US RIGHT WING FREAKS OUT OVER PIKETTY SPEAKING
National Defense University hosts speaker arguing 'democratic socialism' is answer to China threat
The academic lecture for national security leaders, which will condemn "Western arrogance," comes as U.S. military is accused of going woke.
By Aaron Kliegman
Updated: February 14, 2022
A prestigious school funded by the Department of Defense to educate U.S. military officers and other national security leaders is hosting an event this week where the featured speaker will argue America must respond to its competition with China by ending its "arrogance" and promoting "democratic socialism."
The controversial event, which critics described to Just the News as anti-American propaganda, comes at a time when the Pentagon has come under fire for embracing "woke" ideas. Such scrutiny has coincided with a drop in public trust in the military, according to recent polling.
On Wednesday, the National Defense University (NDU) is scheduled to hold a speaker session titled "Responding to China: The Case for Global Justice and Democratic Socialism." The speaker will be Thomas Piketty, a French academic who is currently a professor at the Paris School of Economics and the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. Piketty has also written several books, including "Time for Socialism."
"Western countries are still struggling to define their attitude toward the Beijing regime," the official description of the NDU event states. "In this talk, Mr. Piketty will argue that the right answer lies in ending Western arrogance and promoting a new emancipatory and egalitarian horizon on a global scale — a new form of democratic and participatory, ecological, and post-colonial socialism."
"If they stick to their usual lecturing posture and a dated hyper-capitalist model," the description continues, "Western countries may find it extremely difficult to meet the Chinese challenge."
The Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) and the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, both part of NDU, are presenting the session in collaboration with the DOD Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) program, a portfolio of projects that studies and assesses challenging problems associated with the planning and operations of the Pentagon, the military services, and other government agencies.
Part of INSS's stated mission is "to provide strategic support to the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the services, and combatant commands." The Eisenhower School's mission is to "prepare select military officers and civilians for strategic leadership and success in developing national security strategy."
The NDU event is drawing backlash among some in the broader national security community, including individuals who previously worked at NDU. They told Just the News that inviting someone to promote socialism as a response to growing tensions with China — which is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party — is not in accordance with the school's mission.
"As a former associate dean at National Defense University and a former strategist to the president, I am disgusted and horrified that our nation's highest institution of military education is being used as a platform to promote anti-capitalist, pro-socialist propaganda," said Sebastian Gorka. "And on the taxpayer dime."
Gorka, who served in former President Trump's White House and was named to the National Security Education Board in 2020, rebuked Piketty for advocating socialism as the solution to the strategic challenged posed by China.
"The fact that a French apologist for an ideology Americans died to prevent the spread of dares to hold a lecture on one of the oldest military bases in our nation is an affront to all veterans and those still serving," said Gorka, referring to Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., where NDU is located. "Mr. Piketty seems to have forgotten that 'Western arrogance' saved France from destruction by Hitler's Germany's National SOCIALIST Workers' Party."
GORKA IS A HUNGARIAN CATHOLIC FASCIST
When asked to elaborate on his views on the U.S.-China relationship and how NDU selected him as a speaker, Piketty told Just the News to attend his talk without expanding further.
NDU described Wednesday's event as nothing out of the ordinary, touting it as a way to expose students and faculty to different perspectives.
"NDU's mission is to educate joint warfighters and other national security leaders in critical thinking and the creative application of military power to inform national strategy and globally integrated operations, under conditions of disruptive change, in order to prevail in war, peace, and competition," an NDU spokesperson told Just the News.
"To do that," the spokesperson continued, "we provide opportunities for students and faculty to be exposed to a wide variety of perspectives on national security and international affairs, to include this optional engagement with economist Thomas Piketty. This is in line with the accreditation requirement that NDU demonstrates a commitment to academic freedom, intellectual freedom, and freedom of expression."
Wednesday's event comes at a time when senior military and civilian leadership inside the Pentagon is being scrutinized for pushing soldiers to consider so-called "woke" ideas pushed by the far left.
"The Department of Defense has become deeply and dangerously politicized," said a senior Republican congressional aide. "This sort of woke and anti-American propaganda is everywhere, and especially in the military academies and places like NDU. This propaganda isn't about challenging our young men and women — it's about making the case for the Chinese Communist Party and against America."
"If and when Republicans retake Congress and the White House," the aide added, "we will systematically move to reverse these trends, and the academies and NDU are absolutely going to be part of that."
NDU is designated as a "Chairman's Controlled Activity," meaning its charter was approved by the secretary of defense and the school operates under the guidance and direction of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation's highest-ranking military officer.
The current chairman, Gen. Mark Milley, was accused of pushing wokeness on soldiers after defending the study and teaching of critical race theory within the armed forces last June.
"It's important actually for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and be widely read," Milley told the House Armed Services Committee. "I want to understand white rage."
"I personally find it offensive," Milley said, "that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our commissioned and noncommissioned officers, of being woke because we're studying some theories that are out there."
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point offers a seminar class on "white rage" and the chief of Naval Operations recommends "How to Be an Antiracist "— a foundational text of critical race theory — on the official reading list of the U.S. Navy. The list also includes "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness and Sexual Minorities and Politics."
Supporters argue incorporating such texts and ideas into the armed forces fosters well-rounded service members who better understand the world around them beyond military tactics. Critics counter that doing so will divide and demoralize soldiers when unity is crucial for military effectiveness, adding the focus of military education should be how to prepare, deter, and fight wars.
Last week, the DOD wrote that diversity, equity, and inclusion are "necessities" in the military and need to be "a consideration or a part of all decisions in the military."
In this environment, some military experts have warned the country's war colleges and service academies no longer teach warfighting. The curricula at these schools have for some 50 years taught soldiers to be "a diplomat, an economist, a scientist, a historian, and a lawyer," but not a warfighter, two professors and military historians at the U.S. Army War College wrote last year, arguing the military "no longer knows how to fight and win wars."
This perception of the military, especially in the wake of President Biden's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, may be one reason why public trust in the military has declined.
Only 45% of Americans have a "great deal" of trust in the military, a steep drop from 70% three years ago, according to a recent survey conducted by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. An additional 10% of respondents said they had "not much" trust in the military, compared to just 2% three years ago.
The results, released late last year, also showed an 11-point drop in admiration for the military since February 2020.
The findings also revealed a majority of Americans — 52% — named China as the country posing the greatest threat to the U.S. That's up from 21% four years ago.
