Today marks one year from the day Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, expanding a conflict in development already for many decades. The war, instigated by NATO’s relentless expansion and the global geopolitical and economic interests of US and European imperialism, especially for the Black Sea Region, is quickly escalating toward the outbreak of a Third World War with potentially catastrophic consequences. These consequences are not only the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, millions of displaced refugees or the destruction of Ukraine but the possibility that a nuclear fallout may eradicate cities, countries or the world.
The depth of the political, economic, or societal changes arising from the Ukraine war not just in the Ukraine itself but in Europe, Africa, Eurasia, Asia, or even the United States is as rapid as it is sweeping. It is important to try to provide a brief assessment of the war up to the present day. The amount of funding, weaponry or the current state of the alignment of forces on both sides requires a critical examination, if not a summary.
On January 25, 2023, the Department of State released a fact sheet titled “U.S. Security Cooperation with Ukraine”, and as of January 25, 2023, the United States has provided Ukraine with 77 items of military, intelligence or security equipment. These are (1) over 1,600 Stinger anti-aircraft systems; (2) over 8,500 Javelin anti-armor systems; (3) over 50,000 other anti-armor systems and munitions; (4) over 700 Switchblade Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems; (5) 160 155mm Howitzers and up to 1,094,000 155mm artillery rounds; (6) over 5,800 precision-guided 155mm artillery rounds; (7) 10,200 155mm rounds of Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) Systems; (8) 100,000 rounds of 125mm tank ammunition; (9) 45,000 152mm artillery rounds; (10) 20,000 122mm artillery rounds;(11) 50,000 122mm GRAD rockets; (12) 72 105mm Howitzers and 370,000 105mm artillery rounds; (13) 298 tactical vehicles to tow weapons; (14) 34 tactical vehicles to recover equipment; (15) 30 ammunition support vehicles; (16) 38 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and ammunition; (17) 30 120mm mortar systems and approximately 166,000 120mm mortar rounds; (18) 10 82mm mortar systems; (19) 10 60mm mortar systems; (20) 2,590 Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles; (21) 545,000 rounds of 25mm ammunition; (22) 120mm ammunition; (23) 10 Command Post vehicles; (24) 1 Patriot air defense battery and munitions; (25) 8 National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and munitions; (26) missiles for HAWK air defense systems; (27) RIM–7 missiles for air defense; (28) 12 Avenger air defense systems; (29) high-speed anti-radiation missiles (HARMs); (30) precision aerial munitions; (31) 4,000 Zuni aircraft rockets; (32) 20 Mi–17 helicopters; (33) 31 Abrams tanks; (34) 45 T–72B tanks; (35) 109 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles; (36) over 1,700 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs); (37) over 100 light tactical vehicles; (38) 44 trucks and 88 trailers to transport heavy equipment; (39) 90 Stryker Armored Personnel Carriers; (40) 300 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers; (41) 250 M1117 Armored Security Vehicles; (42) 580 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPs); (43) 6 armored utility trucks; (44) mine clearing equipment and systems; (45) over 13,000 grenade launchers and small arms; (46) over 111,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition; (47) over 75,000 sets of body armor and helmets; (48) approximately 1,800 Phoenix Ghost Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems; (49) laser-guided rocket systems; (50) Puma Unmanned Aerial Systems; (51) 15 Scan Eagle Unmanned Aerial Systems; (52) 2 radars for Unmanned Aerial Systems; (53) Unmanned Coastal Defense Vessels; (54) over 50 counter-artillery radars; (55) 4 counter-mortar radars; (56) 20 multi-mission radars; (57) Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems and equipment; (58) Counter air defense capability; (59) 10 air surveillance radars; (60) 2 harpoon coastal defense systems; (61) 58 coastal and riverine patrol boats; (62) M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel munitions; (63) C–4 explosives, demolition munitions, and demolition equipment for obstacle clearing; (64) obstacle emplacement equipment; (65) tactical secure communications systems; (66) 4 satellite communications antennas; (67) SATCOM terminals and services; (68) thousands of night vision devices, surveillance systems, thermal imagery systems, optics, and laser rangefinders; (69) commercial satellite imagery services; (70) explosive ordnance disposal equipment and protective gear; (71) chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear protective equipment; (72) 100 armored medical treatment vehicles; (73) over 350 generators; (74) medical supplies to include first aid kits, bandages, monitors, and other equipment; (75) electronic jamming equipment; (76) field equipment, cold weather gear, and spare parts; and (77) funding for training, maintenance, and sustainment.
