Russia – Globalities

Syria’s collapse and the global balance

Helena CobbanDecember 13, 2024December 13, 2024Global balance, Iran, Israel, Russia, Syria

The above image shows some of the Syrian navy vessels destroyed by Israel this week.

Over the past 17 days, the system of (Baath Party + military) governance that the Asad family had maintained over Syria for 53 years underwent a catastrophic and complete collapse. This collapse had been many years in the making; and now, it has numerous implications for the regional balance in West Asia– not least for the serious blow it has delivered to “Axis of resistance”, the previously hardy alliance of regional forces working together to resist the cruel, expansionist assaults of the Israeli military. Asadist Syria had not been an active participant in those efforts, but it provided a key land bridge for interactions between the resistance forces in Iran/Iraq and those in Lebanon.

The severing of this land bridge will have significant, though almost certainly not fatal, effects on the capabilities of Hizbullah and its resistance allies in Lebanon. (We discussed some of these effects in the discussion I was part of in the Electronic Intifada livestream on Wednesday.)

A potentially much more serious effect on the anti-Israeli resistance may well turn out to be the re-emergence throughout West Asia of the same kind of harshly anti-Shi-ite sectarianism that has been publicly displayed by leaders (and rank-and-filers) of the victorious, al-Qaeda-style Hai’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) movement that rode into glory in Damascus on Sunday and Monday. (We discussed that, too, in the livestream. An imperfectly edited version of the transcript of our convo can be downloaded here.)

But even far beyond West Asia, the collapse of Asadist Syria, and indeed of the Syrian state itself in any recognizable form, and the manner in which that collapse transpired, will have stark– and as of now, only dimly predictable– repercussions on a global balance that has anyway been in an increasing degree of flux over recent years.

Yes, David, there is a way to halt the carnage in Ukraine: An Armistice

Helena CobbanOctober 6, 2023October 6, 2023Diplomacy, Russia, U.S. policy, Ukraine crisis4 Comments

Painting of the armistice negotiation in Compiègne, France, November 1917

The veteran Washington Post columnist David Ignatius started out life (as I did) as a reporter, and in today’s column he does a good job of portraying a spirited discussion he observed in Kyiv among Ukrainian politicians on whether and when to end the grinding conflict in their country. He describes one parliamentarian at that gathering, Oleksiy Goncharenko (also mis-spelled Gershenko) as “almost shouting” as he says,

“We all want everything. But this is the real world, and we must make decisions from real options. We don’t have unlimited time, and we don’t have unlimited people.”

Ignatius notes that earlier hopes that Ukraine’s summer counter-offensive might succeed “haven’t been realized”, and that “Ukrainians are now willing to talk more openly about ways to end the war than during my visits last year.” And he seems to be channeling the “painful” choice that he now sees confronting the Ukrainian leaders:

In just conflicts, the best strategy is surely to stay the course, especially when people begin to despair…

But if Ukraine seriously questions whether it can survive a fight that might take many years, then it needs to think about a way to freeze this conflict on its own terms — with a security guarantee from the United States as part of that deal.

‘As long as it takes’: Washington’s dangerous trap for Ukraine

Helena CobbanSeptember 8, 2023September 9, 2023Diplomacy, Russia, U.S. policy, U.S.-Russia relations, Ukraine crisis4 Comments

The above image shows colonels from the North Korean and U.S. militaries discussing possible lines for an armistice, October 1951

Pres. Joe Biden’s avowals that the United States will back Ukraine’s campaign to push the Russian military out of its eastern provinces for “as long it takes” have become a mounting chorus over recent months. (He has seldom if ever spelled out the precise nature of the “it” in question. That’s problematic, since Washington and Kyiv have deep disagreements over the extent of their war goals. Perhaps U.S. taxpayers and everyone else deserve some clarity on this point?)

Of course, if Biden were to offer a clear and compelling vision of the outcome for whose pursuit he has been pouring money and weapons into Ukraine, he might also have to explain such anomalies as to why this war against Russia’s bad actions should be supported when he and his predecessor have steadfastly supported Israel’s annexations of Golan and East Jerusalem; whenWashington has long thought that blithely splitting Kosovo off from Serbia was quite okay; and why no-one in Washington has ever been held accountable for the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq…

There are doubtless numerous factors that hold Biden back from offering a specific and principled vision of Washington’s goals for the anti-Russia campaign in Ukraine… And in its place we are offered only the content-free pablum of “as long as it takes.”

This is dangerous territory. Especially today, as we survey the failure of the summer’s long-touted “counter-offensive” against Russia’s military units in eastern Ukraine… Biden’s repeated “ALAIT” declarations portend only a lengthy, continuing commitment of U.S. and allied resources—and of Ukrainian lives—into a World War I-style meat grinder with increasingly devastating local and global consequences.

Global South resists Washington’s anti-Russia campaign

Helena CobbanJuly 28, 2023July 29, 2023BRICS, China, Global balance, Global economy, Global governance, Russia3 Comments

Above: Pres. Putin poses with some of the African leaders who attended the Russia-African summit he hosted this past week

Biden administration officials and their supporters have long claimed that the conflict in Ukraine is a clear-cut contest between “democracy” and “authoritarianism” that affects the whole world… and that on that basis the countries of the Global South should line up to support NATO’s campaign against Russia. One big recent version of this argument has been the claim that Russia’s refusal to renew the agreement allowing Ukraine to export grain via the Black Sea is raising grain prices and preventing much-needed foodstuffs from reaching hunger-struck countries in Africa…

But the campaign to win global support for NATO’s anti-Russia crusade has never been very successful. Recall that in the three votes Washington initiated at the UN last year to denounce Russia’s actions inside Ukraine (e.g., 1, 2), three dozen countries including global behemoths China, India, and three dozen other countries failed to support the “Yes” vote.

And just this past week, the proceedings of key gatherings held in South Africa and Moscow have underscored the extent to which the “West” has lost the support of that large majority of humanity that lives in the formerly colonized countries of the Global South. (If indeed, it ever had it… Perhaps a better description of what’s been happening in recent months is that the West is now revealing itself as incapable of imposing its will on the countries of the Global South. More on this, later…)

So what happened at these two recent gatherings?