This broader context has contributed to some observers' objections to Piketty's planned speech on Wednesday.
"I did not serve on Fort McNair for more than half a decade to see it become a platform for those who hate America and the West," said Gorka. "And I will dedicate myself to making sure this event does not happen."
Tuesday, February 15, 2022
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Calls for Escalating US Aggression against Russia
With Its Doomsday Clock at 100 Seconds to Midnight,
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists emerged after World War II as a voice for peace by some of the scientists who developed the then ultimate weapon of mass destruction. Now, its mission has drifted into being an echo chamber for the US imperial project urging President Biden to take even more destabilizing actions against Russia.
Dropping the A-bombs
By the time that the scientists at the top-secret Manhattan Project had developed the atomic bomb and the US military had worked out the logistics for deploying it, World War II was for all intents and purposes over. By early May 1945, Germany had unconditionally surrendered; in large part due to the efforts of the Red Army defeating the Nazi Wehrmacht, but at the horrific cost of 27,000,000 Soviet lives. The Japanese too had been defeated militarily and had agreed to “unconditional surrender” with the one caveat that Emperor Hirohito be spared.
So, the world’s emerging hegemon had a problem. It had the ultimate weapon to impose its policy of world domination (i.e., today’s official US national security doctrine of global “full spectrum dominance”). But what good is this ultimate weapon if it is a secret? And, even if known, would the world believe that the US has the will to unleash such a destructive force?
President Truman had the solution – nuke Japan. All the military targets in Japan had been destroyed, but an even stronger message of the US’s determination to enforce imperial hegemony was made by annihilating the civilian cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
The Japanese promptly surrendered, offering up the life of their emperor. The US accepted, but did not execute the emperor, who was more useful alive than dead. Besides, the leniency gesture reinforced the message that the US would capriciously bomb at will. Even when President Obama visited Hiroshima in 2016, he pointedly offered “no apology” for the destruction his country had wrought.
Dawn of the Cold War
The quick Japanese surrender in August 1945 had another cause, which many modern historians consider more overriding than the US bombs. The Soviets, engaged with their western front, had remained neutral in the war with Japan, but had promised the Allies to join the war effort against Japan once the Germans were defeated. At the same time the US dropped the bombs, the USSR declared war with Japan causing Tokyo to capitulate.
The dropping of the atomic bombs was the first salvo of the Cold War, signifying the end of the US wartime alliance of convenience with the Soviet Union. Truman’s rush to nuke Japan had the dual advantage of making known his “hammer” over the Kremlin as well as denying the USSR time to advance east and have a seat in the surrender agreement with Japan. The Soviets had not developed atomic weapons on the assumption – which proved to be essentially correct – that World War II would be over before they could be deployed to defeat the Axis powers.
In the immediate post-war period, the Soviets and their allies were existentially threatened by the unambiguous intention of the US and its allies to destroy them. As a defensive measure, the Soviet Union had no choice but to develop a deterrent nuclear force, testing its first atomic bomb in 1949.
Although the Soviets pledged to use their nuclear arsenal only in defense and renounced “first strike,” the US didn’t. Soon the Cold War arms race threatened the planet with destruction. The emergent construct of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) was a fragile arrangement for the future of humanity.
Emergence of the Bulletin by scientists for peace
Voices of peace arose from the very inventers of the atomic bomb. Immediately after the destructive power of the atom was rained on Japan and even before the Soviet Union developed their deterrent force, former Manhattan Project scientists Eugene Rabinowitch and Hyman Goldsmith founded the Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, subsequently renamed the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Other notables associated with the Bulletin were nuclear physicist Hans Bethe, Soviet space scientist Anatoli Blagonravov, Jewish-German émigré and developer of quantum mechanics Max Born, physicist “father of the atomic bomb” turned anti-nuclear proliferation activist J. Robert Oppenheimer, British polymath peace activist Bertrand Russell, Soviet physicist Nikolay Semyonov, and Albert Einstein.
The Bulletin’s Doomsday Clock, unveiled in 1947, was set at seven minutes to midnight. The clock was intended as an educational tool to serve “as a vivid symbol of these multiplying perils, its hands showing how close to extinction we are.”
The Pugwash Conferences, an effort at peace in the early part of the Cold War, were an outgrowth of the Bulletin in its formative years in the 1950s.
Mission drift at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Today, the risk of nuclear annihilation, not to mention global warming and other threats, has never been greater, according to the Bulletin’s Doomsday Clock. But the Bulletin has morphed from an advocate for peace and against other threats to humanity to something else.
From an organization run by scientists, the current governing board of the Bulletin has hardly a scientist in sight. Its president and CEO is Rachel Bronson, a political scientist who came out of the US security establishment NGO world, including the Council on Foreign Relations (Wall Street’s think tank) and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (ranked the top military think tank in the world). Its chair, David Kuhlman, is a corporate consultant specializing in helping “clients identify pathways to profitable growth.” Its secretary, Steve Ramsey, formerly worked for defense contractor General Electric. Former Secretary of State and accused war criminal Madeleine Albright does promotionals for the Bulletin.
The Bulletin maintains a liberal façade and still publishes articles that contribute to peace and environmentalism. In that way, its role in collusion with the US imperial project is insidious, because the patina of peace is used to legitimize its mission drift.
Fanning the flames of anti-Chinese sentiment, the Bulletin promotes the conspiracy theory that the Chinese artificially developed COVID-19, featuring journalist Nicholas Wade’s “How COVID-19’s origins were obscured, by the East and the West.” However, scientific evidence points to natural origins of the virus. Anti-Russian sentiment is promoted with journalist Matt Field’s “Russian media spreading disinformation about US bioweapons as troops mass near Ukraine.” Where are the scientists advocating for peace?
The Bulletin covers the Ukraine crisis
Another case in point of its devolution is the article “How to mix sanctions and diplomacy to avert disaster in Ukraine,” published in the Bulletin on February 1. The article advocates for sanctions that would “severely and quickly devastate Russia’s powerful energy export sector.” Echoing Washington’s talking points, the article couches its recommendations as responding to Russian aggression but actually proposes nothing to de-escalate the conflict.
It is beyond ironic that an organization that purports to be warning against the dangers of nuclear holocaust is making a full-throated defense of an even more aggressive posture by one of the world’s leading nuclear powers.
Yes, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist’s Doomsday Clock is now 100 seconds to midnight, and they are trying to push it closer to Armageddon.
