Collateral damage

The world, including the Philippines, is suffering the fallout of sweeping US-led trade sanctions heaped on Russia. It is collateral damage in the war that the US and its allies chose to wage against Vladimir Putin by proxy, whether militarily through the Ukraine, or economically by way of multinational companies doing business in Russia. Russia deserves the sanctions, the rest of the world does not.

But Joe Biden does not care about the tremendous cost the rest of the world is made to bear as a result of the economic squeeze for as long as the punishment of Putin for invading Ukraine does not cost any American life. The Biden strategy of a proxy war against Putin is best elucidated and understood in the US-Poland fighter jet impasse.

Poland wants to help the Ukrainians fight the Russians with a squadron of fighter jets. But fearing Russian retaliation, Poland does not want to be the one to hand over the jets to Ukraine. Its proposal is to hand over the jets to the US and let the Americans do the handing over to the Ukrainians. Biden finds the idea untenable. He fears it might draw the US into direct confrontation with Russia.

The US-Poland fighter jet impasse shines the light, in a smaller sense, on the US-NATO strategy of containing Russia. If it can be helped, a proxy war better serves American interests than getting embroiled directly in any conflict. The Cold War-era US-Philippines mutual defense treaty hews closely to the same strategy. If the US is attacked, the Philippines is obligated to help in its defense.

But will the US come to the aid of the Philippines, especially against China, that other great enemy of America? Of course it will. But not with American GIs fighting side by side with their little brown brothers. America will only provide the Philippines with weapons, ammunition, and intelligence. It will still be Filipinos shedding their own blood. If Poland wants to help Ukraine, it must expose itself, not America.

The same with economic sanctions. Never mind if the whole world suffers so long as Russia feels the squeeze. The one big difference is that Russia deserves the squeeze and in fact knew what was coming and prepared for it. We, the rest of the world, do not deserve the squeeze and was not prepared for it, not being a party to the US conflict with Russia.

The worst part of it is that the US knew exactly what was going to happen. To force the hand of Putin had been the strategy adopted since Barrack Obama. Biden just took it to its logical conclusion. Obama had been badgering Ukraine to join NATO, noting how the prospect spooks Putin into doing what he eventually did, thereby triggering the sanctions instead of a real war the US did not want to wage.

From the start, Ukraine was the US-ordained battleground, the unsuspecting Ukrainians the sacrificial lambs. Putin may have had delusional designs of a new Russian empire but he was not-too-subtly helped along by America. Putin was played into believing he was acting in self-defense. That made it easier for him to do what he did than if he believed he was the outright aggressor.

Even the economic sanctions would not be as sweeping as they are had not the US loudly orchestrated them. Do you really think in all your intellectual honesty that, say, Emmanuel Macron and France would unilaterally start a trade war with Putin and Russia? The US allies only swam because Biden said go jump in the lake. The problem is, the splash got everyone of us all dripping wet.