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The Debate Should Be a Wake-Up Call For Americans

By Ron Paul | July 1, 2024

There were plenty of surprises in last week’s presidential debate. For one, Americans who rely on the mainstream media for their news learned that they had been lied to for the past three years about President Biden’s capability to do the job he was elected to do.

The realization that the media has been lying for years about Biden is a positive development, as, hopefully, thoughtful Americans might begin wondering what else the media has been lying about. For example, they will find out that the media has been lying to them for years about Russia and Ukraine and about the Middle East and elsewhere. They will find out that our hyper-interventionist foreign policy does not make us safer and more free, but the opposite.

Unfortunately for most Americans, foreign policy is something that happens “over there,” with few direct effects back home. Dumping nearly $200 billion into the lost cause called “Ukraine” may at most seem like an annoyance to many Americans, but it’s not like they are being snatched up by gangs of military recruiters and sent to the front line as is happening to Ukrainian men.

However, $200 billion is real money and the effect on our economy is also real. The bill will be paid by each American family indirectly through the inflation “tax.” Each dollar created out of thin air and spent on the Ukraine debacle devalues the rest of the dollars in circulation.

The danger posed by our foreign policy seemed to escape both candidates, who each tried to convince us they were “tougher” than the other. Despite Donald Trump’s sober and accurate warning that Joe Biden has taken us to the brink of World War III, his solution to the problem is doing more of the same. His stated foreign policy seems to be that were he in office the rest of the world would not dare do anything against his will.

He would have been so tough that Russian president Vladimir Putin would never have dared to invade Ukraine, he claimed. He would have been so tough that Hamas would never have dared attack Israel on October 7th. It’s only Joe Biden’s “weakness” that leads to these disastrous foreign policy outcomes.

But the world does not work that way. Decades of US sanctions placed on any country that fails to do what Washington demands have backfired and led to the emergence of a block of countries united in their resistance to American dictates. Being “tough” on less-powerful countries may work… until it doesn’t. That’s where we are today.

Neither candidate seems to realize that the world has changed.

I have always said that real strength in foreign policy comes from restraint. To prevent these bad outcomes everywhere, stop intervening everywhere. It is not “toughness” that would have prevented Russia from taking action against Ukraine. It is restraint. Not launching a coup in Ukraine in 2014 would have prevented the disastrous war in Ukraine. Just like not stirring up trouble in the South China Sea would prevent a war with China. Not continuing to occupy and intervene in the Middle East would prevent a major regional war which might include Iran and other big players in the region.

Restraint is the real toughness. Non-intervention is the only foreign policy that will keep us safe and free. We’ve tried it the other way and it does not work. Let’s try something different.

July 2, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Destroying Ukraine with Idealism

Why Ukraine should not have the “right” to join NATO

BY GLENN DIESEN | JULY 2, 2024

Political realism is commonly and mistakenly portrayed as immoral because the principal focus is on the inescapable security competition and it thus rejects idealist efforts to transcend power politics. However, because states cannot break with security competition, morality for the realist entails acting in accordance with the balance of power logic as the foundation for stability and peace. Idealist efforts to break with power politics can then be defined as immoral by undermining the management of security competition as the foundation of peace. As Raymond Aron expressed in 1966: “The idealist, believing he has broken with power politics exaggerates its crimes”.[1]

Ukraine’s Sovereign Right to join NATO

The most appealing and dangerous idealist argument that destroyed Ukraine is that it has the right to join any military alliance it desires. It is a very attractive statement that can easily win support from the public as it affirms the freedom and sovereignty of Ukraine, and the alternative is seemingly that Russia should be allowed to dictate Ukraine’s policies.

However, arguing that Ukraine should be allowed to join any military alliance is an idealist argument as it appeals to how we would like the world to be, not how the world actually works. The principle that peace derives from expanding military alliances without taking into account the security interests of other great powers has never existed. States such as Ukraine that border a great power have every reason to express legitimate security concerns, but inviting a rival great power such as the US into its territory intensifies the security competition.

Is it moral to insist on how the world ought to be when war is the consequence of ignoring how the world actually works?

The alternative to expanding NATO is not to accept a Russian sphere of influence, which denotes a zone of exclusive influence. Peace derives from recognising a Russian sphere of interests, which is an area where Russian security interests must be recognised and incorporated rather than excluded. It did not use to be controversial to argue that Russian security interests must be taken into account when operating on its borders.

Mexico has plenty of freedoms in the international system, but it does not have the freedom to join a Chinese-led military alliance or host Chinese military bases. The idealist argument that Mexico can do as it pleases implies ignoring US security concerns, and the result would likely be the US destruction of Mexico. If Scotland secedes from the UK and then joins a Russian-led military alliance and hosts Russian missiles, would the English still champion the principle that it has no say? Idealists who sought to transcend power politics and create a more benign world would instead intensify the security competition and instigate wars.

The Morality of Opposing NATO Expansionism

To argue that NATO expansionism provoked Russia’s invasion is regularly condemned by idealists as immoral because it allegedly legitimises both power politics and the invasion. Is objective reality immoral if it contradicts the ideal world we would like to exist?

