The Business of War

When it comes to any business deal, big or small, the main factor taken into consideration by all parties is the cost-benefit aspect. Historically speaking, more often than not, war has been just another business transaction, mostly real estate or natural resources oriented. In the current era, it seems to be more weapons market oriented along with an endeavour to re-establish the old world order.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the perfect reflection of war as a business transaction. If you look at it from the US and Western viewpoint, it’s an excellent low-cost venture with maximum benefits. First they used Ukraine as the decisive bait against Russia after inducting various, former Russian-Block, countries into NATO. Once Russia took the bait they introduced a fantastic marketing strategy against Russia. First, through financial and other largesse, the ensured the unwavering support of key politicians along with main media outlets in the US and the West. Next, they supplied Ukraine with Western hi-tech weaponry to be employed against Russia and this was followed by massive propaganda extolling the prowess of US and Western weapons vis-à-vis the Russian arsenal. Any attempt to question the actual efficacy of these weapons was conveniently subdued by all key media outlets and the largely western controlled social media. The net effect was the enduring impression around the world of the invincibility of US and Western weapons and the obsoleteness of Russian weapons.

From the US and Western viewpoint, the financial cost was a few billion dollars. Apart from that, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians along with the massive destruction of Ukraine along with the global economic chaos was completely acceptable. In fact, if you note the benefits then the global economic chaos actually works in favour of the US and the West. From the benefits point of view, they have managed to substantially relegate Russia as a global weapons supplier which means that the US and the West are going to earn hundreds of billions of dollars in global arms sales in the coming decades. This is going to provide a massive boost to their economies. Secondly, on account of the global economic crisis, a lot of countries are on the verge of bankruptcy which will eventually draw them into the US and Western fold especially given that China, with its Shylock act, hasn’t inspired much confidence in most of these countries. The IMF and other such institutions are ideal tools to get these countries back into the US and Western fold. This is what I meant by re-establishment of the old world order. Of course, they have turned a blind eye to India’s, relatively neutral, stance because, at this stage, a Russia-India-China alliance would be too hot to handle. Secondly, India being a combination of a democracy with a highly market oriented economy, it would be quite easy, in the long term, to make India malleable to Western interests.

Coming to Russia, it’s appalling to see the quality of advisors in Putin’s strategic think tank. I mean, even the most naïve of strategists would have figured out that Ukraine is completely expendable for the west and would have advised Putin against taking the western bait and invading Ukraine. Russia had everything to lose by taking that bait. The quality of their sophisticated weaponry and also their armed forces would be on display for western analysts thus helping the west to bolster its defenses against any future potential Russian aggression. Secondly, their economy would be under severe strain on account of western sanctions. The biggest mistake Russia made was to attack the enemy’s proxy instead of the enemy itself. I mean, it would have been so simple for Russia to retaliate to the Western bait by threatening to arm Iran or some other significant Western adversary with nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. This would have had the US and the West clamouring for peaceful negotiations and Russia could have worked out an excellent deal for itself.

In the form of Taiwan, the US used the same bait against China too and it was astonishingly surprising to see China coming up with highly predictable textbook replies to the American provocations. The Chinese sabre-rattling against Taiwan has left me befuddled and bewildered. That would have been the first scenario in any war-gaming exercise. They seem to be following Russia’s example by endeavouring to fight against a proxy opponent. The Western propaganda machine is working overtime in portraying an imminent Chinese attack on Taiwan. If China is actually moronic enough to do that then, much to their detriment, they will be playing right into the hands of the US and the West. China has to introspect and realize that it has very little war experience. It faced huge casualties in Vietnam in 1979. It’s only good at duplicity and treacherous attacks though, even in that area, it had to take in heavy casualties in Galwan. Additionally, most countries around the world look at China with a great degree of suspicion. So, China has to look for out-of-the-box solutions for its threats from the US. Ok, I know that it’s re-election time for XI Jinping and, given that he has numerous adversaries inside China, it’s obvious that he has to come out with an impression of strength in order to impress the Chinese populace. A point to be noted in this regard is that he’s ready to subordinate national interests to personal interests and that could be useful for Indian and Western war-gaming analysts vis-à-vis China.

Unfortunately, for the world, the business of war is here to stay for the next few decades on account of the insatiable Western greed and ambitions and the presence of unperceptive world leaders like Putin and Xi Jinping. There’s going to be massive increases in worldwide defense spending at the cost of human development and welfare. In the end, the only winner in this game is going to be human avarice!!