Ukraine Conflict Has Lit Fuse for Third World War

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Halifax, NS] Chronicle Herald

Russia is an inward-looking, fearful autocracy, still coming to terms with its late-20th century defeats. Unlike the predecessor Soviet Union, it harbours no fantasies about being a shining inspiration to the world, nor does anyone see it any differently.

Ukraine is a nationalistic kleptocracy run by oligarchs, like most ex-Soviet states. There should be no illusions about it, either. 

Russia is having a harder time in Ukraine than Moscow anticipated. This is increasingly the result of NATO waging an undeclared war against Russia — economically, financially, and militarily, via massive arms shipments and other support to Ukraine.

The United States is in an undeclared war against Russia on behalf of a country with which it has no defence treaty. They no doubt have “advisers” there, as was the case in Vietnam. Pentagon commanders have provided critical intelligence that has allowed Ukraine to target Russian troops on land and at sea.

Since March, the U.S. Congress has approved $53 billion in aid to Ukraine. Washington has involved the U.S. in a gratuitous military intervention with a nuclear-powered Russia that has no end date and no specific end goals. 

So is the United States a force for good, attempting to bring democracy to the old Soviet sphere? Or is it an imperial power trying to weaken an adversary to gain more power and wealth?

Andrei Soldatov is an expert on the Russian intelligence bureaucracy and the functioning of its security state. In an interview with Isaac Chotiner, a staff writer at the New Yorker, published May 24, Soldatov points to the fact that the Ukrainian army is being given the best weapons that the West can provide.

“And this weaponry is tested against the Russians and the Russians are not in position to inflict any damage on NATO,” he remarked.

Unless Russian President Vladimir Putin loses power to those willing to abandon the war — and I don’t see that happening, if it means giving up Crimea and the Donbas region, something which the West would insist upon — this is bound to become a larger conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has raised the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons if Moscow is not successful with conventional weaponry. The West has not taken this threat very seriously, at least publicly.  

If the resulting radioactive fallout drifted into NATO territory, would this be considered an incursion triggering Article 5, which commits each member state to consider an armed attack against one member state to be an armed attack against them all? Such a widening of the war could have NATO’s three nuclear powers responding in kind.

With Europe in a state of total war, might China take the opportunity to launch an invasion of Taiwan? U.S. President Joe Biden has made it clear the U.S. will respond, and perhaps with nuclear weapons there as well. Japan and Australia may get involved in this Asian theatre. At that point, it would become a world war.

Russia and China are economically stronger than appears at first glance. The war in Ukraine “has made us realize that the Russian economy is considerably more important than what we thought,” French economist Jacques Sapir explained recently.

If you compare Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) by simply converting it from rubles into U.S. dollars, you get an economy the size of Spain’s. But such a comparison makes no sense without adjusting for purchasing power parity (PPP), which accounts for productivity and standards of living, and thus per capita welfare and resource use.

And when you measure Russia’s GDP based on PPP, it’s clear that Russia’s economy is actually more like the size of Germany’s, about $4.4 trillion for Russia vs. $4.6 trillion for Germany.

Sapir notes that Russia is, in many respects, a linchpin of the globalized production chain. It is the world’s largest exporter of oil to global markets. It also controls 19.5 per cent of global wheat exports, 20.4 per cent of nickel, and 16.6 per cent of platinum.

If we consider the Chinese economy based on exchange rates, by simply converting China’s GDP from Chinese yuan to U.S. dollars, it is valued at about $17.7 trillion, compared to $23 trillion for the United States and $17 trillion for the European Union.

But if we adjust for PPP, we see that the Chinese economy reached almost $27.21 trillion in 2021, compared with $20.5 trillion for the EU and $23 trillion for the United States. And virtually everything found at chains like Walmart and discount stores comes from China.

David Malpass, the head of the World Bank, has warned that the war could cause a global recession as the price of food, energy and fertilizer jump.

Also, the NATO-EU countries only account for about 13 per cent of the world’s population, while China and Russia together make up about 20 per cent. That leaves about two-thirds of humanity “non-aligned,” a position that most of them would like to maintain.

