Russia is fighting a proxy war with the U.S., just as it was with the previous stoush with Ukraine, and as it did in Syria.

There is little doubt that China supports Russia! Its leaders have no moral compass! Just a cash register where a normal human compassion ordinarily exists!? And accompanied by a desire to rule the world/recreate an Asian empire!? Has ambitions for control and power that know no bounds!?

As for sleepwalking towards Chinese economic domination of an economy? We have few equals in that department! We are a premier client state of China and seem incapable of extracting ourselves due to, I believe, government timidity? And react it would seem like rabbits caught in the spotlight glare frozen in fear?

And compensate with bellicose bellowing that simply worsens our predicament? Much like a struggling fly in a spiders web using up its energy as the spider waits with venom dripping fangs extended?

We need more that lectern pounding preaching by pompous popinjay politicians! We need a new page. new policies, nuclear energy, nuclear weapons/missiles and a capacity to set aside asinine idealogical imperitives to embrace cooperative capitalism.

Co-ops were the only private enterprise, free market, businesses that survived the Great Depression largely intact!

And as a economic model, allow all tax liabilities and profits earned here to stay here working for us in our economy, where due to the usual economic flow on factors, every single dollar does the work of at least seven!

This is how we recover the economy, the manufacturing sector and draw down debt via economic expansion! And every boy and his dog know this, except for the fools on the hill! Who are focused, as usual, on retaining power/buying votes and little else! Little alone what is best for us and the national interest!
Alan B.

Ukraine should surrender to Russia and save the US and it’s allies losing another war, with all the usual consequences that involves.

Dan.

Sorry Dan, fat chance when you are whipping the bully boy on the block. And Ukraine needs to keep it military foot on the neck of the Russians until they holler Uncle. Anything else makes them subservient slaves to a dictator who will only be emboldened by a surrender.

Simply put the price Russia will pay for a so call victory, should finish them as an economy and a military power anyone would fear. And make them go with the begging bowl extended to China, who will demand territory, and significant economic control/their pound of flesh? And a lose-lose outcome for a almost finished, Putin?
Alan B.

<< On 10th February 2007, Putin gave a speech at the Munich Security Conference criticizing the US-led unipolarity, indicating his resolve to restore the bipolarity of the cold war. >>

What in the Munich speech indicated Putin’s desire for a return to bipolarity? Yes, he was critical of the US-led unipolar model and spoke of the importance of developing a multipolar system of international relations. There was no indication whatever that he wished to return to the bipolarity of the cold war days. It's the US which is determined to keep the cold war alive, not Russia.

For much of the first Cold War, China was the junior partner in the Russian led conflict although there was a falling out between the two Marxist states in the mid-1960s.

We are now in the early stages of the second Cold War. This time China is the senior partner and Russia increasingly its client. Just as with Cold War I where there were several proxy wars where the Marxist powers confronted the democratic powers in places where the two sides didn't directly meet (eg Vietnam), so this war in Ukraine is the first proxy war of Cold War II.

Russia was already slowly being absorbed into the Chinese sphere. As Russia is increasingly alienated from Europe, it has little choice other than to seek the protective arms of China. Sanctions are pushing Russia further into the Chinese embrace, such that the only thing that can save its economy is Chinese assistance. China has been helping the Russians beat the SWIFT boycotts and is now moving to become the major customer for Russian energy exports (coal, gas, oil).

Ultimately Russia becomes a Chinese client state fuelling the Chinese economy. I doubt that's the future Putin envisaged in 2007. Russia couldn't even launch its war of conquest without Chinese approval.

Now as it becomes increasingly obvious that Russia is a paper tiger, unable to even enforce its will against a minor nation like Ukraine, the main game becomes China. Russia in reality no longer offers any real threat to Europe.

While this is the first of the Cold War II proxy wars, more will follow. The events around Kiev will have given the Chinese pause, but they will continue to assume that they will have more success against Taiwan and that western sanctions won't harm them. So Taiwan as the next proxy war remains on the cards.

All this is happening while the west is led by perhaps the most incompetent group of the last 50 years, which of course also gives the Chinese some hope for success and a level of urgency to strike while the west remains weak