The retreat of Afghanistan has dealt a heavy blow to the prestige of the United States, and if Ukraine can no longer be saved, then all the little brothers of the United States will begin to doubt the strength and willingness of the big brother.
Let's start with the history of the Crisis in Ukraine.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine has been oscillating between Russia and the West in the east. Pro-Russian and pro-Western forces are evenly matched. A representative of pro-Russian forces, Yanukovych was twice prime minister. In the 2004 presidential election, Yanukovych defeated the pro-Western Yushchenko, but the defeated Yushchenko's supporters took to the streets to protest, did not recognize the election results, launched the Orange Revolution, and finally the court declared the election results invalid, re-voted, yushchenko won.
In the 2010 Ukrainian election, the pro-Russian Yanukovych was elected president of Ukraine by beating the pro-Western Tymoshenko 49%-45% undisputed victory. Electoral support is strictly divided regionally, with eastern Ukraine supporting Yanukovych and western Ukraine supporting Tymoshenko. Among them, the donbass region's support for Yanukovych is as high as more than 80%.
However, in the pro-Western region of Kiev, ukraine's capital, the majority of the population supports Tymoshenko.
In late 2013, pro-Western factions in Ukraine held mass demonstrations over dissatisfaction with Yanukovych. Since Kiev was pro-Western territory, Yanukovych had no control over Kiev, and eventually Yanukovych escaped from Kiev, and the Pro-Russian forces in Ukraine suddenly collapsed.
A glance at the map above shows that Kiev is at the center of the pro-Western region, and the people of Kiev are certainly against Yanukovych.
Yanukovych was elected president twice, but was ousted by the street movement. The people of eastern Ukraine who supported Yanukovych were naturally indignant, and the crisis in Ukraine broke out.
Despite annexing Crimea, the first Ukraine crisis in 2014, Russia's response can be said to have been unsuccessful.
For 2014 Russia annexed Crimea. There have been two theories circulating in the international political field: one is putin's proactive behavior, saying that after Yanukovych's fall, the Russian government immediately convened a meeting to propose the annexation of Crimea. This is the propaganda caliber of the Russian side after the fact, and it is also the official mainstream caliber.
Another way of saying this is that a bunch of Hawks in Russia have taken matters into their own hands, made trouble in Crimea, incited Crimea's independence and joined a referendum in Russia, and initially the Russian government gave little aid or plans to annex. Later, this gang of hawks made a fait accompli, and Putin could not pander to nationalist sentiments. Similar to the 918 Incident in 1931, Ishihara Guan'er and the Kwantung Army carried out the 918 Incident without the consent of the Japanese central government. But if it succeeds, the Japanese central government will accept the fait accompli.
The specific operator of Crimea's accession to Russia was Strekov. Later, when Donbass split, Strykov also played a key role, and he was also a key figure in the defeat of ukrainian government forces by the Donbass separatist forces.
I personally believe in the latter. The fall of Yanukovych in 2014 does not in itself mean that Ukraine is irretrievably turning to the West. After all, there was an Orange Revolution in 2004, and pro-Russians can still make a comeback in 2010.
But the annexation of Crimea completely disintegrated the pro-Russian faction within Ukraine. The pro-Russian faction has completely lost influence in Ukraine's central political circles.
The annexation of Crimea was not in itself militarily difficult. The Crimean populace overwhelmingly supports Russia, and the Russian Black Sea Fleet itself is stationed in Crimea. The people of the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine are also overwhelmingly pro-Russian.
In the Donbass War in eastern Ukraine, Russia hesitated at the beginning of the war and was unwilling to invest too much military support, and in the middle, at a moment when the separatist regime in eastern Ukraine could not hold on immediately, it vigorously assisted. When the defeat of the Ukrainian government forces achieved military superiority, they hesitated to expand the results. In the end, the separatist regime controlled only a small part of the land in the two regions of Doneesk and Luhansk. It probably has less than 20,000 square kilometers of territory and less than 4 million people.
As a result of the 2014 Crisis in Ukraine, the pro-Russian faction that had been a pole in Ukrainian politics has since ceased to exist. Russia has forever lost the possibility of using non-military means to pull Ukraine back. In exchange, only more than 20,000 square kilometers of Crimea and less than 20,000 square kilometers of the Donbass independent region were exchanged. And the whole of Ukraine has 600,000 square kilometers of territory and 40 million people. and economic sanctions that have lasted for years. Before the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Russia's GDP reached $2.3 trillion, compared to $1.5 trillion in 2020.
Is this exchange really worthwhile for Russia?
After the 2014 crisis, Ukraine and Russia turned against each other completely. Pro-Russian forces disappeared from Ukrainian politics. Ukraine as an independent country will never accept the independence of the Donbass region, nor will it accept the annexation of Crimea by Russia.
Ukraine has long sought to join NATO, and in 2008 received an unofficial commitment from NATO to accept Ukraine in the future. However, NATO's right to collective self-defence in Article V stipulates that once a member state is attacked, it means an attack on NATO as a whole.
