Unravelling the Mystery of War (2)
Too many elements of the Ukrainian war do not make sense. Why Russia makes its movement west so slowly? Why there are no fast and decisive strikes, other for them or against them? What are the true plans of the US and UK? Does the US want to undermine Russia? I met with the Sweden-based Professor Z [RZ], a man of vast learning and deep understanding to ask him these questions.
Read the first part of the article
Israël Shamir: You seriously believe that the US wants a Russian victory?
RZ: Well, yes, in some meaningful sense. You see, the cardinal agreement between the two countries seems to be that the USA will abandon Europe and leave it to Russia to explore and protect. In return, Russia will not form a military alliance with China. But simply handing Europe over to Russia is not feasible. Putin has to win this privilege in a war, and the victory should look real from the outside. It’s a set-up match where the champion is predetermined; however, he still has to show both strength and guts to convince the audience that the title is won in a fair battle. His nose has to be bloodied—perhaps more than once—but in the end, he must prevail. Thus, the USA pretends to help Ukraine as much as they can while in fact their piecemeal assistance only serves to delay Russian victory as to make it more palatable to Europeans.
The popular opinion in Western Europe is carefully monitored by the US, and initially, it was strongly pro-Ukraine. This made a fast Russian victory unfeasible and even undesirable. If it takes place, nonetheless, many EU countries would demand direct NATO interference on the side of Ukraine. Now the majority of the population in these countries is tired of war and wants peace negotiations, which means in real terms Ukrainian defeat.
IS: But Americans have supplied Ukrainians with advanced weapon systems such as HIMARS, ATACMS, M1 Abrams tanks, and F16 planes—systems that Russia feared and said crossed their red lines.
RZ: Sure they did, didn’t they? And that looked real, right? But the fact is that these new American weapon systems were given to Ukraine only when the Russians were more or less ready for that. These systems changed nothing on the battlefield and present no serious challenges to Putin’s rule or Russian military.
Still not convinced? Then recall the days of Prigozhin’s putsch in the summer of 2023. Then the US had to show its true colours by reluctantly but publicly expressing support for Putin’s government. This dismayed and amazed Russian opposition figures like Khodorkovsky, who seems smart but apparently cannot see the obvious.
IS: What, in your opinion, will occur to NATO?
RZ: Eventually, NATO will be discarded and thrown away by the US like an empty soda bottle. Let’s face it—the only mission of NATO is, and has always been, to contain Russia, with war against it if needed. However, NATO’s Chapter limits its activity to the Northern Atlantic. Even the southern part of the ocean, such as the Maldives, is outside NATO’s scope. So NATO is useless for operations in the Pacific Ocean, which are of prime importance to the US. When the US leaves NATO, whatever is left will collapse under its own weight, as it did in Afghanistan when Biden American troops pulled out. The remaining NATO troops had no will nor guts to stay on and fight.
IS: But NATO has recently expanded by including Finland and Sweden. It’s clear that the USA was behind this expansion. What was its purpose if, as you say, the US is about to leave NATO?
RZ: The purpose was to create a purely European alliance that would resist Russian dominance for as long as possible after the US left Europe. This is similar to what Americans tried to arrange with the Afghan government before they pulled out. The hope was that it would remain stable, which turned out to be wishful thinking. The same applies in Europe. The American absence from Europe is planned to be temporary, and the US wants to return as soon as they have dealt with China.
In the meantime, Russian expansion in Europe is thought to be checked by EU-based NATO. That’s why Trump wants EU governments to increase their military spending to 5% of GDP. But for Germany, for instance, that would mean that almost half of their government budget would go to the Bundeswehr. It is highly unlikely that any political party or coalition would survive after proposing such a budget in the Bundestag.
IS: Were you surprised that Sweden and Finland joined NATO?
RZ: In fact, I was, but more by its speed than the fact itself. Before 1995, Sweden had a constitution that in one short sentence forbade military alliances in case of war. This was due to the bitter experience Sweden had when it signed a mutual defence treaty with the UK back in 1805 as part of the anti-Napoleon coalition. But when Russia—then a French ally—entered Finland in 1808, the UK did not live up to the treaty. As a result, Sweden had to cede the entire eastern part of its realm to Russia. This led to significant political turmoil and soul-searching. Swedes no longer trusted other countries for their own defence.
But that changed when Sweden joined the EU. The one-sentence clause in the constitution was replaced by a 15-line legalese mumbo-jumbo that prohibited nothing. So the decision to join NATO was made around that time or earlier. However, I think there should be very strong arguments for why Sweden and Finland, demonstrably in concert, jumped into the NATO ship in the middle of a raging war, clearly jeopardizing their own security.
IS: What arguments?