The view of the Bulletin’s Ukraine article is that the current crisis is Putin’s “own making.” In contrast, the article explains that the US has diplomatically “initiated” talks with Russia. There is no mention of the forward deployment of US troops or sending lethal aid to Ukraine. There is no recognition of aggressive actions by NATO such as stationing assault ABM missile systems in Romania and possibly Poland. Off limits is allusion to the US shredding the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Hidden from sight in the aforementioned article and another published the same day on “How the demise of an arms control treaty foreshadowed Russia’s aggression against Ukraine” is the US-orchestrated Ukraine coup in 2014 that installed an anti-Russian regime there. The latter article’s meticulously detailed history of the region notes “Moscow invaded and annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea,” but not the coup that precipitated it.
Reasonable peace proposals
There is not a word in these articles of how some of the Russian initiatives might prevent hostilities and make the region more secure with a reduced likelihood of war. And certainly, there is none of the following reasonable peace proposals:
+Russia and the US shall not use the territory of other countries to prepare or conduct attacks against the other.
+Neither party shall deploy short- or intermediate-range missiles abroad or in areas where these weapons could reach targets inside the other’s territory.
+Neither party shall deploy nuclear weapons abroad, and any such weapons already deployed must be returned.
+Both parties shall eliminate any infrastructure for deploying nuclear weapons outside their own territories.
+Neither party shall conduct military exercises with scenarios involving the use of nuclear weapons.
+Neither party shall train military or civilian personnel from non-nuclear countries to use nuclear weapons.
The above peace measures are what in fact Russia proposed, but are considered “non-starters” by the US and presumably by the Bulletin.
Citing the Atlantic Council, the US-based think tank for NATO, the Bulletin explains that the sanctions that they are advocating would cause the Russian economy to “experience significant chaos.” These sanctions that the Bulletin calls for are a form of warfare just as deadly as dropping bombs. Sanctions kill! Instead of supporting peaceful measures to reduce tensions in the Ukraine, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has become a cheerleader for Washington
FROM THE RIGHT
'False crisis' regarding Russia hurts relations between U.S. and Ukraine, experts sayUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he had not seen the intelligence assessments regarding an invasion, and that the warnings were stoking panic.
By Susan Katz Keating
JUST THE NEWS
Updated: February 14, 2022 -
The situation in Ukraine is a "false crisis" that has hurt relations between Washington and Kyiv, as the Biden Administration increasingly claims to know the date and method of a Russian incursion against its neighbor, experts told Just the News.
The experts made their comments Monday while appearing on the John Solomon Reports podcast.
"It's a false crisis," said international relations expert Kiron Skinner, who served as an adviser at the State Department under Donald Trump. She made that assessment, she noted, because "there's been a war of attrition going on between Kyiv and Moscow for eight years."
International tension has spiked recently as Russia maintains an estimated 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine and has issued ominous statements about "the start of a countdown" and claims that Moscow is being "provoked."
The U.S. has repeatedly announced that Moscow plans to stage a "false flag" provocation in order to justify an attack on Ukraine, and has said that the attack is "imminent," and could occur this week. The State Department on Monday shuttered its main embassy in Kyiv, and moved the operations to the western city of Lviv.
The announcements and predictions strike a sour note in government circles in Kyiv, according to Dan Hoffman, a former station chief for the CIA in Moscow.
"The relationship between the United States and Ukraine is strained right now, to say the least, because Russia has got 130,000 troops on the border," Hoffman told Just the News. "President Zelenskyy, rightly so, is questioning, well, where's the intelligence?"
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday said that he had not seen the intelligence assessments regarding an invasion, and that the warnings were stoking panic.
"I think there is too much information out there today about a deep full scale war on Russia's part," Zelenskyy said. "There is even talk of appropriate dates. We understand all the risks. We understand that the risks are there. If anyone has any additional information about a 100% chance of an invasion, they should give it to us."
Alternating between English and Ukrainian, Zelenskyy continued: "I have to speak with our people as President, and I say the truth to people, and the truth is that we have different information."
Information regarding an attack comes through intelligence channels, the administration has said. But the information and the subsequent leaks prompt questions from the former station chief, Hoffman.
"The Biden administration's kind of substituting diplomacy for releasing, declassifying intelligence, thinking that by declassifying intelligence they're going to influence Vladimir Putin's behavior," Hoffman said. "I think that's frankly a little bit lazy."
The method falls short, he noted.
"We haven't influenced his behavior at all," Hoffman said. But Putin might be influencing ours.
The administration perhaps thinks "they're doing something by releasing intelligence that, frankly, I think it's possible Vladimir Putin is feeding us anyways."
Putin may not want an invasion, but has been "probing," Skinner said.
Predictions from the West, meanwhile, about an imminent invasion are harmful to Ukraine, that country's president said.
"The best friend of our enemies is panic in our country," Zelenskyy said. "All this information, it only fuels panic. It doesn't help us."
Updated: February 14, 2022 -
The situation in Ukraine is a "false crisis" that has hurt relations between Washington and Kyiv, as the Biden Administration increasingly claims to know the date and method of a Russian incursion against its neighbor, experts told Just the News.
The experts made their comments Monday while appearing on the John Solomon Reports podcast.
"It's a false crisis," said international relations expert Kiron Skinner, who served as an adviser at the State Department under Donald Trump. She made that assessment, she noted, because "there's been a war of attrition going on between Kyiv and Moscow for eight years."
International tension has spiked recently as Russia maintains an estimated 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine and has issued ominous statements about "the start of a countdown" and claims that Moscow is being "provoked."
The U.S. has repeatedly announced that Moscow plans to stage a "false flag" provocation in order to justify an attack on Ukraine, and has said that the attack is "imminent," and could occur this week. The State Department on Monday shuttered its main embassy in Kyiv, and moved the operations to the western city of Lviv.
The announcements and predictions strike a sour note in government circles in Kyiv, according to Dan Hoffman, a former station chief for the CIA in Moscow.
"The relationship between the United States and Ukraine is strained right now, to say the least, because Russia has got 130,000 troops on the border," Hoffman told Just the News. "President Zelenskyy, rightly so, is questioning, well, where's the intelligence?"
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday said that he had not seen the intelligence assessments regarding an invasion, and that the warnings were stoking panic.
"I think there is too much information out there today about a deep full scale war on Russia's part," Zelenskyy said. "There is even talk of appropriate dates. We understand all the risks. We understand that the risks are there. If anyone has any additional information about a 100% chance of an invasion, they should give it to us."
