{"id":808776,"date":"2022-09-22T17:24:36","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T17:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=7ee1202203a15223e048ad2998254804"},"modified":"2022-09-22T17:24:36","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T17:24:36","slug":"noam-chomsky-the-war-in-ukraine-has-entered-a-new-phase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/09\/22\/noam-chomsky-the-war-in-ukraine-has-entered-a-new-phase\/","title":{"rendered":"Noam Chomsky: The War in Ukraine Has Entered a New Phase"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seven months on, the war in Ukraine has entered a new phase. Ukrainian forces are running a counteroffensive in the east and south regions of the country while Russia is still bent on annexation plans. Meanwhile, the West, with the U.S. at the forefront, continues with its explicitly stated strategy<\/a> of weakening Russia to the point of regime collapse, thereby leaving no room for negotiations. All these developments indicate that peace remains distant in Ukraine and that the war may in fact be poised to become even more violent. Worse, argues Noam Chomsky below in an exclusive interview for Truthout<\/em>, congressional hawks are increasing the risk of terminal war with the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022, which was just recently approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and appears to be modeled on programs from prior to the Russian attack that were turning Ukraine into a de facto NATO member.<\/p>\n

Chomsky is institute professor emeritus in the department of linguistics and philosophy at MIT and laureate professor of linguistics and Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in the Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona. One of the world\u2019s most-cited scholars and a public intellectual regarded by millions of people as a national and international treasure, Chomsky has published more than 150 books in linguistics, political and social thought, political economy, media studies, U.S. foreign policy and world affairs. His latest books are The Secrets of Words<\/em> (with Andrea Moro; MIT Press, 2022); The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power<\/em> (with Vijay Prashad; The New Press, 2022); and The Precipice<\/em>: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and the Urgent Need for Social Change <\/em>(with C. J. Polychroniou; Haymarket Books, 2021).<\/p>\n

C.J. Polychroniou: Noam, after seven months of conflict, Russia and Ukraine find themselves in a situation that is hard to get out of. Russia is suffering great losses, and a recent Ukrainian counteroffensive has recaptured dozens of towns and villages in the northeast of the country. Under these circumstances, it seems that neither side is eager to pursue a peace settlement. Firstly, are you surprised by Russia\u2019s problems on the battlefield, and, secondly, do you agree with the statement made recently by the minister in charge of the Hungarian Prime Minister\u2019s Office that Moscow still has a major advantage over Kyiv and that it can declare victory whenever it wants?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Noam Chomsky<\/strong>: First, let me make it clear that I have nothing original to say about the military situation, and have no expert knowledge in this area. What I know is what\u2019s reported, almost entirely from Western sources.<\/p>\n

The general picture is that Russia has suffered a devastating defeat, demonstrating the utter incompetence of the Russian military and the remarkable capacities of the Ukrainian army provided with advanced U.S. armaments and detailed intelligence information about the disposition of Russian forces, a tribute to the courage of the Ukrainian fighters and to the intensive U.S. training, organization and supply of the Ukrainian army for almost a decade.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s plenty of evidence to support this interpretation, which is close to exceptionless apart from detail. A useful rule of thumb whenever there is virtual unanimity on complex and murky issues is to ask whether something is perhaps omitted. Keeping to mainstream Western sources, we can indeed find more that perhaps merits attention.<\/p>\n

Reuters reports<\/a> a \u201cwestern official\u201d whose assessment is that:<\/p>\n

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There’s an ongoing debate about the nature of the Russian drawdown, however it’s likely that in strict military terms, this was a withdrawal, ordered and sanctioned by the general staff, rather than an outright collapse\u2026. Obviously, it looks really dramatic. It’s a vast area of land. But we have to factor in the Russians have made some good decisions in terms of shortening their lines and making them more defensible, and sacrificing territory in order to do so.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There are varying interpretations of the equipment losses in the Russian flight\/withdrawal. There is no need to review the familiar picture. A more nuanced version<\/a> is given by Washington Post <\/em>journalists on the scene, who report scattered and ambiguous evidence. They also review online video and satellite imagery indicating that the destroyed and abandoned military vehicles may have been at an equipment hub. Examining the videos, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army Europe, concludes that the destruction was mostly at a staging area where \u201cRussian forces stopped for fuel or were waiting for a mission when they fled,\u201d the total amounting to a tank company that typically has about 10 or 11 tanks.<\/p>\n

As one expects in a war zone, there is ample ambiguity, but little doubt that it was a major victory for Ukraine and its U.S.-NATO backers. I don\u2019t think that Putin could simply \u201cdeclare victory\u201d after this humiliating setback, as the Hungarian prime minister suggests. On the prospects for a peace settlement, so little is reported or discussed that there is little to say.<\/p>\n

Little, but not nothing. In the current issue of Foreign Affairs<\/em><\/a>, the major establishment journal, Fiona Hill and Angela Stent — highly regarded policy analysts with close government connections — report that:<\/p>\n

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According to multiple former senior US officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement. The terms of that settlement would have been for Russia to withdraw to the positions it held before launching the invasion on February 24. In exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On dubious evidence, Hill and Stent blame the failure of these efforts on the Russians, but do not mention that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at once flew to Kyiv with the message that Ukraine\u2019s Western backers would not support the diplomatic initiative, followed by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who reiterated<\/a> the official U.S. position that Washington\u2019s goal in the war is to \u201cweaken\u201d Russia, meaning that negotiations are off the table.<\/p>\n

Whether such initiatives continue, we do not know. If they do, they would not lack popular support, not only in the Global South but even in Europe, where \u201c77 percent of Germans believe that the West should initiate negotiations to end the Ukraine war.<\/a>\u201d Surprisingly, more than half of Slovaks are reported to favor a Russian victory<\/a>.<\/p>\n