The West is likely dividing itself into smaller parties that can present potentially endless demands to keep the Ukraine-Russia conflict going, while enabling Donald Trump to pose as a peace-maker.
Non-Linear Negotiation
On February 25th, Trump met with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss Ukraine’s and Europe’s security and trade. Significantly, the US was supposed to discuss and impose its security views on Europe, which is located an ocean away, the same case as France, which represents a small fraction of Europe. Similarly, both Trump and Macron were supposed to discuss and try enforcing their version of ‘peace’ in the ongoing war. This meeting, coupled with the West’s overthrowing of the Ukrainian government in 2014 and propping a puppet regime with the declared aim of obtaining nuclear weapons or joining NATO for the West’s imperial goals, suggests that concluding that Trump is genuinely pursuing peace is simplistic. Trump’s action, for instance, in dressing down Zelensky in their February 28th meeting, should be interpreted as a performance to the gallery designed to create a false illusion of his leaving Ukraine and Europe. In reality, the US remains the core supporter of both, and its companies will continue supplying weapons to Kiev. Trump hopes to use Brussels and Kiev to hold the Russian military as he creates wars of global hegemony elsewhere.
Good Cop/Bad Cop
The illusion of division between Trump’s America and Europe/Ukraine can be understood in the context of good cop/bad cop strategy. Trump pretends to be good to Russians while allowing Europe to threaten them, including through Macron’s veiled nuclear threat, but still styles himself as pursuing “peace”. “Peace” to Western countries is when their preferred side gets its way, including by destroying disproportionate life and property, so long as it allows them to advance their imperialism. Surprisingly, after the supposed Trump-Zelensky fallout, the UK-France-Ukraine meeting mentioned how participants planned to work with Washington, suggesting tacit trans-Atlantic collusion. The same can be inferred from Macron’s Televised address on March 5th, in which he termed Russia as a threat before proposing sharing Nuclear weapons with other Europeans, a weighty decision that cannot be made without Washington’s input, considering France’s few nuclear warheads.
Therefore, the carefully choreographed Trump-Macron and Trump-Zelensky meetings and their failures just ahead of European security meetings and Macron’s Nuclear proposals show strategic coordination with Washington. These parties’ concept of “peace” relates to strengthening or fighting alongside Ukraine, as opposed to balancing Russia’s and Ukraine’s security interests to allow organic peace to prevail. Keir Starmer, Macron, and Zelensky could only demonize Russia without considering how the West’s imperial tendencies through NATO and the EU have caused the war. In the same week, the US Secretary of State, Marko Rubio, stated that the war in Ukraine was America’s Proxy war against Russia, meaning the Western establishment can no longer hide its waging a proxy war against a Nuclear-armed superpower. While Rubio’s statement can be viewed as the Trump Administration’s argument for ending the dangerous proxy war, it might also be a threat to Russia by showcasing Washington’s brazenness and its ability to turn the war and its risk over to the EU, a larger and Nuclear-armed vassal.
Suppose the Trump Administration was genuine in recognizing its proxy conflict. In that case, it should be negotiating with Russia while keeping its European vassals in check to reduce the risk of nuclear war. Instead, it divides its camp into multiple parties that present varied demands and threats, making it hard to reach an agreement. Washington is likely posing as if wanting peace with Russia while pushing Europe and Ukraine to escalate. Those who observed the US-Israeli war against Hamas and the Axis of Resistance can notice a pattern in which the US pretended to be pushing for a ceasefire while arming Israel to continue fighting. Any statement by Washington’s representative that a truce was imminent preceded Israeli escalation, a pattern that recurred during the Israelis’ escalation in Raffa, invasion into southern Lebanon and assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, among others. Similarly, Trump’s posing, like the US wants a ceasefire, is likely to be coordinated with Europe’s escalation, for instance, Macron’s statement about sharing nuclear weapons with Europeans or coordinating a severe strike in Russian territory. It will not be surprising to learn later that Macron’s ideas came from Washington, which may even secretly share its nuclear weapons alongside France’. Washington prefers Europeans to increase their participation on Ukraine’s side to shield Americans from the military response from Russia and free Washington’s hands to expand its imperial wars in the Middle East and the Pacific.
Obsession with Global Domination
Word domination is the central goal in the West’s minds, and parties there plan to pursue this goal at all costs. Markus Reisner, a high-ranking military man in the supposed Non-NATO Austria, stated that his country was not neutral in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which he described as a conflict between the global north and the global south. This generalization is hypocritical since no global south country has given material support to Russia like the entire global north has done to Ukraine since 2014. The West ganged up to create the ongoing war and has helped Ukraine in every step, making it likely to invest all its military, political and media power in an attempt to defeat Russia, which they correctly view as representing a practical alternative for the global south.
Other people who superficially act objectively, for instance, Robert F. Kennedy, reiterated how the US needed to continue supporting Israeli genocide so that the Jewish state could continue controlling the Middle East’s oil resources on the West’s behalf. RFK’s statement displayed open neocolonialism, and he was okay to supporting it even if it was done through Israeli Zionists who likely killed his uncle, JFK. His view shows the significant cost and sacrifice the West is willing to pay for its fleeting empire, now presented as America’s golden age. No one should underestimate the depth the West is willing to go to mislead audiences and potentially risk devastating wars, all for maintaining its neocolonialism perpetuated through the US hegemony.
Simon Chege Ndiritu, is a political observer and research analyst from Africa
