When the British Foreign Minister David Cameron invited Ukraine to use British delivered weapons against Russian territory, France had has already deployed parts of its Foreign Legion to Ukraine. Whereby, Russia announced a spontaneous drill of the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons:
Russia has threatened to strike British military facilities and said it will hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons in response to UK weapons being used by Ukraine to strike its territory.
Whence, Vladimir Putin has warned against all interventions:
Let me emphasise once again: if anyone intends to intervene from the outside and create a strategic threat to Russia that is unacceptable to us, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning-fast. We have the tools we need for this, the likes of which no one else can claim at this point. We will not just brag; we will use them if necessary. And I want everyone to know this; we have made all the decisions on this matter.
It comes at a time when Belarus announced on Tuesday that its military was conducting a drill on the readiness of its forces to use tactical nuclear weapons, which Russia recently deployed to the country.
Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said President Alexander Lukashenko ordered a “snap readiness test of forces and capabilities of delivery vehicles for non-strategic nuclear weapons.”
Alexander Volfovich, the state secretary of the Security Council of Belarus, also said the drills were being conducted “against the backdrop of the actions of Russian colleagues on the use of non-strategic nuclear warheads and is fully coordinated with them.”
Whereupon, a
German general warns of “fatal error” NATO will make if proxy war in Ukraine continues - Infobrics
Indeed, Franz-Stefan Gady in the February-March 2024 issue of Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, the logic of the war in Ukraine is relentlessly attritional with Russia having artillery fires 20:1 ratio advantage over a depleting Ukrainian army:
With such tactical disadvantagous regime, even the Estonia secret service had indicated that Russia was readily in preparation for a "confrontation with the West" because Russian has completed the Nuclear Calibration in the War in Ukraine, (CSIS, February 2024).
Naval War College Professor Lyle Goldstein, who wrote on the nuclear paradox:
“if the US and NATO increase their military spending and conventional forces in Europe, the weakness of Russian conventional military forces could prompt Moscow to rely more heavily on its nuclear forces.”
To READ also Dmitry V. Trenin, 3/4/2024, It’s Time for Russia to Give the West a Nuclear Reminder
And
Conflict in Ukraine and Nuclear Weapons
This is emphatically articulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin veiled threat to use nuclear weapons against Western states during a commemoration of Russia’s World War II victory in Moscow Thursday.
“Russia will do everything to prevent a global clash,” Putin said. “But at the same time, we will not allow anyone to threaten us”, (responsible statecraft, 10/05/24).
According to polling done by the Quincy Institute in February 2024:
Roughly 70% of Americans want the Biden administration to push Ukraine toward a negotiated peace with Russia as soon as possible, according to a new survey from the Harris Poll and the Quincy Institute, which publishes Responsible Statecraft.
It was reported more than once, and recently by BBC Ukraine, that 650,000 military-age men have fled the country. Further, other estimates have shown that between 2021 and 2023, Ukraine’s GDP has shrunk by nearly 30 percent, with millions out of work. The Economist predicts that the country will need US$37 billion in external financing in 2024.
During the 2022-2023 period, foreign aid was only in sufficiency sustaining Ukraine to achieve a degree of economic and military stabilization, but, since the first quarter of 2023, aid from both the US and Europe has been on a downgrading trend.
On a month by month, and to preserve financial stability, Ukraine needs in the order of US$3.5 billion in external foreign funding; a single Patriot battery costs in excess of US$1 billion, (Kiel). According to Zelensky, Ukraine needs 25 Patriots to cover the country completely, but Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he is initially “focused on securing seven”, (Kyiv Independent).
The ministry had to increase defense spending by $4 billion in the first quarter……
Anyway, neither in the short-run nor in the long-run does the US aid package resolve Ukraine’s problems.
In short, there has to be a better way than prolonging the conflict: U.S. needs a ceasefire strategy in Ukraine, (Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan, An European peace plan for Ukraine; Adam Tooze, Chartbook #282; csloh.substack, For Ukraine - peace is possible).
Postings in the week that was that one might have missed:
1] Dielectrics of Ecology, John Foster Bellamy
2] Franco-China relations, ChinaMed Project
3] The importance of France and Macron, Zhang Jian (张健)
4] Macron of France, Thomas des Garets Gedde
5] US-China relations - drawing the red lines, Shen Yi, Professor of the Department of International Politics, Fudan University
6] The IMF Report on Malaysia 2024/2025, Study Team on Rakyat² Malaysia (STORM)
7] The Havana Congress - a Global South Insurgency, Progressive International
8] MOMENTUM #198 and FRIDAY FILES 10/05/2024.
Thanks a heap by revisiting On Geoeconomics with Geopolitical dimensions to read essays and preview global situational events of the week.
Please share postings with your peers and diaspora communities.
In solidarity, with solidarity,