Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was largely predictable, but it also brought some surprises. It was quite expected that the current U.S. administration would try to draw Russia into the “Ukrainian swamp” in order to weaken and isolate it as much as possible. It was expected that the inexperienced and naive Ukrainian leader would trust the promises of the Biden team and let them to drag his country into a devastating gamble.
It was expected that Russia, seeking to restore its former empire, would use Western provocations to establish its presence in a weak and corrupt Ukraine. It was completely unexpected that instead of a modern, maneuverable, and highly organized Russian army, we saw poorly trained troops like nomadic hordes devastating entire cities. A terrifying surprise has been the use by the Kremlin against its brothers in blood and faith of Chechen and Syrian militants. Finally, the biggest surprise was the desperate courage of the Ukrainians themselves and the high combat readiness of their armed forces.
This war will not end in the foreseeable future. Most likely, it will lead to the destruction of Ukraine and the extreme weakening of Russia, exhausted by excessive exertion of forces and sanctions.
The question is what goals should the West set for itself in this situation, and should it strive for the complete destruction of Russia? Or on the contrary, does it need a comparatively strong Russia?
Relations between the West and Russia are determined by three factors: geopolitical, economic, and cultural.
In geopolitical terms, Russia was natural buffer between the West and Asia, which includes the Muslim East and China. The weakening of Russia will mean a simultaneous sharp rise of Islam and China.
Let’s start with China. Russia is already turning into a raw materials appendage of a high-tech and powerful Chinese empire. If Russia is cut off from the West, it will inevitably become completely dependent on China with its unlimited human and technological resources. This means that China, through its satellites in the Kremlin, will directly reach European borders. The old Soviet joke about the “Chinese-Finnish border” will become an ominous reality. The huge military resources of Russia will become a de facto part of the Chinese military machine, which can simultaneously threaten both the U.S. and Europe. It is the worst possible scenario for the West.
There are large Muslim enclaves in Russia itself, including Chechnya, other Caucasian republics and the Volga republics: Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and others. Islamic radical groups, branches of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis operate everywhere here. In the event of a losing or weakening of control from the Kremlin, they inevitably (as in other failed states) try to create a series of “caliphates,” like the Islamic State. With the support of the gigantic Muslim communities in Russia’s major cities, they will get a base for further advances to the West. In such a case, they will get assistance from Turkey, which regards significant parts of Ukraine and Russia as a natural part of the new Ottoman Caliphate. Crimea, the historical vassal of Turkey, will be drawn into the orbit of the new “Sublime Porte” too.
The regimes of Central Asia are to a large extent supported by Russian bayonets. If Moscow withdraws from the region, the Afghan Taliban, successfully brought back to power by President Biden and his team, will immediately fill the resulting vacuum. The huge territories of largely artificial states, such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and others, will turn into a single “caliphate” and a natural reserve for terrorist groups. At the same time, masses of refugees from these countries will rush to the West in search of salvation. Compared to these unrestrained flows, the migration of 2015 will be child’s play.
Only the wishful thinking of the ignorant and arrogant elites of the West can deny the reality of such a scenario. None of them imagined that the defeat of the USSR in Afghanistan would become a prelude to 9/11 and world Islamic terror, and the romance of the “Arab spring” would give this terror a new impetus.
In the economic aspect, the West is in dire need of Russian raw materials, not only energy resources, but valuable minerals. Russia is the world’s largest diamond miner, a leading exporter of cobalt, vanadium, and platinum, gold, nickel and sulfur, silver and phosphates, and iron ore. The West cannot count on other sources of energy resources — from the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Libya, and Iran. First, such resources are not enough, and secondly, they are located in an extremely unstable and unpredictable region. Attempts to replace traditional energy sources with alternative “green energy” are doomed to failure as well.
In the cultural aspect, both Europe and America are already forced to desperately fight for their national identities, undermined by such neo-Marxist ideologies as identity politics, Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, cancel culture and others. So far, the national movements of North America and Europe are losing this game. Eastern Europe remains the main so far the only stronghold of European cultural identity, however, in the event of the collapse of Russia, the countries of Eastern Europe and the Balkans will find themselves between a rock and a hard place: the globalist West on the one hand, and China and Muslim, on the other. Their future, like the future of Israel, will be in doubt. The fall of Russia as a strong country with stable Christian national traditions will leave America, already extremely weakened by globalists and progressives, alone in the fight against external threats. The consequences of this will be very sad for the U.S. as a state, and for Western civilization as a whole.
Thus, having lost Russia, the West will lose the powerful natural barrier that separates it from the hostile East, and will significantly strengthen both the Chinese empire and global Islam. The way to the West will be open.
This has happened three times in the past. The first time it occurred in the first millennium, when the hordes of the Huns broke through the defenses of the Byzantine Empire, invading Europe.
