Now there is certainly no one who thinks that the United States can protect Ukraine, because Biden has more than once publicly denied the possibility of the United States invading Ukraine, and he also stressed that "the purpose of U.S. military activities in Eastern Europe is to ensure the confidence of European allies, and U.S. troops will never enter Ukraine."
However, he stressed that if Russia invades Ukraine, then the United States will launch a "nuclear explosion" level of economic sanctions in response, including but not limited to imposing sanctions on Russian political and military officials such as Putin, and cutting off the international settlement system Swift from the Russian central bank;
So how should we understand what Biden said?
First of all, we must understand the question: Is there a possibility that Russia will invade Ukraine?
If they were able to bring Ukraine into Russia's sphere of influence, they would of course be willing to do so, but to achieve this goal there is no need to invade Ukraine at all; it should be understood that:
In a territory, apart from the recognition and support of the people on the territory, we can obtain anything in this territory at a much lower cost.
If Russia needs Ukrainian resources and products, they can buy it, Ukraine will not sell it, not to mention that Russia has a lot of chips to blackmail them into forcing Ukraine to accept the deal;
If Russia needs Ukraine's neutral stance, it is simple, they are all capable of dividing eastern Ukraine, then it is easy to concoct the support of a pro-Russian government in Ukraine's only western territory, not to mention that now that the United States has to hurry to withdraw, how long can the Zelensky government be tough?
Therefore, in fact, it is not difficult for us to realize that unless Russia wants to gain the support and recognition of the Ukrainian people and retake this territory to Russia, there is no need for them to invade Ukraine;
At the same time, we are also very clear: considering that the independent regions of eastern Ukraine have effectively become Russian territory, will they really need that population in western Ukraine? Nope! The benefits are too small and the cost is too high.
Therefore, Russia does not need to invade Ukraine at all, it is in their interest to maintain the status quo, and if it does invade Ukraine, it will be a very offensive thing.
France and Germany, which had respected Russia's claims in Eastern European affairs, hid behind the United States in fear of chills on their backs and shivers, and the anti-Russian alliance in Europe, which had been disintegrated, could be reunited because of their invasion of Ukraine.
So Biden, of course, knows very well that Russia will not invade Ukraine; what he calls "economic sanctions" at this time, sanctions against senior Russian officials, including President Putin, will never be fulfilled.
But the harsh words still have to be said, not to mention that Ukraine is also a staunch pro-US and anti-Russian country, so it was picked up by Russia, and the last blow was also the face of the United States, and it just so happens that Russia will not invade Ukraine, so as long as the harsh words are released, in the end they can be said to be their own "successful deterrence of Russia."
In other words, in fact, the White House has accepted Russia's demands on the Ukraine issue, and the purpose of their diplomatic efforts has begun to shift to "stop the loss in time", trying to limit the losses of Ukraine's defeat to this, and strive not to trigger the collapse of the STRATEGIC layout of the United States in Eastern Europe.
Then it is clear that after losing the support of the United States, the fate of Ukraine is very clear, Crimea will always exist as a Russian territory for the foreseeable future, while Donetsk and Luhansk in the east will become independent of Ukraine and become the de facto territory of Russia.
Because although Russia has not claimed sovereignty over Luhansk and Donetsk, they have already provided these two regions with the same trade treatment as Russia's domestic region, similar to the treatment that Chinese mainland offered to Taiwan, not to mention that these two regions are not anti-Russian and regard Russia as their homeland.
At this point, many people will think that Ukraine is stupid: during the Cold War, it was an important industrial base in the former Soviet Union.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine acquired a Soviet legacy second only to Russia, including various weapons and equipment such as unfinished aircraft carriers, Tu-160 strategic bombers, nuclear weapons, and a complete industrial chain of aero engines, rocket engines, heavy vehicle engines, and marine engines.
A considerable part of this heritage has been copied by China, and almost everything owned by Russia is owned by Ukraine; such favorable conditions have been ruined in less than thirty years, and it is clear that Ukraine's political elite will be scorned.
But to be honest, although the conditions are very good, when Ukraine decided from the independence of the Soviet Union that the country has become a small country, the Soviet Union left them what they actually can't keep.
Because if they don't consider Crimea, Ukraine has a population of only 40 million, the population is not as large as many provinces in China, the land area is not too large, and the geographical location is very awkward, in the gap between the sphere of influence of Russia and the United States.
From the point of view of the Ukrainian elite, they have no choice.
If Ukraine is pro-American, then only Ukrainian nationals are guilty, but if it is pro-Russian, to be honest, one day Ukraine may become a russian state again, and we have no right to judge which outcome is better, but the Ukrainian elite will definitely choose the first one.
What's more, for a small country with no way to recover, do they have any other choice but to betray the country? Nothing!
You know, in the world of the 21st century, the "sovereignty" of the state is no longer something that any country deserves to have, but something that "civilization" has the right to have, so there are very few countries with sovereignty in the world today, in fact, they can be counted with one hand.
