U.S. reaps huge benefits from Ukraine crisis

Editor's note: The author He Weiwen is a senior fellow with Center for China and Globalization, CCG. The article only reflects the author's opinions.

The Ukraine crisis has entered its second month, causing massive casualties among Russian and Ukraine soldiers and civilians while creating over 4 million refugees. China, the EU, France, Germany, Turkey, Israel and others have been working hard to bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiation table. U.S. President Joe Biden, contrary to China and other countries working for peace, has been busy sending weapons to Ukraine and other NATO countries and fanning fires at the NATO and G7 summits. They are pressing for devastating sanctions on Russia, and reshaping of the world order. It is clear that the U.S. wants the war to continue.

U.S. military-industrial complexes make tremendous money from war

Benjamin Norton, an independent American reporter, said that the U.S. and other western countries do not want an early end to the crisis. With the war in Ukraine going on, the true motive of the U.S. is becoming increasingly clear. The military conflict has earned tremendous amounts of money for the U.S. military-industrial complexes. Apparently, the longer a war lasts, the more money they make.

For the same purposes, the U.S. actually instigated the Ukraine crisis. Had U.S. President Joe Biden agreed to not have Ukraine in NATO, Russia would have had no need to take military action. Biden certainly knew that clearly. But he did just the opposite. He kept encouraging Ukraine NATO membership, stepping on Russia's red line deliberately and causing Russian President Vladimir Putin to take military action. It was then that the U.S. started to reap dirty money.

Since its founding in 1776, the U.S. has launched or joined in wars over 225 out of 244 years, leaving only less than 20 years of peacetime. During the 76 years from 1945 to 2001, there were 248 military conflicts in 153 countries and regions around the world. Out of those total, the U.S. launched or participated in 201. 

American historian Paul Atwood once said that "war is the way of life for Americans. The United States of America was born and grew up to be a super-power amid war, slavery and massacre."

The U.S. government cares nothing about the suffering of billions of people around the world. What it cares about is its own interests, and among other things, how much money America's military-industrial complexes can make.

The military-industrial complexes, started during World War II, have been growing rapidly over the past 77 years. They are the world's largest warmonger and a colossal deep-state in the United States. There are over 4,000 lobby groups for the military-industrial complexes in the U.S. political environment. If an American president doesn't follow their positions, he usually loses votes that he can't afford to.

U.S. financial and energy groups also open champagne

The dominant role of the military-industrial complexes has been significantly reinforced by Wall Street, which is also a big winner of the war. Westinghouse and Martin Marietta are controlled by Rockefeller Group, General Dynamics by Morgan Group and Lockheed Martin by California Group. America's financial giants also make good money side by side with the military-industrial complexes.

A report by global capital flows monitor EPFR said that during the first two weeks after the Ukraine crisis broke out, the world's stock and bond markets saw continuous capital outflows, only the U.S. capital market had a net inflow of $7.77 billion. The U.S. dollar also gained vis-à-vis the euro and pound. That only repeats a similar scenario from the past. During the NATO bombing of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, the euro exchange rate to the U.S. dollar fell to below parity while the dollar gained its share in world payments and reserves. Likewise, Wall Street also favored the war continuing.

The Ukraine crisis has provided an excellent reason for the U.S. to cut Russian oil and gas supplies to Europe, killing the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and forcing Europe to switch its supply sources from Russia to America. EU countries imported 155 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia in 2021, or 42 percent of their total supply.

Under strong pressure from Washington, the EU is planning to cut 110 billion cubic meters in supply from Russia this year, and turn to the U.S. as an alternate. Under an initial arrangement, the U.S. will provide 15 billion cubic meters this year. The U.S. doesn't care about the grievances of Europe. It will only be busy calculating the new money.

The root cause and the full behavior of the U.S. before and since the Ukraine crisis has sounded a clear warning to the world to not be taken in by its high-sounding narratives. Instead, we should work unremittingly with more countries for an early peaceful settlement, with a balanced, sustainable European security arrangement. That's while taking into full account the strategic security concerns of both Russia and Ukraine, and of Russia and Europe.