The former British ambassador to Russia, Roderic Lyne, warned in 2020 that it was a “massive mistake” to push for NATO membership for Ukraine: “If you want to start a war with Russia, that’s the best way of doing it”.[2] Angela Merkel acknowledged that Russia would interpret the possibility of Ukrainian NATO membership as a “declaration of war”.[3] CIA Director William Burns also warned against drawing Ukraine into NATO as Russia fears encirclement and will therefore be under enormous pressure to use military force: “Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face”.[4] The advisor to former French President Sarkozy argued that the US-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership in November 2021 “convinced Russia that they must attack or be attacked”.[5] None of the aforementioned people sought to legitimise an invasion, rather they sought to avoid a war.

When great powers do not have a soft institutional veto, they use a hard military veto. The idealists insisting that Russia should not have a veto on NATO expansion pushed for the policies that predictably resulted in the destruction of a nation, the loss of territory, and hundreds of thousands of deaths. Why do the idealists get to present themselves as moral and “pro-Ukrainian”? Why are the realists who for more than a decade warned against NATO expansion immoral and “anti-Ukrainian”? Are these labels premised on the theoretical assumption of the idealists?

NATO as a Third Party?

Suggesting that Ukraine has the sovereign right to join NATO presents the military bloc as a passive third party that merely supports the democratic aspiration of Ukrainians. This narrative neglects that NATO did not have an obligation to offer future membership to Ukraine. Indeed, the Western countries signed several agreements with Moscow after the Cold War, such as the Charter of Paris for a New Europe, to collectively construct a Europe without dividing lines and based on indivisible security. NATO broke these agreements by pushing for expansion and refusing to offer Russia security guarantees to mitigate the security competition. By offering future membership to Ukraine, the NATO-Russia conflict became a Russia-Ukraine conflict as Russia had to prevent Ukraine from joining the military bloc and hosting the US military on its territory.

NATO’s support for Ukraine’s right to choose its own foreign policy is also dishonest as Ukraine had to be pulled into the orbit of the military bloc against its will. The Western public is rarely informed that every opinion poll between 1991 and 2014 demonstrates that only a very small minority of Ukrainians ever wanted to join the alliance. NATO recognised the lack of interest by the Ukrainian government and people as a problem to be overcome in a report from 2011: “The greatest challenge for Ukrainian-NATO relations lies in the perception of NATO among the Ukrainian people. NATO membership is not widely supported in the country, with some polls suggesting that popular support of it is less than 20%”.[6]

The solution was to push for a “democratic revolution” in 2014 that toppled the democratically elected government of Ukraine in violation of its constitution and without majority support from Ukrainians. The leaked Nuland-Pyatt phone call revealed that the US was planning a regime change, including who should be in the post-coup government, who had to stay out, and how to legitimise the coup.[7] After the coup, the US openly asserted its intrusive influence over the new government it had installed in Kiev. The general prosecutor of Ukraine, Viktor Shokin, complained that since 2014, “the most shocking thing is that all the [government] appointments were made in agreement with the United States” and Washington “believed that Ukraine was their fiefdom”.[8] A conflict with Russia could be manufactured that would create a demand for NATO.

What were the first decisions of the new government hand-picked by Washington? The first decree by the new Parliament was a call for repealing Russian as a regional language. The New York Times reports that on the first day following the coup, Ukraine’s new spy chief called the CIA and MI6 to establish a partnership for covert operations against Russia that eventually resulted in 12 secret CIA bases along the Russian border.[9] The conflict intensified as Russia responded by seizing Crimea and supporting a rebellion in Donbas, and NATO sabotaged the Minsk peace agreement that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians voted to have implemented. Preserving and intensifying the conflict gave Washington a dependent Ukrainian proxy that could be used against Russia. The same New York Times article mentioned above, also revealed that the covert war against Russia after the coup was a leading reason for Russia’s invasion:

“Toward the end of 2021, according to a senior European official, Mr. Putin was weighing whether to launch his full-scale invasion when he met with the head of one of Russia’s main spy services, who told him that the C.I.A., together with Britain’s MI6, were controlling Ukraine and turning it into a beachhead for operations against Moscow”.[10]

The Immorality of Peace vs Morality of War?

After Russia’s “unprovoked” invasion of Ukraine, the idealists insist that Ukraine must become a member of NATO as soon as the war is over. It is intended as an appealing and moral statement to ensure that Ukraine will be protected and such a tragedy will not be repeated.

Yet, what does it communicate to Russia? Whatever territory Russia does not conquer will fall into the hands of NATO, which can then be used as a frontline against Russia. The threat of NATO expansion incentivises Russia to seize as much territory as possible and ensure what remains is a deeply dysfunctional rump state. The only thing that can bring peace to Ukraine and end the carnage is to restore its neutrality, yet the idealists denounce this as deeply immoral and thus unacceptable. To repeat Raymond Aron: “The idealist, believing he has broken with power politics exaggerates its crimes”.[11]

 

NATO allies divided on what happens after the Ukraine war : NPR

[1] Aron, R., 1966. Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations. Doubleday, Garden City, p.584.

[2] R. Lyne, ‘The UC Interview Series: Sir Roderic Lyne by Nikita Gryazin’, Oxford University Consortium, 18 December 2020.

[3] A. Walsh, ‘Angela Merkel opens up on Ukraine, Putin and her legacy’, Deutsche Welle, 7 June 2022.

[4] W.J. Burns, ‘Nyet means nyet: Russia’s NATO Enlargement Redlines’, Wikileaks, 1 February 2008.

[5] C. Caldwell, ‘The War in Ukraine May Be Impossible to Stop. And the U.S. Deserves Much of the Blame’, The New York Times, 31 May 2022.

