The imminent invasion of Ukraine (if that is what it is), throws all our assumptions up in the air, according to Sherelle Jacobs in the Telegraph today 22.02.22.
The crisis in Ukraine not only raises fundamental military and security questions on Europe's borders, but also exposes lazy Western assumptions on globalisation, free trade and just-in-time supply chains.
“They followed the logic that Europe could hoover up the natural resources of developing countries like Russia, with the latter using the windfall to turbocharge their economic progress, in a win-win for freedom. Instead, the West only reinforced a dangerous dependency on energy supplies from rogue states, while the likes of Putin shored up their positions.
Perhaps even worse, the West has lost all confidence in its own ideas. In particular the notion that greater economic freedoms would inevitably result in greater political freedoms has been discredited. Democratic countries complacently slashed their defence budgets, thinking that economic integration and soft power would conquer conflict.
And yet, when it comes to Russia, the exact opposite of what was expected has happened. Mafia capitalism has flourished in part by exploiting links with the West. Oligarchs have built billion-pound empires competing for access to state contracts from Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin laughs at the EU’s pretensions to a geopolitical role, as Russia flexes its military might.”
Elsewhere the omens look even more forbidding:
“The Ukraine situation is so dangerous, because it is about more than the fate of one country. The West’s enemies are watching: indeed, this could be a dry run for an even greater confrontation with China over Taiwan. If anything, the West’s position in that scenario would be even weaker. We are even more reliant on the Chinese economy. Xi Jinping’s administration has been even more aggressive in targeting Western elite figures and institutions. In recent years it has boldly ramped up its deployment of Chinese agents to court Western politicians and carry out daring intellectual property thefts within top universities.”
One thing we know for sure: Ukraine is not not an isolated story of Russian aggression or Western impotence. It is merely the first earthquake as the world’s tectonic plates begin to shift.”
The full article can be read here with a link to the original beneath it:
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