At present, neither Russia's annexation of Crimea nor the independent "state" of Donbass has been recognized by the international community. De jure, these areas are also the legitimate territories of Ukraine. Once Ukraine joins NATO, Ukraine's action to reconfigure French territory will be supported by the entire NATO, and Russia's counterattack will be seen as an attack on the entire NATO.
Therefore, if Ukraine's accession to NATO before 2014 was a potential threat to Russia, after 2014, Ukraine's accession to NATO would mean a war that could occur at any time. For Russia, it would rather go to war with Ukraine before it joins NATO and eliminate the threat than allow Ukraine to join NATO, leaving Russia at risk of going to war with NATO as a whole.
Similarly, if the United States were to sign a treaty of collective self-defense with Taiwan, China's only option would be to launch armed reunification before it was signed.
So, in 2021, Russia placed heavy military threats on its borders in exchange for NATO's commitment not to accept Ukraine.
This 2022 Ukraine crisis, who really wants to fight? The Ukrainian government does not want to go to war.
The Ukrainian side has indeed always hoped to regain the lost land, and after 7 years of preparation, the strength of the Ukrainian government army has increased a lot, which can completely overwhelm the Dombas separatist forces. After all, Ukraine has 40 million people, and those two small republics combined have fewer than 4 million people.
But if Russia fully intervenes, Ukraine will not be able to defeat it. Ukraine hopes to get more support from Europe and the United States, and it is best to get Ukraine to join NATO.
Thus, Ukraine began to hope to create an atmosphere in which Russia was going to invade Ukraine. to get the full support of the United States.
So in October-November 2021, it was mainly Ukraine who was shouting: "Russia is going to war, invading Ukraine." ”
What is the position of the Russian side? Russia didn't want to fight.
What benefits will Russia gain by invading Ukraine in an all-round way? Even if the battle is won, it will not benefit you, and there will be millions of more refugees. Crimea has strategic value, the people's hearts are pro-Russian, and it is easy to manage. Even if you take half of Ukraine, it won't do much good.
But at the same time, Russia will never allow Ukraine to join NATO. For Russia, it would rather go to war with Ukraine before it joins NATO and eliminate the threat than allow Ukraine to join NATO, leaving Russia at risk of going to war with NATO as a whole.
Russia's actions would have been a bluff, with the goal of securing a nato commitment not to accept Ukraine.
What does the U.S. side think?
The United States does not want to go to war, but hopes that Ukraine will remain highly tense. The tense situation in Ukraine is too good for the United States, on the one hand, it can use Russian pressure to coerce Europe to take sides with the United States. Nord Stream II can also be eliminated, reducing Russian gas supply, and Europe has no choice but to buy Liquefied Gas from the United States. Instability in Europe could allow safe-haven money to flow back to the United States, and U.S. stocks continued to rise.
The United States believes that Russia is just making false statements and intimidation, so it resolutely does not give in and does not give Russia any commitments.
In fact, france and Germany on the European continent are bitter and cannot be said. The United States must be aligned in political stance, but the Ukraine crisis has had a negative impact on the interests of both countries. France and Germany sincerely hope that the situation will ease as soon as possible. But NATO's control remains in the hands of the United States, and France and Germany have no say whether NATO can promise not to accept Ukraine.
The Crisis in Ukraine has been deadlocked. Russia can't stand it, and the forward deployment of a large number of troops costs money and cannot be sustained for a long time.
Ukraine found itself unable to stand it either, with a prolonged standoff and instability. Money ran, the rich ran away, the economy collapsed. So Ukraine has recently been desperately saying that there will be no war and that Russia will not invade. Let's all come back.
Europe is also uncomfortable.
The only thing that benefits is the United States, which is cool to fly. The United States is determined not to budge and not to give Russia any security commitments. Anyway, it's coolest to drag me like this. The United States continues to create tensions in the media.
The United States keeps calling "wolves are coming", but do you really believe that Russia will fight? Judging from the reaction of the United States, the United States actually does not believe that Putin will really do it.
But Putin has been cornered. Although I don't want to fight, I can't admit it. I would have thought that Putin would not invade Ukraine in an all-round way, after all, the risks for him and Russia are high. But he still underestimated Da Mao's unscrupulous brute force. In any case, there is no longer any possibility of non-military means to pull Ukraine back. So let's go hard.
This time, the United States is a bit of a joke. What is best for the United States is that Ukraine has maintained tensions but not wars.
Now that the war is raging, the United States does not dare to send troops to carry Russia hard, and can only engage in various sanctions. Since Russia dares to take action on these sanctions, it is certainly ready to be sanctioned. If Ukraine cannot resist Russia's attack, the United States cannot protect Ukraine, and the hegemonic position and prestige of the United States in the world will inevitably suffer a major blow.
The picture of the great changes in the world is slowly unfolding to us.