RZ: For instance, Petsamo, which is Pechenga in Russian. It’s an area in the north of the Scandinavian peninsula that, between 1920 and 1944, belonged to Finland. A strip of land perhaps 50 by 150 km, it has a nickel mine and an Arctic port. The nickel mine is pretty important; during WWII, it was the only source of that strategic metal for the whole Nazi Reich. The ore was mined there and transported by land to Swedish and Finnish Baltic ports, as well as by ship around Norway. The mine is still of great interest, but not as much as the piece of Arctic shore, which grants rights to thousands of square miles of gas- and oil-rich Arctic shelf.
As neither Finland nor Sweden possesses fossil fuel deposits today, they are eyeing these potential riches with envy (envying, of course, their Norwegian neighbours). However, acquiring Petsamo is only possible if Russia is defeated in a war and has to cede land to the winners. This is what was probably promised to Finland and Sweden in 2022, when such an outcome looked plausible to many observers.
This hypothesis—I call it the Petsamo theory—was a crazy guess no-one would believe. Right until recently, when Trump demanded Greenland and Canada for the US. Now that hypothesis is far more probable.
Even though joining a military pact clearly directed against a defined country (like NATO against Russia) is not considered an outright act of aggression by international law, a more nuanced view is that it still undermines international order and increases the war probability. So Sweden and Finland acted recklessly.
IS: What has Petsamo to do with Greenland?
RZ: Both provide access to the Arctic shelf, but of course Greenland offers much more of it. The Arctic possesses the only remaining untapped deposits of oil and gas, which are still irreplaceable as energy sources. Despite all the green energy talks and uncounted billions thrown into building solar and wind power, global production and consumption of fossil fuels continue to grow. With Trump coming to power, this consumption can only accelerate. Right-wing parties in Europe are also sceptical of the Green Deal. AfD in Germany promises to take down all the ugly windmills—and they are all ugly. But the oil peak is real; the most productive oil fields are near exhaustion. The largest conventional oil field in the world, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, is in decline. That means—if you want more energy, drill, drill, drill. But where to drill? The Arctic is the only hope remaining for finding large-scale deposits.
IS: So you think Trump is serious about the annexation of Greenland?
RZ: And Canada, too. Very serious. When this is done, the US will have more than half of the Arctic shelf, closely followed by Russia. These two countries will have more than 90% of the total, with the much smaller remaining part being largely Norwegian. However, the caveat is that without explicit or implicit Russian approval, the US couldn’t think of annexing either of these two countries. This is because such a move is clearly not in the interest of China. China is very powerful militarily, but it is too far away from the area and, without Russia, it won’t be able to interfere.
So the deal is, as long as we can see today, that Russia takes Ukraine and casts its shadow over all of Europe, especially its Eastern and Central parts, while the US grabs Canada and Greenland and once again rules over both American continents. The Monroe and Brezhnev doctrines are being reborn—with a vengeance.
IS: Why is this ocurring now? Is it only a shortage of energy?
RZ: Not only. The general problem of the world’s economy is the overproduction of capital. There are simply no large economic areas left where one could invest profitably after deducting expenses, risks, and inflation. Too many nations have become capitalist, with their populations earning more than they consume. The difference—capital eager to be invested—grows every day. The planet is already nearly fully globalized, and no significant profit can be expected from further globalization.
This is not the first time such a situation has emerged, and history provides several ways out for a dominant economy: a global war, hyperinflation, and territorial expansion. To be an effective solution, a global war like WWII would need to destroy a serious fraction of global capital—say 20% to 30%. Regional conflicts, such as between Ukraine and Russia, are too small for such a purpose. Only burning out half of Europe—say, from Moscow to Berlin or Paris—would suffice. But such a war today would very quickly become nuclear and spiral out of control.
The same applies to hyperinflation; even though it effectively destroys capital, it also harms the ruling class, opening the way for revolutions with unclear consequences—such as in 1930s Germany. We also see how the covid pandemic, whether natural or artificial, has led to an inflation spike that ultimately resulted in elite change—not least in the USA.
IS: So what remains is territorial expansion?
RZ: Exactly. The only problem is that annexing both Canada and Greenland may not be enough for the US to pull itself out of the death economic spiral. In terms of population, Canada is small (less than 40 million), while Greenland is minuscule (around 50,000). Equally important, Canada is already very well developed, meaning there is no opportunity for massive investment from US companies outside of gas and oil fields. While the annexation will produce a boost for the dollar and the US economy, it won’t solve the problem.
IS: What might help?
RZ: Going south. Merging the United States of America with the United States of Mexico. That would add 130 million people plus unbounded opportunities for investment—in infrastructure, property, tourism, and so on.
IS: But Trump is fiercely against Mexican immigration!
RZ: And rightfully so. Absorbing the Mexican population without annexing Mexican territory makes little sense. It is almost like, instead of buying your neighbour’s house and expanding your property, bringing your neighbour’s family into your own home.
IS: But annexing Mexico would hugely change US demographics and forever alter the character of this nation. Will Spanish replace English?
