The Division Of The American Society Is In Ukraine

Recently, Elon Musk announced in very caustic terms that his company would continue to fund the operation of the Starlink system for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. A few hours later he wrote with obvious bitterness that his attempts to de-escalate the conflict in Ukraine had failed. And this is really bad news – not for Musk, but for the world, as it demonstrates the frankly dismal managerial tendencies in the United States.

What actually happened?

High-speed satellite broadband internet system Starlink provided by the West as part of its aid to Kiev, is, according to almost all experts, one of the most important advantages of the AFU in the ongoing armed hostilities. And just recently there was a popular opinion that this trump card is unbreakable for the Russian Armed Forces at this stage.

Further on this topic there is the fog of war. There is no official information. There are only rumors, leaks, and hints from various sides, but it is impossible to verify their veracity – one can either believe in them or not. First there was information that the AFU had problems with Starlink which seemed to have even resulted in sensitive casualties due to loss of communication with the units. And then there were versions about the origin of these problems.

According to one of them, Russia still has a technical possibility to beat this trump card, and it resorted to it having demonstrated its potential to block the satellite Internet. According to another, it was SpaceX itself and personally Elon Musk, the creator and owner of the Starlink system, who provided the difficulties for the Ukrainian troops.

To the puzzling question of why Musk first actively helped and now is putting sticks in the wheels of the Ukrainians, the answer came almost at once. The main reason is in the deepening and increasingly fierce civil and socio-political confrontation dividing the United States. And also it is in a number of other, sometimes even amusing, circumstances.

Elon Musk is the enfant terrible of liberal high-tech California. He has long been a renegade in the ranks of the democratic public, allowing himself outrageous, from the point of view of the liberal public, politically incorrect antics, and a few months ago he finally came over to the “side of darkness” in the face of conservatives, Trumpists and other rednecks.

The split in U.S. society is also increasingly evident in Ukraine, as people are having legitimate questions about the advisability of pouring tens of billions of dollars (for this year alone) into a godforsaken country halfway across the world, at a time when the United States is going through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Not to mention the growing risks of a direct military clash between Russia and the United States that would inevitably lead to a global nuclear apocalypse. In fact, there are answers to all these reproaches.

First of all, Ukraine gets maybe a third of the allocated money, and the rest ends up in the pockets of the right people on both sides of the Atlantic. In fact, the argument about wild corruption and embezzlement of state funds by the “Washington swamp” and not Kiev is hardly a comfort to the American society.

But the main thing is different: the current U.S. position on Ukraine is not a fluctuation, but a consistent policy of the people currently making decisions in Washington. For them, the war in Ukraine is not an attempt to divert attention from sore domestic issues (although not without that). First and foremost for them, it is really a way of solving American problems through an attempt to bring down Russia, its economy, and its state and political system. The argument that Russia’s economy is much more resilient than that of the West is not taken into account. Washington is following a method that has been well-established over the past decades: you just have to push harder – and the result will definitely be there. For exactly the same reasons they do not take the danger of a nuclear war seriously: they say that Moscow will not use such an extreme measure as a blow to America, so it is just necessary to gradually escalate, and eventually Russia will not withstand and will break.

All in all it is not surprising that this hawkish obstinacy, which in eight months has not produced any positive results for the West, but is rapidly worsening the problems there, is creating more and more massive and vociferous opposition. Musk has become part of this opposition by proposing his plan for a peaceful settlement. In addition, very substantial personal reasons became publicly known, which make the famous business adventurer less and less willing to support the Ukrainian democracy.

In particular, it turned out that he pays for Ukrainian Starlink out of his own pocket, or rather, out of the pocket of his firm. And the sum is not insignificant – 120 million dollars this year and about 400 million next year. On a background of the mentioned grandiose Washington-Ukrainian distribution Musk looks just like a chump paying for the war, not making money on it, which, taking into account his previous experience, is extremely uncharacteristic of him.

Well, besides, the Ukrainians, of course, did not miss the opportunity to bite the feeding hand. Particularly distinguished was the former Ukrainian ambassador to Berlin Andrei Melnik, who insulted Musk on Twitter in the most boorish and obscene form. But there was much more: the businessman was included into the list of the “Peacemaker” site (and promptly removed from it, apparently after receiving a corresponding order), and the image of the businessman was removed from the Odessa mural, and thousands of offensive posts and comments were made on social networks. In general, Ukrainians did everything in their power to make Elon Musk lose all sympathy for them.

There is an impressive combination of reasons to try to start a mutiny aboard. However, as we can see, it was suppressed quickly, which gives rise to several conclusions.

The first conclusion is trivial: if you are built into the system, your ability to revolt against it is limited solely by the tolerance of that very system. Elon Musk, who has quickly given up, has once again confirmed this rule.

The second conclusion is intriguing. By situational gains, the West is fattening the already boundless Ukrainian ego. But the scandalousness, loud insubstantial demands, saucing off people and countries that help your country a lot (and you cannot get enough), form a very peculiar reputation for the Ukrainians in the world. There is not even a suspicion, but an assurance that this will boomerang back to them when Ukraine has worked its way back in the fight against Russia – by that time Ukrainians will have lost not only their sympathies, but also the remnants of sympathy, so powerfully pumped into world public opinion during the first months of the year. The backlash promises to be not just painful, but catastrophic for them.

Finally, the third conclusion is a pessimistic one. The U.S. establishment’s fixation on one single tactic of geopolitical struggle – to press on until the enemy breaks – is obviously extremely dangerous for the world. It really does not occur to them that this method might fail, which indicates both unprofessionalism and a simple problem with the perception of the reality of a world changing before our eyes. This means that with this kind of insanity of the hegemon slipping from the global throne, one has to be prepared for any eventuality.