Countries as significant as India have been particularly vocal in their refusal to take sides in the conflict in Ukraine. If we force them to choose, we may be surprised by the results. Most of South Asia, Africa and Latin America, by staying out of this conflagration, will be the beneficiaries of what’s left of human civilization.

Kazakhstan Walks a Careful Line Between Russia and China

  By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

With a 7,000-kilometre shared border, Kazakhstan and Russia have historical ties in terms of shared ethnic, linguistic and socio-cultural origin. In addition to the presence of Russian minorities, language and media originating in Russia, there is abundant cooperation between the two countries through leadership elites, non-governmental organisations, and educational associations.

Since the foundation of the customs union among Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in 2011, Russia’s share of Kazakhstan’s imports has remained significant, reaching as high as 35 per cent. Many Russian corporations also own substantial shares of or have entered into partnerships with Kazakhstan companies in the energy, railroad infrastructure, agricultural and arms manufacturing sectors.

Despite the indispensability of their relations, the Kazakhstan government has tried hard to maintain its sovereign identity by rejecting a joint parliament as well as common citizenship and currency with Russia.

As for China, Kazakhstan’s diplomatic relations with Beijing began in 1992. Sharing 1,700 kilometres of border, the two countries have established close ties in economic and security cooperation.

Since signing a boundary treaty in 1994, China and Kazakhstan have participated in the seven-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which includes both China and Russia. It serves as a multilateral platform for Kazakhstan to avoid having to choose between the two.

Before 2013, most of China’s involvement in Kazakhstan was related to oil and gas extraction, pipeline construction, metal mining, transport infrastructure and a few cultural projects. That year, Kazakhstan signed on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the global infrastructure development strategy adopted by to invest in nearly 70 countries and international organizations.

In 2014, the then Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, budgeted nine million dollars for a comprehensive infrastructure development plan, the “Nurly Zhol” (Bright Path) project, which he publicly tied to the BRI.

The Kazakh government began to strengthen cooperation with China for projects beyond resource extraction and transport infrastructure. Both governments agreed, in the “Chinese-Kazakh 2020 Long-term Plan for Economic Cooperation,” that they would optimize the bilateral trade structure by increasing the proportion of high-value-added and high-tech products.

While China’s interest in securing hydrocarbon supplies from Kazakhstan through inland routes rather than over maritime transport allows Kazakhstan to counteract its over-dependence on the Russian market, Kazakhstan has grown cautious in limiting China’s influence by forbidding the Chinese to lease land for agricultural investment.

The BRI has also met deep-seated Sinophobia and protests in Kazakhstan -- a fear for a possible Chinese economic and cultural domination in the country.

As a former part of the Soviet Union, political relations with Russia still predominate. There has been a substantial population of ethnic Russians in the country since the 19th century. Although their numbers have been reduced since the breakup of the USSR, they remain prominent in Kazakh society today. Indeed, Russians formed a plurality of the country’s population for several decades when it was ruled from Moscow.

Kazakhstan has endeavoured to reconstitute its pre-Soviet “Eurasian” identity using a narrative that recounts its pre-Russian history. In 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin raised controversy when he claimed that “Kazakhs had never had statehood,” in what seemed to be an apparent response to growing nationalism among Kazakhs.

Putin’s remarks led to a severe response from President Nazarbayev, who then established the National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan in 2014, and in 2015 announced that the country would celebrate the 550th anniversary of the Kazakh Khanate.

The country has steered clear over the current war in Ukraine. Current president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced it would not help Russia evade Western sanctions imposed on Moscow.

But it remains dependent on Russia for security. In January, unprecedented unrest erupted in Kazakhstan unlike anything seen in its three decades of independence. It started with protests fueled by socio-economic grievances, which soon expanded into politically charged demands, with chaos and violence breaking out.

President Tokayev was forced to call on Moscow for help. Russian troops arrived on Jan. 6. After quelling the disturbances, they left on January 19. More than 250 people were killed and almost 10,000 arrested.

These events, in the world’s top uranium exporter and a major oil and gas producer, have left investors anxious amid concerns that the social and political unrest could undermine Kazakhstan’s reputation as a reliable business destination.