The second time was in the 13th century, when the Mongol hordes crushed Kievan Rus, destroyed Hungary and Poland and almost reached Prague, Austria, and German lands.
The third time, the Christian West allowed Byzantium to die under the blows of the Turks in the 15th century, and actually opened the way to Vienna for Ottomans.
In all three cases, the West was saved by divine guidance. Will it save the West for the fourth time?
Alexander Maistrovoy is the author of Agony of Hercules or a Farewell to Democracy (Notes of a Stranger).
PRCS says
Though certainly an eye-opening post, what’s the opposing point of view?
somehistory says
A ukranian intelligence report says the war will end in September.
biden…”bo”….doesn’t need a war to end the U.S. canada has its own ‘biden,’ although younger, still an idiot, and so do many other nations have “leaders” that don’t lead well. Like Mr. Spencer often quotes the words of Jesus, re: “blind guides is what they are.” When the blind lead the blind, “both fall into the pit.”
Rarely says
Very interesting. The U.S. drew Russia into the “Ukrainian swamp”. Sure it’s sort of plot by the Democrats, the left and, of course, the communists to…? I guess it’s part of a plan to destroy the West by the globalist Democrats.
I don’t agree. I feel it’s the fault of the bicycle riders.
Wellington says
I find flaws in this article. Putin was behaving badly long before the bogus Biden Administration. He has had people terminated, even in other countries like the UK. He leveled Grozny and Aleppo. He cyber attacked Estonia. And so on. The man is a killer and a dictator. Yes, while Trump was President Putin held back because the one thing Russia respects is strength, but the idea that the Biden Administration deliberately invited the Ukrainian invasion is not nearly as supportable as the fact that Biden’s very weakness is what emboldened Putin, just as Obama’s weakness led to Putin taking over the Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Russia’s best interests do indeed lie with the West but Russia has been too stupid to see this. It is paranoid and xenophobic about the West while making alliances with thug regimes such as China, Iran and Syria. Telling and damning that sundry Eastern European countries like Poland, Slovakia and the Baltic states see NATO in a completely positive light, NATO being the greatest military alliance in history for the protection and promotion of freedom, but Russia sees NATO as a negative. Very Russian and indicative of the fact that Russia never learns.
PMK says
Wellington,
The second paragraph of your comments sums it up for me. Russia could have joined with the West in the fight against Islamists but they were too proud to do it. The author is surprised that Eastern Europe is the only part of the world willing to fight back against Islam and against China. The author also pointed to Russia’s history of ‘stable Christian national traditions’ without acknowledging the damage done to those traditions by over a century of Leninist / Stalinist rulers. The distrust sowed by Soviet rulers in those European countries that Russia dominated for decades cannot be ignored or dismissed.
Russia had every opportunity to join the West but it chose not to. Human freedom was never on Putin’s itinerary. The West didn’t ‘lose’ Russia. It was rejected by Russia.
Wellington says
Thanks for your comment, PMK. I have always wished Russia well, and Russians have many virtues and achievements, courage and a great artistic tradition being among them, but they are dismal, absolutely dismal, on the matter of freedom—and herein lies the great character flaw of the Russians and helps to explain their antipathy to the very civilization that explored parameters of freedom like no other civilization remotely has, i.e., Western Civilization.
Yuri says
Russia excels in science,
literature, and art, but it fails miserably in self governance. Russian people are content if they have bread and Vodka.
gravenimage says
Good analysis, Wellington and PMK.
Infidel says
Very interesting POV, Mr Maistrovoy
While it’s true that these regimes may be supported by Russian bayonets, if Moscow leaves, won’t Turkey, rather than the Taliban, fill up the void? Already, 3 of the Turkistan countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan – are, along w/ Azerbaijan, member of Turkey’s led ‘Turkic Council’, so if Putin no longer has influence in Tashkent, Bishkek and
AstanaNursultan, then wouldn’t Erdogan, rather than the Taliban guy, be the one calling the shots?I also know that both Protestant and Catholic Europe have a disdain for Eastern Orthodox Europe, namely Serbia and Russia, but Sergey Kiril has already stated that islam is closer to his church than either the Roman Catholic or Protestant churches. I get that Russians don’t welcome Protestant or Catholic proselytization any more than Hindus do, but in this process of warming up to their muslims, they are also ignoring other Eastern Orthodox countries being threatened by muslims, be it Armenia, Greece or Serbia (somehow, I don’t think that in the long run, muslims will be satisfied w/ Kosovo: just look at Israel and India to see why). Shouldn’t Moscow at least be taking the sides of Athens, Belgrad and Yerevan, even if they are justifiably wary of Washington, London, Warsaw or Berlin?