Alternating between English and Ukrainian, Zelenskyy continued: "I have to speak with our people as President, and I say the truth to people, and the truth is that we have different information."
Information regarding an attack comes through intelligence channels, the administration has said. But the information and the subsequent leaks prompt questions from the former station chief, Hoffman.
"The Biden administration's kind of substituting diplomacy for releasing, declassifying intelligence, thinking that by declassifying intelligence they're going to influence Vladimir Putin's behavior," Hoffman said. "I think that's frankly a little bit lazy."
The method falls short, he noted.
"We haven't influenced his behavior at all," Hoffman said. But Putin might be influencing ours.
The administration perhaps thinks "they're doing something by releasing intelligence that, frankly, I think it's possible Vladimir Putin is feeding us anyways."
Putin may not want an invasion, but has been "probing," Skinner said.
Predictions from the West, meanwhile, about an imminent invasion are harmful to Ukraine, that country's president said.
"The best friend of our enemies is panic in our country," Zelenskyy said. "All this information, it only fuels panic. It doesn't help us."
US moves embassy from Ukraine’s capital Kiev to the Western city Lviv
A BORDER CITY SHARED WITH POLAND
Clara Weiss
WSWS.ORG
Amid an ongoing war frenzy in the American media, the US cleared out its embassy in the Ukrainian capital Kiev and relocated its diplomatic staff 340 miles west to Lviv, near the border with Poland. Since Thursday, the Biden administration and the corporate press have peddled unsubstantiated allegations that a Russian invasion is “imminent,” naming Wednesday as a potential date for the military offensive.
Clara Weiss
WSWS.ORG
Amid an ongoing war frenzy in the American media, the US cleared out its embassy in the Ukrainian capital Kiev and relocated its diplomatic staff 340 miles west to Lviv, near the border with Poland. Since Thursday, the Biden administration and the corporate press have peddled unsubstantiated allegations that a Russian invasion is “imminent,” naming Wednesday as a potential date for the military offensive.
A view of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022
[Credit: AP Photo/Andrew Kravchenko]
According to the Wall Street Journal, the State Department has ordered the destruction of networking equipment and computer workstations and the dismantling of the embassy telephone system. Classified material, along with 56 of the embassy’s workers, were moved to Washington on Sunday. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken commented, “These prudent precautions in no way undermine our support for or our commitment to Ukraine.
The move of the US embassy came as dozens of countries have called upon their citizens to immediately leave Ukraine and numerous other states have announced the closure or downsizing of their embassies. The OSCE Special Mission to Ukraine has received orders from the US and UK to withdraw its forces from the Donbass and has begun to do so on Sunday. Several airlines have suspended service to Ukraine while others are struggling to receive insurance coverage for their flights over Ukrainian airspace.
Over the weekend, some 20 charter flights and private jets carried Ukraine’s oligarchs out of the country, including the two richest Ukrainians, Rinat Akhmetov ($11.54 billion) and Viktor Pinchuk ($2.6 billion), as well as many other members of Ukraine’s “richest 100” list.
In yet another sign of growing frictions between Kiev and Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had earlier rejected the latest US allegations of an impending invasion by Moscow, denounced the moving of the US embassy as a “big mistake,” adding, “I think they have to return, otherwise we as a state have to draw certain conclusions. Believe me, we will draw these conclusions.”
A source in Zelensky’s “Servant of the People” party told the Ukrainian outlet strana.ua that the president had told the parliamentary caucus on Monday that “three friendly countries are making up a story about war. He tried to explain to us in the caucus that we are being played with, but that we are resisting.”
The secretary of Ukraine’s Council of National Security and Defense, Alexei Danilov, backed Zelensky’s line on Monday, stating that Ukrainian intelligence has found no evidence substantiating the Western warnings of an invasion by Russia in Ukraine in the near future.
In an address to the nation on Monday, Zelensky said that, “We are being told that February 16 will be the day of the attack, we are turning it into the day of national unity.” Zelensky stressed that the Ukrainian government was preparing for all possible scenarios and that the Ukrainian army was ready to defend the state. He also emphasized that East Ukraine and Crimea would “return to Ukraine” but “exclusively through diplomatic means.” This statement directly contradicts the adoption of a military strategy to “retake” Crimea and East Ukraine that his government adopted in early 2021.
As the CIA and State Department have made one unsubstantiated allegation about a “Russian false-flag operation” after another, the Kremlin and pro-Russian separatists have warned that the Ukrainian army is planning a provocation in East Ukraine. According to Russian news reports, the Ukrainian military has amassed about half of its 250,000 troops near the front line in East Ukraine. This would amount to roughly the same size of Russia’s reported troop deployment near Ukraine’s border.
While Zelensky has been denying both war plans by Kiev and the threat of an imminent invasion by Russia, it is far from clear that his government is in control of the Ukrainian military, let alone the substantial fascist paramilitary forces in the country. Last summer, Zelensky, formally the commander-in-chief, was banned by the military leadership from visiting the front line in East Ukraine for several days, a highly unusual move that was never fully explained.
Earlier this month, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry claimed to have thwarted a plot to stage violent demonstrations against the government, demanding a military offensive in the Donbass and Crimea. Based on the plans and demands, it is assumed that these plans involved forces either actively or formerly employed by the Ukrainian security forces as well as the far right.
US-armed and funded far-right paramilitary forces like the Azov Battalion have staged multiple demonstrations against Zelensky over the years with similar demands, several of which were addressed by former President and oligarch Petro Poroshenko (net worth $1.5 billion).
Poroshenko returned to Ukraine in January and only avoided arrest in a national treason case thanks to the direct intervention of the US and Canada. He has since been engaged in a a press campaign, attacking Zelensky for his supposedly soft line on Russia. Zelensky’s former interior minister, Arsen Avakov, who has close ties to both Washington and Ukraine’s far right, recently called for early elections, threatening Zelensky that, otherwise, he might be ousted in another “Maidan”—the name of the right-wing protests in the leadup to the February 2014 coup.
In a clear indication that Washington is eyeing Zelensky’s removal, the New York Times claimed Zelensky’s attempts to “to caution against panic and overreaction” made him appear “nearly delusional about the grave risks his country faces.”
