David Hungerford is explaining his vision of the Ukrainian conflict exclusively for SouthFront.
Sometimes wars end when a settlement is negotiated. Sometimes wars end when one side surrenders to the other. In either case the issues that led to war may not finally be resolved for a long time.
However, some wars are fought out to a real finish. The victor imposes terms. And that’s that.
Once we had a situation in the United States where two sides could not live with each other. The southern states had a system of slave-labor agriculture, with 3000 big slaveholders. The northern states had a system of wage-labor manufacturing. There were millions of small family farmers.
All attempts at compomise proved futile. “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” said Lincoln. The slaveholder states seceded from the Union to form the Confederacy. It came to war. The Civil War of 1861-65 took 750,000 lives out of a total population of thirty million. At the end the slaveholders were finished. They are gone forever.
Some say the war in Ukraine is winding down to a settlement based on the Minsk II protocol. Is that possible, or must the war be fought out to the end?
It has been a while since the Kiev junta has attempted an offensive. It makes some pretenses at fulfillment of the political goals included in Minsk II. Some weapons have been withdrawn from the line of contact.
But the junta cannot govern. Its territory is broken into domains ruled by one warlord oligarch or another. The economy is everywhere in a state of collapse. There is no law, only a reign of terror. Assassinations of political opponents, massacres, and shelling of civilians in Novorossiya go on daily.
A regime that cannot govern cannot end a war by settlement.
Novorossiya could hardly be more different. It is the mass creation of the people. They stood up to the junta as soon as it emerged. Referenda in Donetsk and Lugansk established them as Soviet Republics [SF editor’s comment: We don’t think it’s a fact]. Later the names were changed to People’s Republics.
The original names make the historical precedent clear. The soviets of the Year 1905 were created by the people. Lenin didn’t tell them to do it. Plekhanov didn’t tell them to do it. They did it themselves. The Revolution of 1905 led to the Revolution of 1917.
There is no doubt in Novorossiya of the fate that will overtake the people if they fall into the hands of the gang in Kiev. The Novorossiyan Armed Forces maintain constant vigilance. Official Russian policy may turn one way or another, but they will do it as long as necessary.
Ukraine is a house divided against itself. The people of Novorossiya cannot live with the fascists. The fascists cannot live with Novorossiya.
Sooner or later the war will end with a fight to the finish.
The logic of the premise seems impeccable.
Are you sure ? Is Ukraine one house ? One can see 2, maybe 3 or more nations ? Was even America one house ? The world is full of wars where one area splits away and becomes its own nation. I don’t see the logic, I don’t see the applicability of American history in this situation (or even in America for that matter). What is the strong necessity of a union over all Ukraine, which clearly is unstable and never really existed as a Sovereignty, certainly not of that size. It also excluded Donbass in the earlier form of Kiev Rus, which is centuries ago, and that too ended. Sorry, I don’t see it yet, maybe more arguments would help. Kiev seems pretty exhausted with the war, they could well just leave it, if the Americans allow them. Not that this is expected from the Americans probably, but there isn’t a necessity that it has to be fought to the end like some kind of law of nature.
One house? who is talking about one house? NATO tries to force a “you’re with us or against us” choice.
The only alternative is a multi-polar confederation like the Russian model. You can’t have a multipolar state choose to become a platform for launching NATO hegemony. One actor is forcing a “one house” choice, the rest is political physics.
The point of the article was that “Ukraine ” is not a political entity that can be brought to a negotiating table as they “the junta” have very little control of their own county, (or even their military command structure).
If you really want to go in depth as to the macro politics of what this article implies read this.
http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/10/dugin-breaks-year-of-silence-we-are-at.html
Who talk of one house, you know it: “Ukraine is a house divided against itself.” The article above did. I agree with you that there is an imposition of a “one house” politicy by Kiev/Washington, because it suits them, and this can very well mean there has to be a war to the end (also because the west seems to want war for reason of war itself, as a domestic distraction from the economic problems.) However that was not what I was thinking I was reading, although that could be my mistake: I thought I read that Ukraine is one house by definition, and therefore must fight to the end. I just do not see that logic.
