Aletho News

US invasion threats over Solomon Islands deal expose Western hypocrisy in Ukraine

By Drago Bosnic | May 5, 2022

When Ukraine announced it will join NATO after the CIA-orchestrated Orange Revolution in 2004, it prompted Russia to respond by voicing its strong condemnation, which later culminated in Vladimir Putin’s historical 2007 Munich Security Conference speech. Still, just a year later, Ukraine was invited to join NATO. The former Soviet republic officially applied to integrate within a framework of a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) in 2008. However, plans for NATO membership were shelved following the 2010 presidential election in which Viktor Yanukovych triumphed, coming back to power after spending over half a decade in the political opposition.

Before the 2010 election, Russia’s concerns were completely ignored and every time Russia stated Ukraine’s NATO ascension would severely undermine and weaken its security, leading members such as the US and the UK stated that it’s Ukraine’s “sovereign right” to choose which alliances it wants to join and that Ukraine’s NATO membership wasn’t aimed against Russia. These claims were put to the test after the 2010 election, because Yanukovych preferred to keep the country non-aligned. A little over 4 years into his presidency, he was ousted in yet another CIA-orchestrated coup, this time the infamous Maidan Revolution, also known as the so-called “Revolution of Dignity” in recent years. So much for Ukraine’s “sovereign right” to choose alliances or worse yet in this case, to stay neutral.

Even if there was any notion of respect for the sovereignty of nations by the US and NATO before 2014, it became glaringly obvious that wasn’t the case. Soon, anti-Russian violence erupted all across the country, which was now firmly in the grip of its NATO (primarily US) overlords and openly Neo-Nazi groups which were promptly integrated into various security institutions, including the military and intelligence services. Again, Ukraine’s “sovereign right” to choose alliances was back on the table during various Russia-US security talks, including the Geneva summit in 2021. The rest is history which we are witnessing as we speak.

However, the Ukraine crisis isn’t the only one unfolding in the context of a broader “the West vs the Rest” clash. The political West doesn’t only bring “peace, stability, freedom and democracy” to Europe and Russia’s near abroad. There are many other such places. While Russia is allegedly being “aggressive” in its own backyard, so is China in the South and East CHINA sea, Iran (previously known as Persia) in the PERSIAN Gulf, etc. Because in the mind of the “indispensable” NATO planners, only other countries can be “aggressive” mere miles away from their coasts, at their borders or even inside their own sovereign territories. NATO, on the other hand, brings only “peace, stability, freedom and democracy” no matter how many thousands or even tens of thousands of kilometers away from its borders, regardless of how negatively that affects any country. And if any of the small vassal countries is to try and get the shackles of “freedom and democracy” off, the reaction is almost immediate.

The most recent such example is the tiny island country called the Solomon Islands. It’s safe to assume most people haven’t even heard of this peaceful Pacific island state, a former UK colony situated some 2000 km northeast of Australia. In late April, the Solomon Islands had the “audacity” to sign a security agreement with China, which would allow Beijing to send military and police personnel to the island country, as well as open the door to a Chinese naval presence in the South Pacific. Or at least that’s what the United States, Australia and New Zealand claim the agreement is all about. My esteemed colleague Uriel Araujo wrote an excellent analysis with a more in-depth focus on the agreement, its causes and possible consequences.

The strategic implications of this agreement might be too soon to evaluate in a precise manner, but it does expose the sheer hypocrisy of the political West, primarily its Anglo-American portion. The Solomon Islands are around 2,000 km away from the Australian coast, over 5,500 km from the US State of Hawaii and nearly 10,000 km away from the US mainland. The Pacific island country was not on the US and Australia’s radar for decades. US embassy in Honiara, the country’s capital, was closed in 1993, nearly 30 years ago. Australia seemed equally uninterested up until just a few weeks ago. And yet, both the US and Australia are now fuming over even the slightest notion that the Solomon Islands could make such an agreement with China.

“We won’t be having Chinese military naval bases in our region on our doorstep,” Australian PM Scott Morrison said, calling it a “red line” both for his government and Washington DC. A US envoy that visited the Honiara in late April said that his government would have “significant concerns and respond accordingly” to any “permanent military presence, power-projection capabilities, or a military installation” by China. After ignoring the country and its security and economic problems for decades, the increasingly belligerent AUKUS allies have now suddenly decided to renew their geopolitical interest in the Solomon Islands by openly threatening the island country.

The question is, why do the US and Australia think they have the right to interfere or even intervene in the affairs of another country which is thousands of kilometers away? Why is the US allowed to conduct so-called “freedom of navigation” naval patrols in the immediate vicinity of Chinese waters in the South China Sea, but it’s “problematic” when China signs agreements with sovereign nations which have nothing to do with the United States and its vassals? After all, isn’t this the “sovereign right” of the Solomon Islands? Why is the legitimate government of the island country being threatened and denied the actual sovereign right to choose allies, but a puppet coup regime in Kiev isn’t?

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

May 5, 2022 - Posted by aletho | Progressive Hypocrite | NATO, Solomon Islands, Ukraine, United States