The incomprehensible figures of military items are difficult to grasp on their own terms. Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that no less than 12 years would be required to replenish the number of the Javelins the United States supplied to Ukraine.
In terms of artillery munitions alone, the United States’ decision to supply Ukraine is causing significant changes in stockpiles and production. On November 11, 2022, the United States struck a deal with South Korea to purchase thousands of rounds of 155mm ammunition in an attempt to offset the diminished domestic stockpiles the United States loss through its supply to Ukraine. On January 17th, 2023, the Pentagon, as reported by the New York Times, tapped into a vast but little-known stockpile of American ammunition in Israel to help meet Ukraine’s dire need for artillery shells in the war with Russia. Thus far the United States has supplied Ukraine with more than 1,000,000,000 rounds of artillery munitions.
It is hard for anyone, even defense experts, to imagine a billion rounds of artillery munitions and yet this sum, which is an astounding amount of munitions, is still insufficient for Ukraine’s war effort. In response to Ukraine’s rabid demand for these munitions, the Pentagon, which is incapable of resupplying the Ukrainian armed forces with new munitions under the current rates of productions, recently called for 500 percent increase in the number of artillery shells produced on a monthly basis. This is due, in part, to the fact that as of August 30, 2022, Pentagon officials reported that munitions donated to Ukraine have severely depleted the United States’ own stockpiles.
The effect effect of the Pentagon’s mission to supply Ukraine with munitions is felt not only in the United States but throughout Eastern Europe. In Kostenets, Bulgaria, a factory dormant for more than 35 years, produced its first 122-millimeter shell in January, 2023 after the United States recommissioned production of the high-explosive and lethal round of aerial death for Ukraine’s 2S1 and D-30 howitzers. As noted by the New York Times, “representatives from the U.S. embassy quietly attended the ribbon-cutting last month for the new production line” on January 17th, 2023.
With the Ukrainian army shooting more than 300,000 rounds a month or 10,000 rounds a day, Pentagon’s network of defense industry partner’s attempt to keep up with the accelerating pace of discharge depends entirely upon the future course of the war, as funding appears to be without limit. The decision to build a factory for munitions in Wiesbaden specifically for the purpose of arming Ukrainian forces with artillery munitions has yet to have an effect. As one Ukrainian soldier notes, “We have equipment, but we don’t have much ammunition.” [“روسيا تتجه لحسم المعركة الأطول: نتقدم بنجاح نحو باخموت” ; alarabiya.net, February 7th, 2023] The soldier’s comment merely begs the question.
As of November 20th, 2022, more than three months ago, no less than 21 countries, including the United States, has contributed hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine’s war effort. (1) $110,000,000, from the United States; (2) $30,000,000,000 from European Union institutions; (3) $7,100,000,000 from the United Kingdom; (4) $5,460,000,000 from Germany; (5) $3,900,000,000 from Canada; (6) $3,000,000,000 from Poland; (7) $1,400,000,000 from France; (8) $1,200,000,000 from Norway; (9) $850,200,000 from the Netherlands; (10) $809,350,000 from Sweden; (11) $675,000,000 from Italy; (12) $643,290,000 from Denmark; (13) $608,000,000 from Japan; (14) $588,760,000 from the Czech Republic; (15) $582,140,000 from Austria; (16) $383,410,000 from Spain; (17) $336,150,000 from Estonia; (18) $335,950,000 from Portugal; (19) $321,560,000 from Australia; (20) $314,600,000 from Latvia; and (21) $306,670,000 from Finland.
