As Russia continues its drive for a great reboot of its lopsided relationship with the West, the US and its allies are still waiting to see what Moscow’s next move will be. On the surface, unsophisticated intransigence dominates. In essence, the Western general line goes, we are ready to talk but not about any of the things that really matter and Moscow wants the most.
Which is stopping NATO expansion and, in effect, neutralizing Ukraine.
Instead, the West is sending more military forces to eastern Europe, pumping up Kiev with arms and “advisors,” making noises about supporting an insurgency to trap Russia in a quagmire if it should invade in force, and spreading disinformation about Russian coup plans for Kiev – plans that no one there seems to know about or take seriously.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, says the time has come to make a transition to “offensive actions”, disturbingly implying that he may be ready to start a major escalation, perhaps in the self-defeating style of former Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili in 2008. The difference would, of course, be in the fact that the West has allowed itself to become much more badly entangled with Kiev than it ever did with Tbilisi. Where the Georgian leadership fortunately failed to “wag the dog” and drag the West into its war, a Ukrainian bid to do the same cannot be excluded and, worse, might work.