Infidel says
Another thing I forgot to add – those ‘masses of refugees’ from places like Tatarstan, Bashkirstan ain’t likely to find refuge in the West, unless the West is stupid enough to airlift them. For starters, countries like Poland, Czech, Hungary, Romania are all in b/w, and none of them will let these people in. It won’t be like 2014 in Turkey, where Turkey enabled all those muslim refugees to be forwarded to Europe
Hopefully, in such a scenario, what remains of the Russians can crack down on the Tatars, Chechens, Bashkirs and all other myriad jihadists remaining in the Russian Federation, and exile them to Kazakhstan and beyond
CogitoErgoSum says
It almost sounds as if using our nukes won’t be such a bad alternative. Everybody should get to share some of the pain. We are getting closer to finding out why there is no sign of intelligent life anywhere we look in the universe.
CogitoErgoSum says
Actually, sharing the pain by using his nukes is probably what Putin is thinking too. He is probably of the mind that if Russia falls apart the rest of the world should fall apart also.
PMK says
It’s almost as if Putin has a Samson complex.
CogitoErgoSum says
Yeah, maybe if starts growing more hair as he gets older the way Joe Biden has we should really start worrying.
gravenimage says
Putin is the one causing this pain.
somehistory says
I need a little wooden desk and to make sure my hands can still reach the back of my neck. It may be time to “duck and cover” soon and as is the usual with humans, I’m not as young and flexible as I once was.
gravenimage says
The collapse of Russia will be the beginning of the end of the West
…………..
With the greatest respect to Alexander Maidstrovoy, I don’t consider it any sort of foregone conclusion that Russia is apt to fully collapse, and even less do I see Russia as a great bulwark against Islam.
In fact, Russia under Putin has done a great deal to enable Islam, including allowing Chechnya to become a Shari’ah state on Russian soil, building the largest Mosque in Europe in Moscow and opening it wit Erdogan and Abbas, and lauding Islam as a bulwark against the free West.
Naildriver says
Very sad but true, Graven, but the enablement of islam is still Putin’s doing.
He is not unlike Saddam in his egoism, as with huge pictures of himself plastered about Chechnya. And you’d have to agree Obama would have enabled Islam even more than he did had he the time — even with opening the largest of all mosques in the USA yapping about how great islam is.
Russians hate Islam, and the historical rifts between the orthodox and Western Christianity may be beyond repair; though neither are conducive to Islam.
The West does bear some responsibility in alienation of Russia, with NATO’s unnecessary incursions — which Putin opportuned as a tyrant.
I find the above article strange with unlikely speculations; particularly, with the Muslim states below Russia, but he is right that Russia is an important bulwark against Islam’s progress.
gravenimage says
Oh, Obama is appalling, also. Unfortunately, though, it is not just Putin enabling Islam in Russia. Here is Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church: “Our common task is to counter demonization of Islam”.
And
“Our president Vladimir Putin, who is an Orthodox Christian, while answering the question from a journalist about relation of Orthodox Christianity to Catholicism and Islam, said ‘We are closer to Islam’. I think so, too. In terms of traditions and morality, we are closer to Islam than to some of the Western Christian communities,” he said.
That he considers the bloody horrors of Islam to be closer to Christian Orthodoxy than Christian faiths Catholicism and Protestantism is deeply disturbing.
somehistory says
Glenn Beck reports that putin is to undergo surgery for his cancer.
Infidel says
Yeah, and the guy who is his stand-in – and maybe his successor should he die – Nikolai Patrushev – is even more of a hardliner than he is
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/russia-putin-cancer-telegram/2022/05/03/id/1068353
gravenimage says
I was wondering who is apt to be Putin’s successor. Thanks. Infidel.
CogitoErgoSum says
I’m beginning to think Putin may also have Parkinson’s disease as well as cancer. The Parkinson’s and the drugs he is probably taking may be affecting his brain. Think about it. The leaders of the two largest nuclear powers in the world are showing signs of failing physical and mental abilities. The fate of the world is in the hands of two men already staring death in the face and and who may be losing a little more of their grip on reality with each passing day.
James Lincoln says
CogitoErgoSum,
First and foremost, one can never be 100% sure about what comes out of the Russian propaganda media.
But, looking at several trusted sources, it appears that Putin has both Parkinson’s and stomach cancer.
Along with a multitude of physical symptoms, Parkinson’s also causes depression as well as dementia.
And stomach cancer is a very difficult cancer to treat effectively.
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
Talk about burying the lede! The author save for the final paragraph the report that “In all three cases [Huns, Mongols, Turks], the West was saved by divine guidance.”
The claim that God took sides in human history requires some evidence, not just a bland statement.
Infidel says
If one wants to take an agnostic look, one could say that the West was saved by an unusual combination of circumstances. How wise is it to ride one’s luck a fourth time?
Hank says
Good article. Always good to see things from other angles.
