The U.S. is fueling a crisis in Ukraine with the aim of pushing Russia to see how far it will go, destabilizing Europe and, in its imagination, controlling Asia.

Since December the Biden administration has been saying a move of Russian forces on Ukraine would be met with “severe consequences.” It is quick to add that it does not have military consequences in mind but “economic consequences like none (Putin) has ever seen,” as Biden put it. Why the U.S. thinks such consequences will be more damaging than the sanctions it has imposed in the past, Biden does not say.

The main economic consequences raised publicly so far include sanctioning the Russian banking institutions, shutting down Nord Stream 2 gas transmissions to Europe before they even start and even cutting off Moscow’s access to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) international bank messaging system, among others. SWIFT is used by banks and other financial institutions to quickly, accurately and securely send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions. In 2018, around half of all high-value cross-border payments worldwide used the SWIFT network.

While the sanctions cause a lot of trouble for Russia, they cause even more trouble for the U.S. They have led Russia to work out alternative arrangements and European countries to protest the interference in their relations with countries that the U.S. says are not allowed.

The U.S. is doing its utmost to disrupt economic cooperation between European countries and Russia, as well as Iran and other countries so as to control Europe while embroiling Russia in every conceivable conflict. The U.S. sabotaged the Iran nuclear deal and lately, the multi-billion dollar submarine deal between France and Australia. U.S. support for British withdrawal from the EU is another example. So too is the U.S. pressure to force Europe to turn away Russian natural gas supplies and rely instead on U.S. liquefied natural gas — at many times the cost.

The U.S. wants to prevent Europe from strengthening itself by having access to resources where it sees fit. It would rather it relied solely on the U.S. But Germany, France and other European countries as well as Europe as an entity are themselves contenders for control over sources of raw materials and cheap labour, markets and zones for the export of capital and influence.

Europeans are already paying close to five times what they were paying last year for natural gas because of the U.S. pressure that Europe not enter into further long-term contracts for gas supply from Russia. Cutting out completely the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is meeting resistance because it would hurt not only Russian-owned Gazprom, but also Shell, Engie, OMV and other European oil and gas monopolies heavily invested in this project.

The U.S. has been exploring ways it might cut Russian banks off the SWIFT. The consequences of being cut off are far reaching but here too U.S. highhandedness is being met with a new way of doing things such as the alternative payments systems being put in place by Russia and China that are not subject to oversight by Western countries.

German business daily Handelsblatt recently cited German government sources as saying that the SWIFT exclusion is now off the table because it would destabilize global financial markets. The White House National Security Council, however, promptly rejected the Handelsblatt story saying “No option is off the table. We continue consulting very closely with European counterparts on severe consequences for Russia if it further invades Ukraine,” Reuters reported.

It is said that every action is prompted by motive. The U.S. has clear motives, which serve narrow private interests, for its actions that fuel conflict with Russia on its borders. Furthermore, the old adage that who controls Europe dominates Asia belongs to a bygone era. The U.S. has yet to assimilate the fact that China and Russia and other countries are standing on their own two feet and have interests of their own which do not accord with subservience to the U.S. Only Canada is walking in lockstep with U.S. demands because it is integrated into its war economy.

(TML, posted January 24, 2022)