by Oui
Wed Apr 26th, 2023 at 08:27:37 PM EST
Chinese President Xi Jinping, while talking to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky over phone, says dialogue and negotiations are the only viable way out for the Ukraine crisis.
Xi says dialogue only viable way out for Ukraine crisis | Xinhua News |
World Insights: Toxic friendship -- How Washington exploits Ukraine crisis to shackle Europe
A report published Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) indicated that military expenditure in Europe shot up by 13 percent in 2022 -- its steepest year-on-year increase in at least 30 years.
The United States provoked a conflict in Ukraine to "turn Europe into a vassal" and has managed to use the Ukraine crisis to "destabilise Europe," economist Pierre de Gaulle, grandson of former French President Charles de Gaulle, told French newspaper Le Parisien.
In fact, a self-serving United States never truly treats its "allies" as friends. The EU's strict sanctions against Russia, following America, have led to a tense energy supply, increased inflation, and a cost-of-living crisis across Europe. Meanwhile, American companies exporting energy are making a fortune.
Washington continues to fan the flame, seeking to proloog and expand the Ukraine crisis. Such a move will increase Europe's reliance on the United States for energy and security, and erode Europe's efforts towards strategic autonomy.
America Benefits Most
The overtime work at the ammunition plant reflects the "prosperity" of the entire U.S. military industry. Since the escalation of the Ukraine crisis, the United States has constantly hyped up the "Russia threat" and incited European allies to continuously upgrade their military assistance to Ukraine and expand their own military capabilities.
Since late February 2022, EU countries have pledged to beef up their arsenals by some 230 billion U.S. dollars, with Germany alone planning to channel 100 billion euros this year to modernize its military, Yahoo News website reported in November 2022.
Military expenditure by states in Central and Western Europe in 2022 for the first time surpassed that in 1989, as the Cold War was ending, according to the SIPRI report.
American arms dealers benefit most from Europe's military expansion. European officials have accused the Americans of making a fortune from the conflict, while EU countries suffer. "The fact is, if you look at it soberly, the country that is most profiting from this war is the U.S. because they are selling more gas and at higher prices, and because they are selling more weapons," one senior official complained to the American magazine Politico.
To seize the opportunity to rake in huge profits, the U.S. Department of Defense set up a working group in August last year, jointly led by the policy department and the acquisition and sustainment department, responsible for evaluating and accelerating the implementation of foreign military sales.
In the energy market, the United States is also ruthless in fleecing its European allies. "A big winner from the energy crisis in Europe: the U.S. economy," The Wall Street Journal bluntly stated.
The EU imported around 94.73 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in 2022, compared to 57.27 million tons in 2021. The United States represented 41 percent of the supply in all of 2022 and stayed the EU's top LNG supplier, according to a report by the research firm Kpler.
Western Arrogance and European Vassalage | El Pais |
In the face of the war in Ukraine and the growing tension with China, the West (above all the United States) has adopted an arrogant rather than defensive attitude which almost no one else in the rest of the world follows. It is a vestige from colonial or imperial times and, above all, from the unipolar moment that prevailed until recently.
'The Biden administration aspires to achieve a unipolar order that no longer exists', according to analyst Stephan Walt, who claims that the US 'fears' a 'multipolar' world. Obama during his tenure once called Russia a mere 'regional power'. Yet now, we can see it more clearly.
In this world there are third parties, including some Europeans like Macron, who do not want to get caught up in the festering tensions between Washington-Beijing, let alone with Moscow. The world has changed, but the West seems either unaware or unwilling. It not only wants to defend its interests, values, and ways of life, which is normal and legitimate, but also to lecture others. Already since the middle of the last decade, the Western economy has been smaller than the rest, a trend that has been on the rise ever since, not to mention the demographic weight in this regard. The West will have to adapt.
Almost no country outside the realm of US allies (the West Plus, which Moscow calls the 'collective West') has followed the sanctions against Russia imposed from Washington or Brussels (the EU is already on its 10th sanctions package, which is a bit ridiculous), which are making a dent in Moscow, but not as significantly as quickly as hoped for and expected. India, the US's great hope against China, is going its own way. Saudi Arabia, a key US player in the Gulf, has seen that it has lost interest in Washington (except for selling arms to Riyadh), and has made a diplomatic rapprochement with its arch-enemy Iran, mediated by China (which will make little difference to that rivalry in the long run).
