“Nothing will be the same as before”?
When I hear this expression used, I am generally perplexed. Both Scholz and Draghi have used it, and honestly it baffles me twice as much. For two reasons: they are obvious, and they are false.
The first reason is obvious: if you are over 20, have you ever tried to be 20 again? Maybe yes, I see that several supermodels of my age try, but the point is simple: nothing will be the same as before. You can't turn back time or stop it.
Therefore, the conservative who wants to stop time is deluded, as well as the one who thinks he has stopped it, crystallized in the moment he likes best.
"Nothing will be the same as before" is not the result of an extraordinary event, it is a simple physical reality: time passes, history advances, the past passes.
It is not true that "nothing will be the same again" after the attack by the Russians in Ukraine. "Nothing will be the same as before" is valid every day, and if anything one wonders if this event has not simply poked an ostrich on the ass who insisted on keeping his head underground so as not to see.
In short, if you really think that "after the attack on Russia nothing will be the same", then you had your head in the sand and what happens to everyone who does it has happened:
Second point: it is difficult to say that the allies are moving in an extraordinarily united way, if not by overestimating what is being done. The only thing that we can define extraordinary in this affair is not the reaction of the West, but the resistance of the Ukrainians.
That it is the result of specific training provided by the West is a different matter since this training came years and years ago.
What exactly has the West done? "A series of economic sanctions never seen before". Interesting. But quite trivial: during the cold war things were more or less the same, with blocked investments and financial flows viewed with suspicion and linked to authorizations and ballots.
What would Ukraine need instead? Of a no-fly zone, which is not done because "it would be the beginning of the third world war". Cool. Too bad that the invasion of Ukraine is, in case you haven't noticed, the very beginning of the third world war.
How you can think that Russia is moving forward its borders to reach those of NATO, without this being "the beginning of the third world war", only you know.
Vexata questio: Moldova.
I'm sorry I was prophetic when, in 2003, I wrote "Other Robots". But Moldova is the thing that can reverse the fate of this war in full favor of Putin.
Transnistria:
Moldova is a "democratic" republic ("hybrid regime", according to the UN), Transnistria is practically a "Soviet Republic". So he shares ALL of Putin's nostalgia.
If Putin's armies enter Transnistria, they will be welcomed by politicians, complete with a band playing music, and. They will be able to build their bases and the Russian troops will be resupplied. At that point they can attack weak Moldova. They will have crushed Ukraine on both sides.
But especially, in Transnistria, Russian propaganda will be able to give people those images of cheering crowds greeting soldiers, which the Russians have been looking for for weeks.
If I ask you what the West is doing to prevent the Russians from entering Moldova, the answer is "nothing". If I ask you what Putin is doing to take Moldova, the answer is that the Belarusian soldiers who have just entered the game are aiming for both TransNistria (or whatever it's called) another Soviet republic, where it will be easy to switch to Moldova, which instead is internationally recognized.
If Putin's tanks reach Moldova, and build bases, Ukraine is screwed forever, and Putin will have his photos of cheering crowds welcoming the soldiers, Ukraine will be encircled. TOTAL victory, with an army that to define mediocre is little.
I repeat: what is the West doing to prevent it? Anything. The US does not even know that Moldova exists (they are not used to geographic maps) while the EU, as usual, believes it has done who knows what with sanctions.
As usual. And I repeat, "as usual" because it contradicts the statement "nothing will be the same as before". Strategic incompetence, it seems, is still the same as before.
Second Vexata quaestio: Will Putin attack the Baltic republics? Not soon. For a reason.
That piece marked "Russia" is the Kaliningrad enclave. In Kaliningrad there are tactical nuclear missiles with a radius of 2500 km. If only the Russian or Belarusian troops go so close, from the Polish point of view, to NATO, no form of intelligent life must exist in Kaliningrad anymore.
Kaliningrad, and I am referring to the whole territory, would at least be invaded, if not co-centralized. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_Blitz ),
If Putin ended his invasion of Ukraine with the annexation of Moldova, he would not start an operation that would immediately end with a clear compromise of his territory. The limits of his army DO NOT allow him to defend Kaliningrad, so Putin will have to wait for (or cause) a further weakening of the Western front.
But once Moldova is taken, it would have enough pride to stay in power for life, and perhaps to put children / grandchildren in power.
What is the western strategy to contain the danger of Kaliningrad is not clear. How such a military enclave can still exist, despite Putin having started a world war, only the NATO commands know.
As usual. And I repeat, "as usual" because it contradicts the statement "nothing will be the same as before". Strategic incompetence, it seems, is still the same as before.
Really "will nothing be the same as before?". Instead, it seems to me that the comedy is repeating itself too much. Maybe you turned up the volume of the music, but nothing more.