Just in terms of the United States alone, the funding is unprecedented. In article published well before the first anniversary of the Ukraine war, Stimson, a Washington “nonpartisan” think tank, published an analysis entitled “U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine Breaks All Precedents.” In the analysis, Stimson argued that “[since] the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the United States has committed an astounding $17.6 billion in security assistance to support the Government of Ukraine, breaking almost all quantitative and even qualitative precedents. That figure eclipses the yearly total of any security partner of the 21st century.” Published on October 20th, 2022, more than three months ago, the figure, an astounding $17.6 billion at that time, is many times larger now than at the time of Stimson’s analysis.
A more recent assessment of the funding comes from the US Senator, GOP Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell. McConnell, who, like McCarthy, who is beholden to a group of far right fascists of the imperialist right in the US House of Representatives such as Mr. Gaetz, Mr. Biggs, Mr. Gosar, Ms. Greene of Georgia, Mr. Massie, Mr. Norman, Mr. Rosendale, Mrs. Miller of Illinois, Mrs. Luna, Mr. Moore of Alabama, and Mrs. Boebert, agrees with continued funding for Ukraine. On February 17th, 2023, McConnell, who joined Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, and Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov, on a panel at the Munich Security Conference this year stated: “The Ukrainians have to live with Ukraine. As long as [Ukrainians] are willing to fight for [their] country and it is not costing a single American soldier’s life and what we are doing is providing—the money—and what we have sent you so far is [not more than] 0.02% of our [Gross Domestic Product].” Broadcast on C-SPAN, McConnell’s comments puts the funding provided Ukraine thus far into perspective.
McConnell’s comment about “a single American soldier’s life” is a clear foreshadowing of what is to come. Alongside McConnell’s parapraxis, Volodymyr Zelensky, who is NATO puppet, has already come out to announce— openly and without any reserve for the secrecy of NATO’s future plans for the United States and its workers—the circumstances under which the United States’ military shall enter the conflict. During a press conference memorializing the first anniversary of the Ukraine war, President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, announced, on February 24th, 2023 that in the event Russia’s victory in Ukraine, the United States would be required to send its soldiers into the war in Ukraine. Zelensky stated: “ I want to thank Americans. I am glad that I have bipartisan support but the messages we hear are frightening. If Ukraine loses, Russia is bound to wage war with NATO countries, and the United States will have no choice but to send its own soldiers, sons and daughters into war, as we [Ukrainians] are doing right now. This is a great tragedy.” It appears that by all accounts, Zelensky’s slip of the tongue is by design.
Military “experts” from the Pentagon, who are more than likely still influenced by the ‘calculus of war,’ as in Vietnam, than by the critiques of the military’s failure to consider the application of Clausewitz’s to that war, continue to hedge their bets against escalations. The escalations, which take the form of incessant calls for the shipment of more advanced weaponry, are ‘calculated’ to cause a clearly quantifiable amount of damage.
The Foreign Policy Research Institute, for instance, believes that should Ukraine continued to receive a steady supply of ammunition, particularly for artillery, as well as spare parts, Ukraine would stand a recover territory Russia seized. “The question,” we are told, “is whether these advantages will prove sufficient for Ukrainian forces to retake territory from entrenched Russian troops.” Neither Rob Lee nor Michael Kofman, the leading military calculators of the study, provide a specific amount from the application of their undisclosed formula. The calculation, however, bears no relation to reality. The escalations have not resulted in the direct recovery of territory.
The September counteroffensives, which seized upon Russia’s failure to shore up its defenses in the northern Donbas along the massive stretch of its land bridge into Ukraine, achieved momentary success without absolutely no lasting military significance for the overall war.
