Pro-Russian troops in Mariupol, the port mercilessly attacked by Russia. Photo by Reuters
In the fall of 1940, Japanese Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka exposed his government colleagues to a serious problem. The country, he told them, could prosper if it finds the path of cooperation with the United States and the United Kingdom, but the rules will be imposed by those powers. Gusto “quite Japan, ”the Minister of War and future prime minister General Hideki Tojo responded with disgust.
That derivation was very old to Japanese rulers at the time they preferred to go to war even though many of them suspect they will lose it.
This extraordinary anecdote is recalled by conservative North American political scientist Robert Kagan, a fierce critic of Donald Trump, in a text in which he tries to investigate the paths along which Vladimir Putin decided on the current brutal offensive in Ukraine the results so far are highly controversial.
It would certainly be convenient for Japan to agree with the West as history has shown after the war and defeat, a time in which the country achieved impressive growth and political power.
It is a debate that has also revolved around Russia since the Soviet Union surrendered, among those who argued that this massive space territory was where Europe ended up, which would make it inevitable. integration as proposed former president Boris Yeltsin himself or his foreign ministers Andréi Kozyrev first and Yevguei Primakov, later.
Pro-Russian troops in Mariupol. Photo by Reuters
Or, rather, imagine oneself as part of Asia but trapped in its nostalgia when Russia occupied the second throne in the world. In another perspective, something like the difference between Germany’s first swim of cannons after the war and the second, which embraced France.
Kagan, who five years ago warned of a warlike lack of control in Russia, concluded that Putin, trying to bring back the missing trinkets, along with his military adventure in Ukraine had done the same. choosing as Imperial Japan or Kaiser Wilhelm II who also claimed his “Place under the sun as a new world power” and he ended up resigning in 1918 when his reign fell to rubble.
the new war
Those events that marked the last century, unlike the present stage, however, were the result of a competition between empires to dispute revenue and therefore power. The economic contradiction it is often the important motivation of capitalist wars. But such an issue does not exist in the current dispute between Russia and Ukraine. This is an important and revealing detail.
Three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, Putin thought he could regain the influence his country had shown and reintroduce the idea of a strange Russian coming from the czars and that did not cancel the communist era. .
A convoy of pro-Russian armored cars in Mariupol. Photo by Reuters
The Kremlin leader’s urgent call on the danger of a Third World War exposes the complexity of these shortcomings by showing the mirage of a cyclopean Russia as a counterpart to a whole of the West, in the style of the East-West clash that marked the Cold War until the defeat of Moscow.
Putin understands that the occupation of Ukraine is essential for that restoration. But the limitations of that project are relentlessly fixed by reality. Not just in the military field. Kagan carefully pointed out that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, for example, silenced anti-interventionism to permeate American society.
In the same way, we add, the invasion of Ukraine, at least temporarily, close the debate that Trumpist populism has almost confirmed about the decline of American leadership. Also, on the effectiveness of devices like NATO, where governments like Finland or Sweden come from, their voters are pushing.
Like geopolitical movements that were unimaginable just a few weeks ago, this Kremlin battle with reality is having unintended consequences. The distortion of a war that extends beyond the calculated necessarily generates its own dynamics.
if (window.innerWidth < 481) { $('#' + currId + ' .jw-title-primary').text('Mira el video'); if ($("#"+ currId + " .videoCustomFooter").length > 0) { $($("#"+ currId + " .videoCustomFooter")).text(currTitle); } else { $($("#" + currId)[0].parentElement).append("
“);}} var currDuration = $ (‘#’ + currId + ‘.jw-text-countdown’)[0].textContent; $ (‘#’ + currId + ‘.jw-title-secondary p’). text (currDuration); }} if ($ (“#embeb_HUNs2JjE”). children (). length> 0) {setTitle (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”); } else {jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). on (‘ready’, function (event) {setTitle (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”);}); } jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). on (‘pause’, function (event) {var passId = “embeb_HUNs2JjE”; var site = “clarin”; if (site == ‘clarin’) {if ($ (‘#customTitleFor ‘ + passId) .length == 0) {var title = jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). getPlaylist ()[0].title; // $ ($ (“#” + passId + “.genoaPlayerV3 .vjs-overlay.vjs-overlay-top.vjs-overlay-background”)). addClass (‘disabled’); $ (“#” + passId) .append (“
” + title +”
“); $ (“#customTitleFor ” + passId) .attr (‘style’, ‘display: block’); $ (“#” + passId +” .jw-media “). addClass (‘degraded’);} else {var curTitle = $ (“#customTitleFor” + passId)[0].textContent; var newTitle = jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). getPlaylist ()[0].title; if (newTitle! = curTitle) {$ (“#customTitleFor” + passId) .text (newTitle); } $ (“#customTitleFor” + passId) .attr (‘style’, ‘display: block’); $ (“#” + passId + “.jw-media”). addClass (‘degraded’); } // $ (“#” + passId + “.jw-controlbar”). addClass (‘disabled’); $ (“#” + passId + “.jw-svg-icon-play”). css (“display”, “block”); $ (“#” + passId + “.jw-svg-icon-pause”). css (“display”, “none”); } else {$ (“#” + passId + “.jw-media”). addClass (‘degraded’); $ (“#” + passId + “.jw-title”). css (‘display’, ‘block’); $ (“#” + passId + “.jw-controlbar”). css (‘display’, ‘none’); $ (“#” + passId + “.jw-display”). css (‘display’, ‘flex’); $ (“#” + passId + “.jw-display-icon-rewind”). css (‘display’, ‘none’); $ (“#” + passId + “.jw-display-icon-next”). css (‘display’, ‘none’); } sendData (jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). getPlaylist (), ‘pause’); }); jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). on (‘play’, function (event) {var passId = “embeb_HUNs2JjE”; var site = “clarin”; if (site == ‘clarin’) {if ($ (‘#customTitleFor’ + passId) .length! = 0) {$ (“#customTitleFor” + passId) .attr (‘style’, ‘display: none’); $ (“#” + passId + “.jw-media”). removeClass (‘degraded’);} // $ (“#” + passId + “.jw-controlbar”). removeClass (‘disabled’); $ (“#” + passId + “.jw-svg-icon-play” ) .css (“display”, “none”); $ (“#” + passId + “.jw-svg-icon-pause”). css (“display”, “block”);} else {$ (” #” + passId +” .jw-media “). removeClass (‘degraded’); $ (“#” + passId +” .jw-title “). css (‘display’, ‘none’); $ (” #” + passId +” .jw-controlbar “). css (‘display’, ‘block’); $ (“#” + passId +” .jw-display “). css (‘display’, ‘flex’) ; $ (“#” + passId + “.jw-display-icon-rewind”). css (‘display’, ‘none’); $ (“#” + passId + “.jw-display-icon-next” ) .css (‘display’, ‘none’);} sendData (jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). getPlaylist (), ‘resume’);}); jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). on (‘firstFrame’, function (event) {sendData (jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). getPlaylist (), ‘start’);}); jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). on (‘complete’, function (event) {sendData (jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). getPlaylist (), ‘complete’);}); jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). on (‘adStarted’, function (event) {sendData (jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). getPlaylist (), ‘adstart’);}); jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). on (‘adPlay’, function (event) {sendData (jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). getPlaylist (), ‘adplay’);}); jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). on (‘adPause’, function (event) {sendData (jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). getPlaylist (), ‘adpause’);}); jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). on (‘adComplete’, function (event) {sendData (jwplayer (“embeb_HUNs2JjE”). getPlaylist (), ‘adcomplete’);});
Source: Clarin