“The weakening of Russia will mean a simultaneous sharp rise of Islam and China.”
Clinton signed a “most favored nation” status for China which opened the door for the sharp rise of China.
Exporting more or less the whole industrial manufacturing base should only be done to very small countries that don’t have ambitions of Imperialism, hack intellectual property, or threaten their neighbors, or build artificial Islands as military bases and pose to ignite WW3. What were the globalists thinking of when they outsourced just about everything to China which in turn only fed its military? The Asian region is now a powder keg because of this. Taiwan a fuse, the US challenged, India challenged, international sailing routes in the Pacific challenged, et al.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/chinese-hackers-took-trillions-in-intellectual-property/ar-AAWU4mv?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=03618ed8eee842baa7536ef7ddf1d552
The non-existent repatriation of the illegal Islamic migration is a major cause of the rise of Islam in infidel countries.
—
“A terrifying surprise has been the use by the Kremlin against its brothers in blood and faith of Chechen and Syrian militants.”
The paranoid imaginations of ex-KGB agent Putin caused this tragedy and are a tremendous disaster for Russia, Europe and the rest of the infidel world. The article points out very well why Islam and China would be laughing at Russia and the West wasting themselves in this stupid Ukraine war. Islam and China are the winner-take-all in this idiotic Ukraine war.
—
“The question is what goals should the West set for itself in this situation, and should it strive for the complete destruction of Russia? Or on the contrary, does it need a comparatively strong Russia?”
Russia should return to the days of Yeltsin where there was a small window of opportunity for Russia to be constructive, democratic, and a part of Europe. Instead, the Russian parliament treated their Constitution like it was a scratchpad. They did not guard and treasure it but allowed it to be tampered, manipulated and altered by strongmen such as Putin. Hence the “President for life” title, et al. Putin gives them “30 pieces of silver” and they give him a tailored Constitution. The experience Russia had in the 1930’s should have made the parliamentarians wiser. (Hopefully they copy and adopt the US Constitution. Nothing wrong with that. I believe it’s Divinely inspired.)
The West should convince Russia to stop creating all these silly pseudo-states you see around Ukraine, Moldova and Poland and stop letting itself get pulled by its nose and dragged into conflict by Separatists. The West should also learn from the situation and repatriate the illegal and uncontrolled Muslim migration which will end up with similar demands for separate autonomous Muslim regions within their countries, or worse, a Muslim country in their midst.
OLD GUY says
Why are the leaders of the supposed super powers so opposed to each other and want to have world dominance? The problem is not the PEOPLE of these countries, it is the leaders who want more and more power. People of the world take a good look at who is running your country, you can change the leadership and the direction that these greedy power loving people are taking you and your families. All the money our countries spend on weapons could be used to improve our lives and future, not get us killed in a war over political ideology. Respect each others borders, fair trade, and right to LIFE, shouldn’t be that hard to do. We can build weapons of mass destruction, send men into outer space but we make enemies of each other. Let’s try fairness and respect for each other, it is real cheap compared to weapons.
gravenimage says
OLD GUY, no amount of respect from the West was enough to stop Putin invading Ukraine.
David Foot says
The collapse of Russia will come before the collapse of China
Patriotliz says
The West needs a strong Russia.
Infidel says
Fully agree! If Russia folds to either China or islam, it will be a tragedy of immense proportions
gravenimage says
I don’t want to see anything bad happen to Russia. I just don’t think their invading their neighbors makes them “strong”.
Vidur says
Good analysis. Compliments. Is it not a fact that Putin wanted to join NATO? It is not too late. Russia should be weaned away from China and Islamists.
Infidel says
No, Boris Yeltsin wanted to join NATO. Putin never did
Keys says
Infidel-
Several articles, still accessible, say Putin did want to join NATO.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-says-putin-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule
Search “did Putin want to join NATO” for more.
gravenimage says
Actually, recent Russian propaganda shows a complete rejection of the West. Putin has long hated Western freedoms.
somehistory says
Now, a fight between the pope and the guy in russia, whom the pope calls “putin’s altar boy.”
“Russian Church Warns Pope Francis After Comments on Powerful Bishop”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-church-warns-pope-francis-after-comments-on-powerful-bishop/ar-AAWVdAL?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=
gravenimage says
There’s been some pretty nasty stuff from Patriarch Kirill, blessing the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
I feel especially bad for Russian Orthodox in Ukraine, of which there ae many.
Naildriver says
Agreed. Very troubling given the accessible information, blatant history and daily news of Islam’s evil reality.
I’ve yet to hear any Christian clergy or priest including the present pope seriously denounce Islam, excepting F. Graham; and it’s the opposite with apologetics, sickening praise, and enablement usually the case. Putin’s position is sadly shared by too many Russians.