Despite the unprecedented death money for NATO’s proxy military in Ukraine, the Ukrainian armed forces are already beginning to collapse. 1) Ukrainian armed forces have been unable to maintain “a highly centralized, informed command structure” throughout the war. The fact that Ukraine’s command structure, if one can call it that, has undergone two purges without a substantial change in its internal operability reveals just how deeply engrained a lack of uniformity is to its command structure. This is not to mention the loss of personnel in a helicopter crash or the corruption endemic tot he Zelensky regime. 2) Ukraine’s armed forces have not been able to withstand losses. The losses, which have been described as “triple digit losses,” have not been replenished in any meaningful sense. Apart from staggering, irreplaceable losses, there are reports of desertions, which indicate not only a falling morale among Ukrainian soldiers. But suggestion a lack of cohesion within Ukraine’s own structure for command and control and it is precisely so.
In an article entitled, “Ukraine has a tough choice on Bakhmut,” published on February 14th, 2023 in the Wall Street Journal, “General Koval acknowledged some personnel issues.” Among the personnel issues is more than one incident in which “a battalion of draftees withdrew without warning,” and the one Koval mentions from December, “[left] a dangerous gap in the lines” on the front in Bakhmut. This is a startling admission. It is comparatively less startling when a soldier, unit, or company deserts but an entire battalion’s desertion is by far an indication of a military’s own internal weakness.
On January 25, 2023, the Biden administration announced the United States will be sending 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. The fact that Abrams tanks require no less than three streams of supply line logistics such as fuel, munitions, or maintenance, indicates the degree to which Ukrainian armed forces, which are not even capable of creating a single unit of the more than 100,000 artillery rounds its military fires on a monthly basis, are not scheduled to meet these demands by any stretch of the imagination.
If you combine the fact that Ukraine’s demands for Main Battle Tanks includes not just Abrams but the highly sophisticated tanks of the German Leopard or the British Challengers, both of which are dependent upon a global network of parts, maintenance or facilities operated by a single corporation in the defense industry, the thought that Ukrainian armed forces are capable, let alone able, to consolidate the different mechanized gun systems into a striking force comparable with a Panzerwaffe, as NATO would like, is not just a stretch of the imagination but pure fantasy. Not to belabor the point but to speak of a general in the Ukrainian armed forces comparable to a Guderian or a Rommel or any of the generals in the Wehrmacht who executed Blitzkrieg on behalf of the Nazis, is absurd.
A reference to Nazis, however, is not the result of a desire to smear the Zelensky regime politically with “anachronisms” from Europe’s darkest days. The fact that the Ukrainian regime and its military forces are saturated with neo-fascists and the symbology of the Nazi war machine is a fact well documented throughout the press. Revisionists, who serve these interests, are dead set on rewriting the history of Ukraine with a narrative that promotes Stepan Bandera, the fascist mass murderer and ally of the Third Reich who led the notorious Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, as a national hero. The glorification of Bandera by Ukrainian neo-fascists such as Ukraine’s Military Commander, Valery Zaluzhnyi, is no where more apparent than in Zaluzhnyi’s own selfies in front of the figure posted on Twitter on Bandera’s 114th anniversary of his birth. The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, reshaped the photo.
If the current scope and scale of the damage resulting from the Ukrainian war is anything but a small measure of what is to come, then any conservative prediction of the death, mayhem or chaos the collapse of Ukraine’s military portends to unleash is bound to be staggering, if not altogether breathtaking.
In an article entitled, “Kırım Köprüsü’nün havaya uçurulması ne anlama geliyor?,” from the Turkish newspaper, Sabah, a Turkish journalist named Barlas speaks to the terrifying consequence of Ukraine as NATO’s proxy. Barlas states: “Ukraine no longer exists in any real sense of the word, especially after other European powers take part in the aftermath of a Russian victory.” Barlas’ critique of Zelensky is just as relevant as that of Ukraine. He writes: “Ukraine’s comic head of state, Zelenksy, now plays a tragedy, saying, “I burned so the whole world burns.”
Ukrainian refugees, who fled the conflict, already number in the millions. The United Nations estimates that 7, 800, 000 refugees have sought refugee throughout Europe. On November 10th, 2022, more than three months ago, General Mark Milley, chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated that Ukraine’s civil loss of life amounted to no less than 40,000 deaths. More than three months since the compilation of Milley’s statistic, the number is likely to be much higher now.
