The spin-masters at BBC were working overtime a couple of days ago to put a good face on the election of Mike Johnson as House Speaker. Their guest political analyst explained to the BBC audience that Johnson’s links with Trump are greatly exaggerated. Yesterday morning’s Financial Times took a more serious view of the situation, identifying Johnson squarely as a “Trump ally” and reminding us of his vote back in 2020 in the Electoral College to overturn Biden’s victory. Considering that Johnson has consistently voted against any further aid to Ukraine, in line with Trump’s thinking, the FT is preparing its readership for the second shoe to drop. In a separate FT Magazine article yesterday reviewing journalist Sylvie Kauffmann’s new book Les Aveuglés (‘The Blinded Ones’), the argument was made that the re-imposition of Russian control over Ukraine will be no big deal.
I will deal with Kauffmann further on. But first let us just consider what the installation of Mike Johnson likely means for the war in Ukraine. He has already made it clear that the House will not proceed with Biden’s call to package aid to Ukraine together with aid to Israel, with funds to improve defense of the U.S. southern borders from illegal migrants, and with several other contentious appropriations in a single bill. Now, the various elements in Biden’s proposed legislation will be dealt with separately, with first priority given to helping Israel.
We cannot say with certainty that Johnson will succeed in preventing any further funds going to Ukraine, because a strong majority of both chambers supports Ukraine. But we may assume that any further aid to Ukraine will be substantially lower than Kiev has hoped for. We may assume there will be major cuts to continued funding of the entire pension system and payroll of state employees in Ukraine, which many representatives find particularly repugnant at a time when U.S. finances are greatly stretched, when the national debt is rising to dangerous limits and when needy Americans are being overlooked as a result of curtailed welfare programs.
Now what would cut-off of funding for the Ukrainian government payroll mean? It would be a good prompt for there to be a regime change movement within the Kiev establishment. Zelensky’s primary utility has been as deliverer of a cornucopia of Western financial assistance as well as military hardware. If you take this away, all that is left of Mr Zelensky is a deliverer of Ukrainian males to their slaughter on the battlefield in hopeless offensive maneuvers which he ordered at the instigation of Washington.
Note that while American’s continued assistance to Ukraine is placed in doubt by the new constellation of power on Capitol Hill, with Trump’s hard right taking the whip in hand, there is also a revolt taking place in Europe. Hungary’s Viktor Orban is now joined by the newly elected prime minister of Slovakia Fico in publicly declaring opposition to further sanctions on Russia and on further arms deliveries to Ukraine. We heard this loud and clear yesterday at the gathering of EU leaders at a summit in Brussels. Since the EU budgetary laws require unanimity of all member states, the stated opposition of these two puts all the promises of Borrell, of von der Leyen to keep supporting Kiev “as long as it takes” on hold.
The prospect of an early end to the war in Ukraine under Moscow’s terms rises by the day. It is buoyed by domestic political conflict, power struggles within the USA, within Europe in the jockeying for position ahead of general elections on both continents in 2024. The undeniable failure of Kiev’s counter-offensive that began on 4 June is surely one important factor. But greater still was the unforeseeable outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war and threat of a regional war in the Middle East with devastating economic consequences for the West. This has provided a convenient diversion from the bleating of Kiev for help and papers over an admission of Russia’s superiority in men and hardware on the field of battle.
From these obvious facts, I am obliged to add the following conclusion: If indeed Kiev fails militarily and politically in the days ahead for lack of material aid from the West, it will not be thanks to the efforts of our feeble anti-war movement and to the intellectuals off and on campuses who have countered the lies about Russian “aggression” with well documented historical analysis of the sources of the conflict. It will be due to the calculations of self-interest and also of national interest by politicians in the West on two continents, with the accent on the USA.
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The review article in The Financial Times of Sylvie Kauffman’s latest book has the title “The west appeased Putin once. They’ll do it again.” Of course the looming “appeasement” is over the fate of Ukraine, which the author assumes will move back into the Russian orbit. The take-away of reviewer Simon Kuper is:
I finished her book feeling that, yes, western leaders were often blind to Putin. And like him, they treated eastern Europeans as second-tier nations that needn’t be consulted. But in appeasing Russia from 2008 to 2022 westerners were also pursuing their interests. I suspect they’ll do it again.
