Long ago in March, some woefully ill-informed journalists at the White House press briefing were baying for a no-fly zone over Ukraine. They made spokesperson Jen Psaki look like Mother Teresa.
She patiently explained that enforcing a no-fly zone meant shooting down Russian airplanes, which would mean direct confrontation between two nuclear superpowers.
War fever lingered into April. Lloyd “Raytheon” Austin, Secretary of Defence, blurted out that the underlying aim was to “weaken Russia,” which “had lost a lot of military capability.”
Now in June, President Biden's recent comments suggest Zelensky will be thrown under the bus by autumn.
Winning the virtual media war does not substitute for the real grind of ground war, nor soaring prices in the supermarket.
The spectre of a winter of deep discontent looms in Europe as does a wipe-out in the November mid-term elections in the US.
One by one, they are getting their excuses in and on the record, with an eye to future hearings.
The narrative is getting a makeover.
Is there a creeping fear of failure?
The barometer has changed. A few short weeks ago, it looked like Russia had walked into an Afghanistan 2.0 trap.
The ferocious financial response to cripple its economy and ability to trade looked like mortal blows. On top of unprecedented flows of NATO weapons, it did seem to many that Ukraine would lead ultimately to the fall of Putin.
Now, the news from the battlefield has seen a steady pummeling of static, mass Maginot line style Ukrainian defences.
A NATO-trained and supplied army is being systematically dismantled by the Russian army.
It is rumoured that thousands of western mercenaries are in Ukraine, but this may not be enough to avert a collapse of the AFU in the east and south.
This then behooves us to look back over a broader time span.
The recent record
US-led armies have now lost in Afghanistan. They did not accomplish the oil goals of Richard Cheney in Iraq. Libya has been destroyed, but is in chaos and the oil is not flowing there either as expected.
Real Men did not dare go to Teheran.
Moreover, Iran and Venezuela have survived long term blockades and sanctions.
The Syrian regime saw off US intervention, with critical Russian and Iranian military assistance.
If Ukraine becomes yet another defeat, then this will be a defining moment.
This is about reputational damage. Twenty years ago, we could gnash our teeth at the injustice over Iraq, but we knew it meant nothing. Halliburton Oil's Vice President Cheney could flick a switch and entire countries could be smashed at will.
The might of Western forces was respected, even admired. It was less shock and more about awe. We were re-living the nineteenth century colonial wars, on the back of a global trading and financial system entirely under the thumb of Atlantic powers.
Elites in the Global South put their heads down and got in line. They really did not have much option, given most possessed no ideological alternatives.
The 2020s have destroyed that image. Russians remember the Polish unions of 1980. A sudden loss of respect and fear leads a hegemon down a slippery slope.
Clash of the Titans
A 98 year-old Henry Kissinger and a relatively youthful 91 year-old George Soros were the stars of the recent World Economic Forum meeting.
One offered diplomacy from the school of realism (and messy expediency). The other appeared hell-bent on a crusading zeal to retake Moscow.
Kissinger is no angel. The current fears of soaring grain prices and Arab Spring 2.0 (but this time all over the place and not just the Maghreb region) will surely have sparked off some grey cells in Henry's mind.
In the early seventies, food was one of his favourite weapons. The overthrow of Chile's left-wing elected Allende in 1973 was preceded by US food sanctions.
When Bangladesh had the temerity to supply jute to communist Cuba the following year, likewise there was a temporary stop to PL480 food aid, until Dhaka promised to end any further jute shipments.
The great Russian “grain robbery” of the early 1970s was a result of Soviet malfunction in its lagging agriculture sector. Western grain multi-nationals stepped in and made a killing in 1972 and 1975.
Kissinger tried to blackmail Moscow into lowering the price of its oil in exchange for food, but the Russians told him they would rather eat grass than give in, and had a long history of coping with hunger.
Biden has forgotten that Russians can endure.
Fifty years ago, the US was a net oil importer and food exporter. The Soviet Union was the world's largest oil exporter, but a vulnerable food importer.
Today, because of fracking, the US is an oil exporter while Russia has become a food superpower (as well as swimming in energy).
Washington and any would-be Kissingers can no longer switch off food supplies. Russia now has the ability to come to the aid of other countries, such as Egypt.
Food is a weapon and also an instrument of diplomacy. Kissinger thus knows that a war ending deal in the next few weeks is the best and only option.
However, the all-out NATO effort has united the Russian people rather than led them to demand regime change at home.
It has got to the point where the leadership in Moscow may find it difficult to accept a limited settlement (on the basis of the Minsk Agreement plus Crimea).
The stated objectives of “deNazification” and “demilitarization” can only logically be met by insisting the Ukrainian military shift their artillery and troops well to the west of the Dnieper River.
Trust on both sides will be low and only facts on the ground will determine the nature of a negotiated peace settlement. Kissinger may have spoken too late in the day.
Meanwhile, the recent agreement between Warsaw and Kyiv to effectively waive their borders and allow Polish citizens rights in western Ukraine could be significant.
Historically, that zone has been under Polish control off and on since the Middle Ages.
What type of rump Ukraine emerges after the guns fall silent? Does it return to the 1650s or the early 1900s of Prometheus?
How will Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Poland react to the expected Russian victory? Will Moldova blow up?
South Asia is the ‘person of interest’
India, ironically led by one of the most US-friendly administrations, ready to ditch Tik-Tok and RCEP, has proved to be an “unexpected and infuriating” obstacle.
NATO diplomacy has been picking away at the sub-continent, peeling off peripheral states, one by one.
Pakistan is rediscovering the AA' formula -- Army, Allah and America -- just like the bad old days.
Nepal and Sri Lanka have been tackled.
Bangladesh is being given the treatment, but is resisting.
Still, if India gets addicted to cheaper Russian energy, more S-400 missiles, and rediscovers the boundless bounties of BRICS+ and Eurasia in general, then peripheral South Asia is scant compensation.
One wonders whether Washington could really entice the Banerjees and Nehrus to party like it’s 1999 once again.
Or will Russia, the global military challenger alongside China, the world's largest economy (measured in PPP), possess greater seductive magnetic appeal for an Aspiring Asia?
Farid Erkizia Bakht is a political analyst. @liquid_borders.
