The desperate Western hegemony has been halted in its tracks by a stark warning from the Russians. Further escalation, especially making Ukraine into a nuclear-armed threat, has forced Vladimir Putin to admonish the waning liberal order with assured nuclear destruction.
Turning the page from this foregone conclusion, we see Mr. Putin is placing new puzzle pieces for the coming solidarity of nations seeking a multipolar world. Putin has announced that Russia is ready for new large-scale projects with Kazakhstan, the world’s ninth-largest nation. Russia’s southern neighbour has been under constant assault from Washington to swing Central Asia’s most prosperous nation into the liberal order’s orbit. Astana is now magnetized toward Moscow and the economic horizon the BRICS promise.
The “So Big” World
Looking past geography and Kazakhstan’s strategic position, Western hegemons will lose one country brimming with valuable natural resources when the Ukraine conflict is ended. In the bigger picture, Vladimir Putin’s strategies combined with the best interests of China, India, Iran, and a laundry list of nations have started the domino effect of Cold War lunatics once feared. It should be noted that Kazakhstan has the world’s second-largest uranium, chromium, lead, and zinc reserves. The landlocked nation in a critical strategic location bordering the Caspian Sea to the West and China to the East also possesses the third-largest manganese reserves; the fifth-largest copper reserves; and ranks in the top ten for coal, iron, and gold. I won’t bore the reader with a cumulative list of world resources this multipolar community possesses. The world is only so big, you know?
Even here in Greece, the newspapers (Greek language) are eager to report that Zelensky is ready to surrender if Ukraine becomes a NATO nation. As ludicrous as this proposal is, it signals the end of a senseless conflict that could have been avoided a decade ago. It’s also emblematic of the same way many in my circle are behaving. Everyone I talk to asks me,
“What are the chances of a nuclear war?” Others ask an even more chilling question, they query me, “Would the Russians launch a first strike with their new weapons?” I ask myself, “Well, do they want my real opinion or a comforting pat on the back?”
To Get “It” Over With?
If you were a nation that had been assaulted on every side by powers that seem to be led by a Satanic cult, would you take advantage of a new first-strike option that could not be stopped? Furthermore, as Mr. Putin readily admitted in a press conference, the much feared and talked about Oreshnik that was “tested” in Dnipo did not even have explosive warheads, conventional or nuclear. The Russian president pointed out that the kinetic and heat energy of the empty warheads was sufficient to eliminate targets. I’ll let the reader forecast a conventional weapon capable of the same destruction as a nuclear warhead.
Ballistic, carrying multiple nuclear warheads that can be independently targeted and plummet toward their targets anywhere on the globe at 11 times the speed of sound affords strategists interesting potentialities. That’s my honest answer. It’s a good thing the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and the other nations that have been pushed about by Britain, the EU, and especially my own country don’t need to obliterate anybody. Only the people behind inept imbeciles like Joe Biden need an emergency measure. Ukraine is lost, the people cannot freeze for one more Winter, and there are no more young men and women to sacrifice on the altar of dominion.
I hope that the Londoners, the New Yorkers, Parisians, and the Berliners in charge are now at the drawing board unveiling PLAN B. One can only reason that these geniuses of power have a contingency in place other than killing us all off alongside them. The Western elites may have some pseudo-capitalist scheme to fit in rather than control the world completely. As a geographer, I cannot help but notice how small the Western empire is becoming now. Take a look at a map sometime soon.
Let’s see if there is a “next” move by my country and her now shaky allies.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books