Interestingly in the article you point to, which I find just as scary as reading about the Imperialists in Washington, i see the same logic. As if we all need to be one country. Here is a sentence that seems to convey the problem that I see: Alexander Dugin: “Russia will either be great, or will not be at all.” First let’s look at real history, an not merely 100 years ago. Things change in a 100 years, which is a few generations, but that doesn’t have to be anything stable or natural. America is now a huge Empire, but it was (according to wikipedia) still expanding territory up to 1945 in California itself, against the Indians. The overall development of the conquering of America by the Anglo-Saxons took something like 400 years, and is barely completed today. We now see that Empire collapse under the weight of its own complexity and size. The Americans today feel they live in one country, they’re very nationalistic and Imperial, just like A. Dugin seems to be their Russian counterpart. They both want “Greater [insert their home Empire name here]”. They can feel that way all they want, they can think it was that way forever all they want, because their fathers and grandparents lived it, but it is not reality. It has been one gigantic conquest taking about 400 to 500 years, and now as this is completed, it is going to fall apart. Incidentally the people they attacked, the native indians, they knew that this whole catastrophe that is the Anglo-Saxon war machine, they knew from the start it would take 500 years or so, and now the signs are everywhere that the end has come.
That is an example about America, because people who are flush with Imperialist ambition can usually not see the reality of their own Empire anymore, because it is all one raging mass of emotions. Coolness will perhaps prevail when analyzing another Empire first, and then look back at the home Empire to see if not the same is occuring. What was Russia in the year 1500 ? What was Russia in the year 500 (1500 years ago) ? That is the real question of who is Russia. A 100 years is too short, but take a thousand, take two thousand or even three thousand years, and there you find the deeper truth. Probably more then 2 or 3 thousand years back is not necessary, or maybe just the last 1000 years although even that can lead to miscalculations. I didn’t even know by heart what Russia was 500 years ago, and for all I knew it was the largest Empire already, but no this is the reality of Russia 500 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchy_of_Moscow
Now back to the article you quoted, which is interesting in its own right because it is an example of Russian Imperialism. Right away I see that this is not rational, it is one big pumping emotion. The topic is Empire, the topic is war, the topic is the dreadful attack by the western maniacs on the peace of the Russian people. Of coures this is emotional, there is nothing as emotional as war perhaps (except for the ruling gangsters, who in all coolness count their stacks of money and laugh as they control the masses through the war propaganda device). The article you point to starts to talk about the heart, a human organ. It expands and it contracts, and this is supposedly Russia. I’m sorry but this is a real debate of politics, and not about poetry or some fantastical analogy. Hence I cannot even reply to that article, because it doesn’t say anything. It’s just emotional filler, you can even call it war propaganda, but now on the Russian side.
Who forces a one house policy ? There you have him, talking about the total Russian unity and Greater Russia, just like his collegues in Washington who talk of Greater America and the New American Century. Do they really have logic for that in Washington ? They think that if America does not expand, it collapses.
Therein leis the truth with these people: they blow the State up larger and larger, more and more territory, more and more people, more and more complexity, but people do not become wiser, they just become bolder. Then at the greatest possibly size they can still conquer together, at the point when they think it will all magically settle down in one magnificant world, one grandiose finale of human happyness and achievement, the one unity of all: it all sacks in on itself from misery. It is like someone who hauls in a rope. Try to rope in a meter, that’s no problem, try to rope in 10 meter, why not. Draw it in, put it on a pile, put it on a spindle. Then draw in 100 meter, now you have 5 spindles. It looks nice, now drawing 1000 meter, now you have a stack of spindles. Don’t ask why, juts say: we must get more ! More more more ! It’s the fun of it ! Draw in 100 kilometer of spindles, why not ?! Now you end up with stacks and stacks upon stacks of spindles and ropes everywhere. There is so much rope around that while you draw in the newest, the oldest is already rotting away. More more more ! Then finally on the slightest of problems, one stack catches fire, or one form of administration is lost, and the chaos is all around. You’re drowning in a knot of Imperialist ambition, and you never thought that one man does not need all this land. One man only needs his own land, to farm and be free.
This is why he says: Russia will either be great, or not at all, because his policies will ruin Russia in the end by making it far too large. That is precisely what he is doing: he expands it, and then as it is expanded, it also collapses. That is the only thing that exists for imperialists: the expansion and the collapse. The expansion is good so they think, and the collapse is bad. But no: the expansion is the disease that creates the collapse. The Imperialist ambition for more territory, is the same as the ambition for a greater cut of taxation out of peoples their pockets for the Imperial command center. There is no end to it, it is like a cancer.