In another remarkable shift, Zelensky indicated on Monday that his government may give up on its goal to join NATO in the near future, stating: “Maybe the question of open doors [to NATO] is for us like a dream.” In his address to the nation, Zelensky only mentioned Ukraine’s efforts to join the EU, but not NATO. Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at the joint press conference, “The question of [Ukraine’s] membership in alliances is basically not on the table, that’s why it’s very strange to see that the Russian government has made something that is basically not on the agenda the subject of a major political problem.”
In reality, Ukraine’s joining of NATO was a central goal of the US-orchestrated February 2014 coup in Kiev. Over the past three years, the Zelensky government has pushed for an acceleration of the process of including Ukraine in the alliance. The Kremlin has long denounced such a move, with Putin recently declaring that Ukraine in NATO would mean war between Russia and NATO. A guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO was one of the principal demands that the Kremlin submitted to NATO in December that the US has flat-out rejected.
While avoiding any clear statement on the controversial Russian-German gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, which both the US and Ukraine want to see stopped, Germany’s Olaf Scholz said on Monday that Berlin was working, together with the US and EU, “very intensely” on a “package of sanctions” that would have “substantial influence on the potential for Russia’s further economic development.” Scholz also announced that Germany would give Ukraine another $150 million in financial aid.
Scholz has come under significant pressure from both the US and from within his own coalition with the Greens and Liberal Democrats to clearly announce the end of Nord Stream 2 in case of a war between Russia and Ukraine during his visit to Moscow on Tuesday. Germany is one of the biggest importers of Russian gas; overall, 40 percent of Europe’s gas supplies come from Russia with some countries like Hungary depending almost entirely on these deliveries for their gas consumption.
On Monday, gas prices in Europe grew to over $1,000 for 1,000 cubic meters, while oil prices passed the $95 per barrel mark. Since January, Europe has also significantly increased its imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG). In a recent piece, the German news magazine Der Spiegel pointed out that America’s LNG industry, which became the world’s largest exporter of LNG in December, was making hefty profits off the Ukraine war crisis.
Meanwhile, the US and NATO continue to ratchet up military tensions in a clear attempt to provoke all-out war. In a phone conversation with UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson—who has been co-leading the NATO provocations against Russia with the US—US President Joe Biden discussed further reinforcements to NATO’s eastern flank. They also stressed again that the EU must decrease its dependence on Russian gas.
On Monday, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin had a discussion stressing the need for further diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis. A day prior, Russia launched military drills in the Black Sea involving over 30 warships, on top of ongoing joint military drills with Belarus. Pointing to the provocative moves and military exercises by NATO in the Black Sea last year, Dmitry Zhukov, a retired army captain of the first rank, told the Russian Gazeta.Ru, “The US lays claim to the Black Sea. Moscow has to either accept this or respond. A hypothetical situation in which NATO ships patrol the Black Sea while our military is sitting on the shore and just looking at it is unacceptable for Moscow.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, the State Department has ordered the destruction of networking equipment and computer workstations and the dismantling of the embassy telephone system. Classified material, along with 56 of the embassy’s workers, were moved to Washington on Sunday. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken commented, “These prudent precautions in no way undermine our support for or our commitment to Ukraine.
The move of the US embassy came as dozens of countries have called upon their citizens to immediately leave Ukraine and numerous other states have announced the closure or downsizing of their embassies. The OSCE Special Mission to Ukraine has received orders from the US and UK to withdraw its forces from the Donbass and has begun to do so on Sunday. Several airlines have suspended service to Ukraine while others are struggling to receive insurance coverage for their flights over Ukrainian airspace.
Over the weekend, some 20 charter flights and private jets carried Ukraine’s oligarchs out of the country, including the two richest Ukrainians, Rinat Akhmetov ($11.54 billion) and Viktor Pinchuk ($2.6 billion), as well as many other members of Ukraine’s “richest 100” list.
In yet another sign of growing frictions between Kiev and Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had earlier rejected the latest US allegations of an impending invasion by Moscow, denounced the moving of the US embassy as a “big mistake,” adding, “I think they have to return, otherwise we as a state have to draw certain conclusions. Believe me, we will draw these conclusions.”
A source in Zelensky’s “Servant of the People” party told the Ukrainian outlet strana.ua that the president had told the parliamentary caucus on Monday that “three friendly countries are making up a story about war. He tried to explain to us in the caucus that we are being played with, but that we are resisting.”
The secretary of Ukraine’s Council of National Security and Defense, Alexei Danilov, backed Zelensky’s line on Monday, stating that Ukrainian intelligence has found no evidence substantiating the Western warnings of an invasion by Russia in Ukraine in the near future.
In an address to the nation on Monday, Zelensky said that, “We are being told that February 16 will be the day of the attack, we are turning it into the day of national unity.” Zelensky stressed that the Ukrainian government was preparing for all possible scenarios and that the Ukrainian army was ready to defend the state. He also emphasized that East Ukraine and Crimea would “return to Ukraine” but “exclusively through diplomatic means.” This statement directly contradicts the adoption of a military strategy to “retake” Crimea and East Ukraine that his government adopted in early 2021.
As the CIA and State Department have made one unsubstantiated allegation about a “Russian false-flag operation” after another, the Kremlin and pro-Russian separatists have warned that the Ukrainian army is planning a provocation in East Ukraine. According to Russian news reports, the Ukrainian military has amassed about half of its 250,000 troops near the front line in East Ukraine. This would amount to roughly the same size of Russia’s reported troop deployment near Ukraine’s border.
While Zelensky has been denying both war plans by Kiev and the threat of an imminent invasion by Russia, it is far from clear that his government is in control of the Ukrainian military, let alone the substantial fascist paramilitary forces in the country. Last summer, Zelensky, formally the commander-in-chief, was banned by the military leadership from visiting the front line in East Ukraine for several days, a highly unusual move that was never fully explained.
Earlier this month, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry claimed to have thwarted a plot to stage violent demonstrations against the government, demanding a military offensive in the Donbass and Crimea. Based on the plans and demands, it is assumed that these plans involved forces either actively or formerly employed by the Ukrainian security forces as well as the far right.
US-armed and funded far-right paramilitary forces like the Azov Battalion have staged multiple demonstrations against Zelensky over the years with similar demands, several of which were addressed by former President and oligarch Petro Poroshenko (net worth $1.5 billion).