RZ: I don’t think so, even though Spanish will probably become soon as widely used in the USA as English. I agree that this merger will change US demographics and national character. However, these changes occur even today but in a slower manner. The outright annexation will be a pre-emptive step, allowing the US elite to control the processes that are currently occuring spontaneously.
IS: Couldn’t China interfere with these expansionist plans? They cannot be in favour of US expansion, even if this probably means that they could safely annex Taiwan when no one is looking.
RZ: China……. yes, they won’t be happy. But without Russia, they can’t do much about it, and Russia seems to have already struck a deal with the US.
IS: But China is greatly helping Russia in the war with Ukraine, and without this help, the situation in Russia would have been much more dire! How could Putin betray a friend?
RZ: Well, yes, Chinese are helping, but from the Russian standpoint, they were doing so mainly out of self-interest. Also, the help is quite limited—certainly much less extensive than the Western help to Ukraine. You see, Russians don’t trust the Chinese. From their perspective, China is guilty of major treason, a betrayal, which in Russian eyes is the worst sin.
IS: What do you mean, 1960s?
RZ: Yes. After Stalin’s death and in the early 1960s, the USSR-led global socialist camp was on the rise and seemed unstoppable. But Mao refused to condemn Stalin’s personality cult and preferred to break with Russia to maintain his own cult.
In the early 1970s, when Kissinger and then Nixon went to Beijing, the Chinese struck a deal with the devil. They sold their communist soul for the riches promised by unlimited access to the American market. The devil kept his side of the bargain for 50 years, and it took the Chinese over 30 years to truly start taking advantage of it. In the meantime, the USSR-led socialist camp lost a significant part of the Third World, as some populous countries turned to Maoism and refused to deal with the USSR. In the end, when the West abandoned the Bretton Woods system and introduced fiat currency with an unlimited debt ceiling, the USSR lost the global competition with the West and collapsed.
From Kremlin’s perspective, despite all the mistakes they made, the collapse of the Soviet Union was predetermined by renegade China. Now that the devil demands from the Chinese a pound of flesh, Russians find it amusing that they turn to Moscow for support. Striking a deal with the USA behind China’s back would be, from a Russian perspective, a proper response to the earlier Chinese betrayal.
Last but not least (and I don’t like to say it, but it’s true), the Russian elite is much closer culturally, ideologically, and, sorry to mention, racially to the Western elite than to whoever rules China today.
IS: So, what’s your prediction for 2025?
RZ: Long ago I predicted that Ukrainians would accept their defeat only when the Russian ruble became more valuable than the hryvnia. When the Ukrainian currency was introduced in 1996, it traded at a 1:6 ratio to the ruble. But every new Maidan removed some value from the hryvnia. Today it stands at 1:2.4—still far from parity. The lowest value this ratio reached was in September 2022 at 1:1.5. It was when most everybody thought that Russia had lost its chance for victory, while I saw it on a path to success. The opposite is true—the change in the UHR:RUB ratio since August 2024 tells me that the war is far from over.
Another prediction is that Zelenskiy will be dealt with not by Russians but by Ukrainians themselves. That appears to be very important for once again burying animosity and resentment between the two brother nations. Remember, that Stepan Bandera—the most notorious Ukrainian nationalist and WWII criminal—was killed by Bohdan Stashynsky, a Ukrainian from Lvov. Another such character, Roman-Taras Shukhevych, was hunted down under Pavel Sudoplatov’s leadership—another ethnic Ukrainian.
The third prediction is that, unfortunately, the conclusion of the Ukrainian war will not be smooth. It will likely involve military action in the Baltics. This is because the elite of the bordering countries know very well the price they will pay for fuelling the Ukrainian war if Putin wins. Mark Rutte, the current Secretary-General of NATO, said that if this occurs, they (the elite) will have to learn the Russian language. Even though this may sound like a horrific and inhumane torture, am afraid the reality will be even more dramatic. Like their grandkids having to study in Moscow or Saint Petersburg.
On a more serious note, there is an unprecedented rise in anti-Russian rhetoric in that area, and some measures are being announced clearly aimed at preparing the population for war with Russia. That worries me a lot.
IS: How do you think this Baltic war will end?
RZ: Likely, the same way as most previous wars in the region. The US will not throw its support behind these NATO countries, and without it, they will be unable to fight for too long. Then here will be extremely difficult to pay for these countries for their stupidity. I would very much like Gotland to remain Swedish and Bornholm Danish, but both countries should be very careful in this situation.
IS: What is your advice to the readers?
RZ: Be prepared. Events may go smoothly, but frankly, that would be a miracle. The situation may degrade quickly, and then it will be too late to react. Imagine the year is 1938 and only a few months are left before all hell breaks loose in Europe. What would you do then if you knew? My advice is—do it now.
yogaesoteric
February 7, 2025
