Turkey and other challenges for US in Ukraine

Crescent International

Sha'ban 23, 1442 2021-04-06

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

The Western corporate media’s intense focus on Ukraine exposes Washington’s strategy to pit the EU against Russia to ensure Europe remains in the US orbit.

News of Russian military movements near the Ukrainian border was followed by political statements from the EU’s corridors of power in support of Ukraine.

Then came a phone call between Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Joe Biden.

Politicking by the Western political establishment and the overall geopolitical circumstances surrounding the conflict in Eastern Ukraine with pro-Russian separatists reflect what the US aims to accomplish.

The Biden regime correctly understands that Russia will vigorously maintain its primacy in the regions of the former Soviet Union.

Washington knows that if Europe and Russia come to an agreement to cool political tensions in favor of mutually beneficial economic arrangements, the US will be left with limited leverage against Russia.

Both the EU and Russia have strong economic foundations to build their relations based on mutual interests without political undertones.

They can put hot political disagreements on the back burner due to strong mutual economic interests.

The US, however, approaches Russia’s role in Europe primarily through an outdated political and military angle rooted in the now defunct Cold-War narrative.

Washington assumes that by challenging Russia in Eastern Europe and other regions which previously made-up the Soviet Union, Russia will be overstretched.

It will be exhausted economically and become internally unstable.

This perspective misses an important reality.

Moscow can handle chaos on its borders and “take pain” far longer than its Western rivals, due to Russia’s size, societal attitude and political culture.

Its occupation of the Crimean Peninsula, however, is used as a pretext for Western political pressure against Moscow.

To convert this legal card into tangible political leverage against Russia will require significant input from Turkey.

There is a large Tatar-Muslim population in the Crimea that harbors negative feelings toward Russia.

It will, however, be impossible to undermine Russian presence in the Crimea without Tatar assistance.

The Tatars’ reliance on Turkey rather than Brussels or Washington for political guidance precludes this possibility.

Turkey’s current troubled relations with Western regimes and its growing cooperation with Russia means Ankara cannot be used against Moscow in Crimea.

Without significant Turkish input, Western plans against Russia in Ukraine will have limited impact on Moscow.

While the Biden regime assumes that by igniting tensions in Ukraine it will force the EU to seek its protection, careful analysis of the broader picture suggests that the opposite is likely to happen.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the Western elite as greedy, incompetent and their societies unable to cope with basic problems.

Thus, a prolonged military conflict on the doorsteps of Western Europe resulting in large influx of refugees, economic costs and political tensions coupled with sophisticated informational war, could easily shake-up the EU beyond its establishment’s imagination.

Brussels and other European capitals might soon discover that their continent is better off without a militaristic US foreign policy.