[6] NATO, ‘‘Post-Orange Ukraine’: Internal dynamics and foreign policy priorities’, NATO Parliamentary Assembly, October 2011, p.11.

[7] BBC, ‘Ukraine crisis: Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call’, BBC, 7 February 2014.

[8] M.M. Abrahms, ‘Does Ukraine Have Kompromat on Joe Biden?’, Newsweek, 8 August 2023.

[9] A. Entous and M. Schwirtz, 2024. ‘The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin’, The New York Times, 25 February 2024.

[10] A. Entous and M. Schwirtz, 2024. ‘The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin’, The New York Times, 25 February 2024.

[11] Aron, R., 1966. Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations. Doubleday, Garden City, p.584.

July 2, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

Orban pitches ‘quick ceasefire’ to Zelensky

RT | July 2, 2024

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has urged Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky to halt military operations against Russia in order to reach a peace deal with Moscow. Orban has long maintained that the Ukraine conflict could spiral into a continent-wide war, and that restoring peace is his government’s foreign policy priority.

Orban arrived in Kiev on Tuesday for a surprise meeting with Zelensky, in his first visit to Ukraine in more than a decade. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Orban said he had asked Zelensky “to think about whether it would be possible to take a break… to reach a ceasefire and start negotiations [with Russia], since a quick ceasefire could speed up these negotiations.”

Orban said that he was “very grateful to Zelensky for his honest answer in this regard.”

The Hungarian prime minister did not reveal Zelensky’s answer, although it is unlikely that the Ukrainian leader shared his enthusiasm for a truce. Despite mounting battlefield losses and protestations from some of his own aides, Zelensky has insisted since 2022 that he will return Ukraine’s former territories – including Crimea – by military force.

However, while Zelensky has not abandoned these goals, he stated last month that Ukraine “does not want to prolong the war,” and will “put a settlement plan on the table within a few months.” In follow-up comments last week, he said intermediaries such as Türkiye or the UN could help broker talks with Moscow.

Orban has pushed for such a plan since the outset of the conflict. Under his leadership, Hungary has refused to supply Kiev with weapons or allow Western arms into Ukraine via its soil. Budapest has also threatened to veto several of the EU’s 14 packages of sanctions on Moscow, agreeing to these measures only after securing concessions from Brussels, including a partial exemption from the EU’s bloc-wide oil embargo and a guarantee that its nuclear sector won’t be affected by future packages.

These positions have placed Orban at loggerheads with Zelensky and the EU leadership in Brussels. “The Brussels bureaucrats want this war, they see it as their own, and they want to defeat Russia,” he wrote in the Magyar Nemzet newspaper on Saturday.

Orban traveled to Kiev a day after Hungary assumed the European Council’s rotating presidency. “The goal of the Hungarian presidency is to contribute to solving the challenges facing the European Union. My first trip therefore led to Kiev,” Orban said in a statement on his Facebook page on Tuesday.

Aside from pushing Zelensky toward a ceasefire, Orban said he used the face-to-face meeting to lobby for the rights of Ukraine’s Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia, whom Budapest argues are treated as second-class citizens by Kiev. The pair also discussed trade, energy, and infrastructure cooperation.

“We are trying to close all previous disputes and focus on the future. We want to improve relations between our countries,” Orban told reporters.

July 2, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

NATO Faces ‘Key Weapons Gaps’ as Ukraine Eats its Way Into Stocks

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 02.07.2024

NATO allies intend to discuss speeding up the procurement of weapons at their upcoming summit in Washington, reported Semafor.

“Critical gaps” in the alliance’s military readiness need to be addressed, it quoted three European officials as saying, as the bloc continues to funnel weapons to the Kiev regime.

As NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine grinds on, there’ve been growing reports that sending existing equipment to Kiev had “reduced” stockpiles in Europe itself. This prompted the alliance’s latest defense plan, that calls for measures to boost air and missile defense systems’ quantity and readiness, officials told the FT earlier.

Action is expected to be taken on a plan put forward by the NATO’s three Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, which have been at the forefront of anti-Russian hysteria throughout the Ukrainian crisis, along with Poland.

The Allied Capability Delivery Commitment (ACDC) was presented at a May meeting in Palanga, Lithuania, by the defense ministers of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. At the time, speaking at a press conference with Latvia’s Andris Spruds and Lithuania’s Laurynas Kasciunas, Estonia’s Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur said the initiative required extra funds, and the 2 percent minimum spending level agreed at the 2023 summit was no longer “sufficient”.

In line with the five-year plan, the alliance would boost efforts to procure “air defense, long range fires, and ammunition,” Tuuli Duneton, Undersecretary for Defense Policy at the Estonian Ministry of Defense, told the outlet.

“Delivering these [weapons] faster than originally planned would require additional resources to be invested,” one European official was quoted as acknowledging.

He added that the plan had been agreed upon in principle at a June meeting of NATO’s defense ministers in Brussels.

As far as Washington is concerned, it “supports the intent of the proposal and is working with allies on how to incorporate it in summit deliverables,” a US State Department official was cited as saying. The underlying ideas of the proposal will be “embedded” in the Defense Industrial Pledge expected to be signed at the summit, a Latvian spokesperson told the publication.

The NATO summit in Washington D.C. will take place from July 9-11. It will commemorate the landmark 75th anniversary of the alliance, which was founded in 1949. The summit’s title is “Ukraine and transatlantic security.” NATO will not extend a formal invitation to Ukraine for membership during the gathering.