Now what happens in a debate like this, is that the other side thinks these arguments are against Russia. Everything contracts to simple emotions. Maybe not in this case but just to prevent it: I wouldn’t mind a Russian military invasion of Donbass to protect those poele at all, I would be for it. Donbass has the political maturity to do whatever they want, Ukraine doesn’t exist anymore, it is now Fascist-Ukrain. Since Ukraine has been destroyed and fallen under tyranny, you could start to liberate it and literally march the Russian conquest over the entire region that in recent elections had voted for the pro-Russian candidate. This is the logic of the American agression itself, to liberate from tyranny. However that should be done out of solidarity and the current predicament of those people and in particular Donbass who are most clearly againts the Kiev Nazis. it sohuld not be done out of some irrational Imperialism and “We just want more and more, and then some more, because we have this fantastical ambition to rule everything.” You could literally conquer greater Novorossia, with a view of later making it an independent State, so that you could not be accused of Imperialism later.
Look: I am reading this article you pointed me to, but I see nothing but emotions and it is just not interesting. I thought i read to the end for due dilligence sake, but after reading “if not all is lost then nothing is lost,” I kindof have had it. I have serious things to do as well, and not infinite energy. One other thing I can say is that the Putin strategy is gaining wide admiration all over the world, precisely because it is so balanced and reasonable. He is not invading Donbass, but he sends in help. He did not send in an army into Crimea, but he did just enough for the Referendum there to take place and save those people. Erlier Medvedev did just enough to save the people in Georgia, but Russia didn’t invade that country like America would have. On and on the Russian aide convoys come to Donbass, with reliable regularity (for what I can tell). Putin decided to build 40 new atomic rockets. Not 400, he did not threaten to build “the superbomb that would murder everyone on the north American Continent is Moscow was touched”, and neither did he just build 8. Putin takes the balanced aproach. He offered co-operation in Syria with America (and I realize this is probably just good political theater, but nevertheless it matters too to remain decent). The extremist or Imperialist you pointed to in the article, that is just what the Americans want Russia to do. Then Russia would really start pounding its chest
The Americans want that, because it makes the Middle and West European nations scared, and then being scared they will huddle under the American Vulture’s wings. This is already happening with something as docile as the current regime in Moscow, I heard that from European parliament members first hand during a public debate where one attended (I was in the audience, applauding with 99.5% of the people, all except one that is, against the European Union and the American TTIP control system). The corrupt idiot politicians in the top are already scared of Russia now, imagine how roaring this hysteria would be if Russia actually pursued Imperial politics like the article you point to suggests should happen. Look in Syria: Russia only intervenes, when Assad has already lost the war, coming in at the last possible moment. They are as reluctant as they could be. This is getting noticed all over the world, at least by people who use their brain (I guess).
There is great dangers with the Imperialist approach: America seems to want war with Russia, to cover up domestic economics and kill off their own unemployed in war. It also has to do with massive thefts in the American power structure. They stole trillions at the Pentagon, therefore they need a big war to avoid unpleasant questions. Recently the theft was reportedat 8 trillion, this is not small money. This is like a cancer tumor as big as your head on a body. If Russia really goes Imperial, America will have the war they want, and in the way they want it. It should be too easy to emotionally manipulate and infuriate someone who talks about Russia as if it is an Imperialist pounding heart. That’s just too easy, poke here he goes there, poke there he does that, it’s almost like a toy. Putin is not a toy like that it seems, Putin uses the brain. What that does is it shows the world – at least those not too stupid to follow the TV – that Russia is not the problem here, but America is the problem. This translates into a much reduced army morale in the west, to actually fight war against Russia. On the other hand, because Russia takes blows and plays decent in the geopolitics and wars, the Russians from their side start believing much more in their own right to defend themselves. With every misdeed of America that is not replicated by a Russian misdeed, the belief of the Russians in their own army and people rises. This translates into a strong people who can hopefully resist the American attacks, and also the coup attacks they are working on for the streets of Moscow itself (undoubtedly they are working on it, gangster McCain even admitted it indirectly.)
