How weary is the West?
The West is weary. It is also deeply divided. The real question is just how weary it is. Its top rivals are eager to find out so they can plan their next moves, starting with the Russian president. Vladimir Putin may have underestimated the West’s unity and the force of its reaction to the invasion of Ukraine, but it shifted its strategy and is now fighting a war of attrition.
Moscow knows that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cannot last much longer without continued financial and military support from the United States and Europe. But the signs of “strategic fatigue” with the war in Ukraine are starting to show in both Washington and Brussels.
In the US, the Republicans still can’t agree on the aid package for Kyiv and the initial consensus is starting to fray. Regardless of what ultimately happens, influential politicians on both sides of the aisle are persistently asking what the exit strategy will be if Ukraine does not manage to push the Russians out of the more important occupied parts of its territory and how much the war will end up costing America. The Middle East crisis fell right into Putin’s lap by shifting the spotlight from Ukraine to Israel. And the Americans have realized that they will be paying for two wars simultaneously.
All of this, meanwhile, is happening at a time when decades-old taboos have been smashed and public dialogue has become extremely toxic, not to say violent. The shift in the tone of the discussion about the war in Gaza is a good example. Just a decade ago, no one questioned the undivided support of Israel by the US, regardless of any differences they may have had. That is no longer the case. The combination of social media and political correctness has changed the rules of the game and how foreign policy is discussed. In Israel’s case particularly, we are seeing a situation that has reached the point of awakening deep and dark anti-Semetic syndromes to an unprecedented degree.
As for Europe, it is, without doubt, the weariest part of the West. As usual, it is looking at what is happening in the US and waiting. Fatigue with the war in Ukraine is already evident in some countries, while the stance toward Israel is causing friction.
So, on the one hand we have Putin and other leaders forming an “axis of resistance” toward the West, as the Iranians call this group of countries. Free of pressure from social media and the culture of political correctness, without worrying about the political cost of a mounting death toll, this group is biding its time. On the other, we have the leaders of a weary West that are under tremendous domestic pressure but feel that if the arm-wrestling match with Moscow or Tehran is lost, it will wake up to an anarchic new world where it is no longer calling the shots, with no security. It’s a white-knuckle waiting game.