More defense spending and costly procurement face NATO allies as supporting the regime in Kiev continues to bleed their own stockpiles dry. The bloc’s European allies have only a small fraction of the air defense capabilities they would need if the proxy conflict in Ukraine expanded into a direct Russia-NATO confrontation, officials were cited as saying by the Financial Times.

At the same time, the Ukraine conflict has become a great boon for America’s own leading defense contractors, sending their stocks up and boosting their profits. However, as the US and Europe keep squandering taxpayer money on arms for Ukraine, Russia continues to effectively destroy this weaponry.

Russia has persistently cautioned Western countries against furnishing weapons to the Kiev regime, stating that this sort of assistance would only serve to prolong the conflict in Ukraine.

Furthermore, Moscow has repeatedly rejected Western claims about an alleged Russian threat as unsubstantiated. Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this year that the West’s allegations about Moscow’s plans to unleash a war with NATO are “simply rubbish.” He also slammed reports about Russia planning to attack Europe after the end of a special military operation in Ukraine as “complete nonsense and intimidation of Europeans to squeeze money out of them [for defense-related] purposes.”

July 2, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Zelensky Calls on World to ‘Force Putin to Make Peace’

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | July 1, 2024

In a series of posts on social media, President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded more weapons from his Western backers so Russia can be “forced” into a peace agreement. Advanced warplanes, long-range missiles, and air defenses were named on the Ukrainian leader’s wishlist.

In an X post, Zelensky acknowledged that Ukraine was struggling to combat Russian glide bombs, and Kiev needed a significant influx of arms. “Russian bombs remain Putin’s key capability to wage war. The sooner the world helps us neutralize Russia’s combat aviation launching these bombs and the sooner we can strike back with justified strikes,” he implored on Sunday. “The world possesses enough strength to force Russia to make peace.”

Zelensky has sought to impose peace on Russia that requires President Vladimir Putin to stand trial for war crimes and Moscow to withdraw to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders. Putin has offered Ukraine a deal that will require Kiev to recognize Russia’s claims to territory it has captured since 2022. Under Moscow’s proposal, Kiev would also have to agree to neutrality.

Washington and Kiev’s Western backers have firmly rejected any of Moscow’s offers for diplomacy and have pushed Ukraine to expel the invading Russian soldiers. However, as the conflict turned into a war of attrition, Russia gained the upper hand with a larger population and military-industrial base that outproduces Ukraine’s collective supporters.

In a separate post, Zelensky discussed his requests to a bipartisan group of American lawmakers. “We discussed key areas of further American assistance, including additional air defense systems. This is critically important, as the Patriot systems save lives and protect infrastructure,” he wrote.

Washington has struggled to provide Kiev with all the air defenses it has requested. Zelensky has only received a fraction of the Patriot systems he has demanded. Interceptors are in short supply with the White House recently announcing that it would give Ukraine priority for newly produced missiles.

On Monday, Zelensky made a third appeal for arms on X. “Life must prevail over the Russian war and all of Putin’s hostile ambitions. This is absolutely possible. But only if we sustain not just our courage but also the courage of our partners.” He continued, “Long-range weapons, fighter jets for Ukraine—of sufficient quality and quantity, and more air defense systems—are crucial factors affecting the entire course of this war.”

Zelensky said Ukraine needed to be able to “neutralize Russia’s combat aviation launching these bombs and… Russian military infrastructure and airfields.” While Washington and a number of other NATO countries have signed off on Kiev using their weapons to hit targets in Russia, Zelensky has asked the West to remove restrictions on where inside Russia the munitions can hit.

Additionally, Ukraine has used drones to hit Russian radar sites that are critical to Moscow’s ability to detect incoming nuclear weapons.

July 1, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Hundreds of Israeli Officers Request Discharge from Military Service as Gallant Highlights Need for Extra Troops

Al-Manar | July 1, 2024

Israeli Channel 12 reported that, in 2024, around 900 military officers requested to discharge from the army, adding that the annual average of those requests is less than 150.

The channel considered the sharp increase in the number of officers requesting discharge as a “crisis for the state, not just the army,” describing the situation as “worrying.”

Zionist Channel 12 explained that one of the most challenging issues now is keeping officers in important positions within the “army.” It noted that in recent months, it has become evident that officers are inclined to leave the “army” or are considering doing so.

Regarding the reasons for the increase in the number of officers requesting discharge, Zionist Channel 12 mentioned that October 7 was one of the main reasons, along with incentives and bonuses, as well as the de-legitimization campaigns against the “army” by some Israelis and certain politicians.

Haaretz newspaper indicated that dozens of reserve soldiers have announced that they will not rejoin the army even if they get punished.

Meanwhile, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant said the Israeli army needs 10,000 new soldiers immediately, 4,800 of which can be recruited from the ultra-Orthodox community, according to Israeli Channel 12.

This follows the Israeli High Court’s decision last week that ultra-Orthodox men can be drafted for military service, which sparked protests against conscription.

The Israeli media also reported that the occupation army is going to move into the third phase of its war on Gaza, which implies ground withdrawals in parallel with intensification of aerial attacks in order to avoid more of the losses inflicted by the Palestinian resistance.

July 1, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Top Shelf

American-made M-270 Multiple Launch Rocket System

French-made SCALP-EG Cruise Missile
By William Schryver – imetatronink – July 1, 2024

I grow weary of the increasingly pervasive myth that the US/NATO has sent to Ukraine nothing but its antiquated equipment and munitions.