I see the Putin soft-hand as it where, compared to the American bloody fist of iron, as the most Russian strategy you could follow, because it is the strategy of the long term. Let the enemy blow themselves up in Imperial madness, Russia will be there long after, its endless hills have swallowed more then one enemy who came to take it. Russia in its current enormous size, is nothing like any other country. Russia would do well to maintain it’s rational and balanced course, and it is another good sign that Russian Imperialists are angry with the policies of the Kremlin. It shows again that a balance is achieved, between too much and too little (although I still wouldn’t mind an invasion of Donbass at the request of the Novorossian Government, just to save those people.) If you are principled, you are just as much against American Imperialism, as you should be against Russian Imperialism.
In all this Imperialist ambition, these huge States that are sooner or later full of corruption, who gets lost ? The people, the real people are lost. That is the sad result of all these enormous Empires, be that Russia or the E.U. madness and high treason, or USA or even Brasil, or take India or what about China. You cannot be serious in saying that such enormous places can still have a real representative Democracy, that you can still send a letter to your Sovereign Government and have a chance on a real answer. It is all just getting too big, all of them. What that should mean for Russia in the medium term I have no idea, being under assault of America does not seem to be the best moment to rethink the whole system. However the problem is quite fundamental to everything, and you could think of being multiple Sovereign Republics with a strong mutual defense. America has the same problem: their central Government is ruining them completely, they are turning inward as a tyrannical regime and will likely loose power in the world because of it. An opressed people are just not that powerful. The good are broken, the dilligent spend their days in anguish and hidden anger, the troops are sceptical about the morality of every order they are given: it becomes a festering, rotting piece of meat. We are now destined to that as well, in the Netherlands, thanks to the high treason that is the E.U. and the American domination. (Sorry to write so crazy long; best of luck.)
What Dugin is saying is that if Russia cannot be “great” enough to defend itself it will cease to exist. The West has always wanted Russia gone. Dugin believes that Russia was immoral in failing to defend the Donbas. She should have stood up for the people there. Instead, she allowed thousands of innocent people to be murdered and millions t be driven from their homes in order to prevent the West from calling them invaders. The West calls them invaders anyway. Dugin’s argument is moral not political.
That bus has left a long time ago, and it is to late for a redo. Russia has bought time knowing that the West will inevitably collapse. A rock and a hard place really. If Russia intervened in the Donbas, it would have played into the West’s scheme. Then it may have cost millions of lives. Dugin wasn’t privy to everything, but he has a right to state his opinion. Russia is a multipolar system that has true multiculturism. you’re comparing apples with oranges in you assumption they want to control territory in the same way the West wants to and has.
Hello, thank you for your reply. It seems to be a fact of life that Russia has acted on the side of strength but still fairly cautiously in Crimea, whereas they acted on the side of non-intervention but still they are present with goods and at least tacit political support in Donbass. I don’t know if I can second guess the Kremlin military / political strategy. There can be raised all kinds of doubts to both ends. Let’s say Russia had not allowed “Autonomous Republic Crimea” (which is what the map says, no other region in Ukraine is called that as far as I noticed) to join Russia. Maybe we would say “if Russia had done it, then NATO would have attacked.” Who knows ? If Russia had taken Donbass, maybe Kiev would have been too scared and mass death was prevented. Maybe if Russia had taken Donbass, the war would have been 10 times worse with complete armies against each other and everyone on both ends going crazy. Russia acted fairly strong in Georgia, but not so strong as to take that capital. Russia acted less strong in Crimea, but strong enough to take those people inside, who where willing to. Russia acted even less strong in Donbass. It seems there can be imagined positives and negatives about every event. One positive about Donbass is that it shows so clearly that it is not as simple as Washington versus Moscow, because here there is a people who stand to an extend on their own.
I don’t really know what to make of it all in the sense of what was right or wrong. In general it was a fairly balanced approach. I was in favor of intervening in Donbass however, and probably still am; but now that Donbass has won on its own, I would be in favor of supporting that in an alliance between Sovereign Countries (if possible, despite the radical difference in size/power Donbass vs Russia). The reason is simply that I do not belief in these enormous States that span … beyond human comprehension. I don’t belief in it now, not for Rome, not for Washington, and not for Moscow either, and not for China. There are however some problems with that too: if a people lack the ability and will to form their own democracy, then they soon will have a dictatorship again, who goes on the warpath too. That does not help at all either, you might as well have the great empire over all to create inner peace. However as you see that too does not work, because the great Empires are just going to go to war with each other. When one absorbs the other then, one world Empire, you’d think that is peace, but no it’s not either: the corruption will be roaring, and the expansion of Empire will go verticle: down into your pockets, into your wallet, until you are screaming from misery and rather die. The rebellion will then start and it all starts again.