Poroshenko returned to Ukraine in January and only avoided arrest in a national treason case thanks to the direct intervention of the US and Canada. He has since been engaged in a a press campaign, attacking Zelensky for his supposedly soft line on Russia. Zelensky’s former interior minister, Arsen Avakov, who has close ties to both Washington and Ukraine’s far right, recently called for early elections, threatening Zelensky that, otherwise, he might be ousted in another “Maidan”—the name of the right-wing protests in the leadup to the February 2014 coup.
In a clear indication that Washington is eyeing Zelensky’s removal, the New York Times claimed Zelensky’s attempts to “to caution against panic and overreaction” made him appear “nearly delusional about the grave risks his country faces.”
In another remarkable shift, Zelensky indicated on Monday that his government may give up on its goal to join NATO in the near future, stating: “Maybe the question of open doors [to NATO] is for us like a dream.” In his address to the nation, Zelensky only mentioned Ukraine’s efforts to join the EU, but not NATO. Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at the joint press conference, “The question of [Ukraine’s] membership in alliances is basically not on the table, that’s why it’s very strange to see that the Russian government has made something that is basically not on the agenda the subject of a major political problem.”
In reality, Ukraine’s joining of NATO was a central goal of the US-orchestrated February 2014 coup in Kiev. Over the past three years, the Zelensky government has pushed for an acceleration of the process of including Ukraine in the alliance. The Kremlin has long denounced such a move, with Putin recently declaring that Ukraine in NATO would mean war between Russia and NATO. A guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO was one of the principal demands that the Kremlin submitted to NATO in December that the US has flat-out rejected.
While avoiding any clear statement on the controversial Russian-German gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, which both the US and Ukraine want to see stopped, Germany’s Olaf Scholz said on Monday that Berlin was working, together with the US and EU, “very intensely” on a “package of sanctions” that would have “substantial influence on the potential for Russia’s further economic development.” Scholz also announced that Germany would give Ukraine another $150 million in financial aid.
Scholz has come under significant pressure from both the US and from within his own coalition with the Greens and Liberal Democrats to clearly announce the end of Nord Stream 2 in case of a war between Russia and Ukraine during his visit to Moscow on Tuesday. Germany is one of the biggest importers of Russian gas; overall, 40 percent of Europe’s gas supplies come from Russia with some countries like Hungary depending almost entirely on these deliveries for their gas consumption.
On Monday, gas prices in Europe grew to over $1,000 for 1,000 cubic meters, while oil prices passed the $95 per barrel mark. Since January, Europe has also significantly increased its imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG). In a recent piece, the German news magazine Der Spiegel pointed out that America’s LNG industry, which became the world’s largest exporter of LNG in December, was making hefty profits off the Ukraine war crisis.
Meanwhile, the US and NATO continue to ratchet up military tensions in a clear attempt to provoke all-out war. In a phone conversation with UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson—who has been co-leading the NATO provocations against Russia with the US—US President Joe Biden discussed further reinforcements to NATO’s eastern flank. They also stressed again that the EU must decrease its dependence on Russian gas.
On Monday, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin had a discussion stressing the need for further diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis. A day prior, Russia launched military drills in the Black Sea involving over 30 warships, on top of ongoing joint military drills with Belarus. Pointing to the provocative moves and military exercises by NATO in the Black Sea last year, Dmitry Zhukov, a retired army captain of the first rank, told the Russian Gazeta.Ru, “The US lays claim to the Black Sea. Moscow has to either accept this or respond. A hypothetical situation in which NATO ships patrol the Black Sea while our military is sitting on the shore and just looking at it is unacceptable for Moscow.”
Is The Ukraine ‘Crisis’ Just Another US Charade? – OpEd
Flags of Ukraine and the United States. Photo Credit: US Embassy
Today we face an avoidable crisis that was predictable, actually predicted, willfully precipitated, but easily resolved by the application of common sense.
We are being told each day that war may be imminent in Ukraine. Russian troops, we are told, are massing at Ukraine’s borders and could attack at any time. American citizens are being advised to leave Ukraine and dependents of the American Embassy staff are being evacuated. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president has advised against panic and made clear that he does not consider a Russian invasion imminent. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has denied that he has any intention of invading Ukraine. His demand is that the process of adding new members to NATO cease and that in particular, Russia has assurance that Ukraine and Georgia will never be members. President Biden has refused to give such assurance but made clear his willingness to continue discussing questions of strategic stability in Europe. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government has made clear it has no intention of implementing the agreement reached in 2015 for reuniting the Donbas provinces into Ukraine with a large degree of local autonomy—an agreement with Russia, France and Germany which the United States endorsed.
Maybe I am wrong—tragically wrong—but I cannot dismiss the suspicion that we are witnessing an elaborate charade, grossly magnified by prominent elements of the American media, to serve a domestic political end. Facing rising inflation, the ravages of Omicron, blame (for the most part unfair) for the withdrawal from Afghanistan, plus the failure to get the full support of his own party for the Build Back Better legislation, the Biden administration is staggering under sagging approval ratings just as it gears up for this year’s congressional elections. Since clear “victories” on the domestic woes seem increasingly unlikely, why not fabricate one by posing as if he prevented the invasion of Ukraine by “standing up to Vladimir Putin”? Actually, it seems most likely that President Putin’s goals are what he says they are—and as he has been saying since his speech in Munich in 2007. To simplify and paraphrase, I would sum them up as: “Treat us with at least a modicum of respect. We do not threaten you or your allies, why do you refuse us the security you insist for yourself?”
In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, many observers, ignoring the rapidly unfolding events that marked the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, considered that the end of the Cold War. They were wrong. The Cold War had ended at least two years earlier. It ended by negotiation and was in the interest of all the parties. President George H.W. Bush hoped that Gorbachev would manage to keep most of the twelve non-Baltic republics in a voluntary federation. On August 1, 1991, he made a speech to the Ukrainian parliament (the Verkhovna Rada) in which he endorsed Gorbachev’s plans for a voluntary federation and warned against “suicidal nationalism.” The latter phrase was inspired by Georgian leader Zviad Gamsakurdia’s attacks on minorities in Soviet Georgia. For reasons I will explain elsewhere, they apply to Ukraine today. Bottom line: Despite the prevalent belief, both among the “blob” in the United States, and most of the Russian public, the United States did not support, much less cause the break-up of the Soviet Union. We supported throughout the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and one of the last acts of the Soviet parliament was to legalize their claim to independence. And—by the way—despite frequently voiced fears—Vladimir Putin has never threatened to re-absorb the Baltic countries or to claim any of their territories, though he has criticized some that denied ethnic Russians the full rights of citizenship, a principle that the European Union is pledged to enforce.
