Biden and the Future of US Foreign Policy

 "Speaking at a news conference at the close of a NATO summit in Madrid, Mr. Biden said that Americans and the rest of the world would have to pay more for gasoline and energy as a price of containing Russian aggression. How long? “As long as it takes, so Russia cannot in fact defeat Ukraine and move beyond Ukraine,” he said."

How crazy is this? Nevermind the rightness or wrongness of the war-- this depends on different worldviews -- the war is a given and the task is to end it as soon as possible. There is no going back to the status quo ante. NATO is not going to destroy Russia, nor vice versa regarding Russia and Ukraine. The ultimate cause of this war was the friction produced by the hostile actions of NATO encroaching year by year on Russia and its borders and there is no reason to think that there is any "beyond Ukraine" unless NATO keeps up more and more friction with Russia -- which it evidently intends to do.

Ukraine will be defeated -- it will never get the Crimea back and the Russian speaking Don Bass will either become a separate state (unrecognized by the West) or annexed by Russia (as Israel has done with the Golan Heights and is doing on the West Bank). Ukraine will remain an independent state and become a member of the EU. The US, whose social system and economy cannot function without wars and foreign conflict to feed its military industrial complex and foreign exploitation of surplus value will become increasingly right-wing and authoritarian to contain popular discontent and will shift its major imperialist thrusts to the Chinese theatre of operations (which has become intercontinental due to the road and belt project) after the Ukraine crisis has finally cooled down.

Biden's "as long as it takes" means as long as US imperialism lasts whose end can only come about with the final systemic collapse of capitalism when the contradictions of the world market finally become irreconcilable and the general crisis of capitalism comes to fruition. The left, internationally, must decide it it is going to oppose U.S. imperialism by seriously building a revolutionary working class democratic alternative a la Lenin, or continue to play by the rules of capitalist bourgeois democracy a la Bernstein. Hic Rhodus, hic salta!

NYTIMES.COM

Biden Vows to Back Ukraine ‘as Long as It Takes’ Despite Economic Toll

NATO leaders concluded a summit with new commitments to a united front against Russian aggression, but they face the challenge of persuading their own people that it’s worth the cost.