You can then take that view and couple it back on Donbass, the last part of Ukraine that wants to have a democratic state under law. They have shown the will to be a democracy, through a civil war. It wouldn’t be the first democracy to come about through such a war against tyranny (ours certainly did as well, now usurped in the E.U.). You could then conclude: although it is unsure what Provinces in Russia should be, if they really want and can be democratic Sovereign states that pursue peace with their neighbors (what where they earlier ?), but in the case of Donbass that is a case of proven fact, so let it be. Let it be its own Nation, a new Sovereign, a new Sovereign experiment in life. How it will develop further: who knows, perhaps the entire south-east of Ukraine will join it, that could well be. But if Donbass wants to join Russia as soon as they can, I don’t blame them, that would be perfectly understandable given the menace of the western maniacs. It would be sad though, for the idea that smaller States can be more democratic and have less corruption.
The corruption in Russia is reportedly quite bad, so sorry i do not belief there is some kind of super people at work there, and it is a great empire of love and perfection. I just cannot belief that. However I do see that Russia is more democratic then the E.U. now. Russia has overtaken the E.U., because Russia elects its own lawmaker. E.U. has destroyed our democraties, it has a show parliament, the implementation of this evil Empire was against our will, and it is an usurpation of power by the executive power: the heads of Government elect the E.U. president, who then is also the primary law maker. The separation of power has been destroyed. America ruined our democracies, too. Almost nobody realizes this. America has also ruined our human lights de-jure, through article 29 section 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Russia did not sign. We have no rights on paper anymore, although our courts still work mostly of course. Street level does not react so quick to the rot at the top. Through articles 90 to 95, made up in 1953 to make America happy with some military treaty that later didn’t even pass thanks to France, our Constitution was ruined. We are not a democracy under law, we have no separation of power: on principle we are destroyed. We are destroyed ! We need a great effort to undo all this Empire, which I see as the 3rd Roman attack against us, the 3rd conquest of Rome of our land (2000 years ago, then the middle ages attack of horror of the church which was overthrown in 1566 and later wars, and now it’s the 3rd attack that began with Hitler and is still developing now morphed into the E.U. attack by insidiousness.)
Russia could take Crimea as it is recognized as Russian-even the EU more or less has this historic view of Crimea and it was all done democratically. The Donbas on paper Russia could not take militarily. This would have solidified the EU-NATO agaisnt them and put them even further under domain of USA. Now it is the EU NATO that is fragmenting because of Russia’s cautious approach. Also, the fight in Syria is the same fight as in the Donbass just undertaken in a differnet way as the Enemy that Russia is fighting is the same one. That is why Russia had to tread so carefully in Donbass and could do what it did in Syria….Only in Dugin’s moral universie is this wrong.
Hello. There was also forwarded a theory by someone (I can look it up if you like), who argued that Putin does not need the Donbass voters within Russia, because he wins the elections easily already. He needs the Donbass voters in Ukraine, so that Ukraine as a whole has a more sensible relation with their own neighbor Russia. Unfortunately such effects are lost because I do not belief that votes count in current Ukraine, it is a fascist dictatorship. However the story is far from over. Donbass still has the potential to become a springboard for a wide Ukranian revolution against the fascists. It might have more potential then Crimea because Crimea is naturally more isolated ? Hence there are again plusses and minusses on both ends of the possibilities. It is noteworthy that Donbass never was under Kiev either (as far as I know), and was not part of the old Kiev Rus either. It is not Kiev territory in any historical sense. If Donbass becomes a springboard for Revolution across Ukraine, then Russia wins in the end, peace and democracy win, trade wins. Crimea was of course also more vital to Russia, as it has a naval base, its strategic location in general, the threat of the Americans using that location for warfare, and also the happyness in all of Russia that they have Crimea back and inside Crimea too, this is all good for morale. Taking Donbass back was probably also good for Morale though. It is sad how the people suffer there, and it seems in all of Ukraine.