But, let’s move on to the first of the assertions in the subtitle…
Was the crisis avoidable?
Well, since President Putin’s major demand is an assurance that NATO will take no further members, and specifically not Ukraine or Georgia, obviously there would have been no basis for the present crisis if there had been no expansion of the alliance following the end of the Cold War, or if the expansion had occurred in harmony with building a security structure in Europe that included Russia.
Maybe we should look at this question more broadly. How do other countries respond to alien military alliances near their borders? Since we are talking about American policy, maybe we should pay some attention to the way the United States has reacted to attempts of outsiders to establish alliances with countries nearby. Anybody remember the Monroe Doctrine, a declaration of a sphere of influence that comprised an entire hemisphere? And we meant it! When we learned that Kaiser’s Germany was attempting to enlist Mexico as an ally during the first world war, that was a powerful incentive for the subsequent declaration of war against Germany. Then, of course, in my lifetime, we had the Cuban Missile Crisis—something I remember vividly since I was at the American Embassy in Moscow and translated some of Khrushchev’s messages to Kennedy.
Should we look at events like the Cuban Missile Crisis from the standpoint of some of the principles of international law, or from the standpoint of the likely behavior of a country’s leaders if they feel threatened? What did international law at that time say about the employment of nuclear missiles in Cuba? Cuba was a sovereign state and had the right to seek support for its independence from anywhere it chose. It had been threatened by the United States, even an attempt to invade, using anti-Castro Cubans. It asked the Soviet Union for support. Knowing that the United States had deployed nuclear weapons in Turkey, a U.S. ally actually bordering on the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, decided to station nuclear missiles in Cuba. How could the U.S. legitimately object if the Soviet Union was deploying weapons similar to those deployed against it?
Obviously, it was a mistake. A big mistake! (One is reminded of Talleyrand’s remark..”Worse than a crime …”) International relations, like it or not, are not determined by debating, interpreting and applying the finer points of “international law”—which in any case is not the same as municipal law, the law within countries. Kennedy had to react to remove the threat. The Joint Chiefs recommended taking out the missiles by bombing. Fortunately, Kennedy stopped short of that, declared a blockade and demanded the removal of the missiles.
At the end of the week of messages back and forth—I translated Khrushchev’s longest—it was agreed that Khrushchev would remove the nuclear missiles from Cuba. What was not announced was that Kennedy also agreed that he would remove the U.S. missiles from Turkey but that this commitment must not be made public.
We American diplomats in Embassy Moscow were delighted at the outcome, of course. We were not even informed of the agreement regarding missiles in Turkey. We had no idea that we had come close to a nuclear exchange. We knew the U.S. had military superiority in the Caribbean and we would have cheered if the U.S. Air Force had bombed the sites. We were wrong. In later meetings with Soviet diplomats and military officers, we learned that, if the sites had been bombed, the officers on the spot could have launched the missiles without orders from Moscow. We could have lost Miami, and then what? We also did not know that a Soviet submarine came close to launching a nuclear-armed torpedo against the destroyer that was preventing its coming up for air.
It was a close call. It is quite dangerous to get involved in military confrontations with countries with nuclear weapons. You don’t need an advanced degree in international law to understand that. You need only common sense.
OK—It was predictable. Was it predicted?
“The most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War”
My words, and my voice was not the only one. In 1997, when the question of adding more members to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), I was asked to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In my introductory remarks, I made the following statement: “I consider the Administration’s recommendation to take new members into NATO at this time misguided. If it should be approved by the United States Senate, it may well go down in history as the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War. Far from improving the security of the United States, its Allies, and the nations that wish to enter the Alliance, it could well encourage a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat to this nation since the Soviet Union collapsed.”
The reason I cited was the presence in the Russian Federation of a nuclear arsenal that, in overall effectiveness, matched if not exceeded that of the United States. Either of our arsenals, if actually used in a hot war, was capable of ending the possibility of civilization on earth, possibly even causing the extinction of the human race and much other life on the planet. Though the United States and the Soviet Union had, as a result of arms control agreements concluded by the Reagan and first Bush administrations, negotiations for further reductions stalled during the Clinton Administration. There was not even an effort to negotiate the removal of short-range nuclear weapons from Europe.
That was not the only reason I cited for including rather than excluding Russia from European security. I explained as follows: “The plan to increase the membership of NATO fails to take account of the real international situation following the end of the Cold War, and proceeds in accord with a logic that made sense only during the Cold War. The division of Europe ended before there was any thought of taking new members into NATO. No one is threatening to re-divide Europe. It is therefore absurd to claim, as some have, that it is necessary to take new members into NATO to avoid a future division of Europe; if NATO is to be the principal instrument for unifying the continent, then logically the only way it can do so is by expanding to include all European countries. But that does not appear to be the aim of the Administration, and even if it is, the way to reach it is not by admitting new members piecemeal.”
Then I added, “All of the purported goals of NATO enlargement are laudable. Of course the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are culturally part of Europe and should be guaranteed a place in European institutions. Of course we have a stake in the development of democracy and stable economies there. But membership in NATO is not the only way to achieve these ends. It is not even the best way in the absence of a clear and identifiable security threat.”
In fact, the decision to expand NATO piecemeal was a reversal of American policies that produced the end of the Cold War and the liberation of Eastern Europe. President George H.W. Bush had proclaimed a goal of a “Europe whole and free.” Soviet President Gorbachev had spoken of “our common European home,” had welcomed representatives of East European governments who threw off their Communist rulers and had ordered radical reductions in Soviet military forces by explaining that for one country to be secure, there must be security for all. The first President Bush also assured Gorbachev during their meeting on Malta in December, 1989, that if the countries of Eastern Europe were allowed to choose their future orientation by democratic processes, the United States would not “take advantage” of that process. (Obviously, bringing countries into NATO that were then in the Warsaw Pact would be “taking advantage.”) The following year, Gorbachev was assured, though not in a formal treaty, that if a unified Germany was allowed to remain in NATO, there would be no movement of NATO jurisdiction to the east, “not one inch.”
These comments were made to President Gorbachev before the Soviet Union broke up. Once it did, the Russian Federation had less than half the population of the Soviet Union and a military establishment demoralized and in total disarray. While there was no reason to enlarge NATO after the Soviet Union recognized and respected the independence of the East European countries, there was even less reason to fear the Russian Federation as a threat.