Not having read Les Aveuglés, I cannot say if the concluding paragraph in the review was taken from Kauffmann or if it was the contribution of the review author. But its inclusion in this featured review in the FT tells us clearly that the viciously anti-Russian newspaper is appealing to the cynicism of its readership in finding a tolerable spin on what they will see as the unfavorable denouement to the war in Ukraine.
Since the west won’t bring down Putin, it will have to live with an imperialist Russia. It learnt from 1945 to 1990 that it can, even as it knows that eastern Europe cannot. When British soldier Fitzroy Maclean was fretting in 1942 about postwar Yugoslavia going communist, Winston Churchill asked him, “Do you intend to make your home in Yugoslavia after the war?” No, Maclean responded. “Neither do I,” said Churchill. Substitute Ukraine for Yugoslavia, and traces of that western attitude linger: no longer blind, just selfish.
So much for the 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers and officers who will have died for nothing thanks to the West prolonging the war with escalation after escalation of military supplies.
For those who are unfamiliar with Sylvie Kauffmann, she has a substantial biography in Wikipedia. What is most relevant for our purposes is her longstanding position at the top of the editorial committee at Le Monde, the newspaper of French intellectuals that like all once Left-leaning publications is now borderline Neocon in its views on global politics. She was once published frequently in The International Herald Tribune, later renamed The International New York Times (now simply The New York Times) by the acquirer of that Paris-based paper. She also appears from time to time in the FT with op-ed articles.
I have followed Kauffmann over the years with a certain contempt for what I saw as her complacency or garden variety intellectual laziness. See my essay “Push-Back to Sylvie Kauffmann’s op-ed page essay ‘How Europe can help Kiev’ in The International New York Times,” p.91 ff in Does Russia Have a Future? (2015). However, if the latest FT review is correct, this time she may have done proper due diligence.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
Gilbert Doctorow 
Scratch a Liberal and you will find a Fascist.
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Like a divine wind, the Biden Regime’s off-ramp from the Ukraine war has now materialized in the form and function of the Gaza war. The Faustian bargain is that Biden will get some token amount of funding for Israel, while the military industrial complex woos a slew of new arms sales suitors. Not only will the U.S. Department of Defense continue spending on arms like a drunken sailor, but the entire world will now be arming up to the teeth. The U.S. empire manufactures war deaths. And business is very. very good.
Speaker Johnson would be astute to demand Federal spending cuts for every new dollar in MIC spending. He has Biden over the proverbial barrel. Republicans have owned this power since they were elected to a House majority. But the usual Uniparty suspects got to Kevin McCarthy much like they had with Paul Ryan. Then Matt Gaetz miraculously turned the tables on the oligarchs. That bold stroke ultimately made Mike Johnson the most powerful man in Washington, and by extension, the world.
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“We may assume there will be major cuts to continued funding of the entire pension system and payroll of state employees in Ukraine, which many representatives find particularly repugnant at a time when U.S. finances are greatly stretched, when the national debt is rising to dangerous limits and when needy Americans are being overlooked as a result of curtailed welfare programs.”
I have seen not a single reference to this funding anywhere except this post. Never have I seen mention in the NY Times or Washington Post of this funding. Weapons, weapons, weapons has been the cry. Pensions? State employee payrolls? Never.
Now, I strongly suspect that you are right, and I would be very interested in a reference.
Why? Obviously, because when everyone I turn to in the U.S. finds me beneath contempt for even suggesting that we stop supplying Ukraine with weapons if for no other reason than to save the lives of Ukrainians, it would be immensely useful to me to be able to say that we are also funding their entire govenment with US taxpayer money.
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I asked Bard, the Google AI service this question.
It replied once again with references, save one:
“Yes, the United States is funding the Ukrainian government pension system and Ukrainian government employees. This is part of the $19.25 billion in budget support that the US has provided to Ukraine since the start of the war in February 2022. Budget support is a form of financial assistance that is provided directly to the government of a country to help it meet its basic needs, such as paying salaries, pensions, and other essential expenses.
The US has also provided direct financial assistance to Ukrainian government employees through the USAID Ukraine Government Employment Support Program. This program provides grants to Ukrainian government agencies to help them pay salaries and other essential expenses, such as rent and utilities.