Already a small country prior to the eruption of militarism on its streets and in its cities, Ukraine’s initial population contained roughly 40 million people. Ukraine’s initial population is now severely diminished. Although rough estimates continue to put the number at 36 million. If the number of refugees, however, is 7, 800, 000, then certainly the number of Ukrainians remaining in the country is far less than 36 million. It is likely that the population is less than 28 million, as the number of refugees is likely deflated to draw attention away from the burgeoning refugee crisis.
In his groundbreaking work, the Transitional Program, which celebrates the establishment of the greatest international in the history of internationals, the Fourth International, Trotsky wrote: “The whole world outlook, and consequently also the inner political life of individual countries, is overcast by the threat of world war. Already the imminent catastrophe sends violent ripples of apprehension through the very broadest masses of mankind.”
The overcasted threat of world war is exemplified in the fraught and contentious relations within NATO, especially between Slovakia and Hungary. An example of these fraught and contentious relations is a recent exchange of the former to the latter, which reveals the vulgarity and latent barbarism NATO member states. In a recent letter penned by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Slovakia attacking Viktor Orbán in Hungary for failing to tow the line on the Ukraine war and insufficient bellicosity towards Russia, Rastislav Káčer, published a voluminous post.
Replete with bizarre references to “little green men,” Káčer wrote “For Putin’s collaborators and especially for ours in the Carpathian Basin and Felvidek (the Hungarian name of Slovakia, – ed.), for all those who want peace at the cost of the destruction of Ukraine, I have only one message: f*** you.” Káčer’s words, which are not his own words but the words of the Slovakian bourgeoisie on behalf of whose class he is the representative, reflect the politically degraded discourse within the “inner political life of individual countries” overcast by the Ukrainian war.
The successful explosion of Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 destroyed decades of diplomatic, business, and economic development between Germany and Russia, causing not only a rapid increase in the inflated costs for cheap Russian gas, oil or coal but a economically debilitating slowdown in Germany’s main industries. The Ukraine war, which is often described as a regional conflict, is hastening decades long, simmering tensions between NATO powers to a boil point. While Germany’s militarism, long suppressed and supplanted by America’s (which houses major military installations, bases, and industries within the country’s border), lags behind, the alarm bells for rearmament are ringing throughout Berlin’s ruling circles.
It is hard to believe one’s eyes when encountering “anti-war” sentiments among members of the House Freedom Caucus. The House Freedom Caucus, which seeks to exploit the current war in Ukraine to advance its own foreign policy agenda of imperialism, recently introduced into the House of Representatives a resolution, House Resolution 113, requesting the United States “[to end] its military and financial aid to Ukraine and urges all combatants to reach a peace agreement.” Supported by Mr. Gaetz (for himself, Mr. Biggs, Mr. Gosar, Ms. Greene of Georgia, Mr. Massie, Mr. Norman, Mr. Rosendale, Mrs. Miller of Illinois, Mrs. Luna, Mr. Moore of Alabama, and Mrs. Boebert), the resolution is not, as it states, directed towards ending the war in Ukraine but ensuring the United States’ own readiness “in the event of a conflict,” primarily China.
No union with supporters of the January 6th insurrection by Donald J Trump, all of whom have accelerated the disintegration of bourgeois forms of democracy as exemplified in the fiasco of McCarthy’s election as Speaker of the house, is possible without betrayal of the working class. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily a friend, and the working class must assert its interest for the termination of the war independently and on the basis of its revolutionary leadership.
The attempt to divert attention away from the Ukraine conflict to China is merely the reflection of a split within the ruling elite over the exact tactics with which to stun, confuse, or compound the effort to promote a genuine resistance to war, militarism or barbarism. The answer to this war is not to be found in the considerations over the best readiness for a specific conflict calibrated to occur in the future but against any or all conflict now, against any or all imperialist governments or against or any bourgeois nationalist, right, center or left.