SOME of the equipment sent has been older generation specimens. But ALMOST EVERYTHING sent is representative of what would constitute a large proportion of any US/NATO front-line combined arms army.

– Virtually ALL the artillery tubes sent to Ukraine, whether towed or self-propelled, are the same types NATO armies could presently field.

– Virtually ALL the armored vehicles, of all types, are the same types NATO armies would field in large numbers in a war against Russia.

– ALL the precision-guided strike munitions the US/NATO have fielded in Ukraine are the best available: Javelins, NLAWS, Excalibur, GMLRS and GLSDB for HIMARS, JDAMs, Switchblade, HARMS, Storm Shadow/SCALP, ATACMS, etc.

– ALL the air-defense systems fielded in Ukraine have been top-shelf front-line stuff: IRIS-T, NASAMS, Patriot, etc.

– Most, if not all, of the electronic warfare and counter-battery radars are “best available”.

– The ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) is not only “best available”, but it has been ubiquitous and uninterrupted.

I’m sure there must be some other examples I’m neglecting to cite.

When one examines in aggregate the implements of war the US/NATO have provided to Ukraine, the overwhelming majority consists of the very stuff every military in NATO would field in a war against Russia.

A very small proportion could be reasonably characterized as “antiquated storage-depot junk”.

It must also be recognized (as is now common knowledge) that effectively ALL the precision-guided strike munitions, air-defense systems, and theater ISR assets are being operated by “NATO-affiliated volunteers” – and, not rarely, active NATO personnel.

It is a demonstrable and incontrovertible fact that, in terms of what has been delivered to Ukraine, the US and its NATO underlings have, with very few exceptions, sent their “best stuff”.

And I challenge anyone to craft a persuasive argument built around the proposition that: “If the Americans sent their best stuff, it would dominate on the battlefield against the Russians.”

July 1, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Russia Threatens US Drones in Black Sea Aiding Attacks on Crimea

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | June 30, 2024

In response to Ukrainian attacks on the Crimean Peninsula, tensions between the US and Russia have significantly escalated, with Moscow threatening US drones operating over the Black Sea. The Kremlin says the drones are part of the Ukrainian operations in the region.

On Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said there had been an uptick in American drone operations in the Black Sea “carrying out reconnaissance” of the Crimean Peninsula. The statement explained that the Russian military was instructed to prepare an “operational response” to the flights.

The remarks followed a Ukrainian attack using US cluster munitions that caused the death of four civilians and wounded hundreds of others. Moscow argues that Washington’s support for Kiev makes the US effectively a party to the conflict. “This demonstrates the increasing involvement of the United States and NATO countries in the conflict in Ukraine on the side of the Kiev regime,” the Defense Ministry said.

As Ukrainian forces have continued to lose territory to Russia on the battlefield, its Western backers have significantly stepped up support for Kiev. The US has allowed Ukraine to use its munitions to strike Russia, signed off on the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine, and sent Abrams Tanks to Ukraine, all actions the White House previously warned could risk provoking World War Three.

The Defense Ministry noted the Western escalations, including the drone flights, “increase the risk of a direct confrontation between the alliance and Russia.”

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov explained the Kremlin is still working on its response to the attack on Crimea. “The tragedy that occurred in Sevastopol will certainly not remain and does not remain without our response.” He added, “I think that the idea of certain permissible scenarios is also on the minds of many in the West. They should feel the extreme risks associated with such actions.”

June 30, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Russian Forces Use Underground Tunnel to Seize Major Ukrainian Stronghold in Donbass

Sputnik – 30.06.2024

Russian troops captured a major Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern part of Kirovo in Donbass, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

“The major Ukrainian stronghold on the eastern outskirts of the town of Kirovo was taken by assault units from the Veterans squad of the Tsentr Battlegroup using an underground tunnel,” the statement said.

The fighters secretly cleared and utilized a tunnel over three kilometers long along the Seversky Donets channel, then entered the rear of the fortified position, which featured long-term firing points and underground shelters.

“The soldiers established a supply route through the tunnel, providing the assault troops with ammunition, weapons, and food,” the ministry added.

The ministry emphasized that the surprise element allowed the unit to successfully take full control of the position. Some Ukrainian soldiers surrendered, while others abandoned their posts and retreated.

Earlier on Sunday, the ministry reported that the Tsentr Battlegroup’s units had liberated the settlement of Novoalexandrovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, improved their tactical position, and inflicted losses on the formations of the 23rd, 47th Mechanized, 95th Air Assault, 59th Motorized Infantry Brigades and the 2nd Brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard in the areas of Toretsk, Kirovo, Mikhailovka, Novgorodskoye, Volch’ye, Shevchenko, Sokol, and Vishnevoye. The enemy suffered losses of up to 370 soldiers, eight vehicles, four howitzers, two anti-tank guns, and a counter-battery radar station.

June 30, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Bye, Sentinel? ‘Good Reasons’ to Shelve US Missile Program

By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 30.06.2024

The future of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile has been up in the air since January 2024, when the US Air Force announced that the program had suffered “critical” cost and schedule overruns.

There are “pretty good chances” that the Pentagon will cancel the Sentinel nuclear missile program after its review, retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense (DoD), told Sputnik commenting on a recent firing of a top official overseeing the program.

The project, which is “well over budget and far behind schedule,” is supposed “to deliver 400 ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles] at a taxpayer cost of $325 million each, and employs personnel mainly in Utah,” Kwiatkowski recalled.

