command?\u00a0 I can tell you,it is not.\u00a0 I was a part actor in\u00a0that tragedy<\/a>.<\/p>\n What next?\u00a0 Russia likely will wait to see whether Kiev is able to mount an offensive \u2014 or not. If Kiev does launch an offensive, it would make sense for Russia to let the Ukrainian forces throw themselves upon the Russian defensive lines, and expend their forces further, in a new \u2018meat grinder\u2019.\u00a0 Moscow will test whether Kiev\u2019s patrons are then ready to acknowledge \u2018facts on the ground\u2019, rather than some imagined reality, by acquiescing to Moscow\u2019s terms. If not, the Russian attrition might continue, and continue, right up to the Polish border. There is no other option \u2014 even if it be Moscow\u2019s last choice.<\/p>\n The F-16s diversion will not change the strategic balance to the war; but of course, it will extend the war.\u00a0 Yet the European leaders at the G7 grabbed at the proposal.<\/p>\n Lt Col. Daniel Davis, Senior Fellow at\u00a0Defence Priorities<\/em>\u00a0in Washington, has\u00a0warned<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no reason to expect a dramatic change in Kyiv\u2019s fortunes in the war because of them [the F-16s]. Even the 40 to 50 jets Ukraine is reported to be requesting, will not fundamentally alter the course of the war. The bigger question \u201cAmericans should be asking of Biden, however, is this: to what end? What does the Administration expect the delivery of the F-16s to accomplish? What do we hope to physically accomplish? What end-state does the president envision for the war, and how would the presence of F-16s improve the chances of success?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cSo far as I can determine, these questions haven\u2019t even been asked, much less answered, by administration or Pentagon officials\u201d \u2026 Washington should start to focus far more on concrete means of safeguarding American interests and ending the war, and less on inconsequential weapon deliveries which don\u2019t seem to be part of any coherent strategy\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n The same question should be posed to the EU: \u201cTo what end?\u201d Has the question even been asked, much less answered?<\/p>\n Well, let\u2019s answer it: What will 50 F-16s accomplish?\u00a0 European leaders say they seek an early end to the conflict, yet this initiative will achieve the very opposite. It will represent yet another milestone in escalation towards the \u2018forever war\u2019 against Russia for which some earnestly wish. Russia then likely will see little alternative but to proceed to full war\u00a0versus\u00a0<\/em>NATO.<\/p>\n The Europeans seem incapable of saying \u2018no\u2019 to America.\u00a0 Yet Col. Davis warns clearly that the US intention is to \u201cshift the burden for physical support for Ukraine to our European partners\u201d.\u00a0 Implicitly, this suggests \u2018long war\u2019 in Europe.\u00a0 How did we reach this point, for heaven\u2019s sake?\u00a0 (By not thinking things through from the start, with financial war on Russia so enthusiastically and unreflectively embraced by Europe).<\/p>\n