In addition to the five permanent members, the only countries with sovereignty are Germany, India, and Turkey, and the other countries have no sovereignty, but only appear to have sovereignty, and they can neither determine their own foreign policy nor even their own internal political strategy.
For example, President Duterte of the Philippines wants to fight a war against drugs, and the United States has not tripped them up for several years, and if It were not for Duterte's ability, it would have been killed long ago, and this situation is more common in South American countries.
In fact, the real situation of this world is more difficult for Chinese to understand, because we are all born with a pair of colored glasses, because China is not a country, but a civilization, and it is difficult for us to understand the behavior of "countries" from the perspective of civilization.
For example, "colonialism", now that Western countries are accusing China of colonizing abroad, we feel surprised that we have neither invaded other countries nor used violence to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.
Quite simply, because the colonization we have experienced is a rare form of colonization in history, a less commonly used form of colonization.
In 1840, Western colonists opened the door of the Qing Dynasty with strong ships and cannons, and we regarded it as the beginning of the tragic history of modern times, thus opening up the history of China becoming a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.
But in fact, when the Western colonists carried out colonial activities around the world, in many areas they did not even need to use force, but only encountered the hard stubble of China, and their force was directly useful;
For example, in the history of British colonization of India, they first lured India to open its doors through economic interests, then supported pro-British factions, and then supported pro-British factions to fight with local factions and thus introduced control to achieve the purpose of colonizing India.
Similarly, their colonization activities in many parts of the world were carried out in this way, and the famous black slave trade began with Europeans selling guns to Africans and then supporting them in war and then exchanging slaves with them.
So now when they see China exerting diplomatic influence through economic and trade means, and when they use economic and trade means to open up overseas interests, they will say that China is engaged in "colonialism."
Does this count as colonialism? I can't answer this question, but I say this example to make people aware of one thing:
China is the only super-sovereign civilization in this world, and all our innate knowledge of this world is based on the legacy left to us by the ancestors who pioneered the great cause and created the heavenly kingdom, and we are born to understand this world with a superior vision.
It's like when we laugh at the leaders of those small countries for traitors, but they have no choice but to betray the country, they don't have everything we have, China has one-fifth of the world's high-quality population, the absolute advantage of geopolitical assets on the old continent, but what do they have?
In fact, in today's world, the most straightforward means of offending a small country is not to invade them, but not to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, not to accept traitorous demands, and not to accept the "surrender" and dependence demands of the elite class of small countries.
For when the big countries take this position, they are already putting the elite class of the small country on the opposite side.
That's why Ukraine is bound to become a pro-American country, the United States can't swallow them, but Russia has this ability, Ukrainians have a sense of Russia, they have the memory of living together under the Soviet red flag.
There are a large number of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, and these are the basis for Russia's integration of Ukraine, so the Ukrainian elite will stand against Russia.
Even for done, the position of the Ukrainian central government is very ambiguous about the three regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea, where ethnic Russians constitute the majority of the population.
Although it is said that Russia dismembered them, if these territories were still in Ukraine, the authorities may still have a headache, because the Russians in these places will clamor every day to maintain friendly relations with Russia and even stand on the common front.
So in fact, Russia's dismemberment of Ukraine is an act with extremely far-reaching strategic vision, which on the one hand establishes a strategic buffer zone, on the other hand, it has abolished part of Ukraine's ability to integrate Ukraine, and created conditions for the subsequent relaxation of relations between Ukraine and Russia.
This goal is not far from being achieved, and when Ukraine has been so nakedly betrayed by the United States, the position of the Leninsky administration is bound to change in the next few years.
The direction of change is that they need to partially reconcile with Russia, at least to the extent that they believe their national security can be guaranteed.
This will also affect the international order in the European region, although from the perspective of the United States, easing relations with Russia and contacting the strategic conditions for the outbreak of war in Europe are unfavorable to the United States.
This would make the EU more strategically independent, but at the moment they have no other choice.
Because there is a more terrible threat than Russia, that is, China, the rapid rise of China has completely disrupted the strategic deployment of the United States in Europe, do the American elites dare to spend time with Russia now? Obviously not daring!
We often say that the Islamic world and Russia have won a precious twenty years for China, but they certainly did not take the initiative to fight for us, but the United States as the main enemy had to do so, and now we may be forced to "fight for twenty years" for them.
This is very dangerous for China, because China's long-term goal is not only to subvert the US hegemony, but also to reshape the order, otherwise, it is better not to subvert the US hegemony, because China is already the second largest beneficiary of the current international order.
If we cannot dominate the order after the fall of the United States, the international situation facing China will be even worse than it is now.
But we have no way back, because things have developed to this point, there is no possibility of reconciliation between China and the United States, they will not accept, we cannot accept.
Once we accept reconciliation, then there will be no moral support for China in the new world in the future, and we must shape the new order and thoroughly liquidate the remnants of Western colonialism, so that China can justifiably explain its actions of subverting the old order and reconstructing the new order.
If this problem is not solved, China will also face the situation of "unjust victory of the country and no fortune of a hundred years" in the future, just as Khrushchev denied the Soviet Union after Stalin.