Damage and destruction in war-torn Ukraine (Picture: RawPixel)
Europe has been sweltering under the kind of heatwave we must get used to.
Meanwhile, at its peripheries two major wars stubbornly continue.
It has little influence over one, between the US and Iran, though it suffers its economic effects.
But in the other, between Russia and Ukraine, the European Union (EU) and Britain have taken over as Ukraine’s major sponsors.
This is in line with Donald Trump’s national security strategy, which leaves European imperialism to deal with Russia.
It is happening as the Ukraine war is becoming increasingly unstable and dangerous.
Until a few months ago, the fighting remained a slugging match. The Russian forces have been driving to wrest control of the Donbas region.
Slowly but surely, at a terrible cost in casualties, Russia’s superiority in air power, troop numbers and material forces was allowing it to gain ground.
But the balance has now shifted thanks to Ukraine’s superiority in the same precision-strike technologies that allowed Iran to hold off and retaliate against the US and Israeli aerial bombardments.
Ukraine has been making large‑scale use of its first-person-view suicide drones.
These can be guided to their targets with high precision along fibre-optic cables that make jamming very difficult.
On the frontline the drones have helped to make up for Ukraine’s troop shortages and slowed the Russian advance.
The longer-range versions have allowed “deep strikes” hundreds of kilometres intro Russian territory.
These have set oil refineries ablaze, reduced the scale of the 9 May Victory Day parade in Moscow and temporarily cut off the strategic Crimean peninsula that Russia seized in 2014.
On Sunday Russian president Vladimir Putin admitted that Ukrainian strikes have caused “a certain shortage” of fuel.
Europe is deeply involved in this offensive. The EU is lending €90 billion to finance Ukrainian military production.
Some of this production is shifting further west, to Germany, Britain and Denmark.
The aim isn’t just to weaken Russia, but to tap Ukrainian expertise in precision-strike technology.
The Royal Navy is ordering at least six drone-operating “common combat vessels” instead of old-style destroyers.
Ukraine’s recent successes have encouraged a celebratory mood in European capitals and more of the war talk that is used to justify higher military spending.
But, as the Russia expert Matthew Blackburn points out, “Striking a nuclear power’s strategic assets and leadership lacks any Cold War precedent.”
Vladimir Lenin liked to quote the great Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz, who famously wrote, “War is the continuation of politics by other means.”
In a world dominated increasingly by the economic and geopolitical rivalries among imperialist states and regional powers, what are the interests of the different actors?
Answering this question, in the case of the Iran war, suggests that, despite flare ups like that over the weekend, the US and Iran will probably not return to outright war.
Despite Trump’s bluster, the costs of trying to achieve regime change in Iran have proved too high.
But the same calculus doesn’t apply to Putin. He’s invested so much in the war that it’s hard for him to back down.
Russia has been using its air superiority to launch glide bombs at Ukraine’s frontline and cities. It’s also ramping up its own drone capabilities.
Blackburn argues, however, that Russia has so far avoided “devastating Ukraine’s critical infrastructure”.
But, “If Moscow concludes that its restraint inside Ukraine is being weaponised by Kyiv to inflict deep, humiliating costs on the Russian heartland, its calculus will shift.
Instead of going for Ukrainian infrastructure, Moscow may seek to redress the asymmetry in deep strikes and restore deterrence by targeting the true source of Ukraine’s new capacities—European logistical hubs and the manufacturing facilities.”
This would leave the European imperialist states facing a widening war with the power possessing the largest number of nuclear warheads.
It’s anyone’s guess whether they could count on the support of the US, as they hoped they could during the Cold War.
Why fuel a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and could take us close to the nuclear brink?
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