The program could be put on hold for at least three reasons, she said.

  • “Utah Senators and the handful of Utah Congressmen are not in a powerful position to save the program.”
  • “The wide domestic publicity of the cost overruns and the recent firing of the program manager further reduces the political firepower” of the project.
  • “As the services realize that budget constraints on the DoD are coming, they are looking for public sacrifices in order to fund better liked and more politically profitable programs.”

Land or ground-based missiles in the nuclear triad, which includes ICBMs, bombers and submarines, “are deployed and funded largely based on the idea that they will never be used, or if they are used, no government would survive those launches intact,” the former DoD analyst noted.

These missiles “are expensive to build, test and maintain, they lack pizzazz and tend to remain in the budgetary background. I suspect that Northrup Grumman is hoping to shift some of the Sentinel budget onto the more glamorous, and more globally marketable, B2 fighter bomber replacement program, and I expect they have already greased the Congressional skids to do this,” she concluded.

The Sentinel program, which aims to develop brand-new missiles to replace the more than 50-year-old Minuteman III ICBMs, was projected to cost $62.3 billion in 2015. Five years later, when the contract was awarded to Northrop Grumman, the project’s price tag jumped to $96 billion. To date, it has ballooned to $131 billion, or 37% more than the previous estimate.

The program has also experienced delays caused by supply chain and workforce issues at the manufacturing company, according to Breaking Defense.
Under the Nunn-McCurdy Act of 1982, if the cost of a weapons project rises 25 percent or more above the baseline estimate, that constitutes a “critical” breach – the Pentagon must review the program.

June 30, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

Trump the Peacemaker? How his presidency might help end the war in Ukraine

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | June 29, 2024

The likely next president of the US, Donald Trump, has signaled that he has a plan for bringing the war in Ukraine to an end. Or, at least, two of his advisers have such a plan. More importantly, they have submitted it to Trump. And most importantly, they have said that he has responded positively.

As one of the plan’s authors has put it, “I’m not claiming he agreed with it or agreed with every word of it, but we were pleased to get the feedback we did.” It is true that Trump has also let it be known that he is not officially endorsing the plan. However, it is obvious that this is a trial balloon which has been launched with his approval. Otherwise, we would have either not have heard about it or it would have been disavowed.

The two Trump advisers are Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general, and Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst. Both held significant positions on national security matters during Trump’s presidency. Currently, both play important roles at the Center for American Security: Kellogg serves as co-chair and Fleitz as vice chair. Both, finally, are clear about their belief in what is perhaps Trump’s single most defining foreign policy concept: America First. Fleitz recently published an article asserting that “only America First can reverse the global chaos caused by the Biden administration.” For Kellogg, the “America First approach is key to national security.” The Center for American Security, finally, is part of the America First Policy Institute, an influential think tank founded in 2022 by key Trump administration veterans to prepare policies for his comeback.

Clearly, this is a peace plan that has not come out of nowhere. On the contrary, it has not merely been submitted to Trump to receive his – unofficial – nod, it has also emerged from within Trumpism as a resurgent political force. In addition, as Reuters has pointed out, it is also the most elaborate plan yet from the Trump camp on how to get to peace in Ukraine. In effect, this is the first time that Trump’s promise to rapidly end this war, once he is back in the White House, has been fleshed out in detail. The adoption of the plan or any similar policy would obviously mark a massive change in US policy. Hence, this is something that deserves close attention.

What does the plan foresee? In essence, it is built on a simple premise: to use Washington’s leverage over Ukraine to force the country to accept a peace that will come with concessions, territorial and otherwise. In the words of Keith Kellogg, “We tell the Ukrainians, ‘You’ve got to come to the table, and if you don’t come to the table, support from the United States will dry up’.” Since Kiev is vitally dependent on American assistance, it is hard to see how it could resist such pressure. Perhaps to give an appearance of “balance” for the many Republicans still hawkish on Russia, the plan also includes a threat addressed to Moscow: “And you tell Putin,” again in Kellogg’s terms, “he’s got to come to the table and if you don’t come to the table, then we’ll give Ukrainians everything they need to kill you in the field.”

Yet it is obvious that, despite the tough rhetoric about Russia, the plan will cause great anxiety in Kiev, not Moscow, for two reasons. First, the threats addressed to Russia and Ukraine are not comparable: If the US were to withdraw its support from Ukraine, Kiev’s Zelensky regime would quickly not just lose the war but collapse. If the US were to, instead, increase its support for the Zelensky regime, then Moscow would respond by mobilizing additional resources, as it has done before. It might also, in that case, receive direct military assistance from China, which would not stand by and watch a potential Russian defeat unfold, because that would leave Beijing alone with an aggressive, emboldened West. In addition, Washington would, of course, have to weigh the risk of Russia engaging in counter-escalation. In sum, the plan threatens Ukraine with certain defeat, regime, and, possibly, even state disintegration; it threatens Moscow with a harder time – a type of threat that has no record of success.

The second reason the plan is bad news for Ukraine but not for Russia is that the peace it aims at is much closer to Moscow’s war aims than to those of Kiev. While the document that has been submitted to Trump has not been made public, American commentators believe that a paper published on the site of the Center for American Security under the title “America First, Russia, & Ukraine” is similar to what he – or his staff – got to see. Also authored by Kellogg and Fleitz, this paper, too, repeatedly stresses just how “tough” Trump used to be toward Russia. Plenty of strutting there for those who like that kind of stuff.

