I can see the Ukraine crisis ending in several ways, including…
With US-Russia Talks. Perhaps, Biden’s foreign policy handlers decide that they have profited enough from Germany’s natural gas purchases, and can now agree to Russia’s proposal of talks with the US, with or without Zelensky, now reduced to tweeting romantic asks for weaponry from France. Talks at the edges of the upcoming G20 meeting will begin with the status of American pot user and basketball player Brittney Griner, and will move on the American multibillion dollar aid recipient and local comedian, Volodomyr Zelensky. Or not.
With the Destruction of Europe As We Know It (DOEAWKI): Perhaps, Europe, with frenemies UK and Germany, collapse on both political and economic planes at roughly the same time. Overnight, political survival become paramount, and the Euro-icons wash their hands of Ukraine and attempt to drop sanctions. Fed Chair Powell’s aggressively nationalistic commitment to unilateral higher interest rates sinking the European WEF-led economies, and that of their dependencies. Neocons and other Russia haters in DC believe a Europe literally owned by the US is in the cards, and unstoppable. Sanctions cannot be allowed to be abandoned just yet, US ownership and control in Europe grows, and an undercurrent of terrorism and lawlessness emerges throughout Europe. A Christmas present for the elites, a unified digital currency will help erase the junk bond status of the debt in both the US and the EU – and fight an endless war on terror at the same time!
With a new Maginot Line: Perhaps, lifelong politician and long-time NATO Chief Stoltenberg will design and defend a grand Euro-Russo Stoltenberg Line. This scenario entails a long NATO occupation of much of Ukraine and a rejuvenation of European terrorism that will allow the US and its totalitarian lackeys in Europe to increase the surveillance state beyond anything China can dream of. The attempt to create a super mega demilitarized zone 10 times longer than the 38th parallel will ensure continued terrorism, and the US will gain a new, and more functional, gazillion dollar military-industrial money pump to replace Afghanistan.
With a Military Coup: Perhaps, Zelensky is replaced at the hand of one of his Majors or Lt Colonels or Generals, as we often see where the US provides “free” military and CIA aid and training. The new leadership is simultaneously condemned and celebrated in the West, because it is both anti-Zelensky and anti-Russian. Give that much of the Ukraine’s electrical grid, industry and agriculture already either decimated or in Russian hands, the new national government in either Kiev – or Lviv –accepts the loss of the Russian part of Ukraine, and sues for peace. Given on how sputteringly angry this makes the US and NATO, perhaps the better and smaller nationalist Ukrainian government will end up leaning into the Russian sphere out of necessity, in hopes of re-emerging as a beneficiary and facilitator of Russia-Euro trade. Assuming Biden is impeached, and his staff leaderless and rudderless, President Harris will waffle on her staff’s recommendation to drop a nuclear bomb, and will later report to the American people that the war in Ukraine has ended and we won it.
Or on the other hand, the new and better government of a smaller Ukraine becomes not a “Bigger Israel” but instead a massive Golan Heights for NATO and the US, with neither the heights nor the strategic value, courtesy of great minds in the Pentagon.
With a German Walkout: Perhaps, Germany wakes up from its green, self-hating stupor and the EU spins apart. It might take a leaked report identifying which NATO countries executed the attack on other NATO countries with the partial destruction of NordStreams 1 and 2. Or a bunch of German Grandmas freezing to death this winter. The Germans just might wake up to the western game being played in Ukraine, which is 100% about Germany being a permanent and docile US cog/consumer, rather than an independent trading partner with the US, China and Russia. For the editors at Foreign Policy (see minute 6 on), I’ll explain this in dating terms: Germany needs to leave her passive aggressive DC boyfriend who doesn’t want her to work, is taking all her money, and won’t pay the massive energy bill he ran up. One she becomes that strong independent woman, albeit with a past, Ukraine would do well to hang out with her, and learn how to spot the big guy who seems really sweet at first, but will ruin your life and try to kill you later.
The future of Ukraine is probably somewhere between an EU collapse, an expensive and deadly Stoltenberg Line, and Western Ukraine as a not-so-nice but OK Polish suburb. Perhaps Germany will stop making apologies and leave the party, and the real knives will come out in DC.
It’s pretty clear that Ukraine is not getting back together again, the money’s running out, Ukrainians increasingly are stuck between a crazed incompetent leader in Kiev, a dementia-addled US President and his bloodthirsty neocon cheer squad, and Ivan at the eastern front. Western governments and their populations, never known for faithfulness or patience, are already beginning to secretly despise those blue and yellow flags.
Rather than a permanent Korean-style armistice, or a Vietnam napalm-everything-and-leave solution, or any of the above Ukraixploitation dramas, I’d love to see a Cuban Missile Crisis-style resolution between Washington and Moscow.
The US quietly pulls its troops and closes US military bases that are illegally occupying and profiting from US de facto autonomous zones (shockingly, without sham referendums, or any referendums at all) on the oil fields of upstate Syria and Iraqi Kurdestan. Russia ensures that the Ukrainian midlands are safe for Ukrainian corn, wheat and sunflowers and lends a hand with removing the NATO, Ukrainian and Russian mines from fields and roads. I’m sure Turkey would host the talks, echoing their small role in 1962 as Kennedy and Khrushchev worked to prevent a world-ending nuclear war between the US and Russia.
The US once had an Irish Catholic president, who spoke of peace and had won the presidency in a divisive and corrupt election. The security state killed him. Today we have the only kind of president the security state will ever accept, and I’m pretty sure my proposed solution isn’t going to happen.
