The international order is never more interesting and perplexing. After months of waffling and warbling, and with casualties mounting on both sides , the hazy outlines of Pax Trumpiana now appear in bold relief. It is as simple as it is disconcerting. Before our very eyes, the brave and heroic people of Ukraine are to be fed to their Russian tormentors. Having thrown everything they have into battle, having fought the invaders with fierce determination and unusual bravery, taking horrendous casualties and the apocalyptic devastation of a beautiful and alluring landscape in the process, the Ukrainians are now faced with the humiliating prospects of being forced to surrender without a whimper.
For this international miracle to materialize, all it took was a long transatlantic phone call between two powers leaving out the complainant in the cold. By the time the call was over, Zelensky’s goose had been cooked. All that remained was for the terms of disengagement or surrender to be worked out with some concomitant sweeteners thrown in to humour the Ukrainians. There will be no return of occupied territory or talk about reparation. In one short, sharp surgical move, Trump has removed the source and basis of Ukrainian self-defence, which is American munitions. You cannot fight without weapons. He has also peremptorily precluded the possibility of Ukraine joining the NATO, an act which the Russians believe would jeopardize the strategic interest of their country. As for the UN and its other ancillaries and accessories, Donald Trump treats them with such contempt that they could well be mythical apparitions without any value worth talking about.
It is a brand new world. Nobody would have believed a day like this would come when a sitting American president would treat international organizations which are largely the creation of Americans and which rely substantially on American subventions with such hostility and sheer disdain. But here we are. The major irony in all this is that while withdrawing into the shell of isolationism, the American president is insisting on acting out America’s role as the world’s preeminent law giver and principal custodian of global custom. America’s combination of isolationism and rampaging globalism such as the proposed takeover of Gaza and annexation of Greenland will provoke countervailing actions from equally prosperous and well-heeled countries defending their own national interests.
The defeat and liquidation of Ukraine will serve as a playbook for China’s occupation of Taiwan, North Korea’s invasion of South Korea, Israeli obliteration of the Middle East as we know it and possibly the annihilation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by Rwanda. As the conflict shapes up, the possibility of nuclear confrontation cannot be ruled out since biting is part of fighting. Unlike the earlier epoch of colonization when the invading colonizers shared the same faith and values, this one will be a clash of faith, of culture and values in all their countervailing hostilities. The human race has never been closer to self-determination of a most profoundly ironic hue.
by Tatalo Alamu @TheNation
