The U.S. Is Not Just Losing in Ukraine. We’re Losing The Rest Of The World.

We’ve written extensively on how Russia is decisively winning the War in Ukraine and how the Ukrainian Armed Forces have suffered massive casualties (up to 1 million killed, wounded, or missing in action) that are rapidly destroying its effectiveness as a fighting force. We’ve also detailed how the much-touted advanced weapons coming from the West to aid Ukraine are mostly a matter of propaganda and cheerleading.

Stinger and Javelin missiles have made it to the battlefield and a small number of HIMARS precision-guided missile artillery have been used. But the Leopard, Challenger and Abrams tanks have not arrived in large numbers and probably will not arrive for six months or more. This is because of shortages among the NATO allies themselves, disrepair, and the time it takes to build new models and train the tank crews.

F-16s are a pipedream. It takes at least a year to train pilots (the Ukrainians are used to flying leftover Russian MiGs) and perhaps another year to gain proficiency as a pilot. Russia will have achieved victory in Ukraine long before then.

Still, Ukrainian failure is not just a matter of equipment and training. A large part of the rest of the world has refused to join the U.S./EU/NATO financial sanctions. This was best evidenced at the recent G20 finance ministers summit conference held in Bengaluru, India, as reported here.

Financial sanctions are difficult to impose at the best of times. They require large-scale cooperation from many nations to prevent leakage and workarounds that defeat the purpose of the sanctions. The U.S. knew that it could count on vassal states such as Germany, France, Japan, and the UK to go along with the sanctions. The G20 finance ministers conference was the perfect place to firm up cooperation and gain consensus from important countries such as Brazil, India, China, and Saudi Arabia.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen attended the G20 event and pushed hard to form a united front of all participants against Russia. She failed. Key economic players such as China and India refused to endorse the proposed final statement.

For only the second time in its history, the G20 was unable to issue a final communique reflecting the consensus of the participants. There was no consensus.

This is a good example of what I warned about a year ago, shortly after the Russian invasion. Not only have the sanctions failed (Russian growth has greatly exceeded expectations, and the Russian ruble is stronger than before the war began), but they have boomeranged on the West and are causing damage to western economies and fracturing the multilateral institutions that have been carefully built over the past fifteen years since the global financial crisis of 2008.

Russia is holding the line in Ukraine and in managing its own economy. China, India, and Brazil are all helping Russia in various ways. The biggest losers in the financial war are the U.S. and its vassals.

This was predicted by me and other analysts. It was not anticipated by the U.S. Treasury and the White House. They are consistently the last to know.

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