The New Cold War or Cold War II is picking up day by day. The United States is strategically narrowing down on China in many ways after engaging Russia in the Ukraine war. Accumulating military assets in the Black Sea, now Taiwan’s military strength is being enhanced. The high-profile US visits to Taiwan this year and the joint statements are reflective of what is being cooked up in the backyard against China. Perhaps, Taiwan is destined to become another Ukraine. But, most geopolitical experts believe the climax of this story will be totally different from what the US is expecting.
The US and NATO have ruined Ukraine and caused weighty infrastructural damage to Russia in an ongoing proxy war against Russia. With the Ukraine war, Cold War II has entered into its next phase, which was being talked about at some forums in late 2018. Pakistan was unaware until I talked about it in my webinar in May 2020. The public at large in Pakistan is taken on board yet. Pakistan’s many institutions lag too while the next phase is approaching the region quite fast.
Russia’s Ukraine war strategies and its engagement reflect that it has learnt a lot from the Cold War-I and the dissolution of Soviet Russia in 1991. The US has also learnt from its engagement in Afghanistan against Russia that direct war is not beneficial. This was a bitter and costly experience after the Vietnam failure. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has learnt too from its longest armed struggle against the Nationalist Party of China (NPC). Though the CPC command and control defeated the NPC in the fighting, it led Taiwan to declare itself a ‘state’. The US and a couple of other countries accepted its ‘independent status’ though it is largely considered a Chinese island. Pakistan also supports the One-China policy framework. So it did not recognize Taiwan as a state like many others.
The Russian special operation in Ukraine has shown that the US military-industrial complex has significant shortcomings.
Unfortunately, India has not learned from its own wars, and what happened in its neighbourhood – Afghanistan. Even the ongoing Ukraine war is not enough for India to understand the consequences of a proxy war against a powerful country. China’s military might is being undermined by both US loyalists – India and Taiwan. They are hatching Cold War II conspiracies for a perfect disaster in their own countries. The strategic aims and objectives of the US will never benefit India and Taiwan. Pakistan is the best example to refer to.
The countries that are ready to fight the US proxy wars against the military might understand that the US altered its artillery to short-range to avoid its reach to the central towns of Russia. Why? Russia has warned the US and NATO of serious consequences if they were directly involved in the Ukraine war. So they didn’t, to avoid any use of nuclear weapons. History has many good examples of proxy wars to learn from.
The most important fact of the wars in the present age is that no one wins the land or territory. Only the common citizens face the impact. Have a look at the US recent wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Even so, it will not win the Ukraine proxy war. No one is likely to win but lose enormously. Millions of citizens are suffering directly while billions are affected by the food crisis and the inflation caused by the Ukraine war. Entire Europe is crying for an energy crisis.
In the Cold War II, the US will never indulge in direct combat with China or Russia. If they do so, the military experts believe, it would lose to China in the event of a military clash. The US and NATO have already consumed a large amount of their artillery in the Ukraine war. Russia also is of the opinion that its ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine has exposed deficiencies in the defence industry of the United States. Geopolitical experts say that the US army may face problems in a potential conflict with China. This was reported by the US newspaper Wall Street Journal too, citing forecasts by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
The experts are convinced that the US defence and industrial base operates in peacetime conditions and is incapable of a quick conversion to military rails. Washington, while helping Kyiv, has depleted its own stockpiles of weapon systems and ammunition, in particular M777 howitzers, 155mm shells, as well as Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger air defence systems.
In addition, the Pentagon used up all the JASSM missiles and high-precision guided anti-ship missiles back in the first week of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, handing them over to the Ukrainian side. In the context of a possible US-China confrontation, these weapons are extremely important because of their ability to strike the Chinese Navy from beyond the range of China’s defence systems.
Thus, the Russian special operation in Ukraine has shown that the US military-industrial complex has significant shortcomings. At the same time, Beijing, by refusing to side with Ukraine and supply weapons to the Kyiv regime, has only strengthened its own capabilities, SNBC TV experts say.
The US’s capacity to indulge in a direct war with any of its arch-opponents is unlikely. Its proxy war-fighting countries have to face the entire brunt of any combat if they indulge in it. The same or more is what Ukraine is destined to be.
The writer is a freelance journalist and broadcaster, and Director Devcom-Pakistan. He can be reached at [email protected] and tweets @EmmayeSyed