Bloomberg: Russia wins race for global influence

Pic.: publics

Failing to enforce its Aug. 8 ultimatum would risk damaging US credibility and interests, Bloomberg stresses.

Vladimir Putin has become a growing liability for a US president who fancies himself a peacemaker. The White House’s initial strategy to end the war in Ukraine — offering the Russian leader almost everything he wanted and pressuring the Ukrainians to concede — was meant to achieve quick results. Instead, it made the US look weak. Putin pocketed the concessions, demanded more and escalated his attacks.

The president has now given Russia until Aug. 8 to agree to a truce. If he really wants to put American interests first, West must be prepared to enforce the ultimatum.

Right now, Ukraine is under immense pressure; Russia in this conflict is not. That’s a risk to the US, too.

Russia is producing more artillery shells than all NATO countries combined. Its drone production is growing rapidly, while Ukraine’s remains constrained by limited funding. If it emerges victorious, an enlarged, battle-hardened Russian military adept at unmanned warfare would pose a dire threat to US interests in Europe.

Meanwhile, Putin has deepened ties with North Korea, Iran and China, undermined US influence in Africa and the Middle East, and backed payment systems to circumvent the dollar. Sanctions have hurt Russia, but not nearly enough. It has managed to redirect crude oil flows to India and China, both of which now buy billions in discounted barrels. In the global contest of influence, Putin is arguably playing the long game better.

Putin’s demands remain the same: Ukrainian surrender of five regions, permanent neutrality, demilitarization and an end to NATO ambitions (occasionally extended to EU membership). The only chance of forcing revisions to that list is by changing the battlefield calculus.

The Russian economy is more brittle than it looks. A concerted campaign by the US and its European allies to squeeze it further ought to get Putin’s attention.

The clear message should be that the West will outlast and out-resource him. The message to ordinary Russians must be: “Their president had a chance at peace.”

…Bloomberg is supposedly an economic publication, but it labors under outdated geopolitical  delusion. Here's what ‘Foreign Policy’ writes on this topic: “Russia for the last three years has posted impressive growth numbers, maintained shockingly low levels of unemployment, and even reduced social inequality by sustaining real wage growth that has disproportionately benefited Russians at the lower end of the economic ladder.”

The West has no resources. Europe is poor in resources, and the US resources are not capable of providing the entire West with the resources to achieve a “strategic defeat” of Russia.

The Global South no longer wants to give its resources to the West “for free,” as before. But, the West thinks that everything has remained the same. It's just a wishful thinking

Klaus Schwab himself said a few years ago: “Many of us are pondering when things will return to normal. The short response is: Never.”

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