These statements, however, are balanced by an emphasis on what used to be called diplomacy: “At the same time,” we read, “Trump was open to cooperation with Russia and dialogue with Putin. Trump expressed respect for Putin as a world leader and did not demonize him in public statements … This was a transactional approach to US-Russia relations … to find ways to coexist and lower tensions … while standing firm on American security interests.”

That already is a tone that Kiev cannot but find disconcerting. Because under Biden, US strategy – and therefore that of the collective West – has been built not merely on an extremely belligerent approach (as if that were not bad enough already) but, more importantly and more detrimentally, on the obsessive idea that there is no alternative. Everything, to its adherents, is “appeasement” except constant escalation to “win.” There is no room for genuine quid pro quos and compromise. That attitude is vital to America’s unrelenting support for Ukraine and, in particular, the fact that it has crossed one red line (meaning those previously recognized by Washington itself) after the other, with no (good) end in sight.

Hence, a Trumpist approach that is also anything but “soft” on Russia, while, however, acknowledging the possibility of de-escalation through negotiation is already a major departure from current US policy. You could even think of it as being inspired by the Reaganite foreign policy of the 1980s, which also combined pronounced “toughness” with a genuine readiness to compromise. Yet there would be one big difference: Toward the end of the Cold War, Washington was dealing with a pliable, even naïve Soviet leadership. That was a grave mistake – if made for mostly admirably idealistic reasons – that Russia’s current leaders see very clearly, are still angry about, and will not repeat.

In the case of the war in Ukraine, this means that any settlement, even with a newly “transactional” Washington “coming to the table” would involve not one but two “tough” players: Moscow will not agree to any compromise that fails to factor in that it has gained the upper hand in this war. That, in turn, means that, beyond the basic Trumpist mood of conditional conciliatoriness, details will be decisive.

Unfortunately for the Zelensky regime and fortunately for everyone else (yes, including many Ukrainians who won’t have to die in a proxy war anymore once peace comes), in that domain as well, the realm of the concrete and specific, the plan developed by Kellogg and Fleitz shows some progress. The authors, first of all, recognize important elements of reality that the current US leadership is either lying or in denial about: for instance, that this is a proxy war as well as a war of attrition, that Zelensky’s “10-point plan” (essentially a blueprint for what could only happen if Ukraine were to win the war, that is, never) “went nowhere,” and that Ukraine cannot sustain the war demographically.

They also acknowledge that Russia will refuse to take part in peace talks or agree to an initial ceasefire if the West doesn’t “put off NATO membership for Ukraine for an extended period.” In fact, an “extended period” will not suffice; Moscow has been clear that never means never. But Kellogg and Fleitz may be formulating their ideas carefully with a view to how much their readers in America can take at this point. The plan also, again realistically, raises the option of offering a partial and, eventually, complete dropping of sanctions against Russia. Ukraine, on the other side, would not have to give up the aim of recovering all its territory, but – a crucial restriction – would have to agree to pursue it by diplomatic means only. The implication is, of course, that Kiev would have to give up de facto control over territory in the first place.

And there you have it: This is a proposal that, pared down to essentials, foresees territorial concessions and no NATO membership for Ukraine. It’s no wonder that Kellogg and Leitz conclude their paper by admitting that “the Ukrainian government,” “the Ukrainian people” (that is sure to be an over-generalization, by the way), and “their supporters” in the West will have trouble accepting this kind of negotiated peace. We could add: especially after more than two years of an avoidable (as the authors also recognize) and bloody proxy war. Yet that tragedy has already happened. We can wish it had not, but we cannot undo the past. The real question is about the future. Kellogg and Leitz, and Trump as well, if he will follow such a policy, are right that the dying must end, and that the only way to make it end – as well as avoid further escalation, perhaps to global war – is a compromise settlement built on reality.

Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.

June 29, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Why Zelensky won’t be able to negotiate peace himself

The way out is to transcend bilateral talks to include moves toward a new, inclusive European security architecture

BY TED SNIDER | RESPONSIBLE STATECRAFT | JUNE 4, 2024

The war has escalated into a nightmare for the people of Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of their soldiers have been killed or wounded, infrastructure and environment have been devastated. Ukraine’s chances of achieving any of its hoped for goals are receding and more land is being lost every day.

Furthermore, many of the dynamics that led to the start and the continuation of the war are making it especially difficult to get out of it.

Having nourished the people of Ukraine during the war with promises of maximalist achievements, it will be very hard for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to negotiate an end to the war with less than maximalist success.

Having led Ukraine through the war, Zelensky may be unable to lead them out. To encourage both Ukrainians and Ukraine’s allies, Zelensky promised not only that Ukraine would win back territory up to its prewar borders, but that it would recapture all of its territory to 2014 borders, including the Donbas and Crimea. To negotiate an end to the war without reclaiming that territory but having lost even more would be difficult for Zelensky.

Worse, it would be difficult for Zelensky to even attempt to negotiate an end to the war having decreed that Ukraine would not negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And even if Zelensky were to regroup and rescind the ban on negotiating and preserve the best case scenario for Ukraine, he would be dissuaded by the same ultra-right nationalists who persuaded him off his campaign peace platform prior to the war.

Zelensky defeated Petro Poroshenko in a landslide victory in 2019 largely because of a promise to implement the Minsk Agreement and start to move toward peace with Russia. But he was pushed off that platform by a backlash in Ukraine and lack of support in the political West.

