A selfish war that makes the world pay the price

With five months into the world's latest war and much of Ukraine's eastern region falling under Russian control, the West now says the war would continue for months or years.

Russia now says the peace in Ukraine, if it comes some day, will be on Russia's terms.  

Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to burn and the whole world is heading for a recession amid severe energy and food crisis.

The West is vowing to strengthen Ukraine militarily for a prolonged war. At the same time, they are counting on the success of sanctions on Russia.

Impacts of the war and sweeping sanctions are not limited to the two warring nations. Food and energy crises and galloping inflation have engulfed the whole world.  

Europe itself is a victim of their sanctions on Russia as the continent heavily depends on Russian gas supplies.

Bangladesh is also struggling to cope with a severe energy crisis and spiraling food prices.  

Earlier this month Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina urged the United States to steer away from punishing the people of the whole world in a bid to punish one country.

The Russia-Ukraine war has affected the whole world. Also, the sanctions put on Russia by the US has affected the procurement and import of products in Bangladesh as well as disrupted the supply chain, said the Premier.

She said the people of the US itself are also being affected by the sanctions, so the country should consider this and withdraw the sanctions.

Her concerns are justified when the US itself waits for liquid fertiliser cargo from Russia. A Liberia-flagged tanker was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on Monday carrying about 39,000 tonnes of urea ammonium nitrate solution from Russia, says a Reuters report.

The US administration now says it has not blacklisted Russian agricultural commodities, including fertilisers, in the aftermath of the Ukraine war.

Apart from being global food baskets, Russia and Ukraine are also major exporters of fertilisers, whose prices sky-rocketed, forcing farmers to scale back their use and cut farming area, raising fears of food shortage worldwide.

The situation turned so alarming that even the two warring nations-- Russia and Ukraine--signed a deal on Friday to reopen Ukrainian Black Sea ports for grain exports.

The landmark deal, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in Istanbul, raised hopes that an international food crisis aggravated by the war and sanctions can be eased as it will open three key Ukrainian ports for commercial food trade.

The closure of Black Sea route caused trapping of tens of millions of tonnes of grain in silos, worsening global supply chain bottlenecks.

US's selfish war costing the world

The whole world has now been dragged into a new war-- a runaway inflation, soaring food and energy prices, rising interest rates and an unstoppable rise in dollar's value, making global trade costlier everyday.  

The US is spearheading the 'currency war' with its central bank hiking interest rates to contain inflation at home, which fuels global inflation further, as it gives the dollar a free ride over other currencies, making trade and loan expensive worldwide.

The US Federal Reserve is expected to hike interest rates in July for the second time this year, which will strike a blow at the global struggle for recovery.

The Fed's move forces other countries to revise their base rates upward and end the era of cheap money pursued during the pandemic to help businesses survive and recover.

It brings an added pressure for the UK as hiking rate, though expected to tame inflation to some extent, may increase unemployment. The ECB is under pressure to hike rates in member countries for the first time since 2011 amid fears of slowing growth further.

As the Fed raises interest rates, dollar-denominated loans become an unsustainable burden to states around the globe, says a report of British newspaper The Guardian, headlined 'The US's selfish war on inflation will tip the world into recession'.

American news media Bloomberg reports how the US is exporting inflation through the super-strong dollar. The US Fed is ratcheting up interest rates to cool the American economy and combat inflation, but it creates a headache for the rest of the world.

The US Fed's rate hikes put the world's central bankers in a protective mode, pushing them into a race of hiking rates at the cost of economic growth and employment.

The dollar's gain is the world's pain and the world may be in for a whole lot more discomfort, warns another report of Bloomberg.

What the US is doing, for its internal needs, be it military strategy or economic, impacts the whole world's peace, life, economy and business.

Political price is no less    

As inflation is breaking records and the energy crisis is deepening, public anger is brewing in the USA and its European allies, as in Asia.

Economic crisis aggravated by the war led to the collapse of governments in Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

European democracy is being tested too as rising energy prices, a plunging currency, and faltering leadership have exposed the fragility of rich nations.  

Though a series of scandals and controversies led to the downfall of the British prime minister Boris Johnson, economic woes stemming from unbridled inflation had also ensnared his government.

In Italy, Prime Minister Mario Draghi quit in response to a populist rebellion within the government over issues like the cost of a garbage incinerator in Rome.

With fears of a complete shutdown of gas supplies from Russia, which cover a third of the continent's gas needs, public concerns and discontent for the next winter loom.

Leaders of France and Germany are sometimes found differing in opinion on the point of saving Ukraine without provoking a nuclear war with Russia, suggests The New York Times in a report.

Joe Biden is not having a good time too as inflation and high fuel prices are weakening Americans' spending power. Speculations are growing that America might soon tire of the burden of the Ukraine war.

"The president is more unpopular even than Donald Trump was at this point in his presidency," says The Economist in its latest edition, predicting that Republicans may take control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Fewer Americans overall are prepared to pay an economic price for supporting Ukraine than were at the onset of war in March, it points out.

It finds Biden's aim in the war unclear, with public opinion divided, some thinking the war is unwinnable and some others seeing a win as the answer.