How will Russia's invasion of #Ukraine shape the world for decades to come? @SamoBurja is a geopolitical expert who has developed a reputation for bucking the conventional wisdom. #Russia
I started following Samo Burja recently as I was looking for non partisan expert contrarian voices on the war in #Ukraine.
Samo Burja: this isn't a military disaster for #Russia
Samo Burja about the sanctions regime against #Russia: more and more countries will look to #China and not the West for economic integration.
Burja says what is important is not only where you get your information from but where you get your models of warfare from. The US and NATO establish air supremacy first. Russia's approach is premised on denying air supremacy to NATO while using artillery to deliver fire power.
Samo Burja: the reluctance to avoid a NFZ isn't just about #WWIII, #NATO is rightly concerned as to what its losses would be if it tries to use air power to stop the Russian land based invasion that's coupled with strong air defences.
Samo Burja: It is difficult to judge the progress of Russian troops, you have to do it by their standards and we have no way of knowing this, but nothing that has been going on so far has escaped Russian contingency plans.
Samo Burja: #US hegemony is over and the very fact that #Russia decided to gamble on this invasion, whether or not it comes to pass, shows that western power has weakened.
Samo Burja: States pursue their interests, it's not that this particular war was inevitable, it's that some sort of clarification of the situation was due in #Ukraine, either through a coup like in 2014, or Ukraine joins NATO, or war...
Burja: this positioning between #NATO and #Russia, part of the game is inflicting unacceptable political and economic situations on the enemy, forcing the enemy to act first militarily thereby having the moral justification to retaliate more strongly
Burja: powers do try to entrap each other into military action. If I believed more in the competence of the Pentagon, I would believe that they gauded Russia into a war that would fumble. I don't believe in their competence, I don't even think that #Russia fumbled the invasion...
Burja: the human and economic cost of this conflict is going to be immense, it would have been much better if we had navigated these geopolitics more gracefully but I don't think we have the diplomatic calibre of such people around (don't expect grace from the US and the neocons)
Burja: the goal of the Ukrainian gov should have been to avoid this war at all cost
Burja: NATO did not take any step to alleviate the situation, they might have taken the initiative to declare that Ukraine was never going to be in NATO.
Burja: western leaders assumed Russian weakness. Even now they still think Russia is going to implode, I am not convinced by this at all, not by the same people who claimed for 20 years 'we're about to win in Afghanistan'
Burja: western leadership is more disconnected from reality than #Putin. Putin might still be immoral but the idea that he is going insane is just false
Burja on the claim that Putin is isolated because of Covid: there is a solid streak of paranoia, #Putin isn't afraid of Covid but of some bioweapon targeted at his genome with symptoms of Covid and if that sounds outlandish, consider that Putin believes the lab leak hypothesis...
Burja: The lab leak hypothesis is the official position of the Russia gov. as to hiow this pandemic came to be. Putin's intel might be wrong, but he is physically avoiding people in order to avoid a bio risk that was unleashed specifically with the purpose of killing him.
Burja: #Putin believes it is possible that a bio risk, having the same symptoms as Covid, and targeted at Putin's genome, is released in the general population, and eventually it is going to get at him. The host notices this is the plot of the latest Bond film...
Burja: In the long run, the strategic outcome for #Russia from this war will depend on EU economies. If EU economies don't collapse, the invasion will turn out to be a disaster. If EU economies, dependent on Russia's energy, collapse, this would have been a turning point.
Burja: if this is going to be a disaster for #Russia then it is going to be a disaster for everyone, we have to show that we can kick out full economically a non compliant country w/o consequences: countries around the world are no longer going to see US companies as neutral
Burja: countries will develop alternatives to US companies and services who are no longer seen as neutral but as participating in US hegemony. Rising powers like China, India and some African states are going to see through the system and not want to participate in it.
Ha! The host, Rebel Wisdom, asks Burja if he doesn't see superior values in the West because his analysis is relativistic, Rebel Wisdom trivially makes the shocking assumption that western values, whatever they are, are normative and universal!
Outcome of the western sanctions regime on the #Ukraine war: China-Russia coupling, high energy prices and de industrialization in Europe, low energy prices in China. US not much affected because it has the resources for energy independence... But the real winner is China
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