Ultranationalist leaders defied Zelensky and warned that a ceasefire and fulfillment of his campaign promises would lead to protests and riots. More seriously, they threatened his life. Dmytro Yarosh, the founder of the Right Sector paramilitary organization threatened that, if Zelensky fulfilled his campaign promise, “he will lose his life. He will hang on some tree on Khreshchatyk boulevard if he betrays Ukraine and those people who died in the Revolution and the War. And it is very important that he understand this.”

During a presentation announcing Zelensky’s creation of a National Platform for Reconciliation and Unity on March 12, 2020, Zelensky advisor Sergei Sivokho was thrown to the ground by a large gang from the Azov battalion.

Were Zelensky to return to his prewar platform after the death and devastation of the war, he could face the same resistance from the same groups now magnified by that devastation.

Zelensky could be replaced by a peacetime president with less baggage. But elections are prohibited by Ukrainian law during martial law, which is still in effect. Zelensky has ruled out holding them. Battlefield conditions would make it difficult, and many Ukrainians have already fled the country. Furthermore, a survey conducted in February 2024 found that 49% of Ukrainians definitely oppose elections right now and 18% rather oppose it, though the poll suffers from the methodological problem that it likely excludes those in the Eastern regions and those who have left Ukraine.

Bottom line: Zelensky isn’t going anywhere right now, but would struggle to negotiate an end to the war without help. Such assistance could come, however, from the U.S. and its partners in the West. Though Zelensky may not have the political strength to realistically reverse his maximalist promises nor to survive ultranationalist retribution, he would have a better chance of selling it if he could say that the Western powers who promised to support the pursuit of those goals for as long as it takes were pressuring him to negotiate an end of the war. Responsibility could be shifted to the United States.

But would the U.S. shoulder that responsibility? U.S. President Joe Biden, from the beginning, has framed the war in Ukraine as “the great battle for freedom: a battle between democracy and autocracy.” The U.S. has insisted on supporting the war against Russia in defense of “core principles,” including that each country has “a sovereign right to determine for itself with whom it will choose to associate in terms of its alliances, its partnerships.”

It may be perceived as a blow to Biden’s credibility, to U.S. hegemony, and to NATO to concede the inability to push Russia out of Ukraine and to defend NATO’s right to expand and Ukraine’s right to join.

Negotiations to end the war would be a desirable path out of Ukraine. Diplomatic talks are possible as proven by the nearly successful negotiations in Istanbul in the early weeks of the war. The existence of the signed draft treaty that those talks produced has been confirmed by independent sources who have seen it, including The Wall Street Journal, Die Welt and Samuel Charap of RAND and Sergey Radchenko of John Hopkins University.

Those talks “almost finalized an agreement that would have ended the war,” according to Charap and Radchenko’s analysis of the text of the treaty. “Kyiv and Moscow largely agreed on conditions for an end to the war,” Die Welt reports. “Only a few points remained open.”

Oleksiy Arestovych, who was a member of the Ukrainian negotiating team in Istanbul, says the talks in Istanbul were successful and could have worked. He says that the Istanbul agreement was 90% prepared. “We opened the champagne bottle,” he said.

But it is the very success of the diplomatic talks that makes future negotiations difficult. It will be very difficult for Ukraine — and the United States — after over two years of war, death, destruction, disruption of lives, and loss of land to agree to terms that are essentially the same as the terms they had won before the war.

But there is another way that surmounts many of these obstacles by transcending them. The diplomatic negotiations could be broader than just negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

While several aspects of any diplomatic solution must address Russian-Ukrainian issues, like territory, caps on the Ukrainian armed forces and protection of ethnic minorities in both countries, significant parts could, instead, be addressed in a wider global solution. Putin has recently suggested that future talks encompass, not just a Ukraine-Russia security arrangement, but a comprehensive European security structure.

“We are open to a dialogue on Ukraine,” Putin said in May, “but such negotiations must take into account the interests of all countries involved in the conflict, including Russia’s. They must also involve a substantive discussion on global stability and security guarantees for Russia’s opponents and, naturally, for Russia itself.”

Instead, the expansion of a U.S. led military alliance hostile to Russia appears to be moving to engulf Europe right up to Russia’s doorstep. The insistence on defending that exclusive security structure contributed to the war in Ukraine. Addressing it could provide a more workable and lasting way out of it.

Instead of building a bigger NATO that expands to Russia’s borders and excludes and competes with it in conflict, the diplomatic energy could go into building a new inclusive European security structure that includes Russia in cooperation.

This new structure could eliminate the need for Ukraine to join NATO and for Ukraine and the U.S. to concede the right to join NATO. It could eliminate the need for the U.S. to commit to bilateral security guarantees that it is reluctant to sign with Ukraine because they could draw the U.S. into a war with Russia should Russia again attack Ukraine. It could, at last, bring the hope of peace to Europe and of better relations across the Atlantic.

Such global talks could relieve Zelensky of personal responsibility. They could bring sufficient force to defend against ultranationalist objections. They could truthfully be presented as a victory by the U.S. and not a surrender of “core principles.” And they could avoid competition and comparison with the earlier talks in Istanbul by transcending them.

How we get there is the hard part. But perhaps there is a way offered out of the war in Ukraine that delivers to each of Ukraine, Russia, the U.S. and Europe what it wants. Perhaps the way out is to transcend negotiations on the Russia-Ukraine war with talks that include that but expand to include an inclusive global security architecture.

June 28, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

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