Why quiet reading in the Ukrainian crisis

For three and a half months, the world has been living in the rhythm of the escalating Ukrainian crisis between Russia and the West, threatening the return of the atmosphere of the Cold War, which lasted for nearly four decades at the end of the last century. There are those who see the current crisis as a threat to world peace, as it may lead to a devastating war the world has never seen before, given the lethal weapons that may be used in it. On the other hand, many people underestimate the fears of this crisis developing into a comprehensive war, because of weapons of mass destruction that constitute a deterrent, due to their danger, for the major powers to participate in it. The Ukrainian crisis is summed up in Russia’s demand to prevent Ukraine from joining the Western military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and to reduce its forces in countries that were formerly affiliated with the Warsaw Pact during the era of the Soviet Union, and for the West to overlook Russia’s military intervention in these countries in the future to protect Its dictatorial regimes, as happened recently in Kazakhstan and Belarus and before them in Georgia and Ukraine in 2014. What the Russian President, Vladimir Putin fears, is not only the expansion of “NATO” influence to the east, but the wave of Western democracy that is gradually creeping on the borders of his empire, providing a model for his authoritarian rule based on A mixture of dictatorship and oligarchy. On the other hand, the West, represented in NATO, considers that every sovereign country has the right to join the alliance it wants, and Russia does not have the right to threaten all its neighboring countries whenever their people want to decide their own fate, and any concession to this principle will show weakness The West in the face of the escalating Russian expansion. What we are witnessing today is a kind of show of force from Russia, and a tug-of-war from the West to tighten the screws on President Putin, to embarrass him inside his country and in front of his allies, a situation that raises fear about the extent of the limits of these two escalations, military and media, which may not inevitably end with Russia’s use of force, Because it realizes that the threat of using force as a pressure card is more effective than resorting to it, because in this case it cannot control its consequences and results that may be counterproductive against what it can achieve at a lower cost in the bone-breaking battle that is currently taking place between it and the West. Perhaps this is what makes the Russian side, despite its display of strength, leave the door open to dialogue with Western leaders who seek to avoid war within the European continent, and who are brandishing the paper of economic sanctions to curb the Russian bear’s blackmailing of them. In the current global situation, Putin finds all objective conditions to realize his dream And inside Ukraine, a country threatened by a Russian invasion at any moment based on the massive Russian military buildup on its borders, and based on Western intimidation about the imminence of this invasion, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky tried to downplay the seriousness of the situation before his country, counting on the victory of the diplomatic solution. Who has intensified its efforts in recent days, waiting for a miracle to stop the level of tension in this crisis that once again puts world peace at stake. Aside from the manifestations of the show of force carried out by Russia, the threat of economic sanctions and the media war waged against it by the West, the possibility of war seems unlikely, but it will remain, because what this crisis hides is much greater than the mere “demarcation” of the borders between the Western military alliance and the Russian Empire Which Putin seeks to revive on the ruins of the defunct Soviet Union, this crisis hides what is greater, that is, the re-division of the world, as did the Yalta Accords, after the end of World War II, into two camps and poles, western and eastern. What we must not forget is that Putin, bearing the Cold War ideology, witnessed the disintegration of his country's military alliance and its civilizational collapse nearly three decades ago, and he is seeking today to redraw the boundaries of its military influence and restore its pride in the world. In the current global situation, Putin finds all the objective conditions to achieve his dream, taking advantage of the exhausted world exit from the Corona pandemic crisis, and the presence of an American president, Joe Biden, weak and hesitant and under pressure from political and economic crises that constrain his internal and external movements, and around him a Western alliance divided against itself more than Ever. Whatever the end of the crisis, which will not end soon, the first beneficiary will be China, the quiet rising power When the Soviet Union collapsed three decades ago, it carried an ideology with its economic vision, military strategy and intellectual values ​​that made it attractive to its allies across the world. As for Putin’s strategy today, it is based on his attempt to rebuild his country’s former military influence, and to form a buffer belt between it and the West in the form of the Iron Curtain, which collapsed with the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, under the pretext of protecting its security from the Western threat, and all he offers is to protect the dictators and putschists who lay their hands In his hand, he sowed division among the ranks of Western countries and interfered in their elections to weaken their democracies from within, and cast doubt on the efficacy of their political systems. On the other hand, despite all the contradictions in its foreign policies and the diseases and crises plaguing its societies, the West still constitutes an attractive model for many peoples eager for freedom, democracy, and the free market, and to determine their own destiny. Whatever the end of this crisis, which will not end soon, the first beneficiary of it will be China, the quiet rising power that always knows how to seize opportunities in light of major international crises to strengthen its economic and financial influence in the world. It is no secret that Biden and his team see in China a greater danger than the Russian threats, which seem like a bogeyman that hide the next real danger of Chinese domination of the global economy. Therefore, it is not in the interest of America and the West in general to push Putin, under the pressure of economic sanctions, to fall into the arms of China, which may mortgage his country in the future, financially and economically, and turn it into a large market for its growing economy. Therefore, the Ukrainian crisis may seem, today, to some Western strategists, just scattering dust in their eyes, in the face of the real economic war that is raging without much fanfare, and threatens the economies of large Western countries, led by the United States