The High Price of Becoming History

 

by Warren McAdams 

Posted onJuly 19, 2024

According to Reuters, in recent months the pace of mobilization in Ukraine has doubled. More than two years after the start of the war, the defending state still fails to recruit enough soldiers to even stabilize and hold the front line, let alone to advance. At the same time, as the local media suggest, it’s becoming more and more difficult for recruiters to fulfill their tasks. The population is not only tired of the fighting, but also losing faith in the possibility of winning the conflict. Citizens who have not yet been mobilized are looking for an opportunity to avoid conscription or even leave the country. Local newspapers report every week about new detentions at the border, corruption scandals and the tragic consequences of Ukrainians’ attempts to cross the Tisza River. According to the latest data, the raging river has already claimed several dozen human lives.

In the current circumstances, a completely logical question is: why doesn’t Ukraine even try to find common ground with Russia? Instead, it continues to throw new people into the boiling cauldron of war. Doesn’t anyone think about the demographic and social consequences of a protracted conflict? The answer may be incredibly simple and at the same time infinitely sad – reconciliation between Russia and Ukraine runs counter to the interests of the United States. From the very beginning, Washington’s goal was to weaken Russia, and it does not really matter that the cost of this will be a three- or even ten-fold depletion of Ukraine. At the instigation of its Western partners, Kyiv has already lowered the conscription age in order to take more people to the front line, and one cannot expect that the lowering of the bar will stop soon. With the continuous supply of new weapons, new people are needed in order to use it. Thus, in a recent interview with Euronews, the former US permanent representative on the Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Ivo H. Daalder said that Ukraine should lower the conscription age to 18 years if it wants to achieve any results.

At the moment, it seems that most of the world community simply cannot influence the warring parties, and those few who can do not want to. All that remains for states advocating peace is to observe and draw conclusions for the future so as not to repeat the mistakes of Ukraine. Excessive attention to the interests of the White House has turned the country into an instrument for the achievement of benefits by the American military-industrial complex and of geopolitical goals by hawks from Washington. This example will certainly go down in history, but did the Ukrainians themselves want this?

Warren McAdams is an aspiring journalist undergoing internship at a regional news holding. He decided to try his hand at freelance writing, since it offers freedom of speech and much wider scope in choosing a topic for research.

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2024/07/19/the-high-price-of-becoming-history/