The US government has not disclosed how much of the budget support provided to Ukraine is being used to fund pensions and government employee salaries. However, a USAID spokesperson told FactCheck.org in February 2023 that $4 billion of budget support had been spent on pensions as of November 30, 2022.
The US government’s decision to fund the Ukrainian government pension system and government employees is a significant investment in Ukraine’s future. It helps to ensure that the Ukrainian government can continue to function and provide essential services to its citizens, even in the midst of war. It also helps to support the Ukrainian economy and reduce the risk of a humanitarian crisis.”
What is simply amazing is that no one I know talks about this.
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Indeed, it is amazing that no one talks about the dire financial situation of the Ukrainian government, which makes it dependent on Western financial assistance.
However, commentators in Russia certainly do talk about that.
The Ukrainian politician Oleg Zarev (who has been living in Russian exile since 2014 and fell vicitim to an assassination attempt two days ago), gave in his Telegram channel a short analysis of the proposed Ukrainian budget for 2024.
https://t.me/olegtsarov/9168
According to him, there is a gap of at least $43 billion between estimated revenues of 1,746 trillion hryvna (or $47,7 billion), and scheduled expenses of 3,308 trillion hryvna (about $90 billion).
That is, almost the half of the budget will have to be covered by foreign aid or loans provided by the U.S., the EU or the IMF.
Yet, according to him, the military had requested four times as much money as scheduled in the budget proposal.
Moreover, it is more than uncertain if the budget gap of at least 42 billion will be covered by foreign sources. (The EU has promised only $ 12 billion [how much will actually be given, depends on the outcome of the resistance of Poland and Slovakia], $20 billion are expected to be given by the US)
Zarev doesn’t say anything about, how realistic these figures are with regard to the expected revenues as well as the scheduled expenses.
In his eyes, this situation lets only two bad alternatives for the Selensky regime. Either end the war, and admitting that all the victory propaganda has been misleading and all the bloodshed has been senseless. Or make cuts in civilian expenditures that will make the Ukrainian state and society completely disfunctional.
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Seldom do I disagree with a single word of your writing, but “unforeseeable” is difficult to accept in respect of the events in Gaza from 7 October onwards. Not only foreseeable but (if intelligence services are worth their salt) foreseen, surely? As you stated, a “convenient diversion”. But one which risks entanglement of the puppeteers of the original “show”.
Minor quibble apart, thank you for all you do.
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The response by some commenters, one in particular, is normal American navel-gazing and hyberpole. It hasn’t been difficult for me over the years to see why American “diplomacy” — isn’t. The habit of relating foreign happenings to how it affects only the USA seems baked into American DNA. There is zero general interest shown in happenings overseas, within the context of the countries involved, because America essentially has no interest in what foreigners believe in or do, anyway. Oh, maybe on a two-week vacation to see the “sights”, but actual interest in other countries and/or their societies is essentially zero. No, American belly-fluff examination is all that matters, deep down. Thus, the American propensity to simply and uncaringly tromp about all over the world with only American interests at heart. I’ve noted that for over fifty years including my own backpack days in Europe. Americans overseas cling together in groups, dissociated from the other travellers and the local population. Exceptions of course exist, but I’m speaking generally.
So, the ridiculousness of saying some American pol, new speaker of the House, is the most powerful person in the world because USA. USA, is laughable. And then to question, as if it were a revelation, whether the US is paying to run the Ukraine government, when it has been that way for over a year and a half and the subject of many opinion pieces worldwide reveals that a web search is apparently beyond the capabilities of the commenter. No, Doctorow is supposed to provide the links.
No wonder American diplomacy amounts to no more than telling other countries what to do / how to behave and expecting them to hop to it at once. It is all the US is capable of imagining. Being the geniuses they are, Americans know intrinsically what’s correct, and all those squabbling children out there had better calm down and do the US’s bidding. Based not on the considered opinions of actual experts, but the dictates of what’s good for US business This nonsense is all coming to an end. Russia, China and the Muslim world pays scant heed any more to what America dictates. And for that matter, neither does Israel. It’s going to be a rough ride down the slippery slope to becoming just another country in the world rather than the hegemon, even to “normal” US citizenry.
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