In an article full of stupidities and utter stupidities, a WaPo Wasp says:
Meanwhile, for the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians). The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked. NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values. NATO squabbles make headlines, but overall, this has been a triumphal summer for the alliance.
So, war at a relatively low cost! Um, “other than for the Ukrainians”, of course.
He pretends to address the tremendous gamble involved:
Given the failure of Russia’s conventional forces, there’s an obvious danger that Putin might turn to the domain in which Russia remains a superpower: nuclear weapons. But that would be even riskier for Russia than for the West. Any demonstration of Russia’s battlefield nuclear weapons would draw a devastating U.S. conventional military response — and probably cause the loss of China as an ally.
We already know the war was intentionally provoked by the USG.
Ms. Johnstone can add two and two:
So on one hand the western political/media class have been hammering us in the face with the message that the invasion of Ukraine was “unprovoked” and that the US and its allies played no antagonistic role in paving the road to this conflict whatsoever, and on the other hand you’ve got all these empire managers enthusing about how much this war benefits US interests.
Those two narratives seem a wee bit contradictory, do they not?
A critical thinker can reconcile this contradiction in one of two ways. First, they can believe that the world’s most powerful and destructive government is just a passive, innocent witness to the violence in Ukraine, and is only benefitting immensely from the war as a complete coincidence. Second, they can believe the US intentionally provoked this war with the understanding that it would benefit from it.
From where I’m sitting, it’s not difficult to determine which of these is more likely.