Willfully precipitated?
Adding countries in Eastern Europe to NATO continued during the George W. Bush administration (2001-2009) but that was not the only thing that stimulated Russian objection. At the same time, the United States began withdrawing from the arms control treaties that had tempered, for a time, an irrational and dangerous arms race and were the foundation agreements for ending the Cold War. The most significant was the decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) which had been the cornerstone treaty for the series of agreements that halted for a time the nuclear arms race. After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Northern Virginia, President Putin was the first foreign leader to call President Bush and offer support. He was as good as his word by facilitating the attack on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which had harbored Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader who had inspired the attacks. It was clear at that time that Putin aspired to a security partnership with the United States. The jihadist terrorists who were targeting the United States were also targeting Russia. Nevertheless, the U.S. continued its course of ignoring Russian–and also allied–interests by invading Iraq, an act of aggression which was opposed not only by Russia, but also by France and Germany.
As President Putin pulled Russia out of the bankruptcy that took place in the late 1990s, stabilized the economy, paid off Russia’s foreign debts, reduced the activity of organized crime, and even began building a financial nest egg to weather future financial storms, he was subjected to what he perceived as one insult after another to his perception of Russia’s dignity and security. He enumerated them in a speech in Munich in 2007. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates responded that we didn’t need a new Cold War. Quite true, of course, but neither he, nor his superiors, nor his successors seemed to take Putin’s warning seriously. Then Senator Joseph Biden, during his candidacy for the presidential election in 2008, pledged to “stand up to Vladimir Putin!” Huh? What in the world had Putin done to him or to the United States?
Although President Barack Obama initially promised policy changes, in fact his government continued to ignore the most serious Russian concerns and redoubled earlier American efforts to detach former Soviet republics from Russian influence and, indeed, to encourage “regime change” in Russia itself. American actions in Syria and Ukraine were seen by the Russian president, and most Russians, as indirect attacks on them.
President Assad of Syria was a brutal dictator but the only effective bulwark against the Islamic state, a movement that had blossomed in Iraq following the U.S. invasion and was spreading into Syria. Military aid to a supposed “democratic opposition” quickly fell into the hands of jihadists allied with the very Al Qaeda that had organized the 9/11 attacks on the United States! But the threat to nearby Russia was much greater since many of the jihadists hailed from areas of the former Soviet Union including Russia itself. Syria is also Russia’s close neighbor; the U.S. was seen strengthening enemies of both the United States and Russia with its misguided attempt to decapitate the Syrian government.
So far as Ukraine is concerned, U.S. intrusion into its domestic politics was deep—to the point of seeming to select a prime minister. It also, in effect, supported an illegal coup d’etat that changed the Ukrainian government in 2014, a procedure not normally considered consistent with the rule of law or democratic governance. The violence that still simmers in Ukraine started in the “pro-Western” west, not in the Donbas where it was a reaction to what was viewed as the threat of violence against Ukrainians who are ethnic Russian.
During President Obama’s second term, his rhetoric became more personal, joining a rising chorus in the American and British media vilifying the Russian president. Obama spoke of economic sanctions against Russians as “costing” Putin for his “misbehavior” in Ukraine, conveniently forgetting that Putin’s action had been popular in Russia and that Obama’s own predecessor could be credibly accused of being a war criminal. Obama then began to hurl insults at the Russian nation as a whole, with allegations like “Russia makes nothing anybody wants,” conveniently ignoring the fact that the only way we could get American astronauts to the international space station at that time was with Russian rockets and that his government was trying its best to prevent Iran and Turkey from buying Russian anti-aircraft missiles.
I am sure some will say, “What’s the big deal? Reagan called the Soviet Union an evil empire, but then negotiated an end of the Cold War.” Right! Reagan condemned the Soviet empire of old—and subsequently gave Gorbachev credit for changing it—but he never publicly castigated the Soviet leaders personally. He treated them with personal respect, and as equals, even treating Foreign Minister Gromyko to formal dinners usually reserved for chiefs of state or government. His first words in private meetings was usually something like, “We hold the peace of the world in our hands. We must act responsibly so the world can live in peace.”
Things got worse during the four years of Donald Trump’s tenure. Accused, without evidence, of being a Russian dupe, Trump made sure he embraced every anti-Russian measure that came along, while at the same time flattered Putin as a great leader. Reciprocal expulsions of diplomats, started by the United States in the final days of Obama’s tenure continued in a grim vicious circle that has resulted in a diplomatic presence so emaciated that for months the United States did not have enough staff in Moscow to issue visas for Russians to visit the United States.
As so many of the other recent developments, the mutual strangulation of diplomatic missions reverses one of the proudest achievements of American diplomacy in latter Cold War years when we worked diligently and successfully to open up the closed society of the Soviet Union, to bring down the iron curtain that separated “East” and “West.” We succeeded, with the cooperation of a Soviet leader who understood that his country desperately needed to join the world.
All right, I rest my case that today’s crisis was “willfully precipitated.” But if that is so, how can I say that it can be…
Easily resolved by the application of common sense?
The short answer is because it can be. What President Putin is demanding, an end to NATO expansion and creation of a security structure in Europe that insures Russia’s security along with that of others is eminently reasonable. He is not demanding the exit of any NATO member and he is threatening none. By any pragmatic, common sense standard it is in the interest of the United States to promote peace, not conflict. To try to detach Ukraine from Russian influence—the avowed aim of those who agitated for the “color revolutions”—was a fool’s errand, and a dangerous one. Have we so soon forgotten the lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Now, to say that approving Putin’s demands is in the objective interest of the United States does not mean that it will be easy to do. The leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties have developed such a Russophobic stance (a story requiring a separate study) that it will take great political skill to navigate the treacherous political waters and achieve a rational outcome.
President Biden has made it clear that the United States will not intervene with its own troops if Russia invades Ukraine. So why move them into Eastern Europe? Just to show hawks in Congress that he is standing firm? For what? Nobody is threatening Poland or Bulgaria except waves of refugees fleeing Syria, Afghanistan and the desiccated areas of the African savannah. So what is the 82nd Airborne supposed to do?
Well, as I have suggested earlier, maybe this is just an expensive charade. Maybe the subsequent negotiations between the Biden and Putin governments will find a way to meet the Russian concerns. If so, maybe the charade will have served its purpose. And maybe then our members of congress will start dealing with the growing problems we have at home instead of making them worse.
One can dream, can’t one?
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