Ukraine war: not all that it seems

EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON

Since the start of the war in Ukraine in February, the Western media has gone out of its way to portray Vladimir Putin as insane in need of urgent psychiatric treatment. And with that same arrogance, the West is breathing heavily by sending more deadly weapons to kyiv every day with the clear objective of changing the regime in Russia and implanting a malleable president.

But Russia is only an intermediate goal on the road that leads to China, the real enemy of the United States and therefore of the West. By weakening Russia, or even causing a regime change in Moscow, Washington can completely isolate China and hit its economy more easily, without forgetting the strategic advantages it would have in the military area for the Americans, whose ships and planes, full of weapons, are deployed off the eastern coast of the Asian giant.

Beijing is aware of the enormous threat that the war represents for its interests not only in a global framework but also in its own territory, so it is difficult to understand the lukewarmness with which it is responding to the conflict. Its interests oblige China not to jump on the war bandwagon, but it could assist Moscow in a more resolute manner since a fall of Russia would be very detrimental to Beijing in the medium and long term.

Due to what has happened in these seven months, it is still difficult to know who wins and who loses with the war. Among the parties directly or indirectly related to the conflict there is only one clear winner at this point, Israel, and one clear loser, Europe. The development of events will leave everyone in their place and only later will we be able to know to what extent the United States and Russia are losers or winners.

Israel clearly wins on three fronts. In the first five months of the war, 12.175 Ukrainian Jews and 18.891 Russian Jews immigrated to Israel. In total, more than 31.000 Jews from both countries have settled in the Jewish state, and Tel Aviv authorities expect the number to increase significantly as the war deteriorates. In fact, a prediction made by the Hebrew authorities at the beginning of the conflict estimated that at least 100.000 Ukrainian and Russian Jews would emigrate to Israel.

The second beneficial front for Israel is the Syrian one. In Syria there is a considerable Russian military deployment, which is now taking a more relaxed and contained line. In fact, just a few days ago, Hebrew media published images of the dismantling of bases with advanced Russian anti-aircraft missiles in western Syria, which Moscow has decided to repatriate in order to deal with possible threats from Ukrainian aviation.

The war weakens the Russian presence in Syria, which means that Israel has freer hands to operate in that country. It is curious that since the Russian deployment in the eastern Mediterranean this region can count on more nuclear weapons, something that evidently annoys Israel. Nobody likes to have nuclear weapons at their side, and we must not forget that precisely the planned nuclear deployment in Ukraine by NATO led to the war.

The third front has to do with the fact that Israel is not interested in fractious powers in the concert of nations and Moscow is a loose verse. It would be to Tel Aviv's advantage if a liberal democratic regime similar to those in Western Europe were established in Moscow, which the US can run as it pleases. Israel is a small country, but a key one given its decisive ascendancy over Washington and over Washington's client European powers, a circumstance that allows it to do and undo as it pleases wherever it wants.

While Israel clearly wins, the situation in Europe is pitiful in all respects and it is still not clear whether Russia and the United States are winning or losing. It is a war chosen by the Joe Biden administration that will only end when Washington is interested, either because prices shoot up even more in the United States, or because of any other serious situation that forces Biden to end the conflict, something that it hasn't happened yet. For now, the advantages that the conflict offers Washington outweigh the disadvantages, and only if the tables turn and the disadvantages outweigh the advantages will the war end.

A recent article in The National Interest estimates that the US is losing the war, at least on a strategic level. This reasoning is based on the fact that Russia is cementing and reinforcing other friendships and alliances that replace its partners in Europe. Not only China, but also India, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries, can become preferred clients of the Russians and allow Moscow to circumvent the sanctions imposed by the United States and its European allies, at least in large part. .

The blindness that characterizes Europe's foreign policy, visible most clearly in the Middle East and North Africa, is the same blindness that Europeans apply to Russia. Brussels accuses Moscow of militarizing energy, but Europe and the US were the first to threaten to limit and interrupt the import of Russian oil and gas. The Paris-Berlin axis is certainly the greatest danger in European foreign policy and there is no indication that this axis will change its approach to world conflicts and move away from Washington's interests.

Eugenio Garcia Gascon is Cirilo Rodríguez journalism award. He has been a correspondent in Jerusalem for 29 years.
EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON
Contributor