In this piece I present four scenarios for the ‘endgame’ to the Russo-Ukrainian war. They are:
- The overruling majority (peace).
- The immovable majority (wider war).
- Regime change in Russia (risky conflict).
- World War III (nuclear holocaust).
Scenarios concentrate on the drivers of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, or NATO. More precisely, they deal with whether NATO is being driven by simply erratic decisions, or whether it’s an aggressor. I went through these basic scenarios in length in my last entry.
In my view, the demonization of Russia arises mainly from two sources:
- People do not understand Russia, and thus fear it, and
- War propaganda.
This piece essentially deals with both. First, I go through the Finnish experience with Russia, which should act as a comforting lesson for the rest of the world, and how it applies to the current situation in Europe. Then, I will present four scenarios for the endgame of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
The Russian mindset is not so complex or chaotic as many in the West make it to be. Like I explained in my previous entry, Russian leadership seeks to increase its influence in the neighboring regions driven by bezopasnost. They also follow strength instead of diplomacy. Finland cemented her position beside the Soviet Union by not making herself a threat and making herself strong both economically and militarily (that is, a very ‘bitter pill’ for Russia to swallow). So, the success of Finland to coexist and prosper alongside Russia (Soviet Union) was based on strength and keeping friendly relations with Moscow. Easy recipe.
The problem Europe now faces is two-fold. First, after Finland became a full member of the NATO, Russia has been cornered from every side in Europe by a force it does not consider peaceful, which is something we really cannot blame the Russian leadership from. Previous Finnish leaders knew that if Finland makes herself a threat to Russia, consequences will be dire. Ukrainian leadership must have known this too, but they were clearly manipulated by western leaders. Secondly, we can now conclude that NATO is notwhat it says it is.
In what follows, I sketch future scenarios based on the two assumptions of the motives of NATO. They show that the underlying assumptions (erratic or aggressive NATO), dominates the future paths of Europe, and the world, while three of the four scenarios may end up in the same terrifying end-result, that is, a nuclear holocaust
On March 4, our Minister of Defense, Antti Häkkänen, said in a speech he held at the opening of the National Defense Course that “It’s time to recognize the facts. Russia is a threat to the whole democratic world”. Coming from a Finnish Minister of Defense, this is as close as we can get to a declaration of war without actually declaring it.
I consider that this speech was a marker, signaling that Finland is committed to a war against Russia. I naturally sincerely hope that I am wrong about this. However, this is so exceptional coming from a Finnish Minister of Defense that I am having difficulties explaining it by any other motive (I don’t, for example, buy the extreme stupidity argument).
If we assume that the leaders of NATO, and member countries, are simply making mistakes, then this speech can be seen as a cataclysmic one, because Moscow is likely to take it as a sign, or a “marker” of aggressive future plans by leaders of Finland and NATO.
This means that Russia will most likely start to gear up for a war at her north-western border, again. The Finnish-Russian border, and especially the Karelian Isthmus (peninsula) has been one of the main ‘hotspots’ of Europe for centuries. It was the main battleground for Swedish and Russian empires from the Russo-Swedish war in 1475, till the Finnish war in 1809, when Sweden finally lost Finland to Russia, effectively ending the Swedish Empire. The isthmus was also the main battleground in the Winter and Continuation Wars.
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