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U.S wants to see a ‘weakened’ Russia

Apr 28, 2022 Editorial, Features / Columnists

Kaieteur News -The United States is desirous of seeing a ‘weakened’ Russia. That was the word coming out of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC, and a host of other news outlets. It was what was heard, or interpreted, as coming from American Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, in the context of the war in Ukraine, which rages on relentlessly. Moves to foster a ‘weakened’ Russia is brimful of danger, the equivalent of toying with a cornered bear, a wounded one. It could lash back, and lash out in ways not planned for, totally unexpected.

Russia is not Iraq, nor is it some banana republic, to be pushed around at will, not given its due. It is a bona fide superpower, one that is capable of inflicting incomparable and irreparable blows on those who goad it, those who back it to a place of no return.

If and when there is the compulsion to take drastic, desperate action to preserve its pride, to maintain some dignity and standing among its own, through the saving of whatever face is left, it will be done. In the Russian area of the globe, face means a lot, and every countermeasure is sure to be taken to salvage as much of it as possible. It goes without saying, that it is unwise, by any calculation, to broadcast signals, of seeking to haemorrhage its powers, weaken its resolve. After all, it has that arsenal, all that weaponry.

Russia also has a leader with his back to the wall, and one who has proven to be as wily as he is unpredictable. Unpredictable men, those on whom great leadership powers are centred, can be the most worrisome sort to deal with, to handle, by those thinking of themselves as civilised people. When increasingly unpredictable leaders are forced to where they prefer not to touch, or be, they take matters in their own hands, and let the results be the results.

In view of where things stand today in the Ukraine, and the hardening positions of the direct combatants, and indirect backers of the engaged frontline adversaries, all that is required is the slip of a misinterpretation, one miscalculation. Clearly, where matters are today are a world apart from the strategic loftiness of containment, détente, and rapprochement that were the visions once prevailing. An embattled Russia sees itself, and feels, isolated, and being setup for second rate status, something which is wholly unacceptable to its own ambitions, its ideas about itself and its rightful place in the world.

It has to be an essential aspect of Russian leadership thinking that if what is taking firmer hold in Ukraine is allowed to succeed, then its presence and its worth in other sensitive areas of the world could also come under a similar state of siege. That is, it could be forced to give ground in those strategic areas, too. Rightly or wrongly, the Russian leader (and his cohort of diehard Mother Russia followers) cannot countenance such a fall from the league of nations that count for something. For that means nothing, but retreat after retreat, and with all the regard that there can be for a spent force.

From the perspective of Guyana, the Russians might decide to do what is called a strategic retreat in Ukraine, because of the overwhelming coalition of Europe and America arrayed against it, and try its hand elsewhere, either to make its muscle unmistaken, and to stay relevant near the top of superpower heights. Elsewhere for Russia could mean Venezuela, which has vast, neglected oilfields, serious issues (still) with America and its hated sanctions. The Russians have a relationship involving some longstanding mutual interests with Venezuela, and there is the tremendous advantage of no NATO to consider. In addition, there is still another plus, via Venezuela, Russia would be able to do to America what the latter is doing to it in Ukraine: get back at it through the backdoor and its own backyard. Any such movement in this corner of the world would be a problematic one for Guyana. It would be too close for comfort, too menacing to our own priorities, and too compelling in the choices to be made.

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