UKRAINE: GREAT POWER STATUS & GEOPOLITICAL RELEVANCE

In the past we have lived in a world of dominating but competing Great Powers, their age spanned the period of 1600-1945. Almost all of them, bar Japan and the United States were European. The end of World War One in 1918 and the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, signed at the exact time and day of the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, June 28, established a new reality. It temporarily held the world’s greatest empire at its peak – in fact it reached that only in September 1923. Yet it was already in economic and financial decline as the US siphoned off its wealth in war debts and Britain’s fall began.

Germany, seething at its humiliation took another path by 1933. Italy already had, again humiliated by its failure to be rewarded for the massive manpower losses of the war and the allies refusing to honor their pledges of territorial gain because the Americans would not agree to it.

Japan too, resented the lack not so much of territory, but of respect the Americans would not grant it, largely based on racism. They also resented being third place and losing their alliance with Britain in the first ever disarmament treaty, the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922.

Russia was in the depth of a vicious civil war and few were interested or concerned with how it ended after they abandoned efforts to interfere.

As America decided, having largely told everyone what to do, that it now wasn’t interested, and slid into isolationism, it opened the door to another largely inevitable second world war of its own making. Its departure from the world stage let the old animosities and sleights resurface ten fold.

By the end of that war, there were only two major powers left standing. Britain tried to stay at the top table, but its fiscal and industrial power was drained, its debts sky high and its people exhausted. Europe was in ruins. The age of the Superpowers had dawned.

This time America did not make the mistake of retreating. It took the Western European nations and it generously spent billions of its own money turning them around and reinvigorating them. If you were American in the late 1940’s and through the 1950’s you were almost idolized. Wealthy Americans found they could exist in stunning luxury in Europe, their dollar stretching so far nothing was out of reach. Europeans admired and were grateful for their presence, their kindness and the liberation they had brought.

That deep trust, that reliance, that goodwill was to last for decades. Western Europe allowed itself to rest in the open arms of the American military and under its nuclear umbrella. We knew where America stood, what its stood for and that it was a totally reliable and trustworthy partner.

And then George W Bush became President in what seemed like a tainted election in 2001. Then came 9-11 and then came Iraq-2 and Afghanistan. And we all knew in the back of our minds that we were wrong to have followed them so assiduously and without question, into war. The trust was broken. Obama followed but even he and Hilary Clinton regarded old notions of ‘the special relationship’ with Britain to be just words. Nobody really mentions it any more, not even in the UK. Then came Trump, and we knew things would never be the same. Biden sort of put his foot on the brake of decline for a while, but now we have Trump 2.0 and everything that we have ever thought could happen has – and worse.

Trump and his ilk do not understand loyalty, they don’t understand trust, they don’t see the value in kindness or generosity. They do not understand the goodwill America has gained and that still existed even as they ripped up every norm. They are by nature mean spirited and of the opinion they are being used – even though it’s America who lulled its allies into its own security net. They bought American weapons, in their billions, they were the profit the defence industry made for decades. They had access to European intelligence, bases, and military power on a level that is still alarming even now, given their attitude.

You’re wondering why this lesson? Because we need to know and appreciate where we were to understand where we’re going and to begin to grasp the radical change that President Zelensky has managed to achieve in recent weeks.

Ukraine’s GDP is about that of Israel in peacetime. It’s about two thirds of it right now. The value of a Euro goes a lot further in Ukraine than it does in Europe. That €90 billion loan the EU is planning will fund the war for two years.

Why does the EU+ want to fund and support Ukraine? Because like the Americans supporting Britain in 1940-41 they know it is far too important a cause to fail. And they have found out something else, the lesson has been seen and understood even if it will take time to permeate western defence ministries and their armed forces.

They watched two Ukrainian soldiers with a fleet of drones and a command and control system shred two battalions of NATO troops over 36 hours. They watched as another group of Ukrainians – a country in essence without a navy – not only defeat the Russians in the Black Sea but three times they defeated allied forces in live naval wargames. They have seen that warfare has changed and they want and they need, not only Ukraine to survive for all our sakes, but for its know how and industrial potential. Our generosity now secures that long term alliance. Ukraine builds its drones in western factories – and we learn with them. Europe+, in many ways has never been more committed.

Nethanyahu and Trump have made the biggest strategic misjudgment this century. Iraq-2 never had an endgame and look where that has ended up. Afghanistan was always a lost cause, it wasn’t called ‘the grave of empires’ for nothing. Iran is a grotesque failure of judgement, strategy, and geopolitical common sense on a scale thats can only be quantified as near insane. I’ve written posts on Bluesky as to why, so I wont repeat those here.

The Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC, consisting of the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Bahrein), have found their vast defence expenditures have not protected them. At the same time they have chosen to allow attacks on Iran from their territory (except Oman, which has always tried to be a peace broker, but Iran has pushed their patience with attacks on its territory and it also owns the tip of the peninsula that forms the southern part of the Straits of Hormuz). In Iran’s eyes they may as well be combatants, but they have all chosen to remain on the defensive. Partly it quietly amuses them that Israel is doing what they would never dare do, and America has been conned into doing it with them.

This time though, there’s been blow back. Qatar is looking at five years worth of damage to its LNG business. Bahraini refineries – its income is based on refining and producing finished oil based products, the oil ran out years ago, has been hit. Saudi facilities damaged. Kuwaiti export terminals hit. Neither has yet gone full out on desalination plants because that would be totally destabilizing. 10% of Irans drinking water comes from them but it’s almost 80% in the GCC.

The US has suffered missile and drone strikes on its aircraft parked up on supposedly secure Saudi airbases. President Zelensky offered the Americans their drone tech for weapons in October. The Americans laughed him off. They seem to think despite the obvious, that, ‘Zelesnky has no cards’.

Zelensky has had enough of Trump over the past year. He no longer waits for permissions or the next stupid statement – he plays the game to keep him on side but he’s past the stage of letting the Americans define the future of Ukraine. They don’t care anymore and he’s not spending his energy worrying about it. In many ways the divorce with the Americans has given him freedom of maneuver. And he took it in spectacular form.

Most western news agencies barely noticed as his A320 landed in Riyadh. Previously he might have met briefly with the Crown Prince during peace talks or goodwill visits – because the Americans wanted him diminished. Not this time. There he was with Crown Prince Mohamad Bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the country. A full honor guard and a signing ceremony. Much the same in Amman, Jordan. Other delegations had come into Saudi Arabia as it was too dangerous for him to fly to them.

Zelesnky had offered his help to the beleaguered Arab monarchies. In the middle of their own war, Ukraine was willing to send weapons and men to use them to teach Iran the lesson Russia is learning. Of course it was also a nice twist in the tail of the war – Iran has given and supplied Russia with ballistic missiles and the whole Shaeed drone terror. Having a way of getting back at them is just a sweet irony.

The Arabs were delighted to take up Ukraine’s offer. They have now clearly seen Ukraine as a leader in the technology of the now and of tomorrow. By working with Ukraine for their own defence they have also offered trust, they have offered money and cooperation. Most of all though, they have bought into the need to ensure Ukraine does not lose this war, that Russia does not win. That from countries with such vast wealth, is no mean outcome. They will invest and when the war is over they will help rebuild Ukraine.

It goes beyond that too. Few of these countries can supply grain enough to feed their populations, or the vast amounts of cooking oils they need. Ukrainian agriculture can partly fulfill that need now and has been, but post war it could become a valuable two-way trade. Ukraine will need gas and it will need oil, and help re-building its infrastructure.

In the eyes of the GCC states they have found a new and independent ally they respect. They see its potential, they see the advantage to themselves and Ukraine clearly sees the benefits coming the other way.

President Zelensky has laid the building blocks of a relationship that will make Ukraine one of those ‘Great Powers’, where trust and mutual need allow each side to grow towards one another. He has inserted himself into a world that America cannot compete in. It doesn’t have the answers or the equipment or the capabilities to provide what Ukraine does. It doesn’t have the cards. Like so many empires it is using vastly expensive weapons to deal with the only other nation that truly understands the asymmetric nature of the drone – and the fact weapons of war that exist now, are not the way forward. Those who recognize the future command its outcome. Ukraine is going to be one of those countries.

Russia sought to expand its empire the old fashioned way. Instead it’s destroying its own. America thought it could end a nation that has been here nearly 2,600 years and has been through these ups and downs time and time again. Even as America seemingly turns the country to dust, its showing its far from defeated. Now it too will start again, having learned lessons like Ukraine, from those who were the aggressors. Both of them I suspect, will be all the stronger for it. In Ukraine’s case thats a welcome development that will transform Europe and its defences, even as Iran looks to find ways to get past and around them.

Who knew when this started the outcome might be so strange? Two countries leveled to the ground who will eventually arise from their ashes, both great powers but with very different allegiances and agendas. And with understandable animosity between them.

Remember too, another lesson from WW2. It was the devastated Japanese, Italians and Germans who recovered most quickly and became industrial power houses with the latest factories and technologies. The British won the war and their old industries took decades to fade away through years of inefficiency. In America now old industry is still a problem – look at the artillery shell manufacturers. Investment is thin and slow.

Nobody now trusts America. Or Israel. Even the British have made a choice to accept how America is treating them and move back towards Europe – from which it should never have departed.

The world order is indeed changing. Embrace the change and work with it. Slava Ukraine.

The Analyst

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