It doesn’t look like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be nominating Elon Musk for the Nobel Prize anytime soon. In fact, after Musk did a Twitter poll proposing a possible peace plan, the very undiplomatic Ukrainian ambassador to Germany said Musk should “F*** off.”
Poor Elon Musk. Is he the last of the pot-smoking peaceniks left in the world? His plan is pretty simple:
Ukraine-Russia Peace:
– Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people.
– Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake).
– Water supply to Crimea assured.
– Ukraine remains neutral.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2022
President Zelenskyy did his own poll on whether people liked Musk more or less after his peace offer. Never mind that Musk has opened up Starlink Satellite internet service to Ukraine during the war; his peace proposal has made him persona non grata. Zelenskyy paints Musk’s call for a cease-fire at the current battlelines as pro-Russian appeasement.
Which @elonmusk do you like more?
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 3, 2022
So what is Musk’s crime? A poll suggesting that Ukraine and Russia lock in their positions and stop the killing. This is basically the position that could have prevented all this fighting in the first place.
Other ventures into undiplomatic behavior include Russian President Vladimir Putin announcing that he is annexing four provinces of Ukraine — Luhansk, areas of Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia — and creating a land bridge to Crimea. Such are the four horsemen of this apocalypse. President Zelenskyy saw him and raised him, saying that Ukraine is effectively a member of NATO and will seek an expedited admission.
De facto, we have already completed our path to NATO. De facto, we have already proven interoperability with the Alliance’s standards, they are real for Ukraine – real on the battlefield and in all aspects of our interaction.
We trust each other, we help each other, and we protect each other. This is what the Alliance is. De facto.
Today, Ukraine is applying to make it de jure. Under a procedure consistent with our significance for the protection of our entire community. Under an accelerated procedure.
So is it a de facto NATO membership vs. Russian boots-on-the-ground as the war aims of all parties come into clearer public focus? Russia’s desire to restore land lost in the 1990s and create a land bridge to its Black Sea fleet has been largely accomplished at this point. Zelensky’s desire to join NATO is moving along with U.S. backing and might be a lock.
Russia has failed to create a neutral non-NATO Ukrainian state, hence Putin’s move to incorporate territories already won into Russia. He now has to face the reality that his goal of preventing Ukraine from being an acting client state of the United States and an armed partner of neoconservative, neoliberal, and globalist NGOs clamoring for Russian regime change has also failed.
The Biden administration remains as committed as ever to removing Putin from power through military and economic pressure. This is essentially what over $50 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars is funding. The U.S. State Department is determined to continue a proxy military action against Russia, something impossible without the continual flow of American arms and money.
While Putin’s preemptive strike to prevent NATO admission has failed on the battlefield, and his goal of dictating terms to Ukraine is no longer in the cards, Russia’s military is still active, with some military leaders lobbying Putin to be more aggressive. Putin has disavowed this in a speech attacking the West and accusing the U.S. of playing a part in blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines.
Related: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Says the World is On the Verge of a Nuclear Disaster
But the issue of nuclear war is not off the table. There seems to be a crazy cocktail of jingoistic rhetoric mixed with quixotic messiah complexes on all sides as some officials’ words and actions fuel the speculation that this horror could happen. In the meantime, the U.S. has pushed Russia, China, and India closer together by opening the way to Russia’s highly effective oil and gas diplomacy.
If war is diplomacy by other means, to paraphrase the 19th-century Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz, at what point will the warring parties realize that war must cede its rollback to diplomacy?
As the dollar falls and markets are rattled, the question for Americans is, should we write off our sunk costs in this debacle or push on for a total victory? Right now, congressional funding and Biden’s foreign policy are forging ahead to restore the Ukrainian border with Russia and remove Putin. It’s a tall order given our track record with regime-change wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the meantime, property will be destroyed and lives lost as the great powers, who think this is in their vital national interests, fight over the fate of Ukraine. Once again is it the bloody killing field of Europe?
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