The Russian press’ euphoria for America’s fellow travelers is unrestrained. The attempt to stack Douglas MacGregor’s quotes one on top of another into a “refutation” of NATO’s imperialism is simply out of scope with the reality of the situation. MacGregor’s warnings, all of which appear to be fairly well grounded in an exaggeration of Russia’s military prowess, are as apprehensive as they are foreboding but none of his premonitions result from a historical analysis of the root causes of the war.
Although he criticizes US and European media’s reliance upon the propaganda narrative of an “unprovoked war,” unleashed without cause by the evil Vladimir Putin, his analysis is not, ipso facto, rooted in the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It is likely for this reason and this reason alone, the Russia media bends over backwards to run headline after headline with the “ex-Pentagon” official’s latest truism.
Similarly, Russia’s own decision to launch a “Special Military Operation,” which feeds into the false narrative of invasion, reflects the desperation and reaction on the part of the Putin regime to the catastrophic dissolution of the USSR by the Stalinist bureaucracy, the restoration of capitalism and the creation of an oligarchic regime based on the theft and privatization of state assets, all of which Trotsky predicted as early as 1936.
The interests for which the Putin regime continues its fights fighting are not those of the Russian masses, but of the capitalist ruling classes. It launched the invasion with the hope that it could reach a compromised settlement with its “partners” in United States including recognition of the “security interests” of the Russian state, and which would allow the Russian oligarchy to continue its plunder of Russian resources without interference and the continued defense of its national interests of in favor of the ruling elite.
Although Seymour Hersh’s exposition of the explosion of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 as a cover operation to deprive Germany of access, control or supply to Russia’s cheap reserves of natural gas, the Russian ruling elites, which have thus far began to characterize its foes as the “collective West,” are at great lengths to profess faith in the system appeasing NATO war mongering with continued calls for an “investigation” by its Member States. The naïveté of the Putin regime could not be farther from reality.
Naïveté is Putin’s attempt to generate support for the war by relying upon reactionary national chauvinism. The deeply unpopular war, which caused no less than 260,000 young men to flee to neighboring countries such as Georgia, is a reflection of the widespread and rapidly growing awareness of the war as the outcome of the dissolution of the USSR and the restoration of capitalism.
Leon Trotsky, the primary leader of the Russian revolution of October 1917, predicted the restoration of capitalism in Russia in a book entitled, Revolution Betrayed. In his book, Trotsky warned that the policies of the Stalinist regime, far from having assured the triumph of socialism in the USSR, were actually preparing the ground for the restoration of capitalism.
As he later elaborated, “The USSR thus embodies terrific contradictions. But it still remains a degenerated workers’ state. Such is the social diagnosis. The political prognosis has an alternative character: either the bureaucracy, becoming ever more the organ of the world bourgeoisie in the workers’ state, will overthrow the new forms of property and plunge the country back to capitalism; or the working class will crush the bureaucracy and open the way to socialism” (Leon Trotsky, The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International: The Transitional Program [New York: Labor Publications, 1981] pp. 32-33).
The present conflict with Russia is a continuation of an unending series of wars and interventions launched by American imperialism since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as predicted by Trotsky. Staring into the abyss of its protracted decline within the global economy, not least of which are the disruptions the dollar, at first convertible into gold at $35 at the first Bretton Woods Conference but later no longer convertible after the collapse of the conference 1971, continues to worsen as a diminishing world reserve currency. With more than 30 trillion dollars in debt, the United States’ acute awareness of its status in a struggle for its existence, an existential crisis, whose failure rebounds on America’s credibility and its ‘political’ currency among NATO Member States.
The same contradictions that produce imperialist war also produce the objective foundation for social revolution. The First World War created and Russian revolutionaries intercepted the conditions for the Russian Revolution of October 1917. Today, even as the ruling class seeks to throw humanity into World War III, budding revolutionary struggles are blooming throughout the world.