Colonel Macgregor of US Army said, as of today Washington simply cannot afford “to risk military confrontation” with Moscow, and only of weapons can’t give victory to Ukraine. Writes Uriel Araujo
If one is to believe the current White House propaganda, Ukraine is winning the war. This is simply not so, according to retired US Army Col. Macgregor recent statements in Fox News “Tucker Carlson Tonight”. The American colonel is considered to be a prominent Army thinker. He is currently a consultant, and received his PhD in international relations from the University of Virginia. Macgregor argues that Moscow’s main interests and military goals are in the Donbas region and the eastern half of Ukraine. This is what President Putin himself has repeatedly stated. However, the colonel predicts that if detente is not sought, Western Ukraine will become a “firing range”.
Even so, in this case Russia would not actually send troops, but would rather employ artillery attacks, he says. He adds: “The Russians have never been interested in crossing the Dnieper River [the river that splits Kiev]. They were always interested in destroying the Ukrainian forces – that job’s about through.” Once again, denazification and demilitarization have been Moscow’s stated goals from day one – but it is interesting to see a prominent US military expert conceding that.
Col. Macgregor also said: “I really think the president and his supporting advisers believe that somehow or another, they’re going to arrive at a negotiating table in the future where they will be able to dictate terms to Moscow. And that’s not going to happen.”
In a 12 April conversation with American political analyst and retired judge Andre Napolitano (“Judge Nap”), the colonel made similar remarks about the propaganda war currently being waged. He stresses Moscow has no interest in launching an offensive against NATO, and he clarifies that the distinction between “offensive” and “defensive” weapons (pertaining to arms sent by Washington to Kiev) is largely a matter of “media terminology” because it all really depends on “the employment of the weapon systems”.
In any case, despite the mobility equipment sent by the US, the Ukrainian army has never been truly capable of “maneuvering in the field” since the conflict began – with no effective counter-offensive on the operational level. Every single time Kiev counter-attacked (and there were few such instances), it never went beyond the battalion level or local initiatives without orchestration from above, he argues. It thus became clear to him already in the first two weeks that the Ukrainians cannot win, despite all the propaganda. Moreover, notwithstanding all the Western help since 2014, the hard truth is that in these 8 years Kiev failed to create a modern army comparable to the French one, for instance, because such is not possible in such a short period, he states. This too is what other experts have been warning since the beginning.
On sanctions, Judge Nap and the colonel both agree that they do not work: they hurt intermediaries and even Americans, but fail to change the public policies of the targeted country, from Cuba in 1962 to the present day. This echoes German economist Aika Hamer’s warnings in March. Col. Macgregor quotes American politician Ron Paul, who reminds the general public that sanctions too are in itself an act of war and should be seriously seen as part of warfare.
Macgregor goes on to admit that as of today Washington simply cannot afford “to risk military confrontation” with Moscow, and so sanctions are the only tool left – to put it simply, seizing the assets of Russian businessmen (“oligarchs”, as the media calls them) will not change President Putin’s strategy. When the Soviet Union collapsed, some such “oligarchs” did acquire a lot of political power and used it to pursue their own personal and private interests, but one of Putin’s “achievements”, according to the colonel, was precisely putting an end to such a state of affairs. He remarks George Cannon used to say that most of what the US does in terms of foreign policy has an internal and external propaganda value, to make one “feels good” but apart from that does not necessarily achieve the stated goals and this is the case with the American war on the “oligarchs”.
Finally, in his conversation with Judge Napp, Col. Macgregor states we are seeing “the end right now”: what has remained from the Ukrainian forces that had any capability to resist are now “surrounded down” in Donbass, and Ukrainian President Zelenski seems to have decided to “sacrifice them” – so he predicts that they will either surrender or be “annihilated”. He adds that so far Russians have not mistreated war prisoners and have not shot surrounding soldiers, although the same cannot be said about the Ukrainian forces – that are largely neo-Nazi, a fact he does not mention, however.
He does mention that in today’s war of narratives, Moscow is absurdly demonized, while the Ukrainian government is portrayed as a “saintly organization”. Judge Napp replies that the intelligence community has made a “major investment” in such Russophobic campaigns since the end of World War II, and the colonel admits that it is indeed “plausible” that American and British services orchestrate much of this media campaign through a number of ways.
In his more recent aforementioned Fox News interview, MacGregor also stated that the Europeans themselves do not want to see their continent turned into a war zone, as the polls in Poland and elsewhere indicate. He remarks that the Russian military establishment is actually designed for defense – not for offensive warfare, but Russians are, in theoretical terms, “the most clear thinking people on the planet when it comes to what does or does not make sense militarily.” The Russian military there is “quite small”, in his view – although Moscow could mobilize 900 thousand men, but they “kept the lid on” at about 195 to 200 thousand troops. Things could scale up, though.
Such honest and well-founded analysis rarely gets much press coverage. Narrative wars are and will be a part of the game, but it is about time the Western establishment tones down its demonization of Russia and actively pursues to open diplomatic and communication channels with Moscow so as to put and end to a war that already is causing a migration and humanitarian crisis (not to mention a possible global food crisis) – rather than fueling the conflict and escalating tensions in the European continent.
Uriel Araujo, researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.
