ZOILO “BINGO” P. DEJARESCO III l February 20, 2024 l Manila Bulletin
RONICALLY, three decades ago, it was Russia, the USA and the UK who persuaded Ukraine (then with the third largest nuclear stockpile globally) to disarm in return for “security guarantee” from the three nations.
Without any word of honor, Russia, however, attacked Crimea and then Ukraine (February 2022)- and initiated a two-year war that is showing no end in sight.
It is Russia’s paranoia that the West is converting the nations around Russia to NATO membership and isolate Russia that led the Ukraine attack. But it is also this same Russian paranoia that led Finland to apply for NATO membership, fearful of a similar Russian attack done on Ukraine. In a narrow sense, then, Russia is NATO’s most effective member recruiter.
Partly, of course, Russia is eyeing the vast oil, coal, mining ores and grain resources of Ukraine, which it considered then a source of commercial competition. Now, Russia is in a dilemma whether to obliterate Ukraine into kingdom come and be left with ashes from what Russia initially coveted.
Ukraine itself is in a bind as politics (in USA) and disunity (in Europe) have slowed down aid to Ukraine. Although, some $300 billion in Russian assets have been frozen (mostly in Germany, France and Belgium), the EU is also in a dilemma whether or not to unfreeze and monetize the assets and use it to aid Ukraine as they are only “frozen” while hostilities in Ukraine are ongoing. There could be legal complications.
On the other hand, unofficial sources say that of the 1.077 million troops initially deployed by Russia, some 359,000 have perished (leaving an endless stream of widows and orphans), so 420,000 are left to occupy the 20% of Ukrainian territory. Vladimir Putin is set to send 170,000 additional troops. But when a national conscription was made (for $4,000 per recruit), some two million male youth reportedly fled Russia to unknown destinations.
One wonders how far into the night Russia can survive this war of attrition. Is it content in the thought that (despite the sanctions) the Russian economy may have faltered but is surviving, the oligarchs happy, the military largely loyal and there is no unpopular unrest versus Putin?
But over these two years of relentless fighting, some different strategies have evolved.
According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, there appears to be a deeply flawed military strategy and a “fruitless endeavor” for Russia to concentrate its attacks (information and military) in favor of civilian fortresses instead of purely military assets.
This means bombing “power and transmission lines, consumer supply chain, financial services and communication” rather than ” military forces, weapons system and command structure.” This ploy was to erode the population’s popular will and demoralize political leaders.
However, author Robert Pape in his book “Bombing Towns” said that such a strategy typically prompted more anger than fear and leads to “rally-to-the-flag” general enthusiasm, instead.
Slowly, the prolonged war could lead to a cyberwar and AI (artificial intelligence) tussle. Many giant Western tech companies are rushing technology and cyber assistance to both Estonia and Ukraine- slowly converting the two into technological hubs even amidst the war.
In Kiev itself, AIs are doing battleground analysis that need hundreds of humans to decipher- creating a war lab of the future inside Ukraine. Leading the endeavor are Clearview and Palantir, a US-based ” AI arms dealer of the 2ist century” partly funded by a CIA venture capitalist firm, according to the Time Magazine.
Palantir AI software ” analyzes satellite imagery, open-source data, drone footage, present options to military commanders and clearing landmines ” and even “nonmilitary chores as collecting evidence of war crimes, resettling refugees and rooting out corruption”, Time said.
Clearview, on the other hand, provides technology to identify the faces of 250,000 Russian soldiers in Ukraine as possible evidence for future post-war prosecution. Other American tech leader-companies help protect Ukraine from cyberattacks, migrate critical government data to cloud and in general, provide cyber defense for Ukraine costing millions of dollars.
(Massive drone attacks against Russian forces have been noted of late.)
After the physical aspect of the war wears thin, can we expect to see more sophisticated anti-missile defense walls, laser-precise armaments, cyber soldiers, unmanned airplanes and tanks and more drones?
It could look like a sci-fi film but happening live in the bloodied battlefields of Ukraine covered “in color and all its sound and fury” blow-by-blow by CNN, BBC, Fox and Al-Jazeera.
*** Bingo Dejaresco, a former banker, is a financial consultant, media practitioner and author. He is Life and Media member of Finex. His views here, however, are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of Finex. dejarescobingo@yahoo.com