Washington’s Bi-Partisan Russia-Bashers Are Determined to Start a War
By Ron Paul | January 17, 2022
Russia-bashing is a bi-partisan activity in Washington. Both parties think it makes them look “tough” and “pro-America.” But while Republican and Democrat politicians continue to one-up each other on “risk-free” threats to Russia, they are increasingly risking a devastating nuclear war.
It’s all fun and games until the missiles start flying. And in this case we are risking total destruction over who governs eastern Ukraine! Has so much ever been risked for so little?
The problem with all this tough talk is that politicians start to believe their own rhetoric and propaganda. As a result they don’t make sound decisions based on objective facts, but instead make rash decisions based on faulty misinformation.
When US politicians talk about Russia massing troops on the Ukrainian border, for example, they leave out the fact that these troops are actually inside Russia. With US troops in some 150 countries overseas, you’d think Washington might pause before criticizing the “aggression” of troops inside a country’s own borders.
They also leave out the reasons why Russia might be concerned over its neighbor Ukraine. CNN reported recently that the Biden Administration approved another $200 million in military aid to Ukraine last month, making nearly half a billion dollars in weapons over the past year.
Imagine if China was sending half a billion dollars in weapons to Mexico to strengthen and embolden a hyper-aggressive anti-US regime. Would the US not be “massing troops near the Mexican border”?
Also there is that issue about the US-backed overthrow of the democratically-elected Ukrainian government in 2014, which is the starting point of all these recent problems. And this week Yahoo News reported that the CIA is training Ukrainian paramilitaries on US soil!
Recent talks between the US and Russia failed before they even began, with the US side refusing to even consider ending useless and provocative NATO expansion eastward. NATO is a Cold War relic that should have been disbanded along with the Warsaw Pact. It serves no purpose and its constant saber-rattling puts us at risk in conflicts that have nothing to do with US national security.
How embarrassing it was to hear Blinken ridiculing Russia for coming to the aid of ally Kazakhstan as a color revolution (with likely US backing) was brewing. “I think one lesson in recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult to get them to leave,” Blinken told reporters. He said this with a straight face even as the US continues to illegally occupy a large part of Syria, continues to occupy part of Iraq against the will of that country’s parliament, and occupied a good part of Afghanistan for 20 years!
Incidentally, as soon as the regime change attempt was put down in Kazakhstan, Russian and allied troops began leaving the country. But, of course, the reflexively pro-war US media doesn’t report anything outside the narrative.
What to do about Russia? Stop backing regime change along Russia’s borders, including Belarus, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere. Stop meddling in foreign elections. Look at how we wasted four years on false claims that the Russians meddled in ours. End weapons shipments and all aid to Ukraine. End sanctions. Re-imagine the US defense budget as a budget to actually defend the US. It’s really not that complicated: stop trying to rule the world.
Copyright © 2022 by RonPaul Institute.
Russian roulette: as croupier at this particular casino table, I invite you to place your bets
By Gilbert Doctorow | January 14, 2022
The Russia-US-NATO-OSCE meetings this week have come and gone. The Russian verdict was succinctly delivered by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Ryabkov, who explained even before the OSCE session was over that the talks have come to “a dead end” and it was unlikely the Russians will participate in any follow-on talks.
This opens the question to what comes next.
Official Washington feels certain that what comes next is a Russian invasion of Ukraine, which could come in the next few weeks and thereby fall within the timetable for such an operation suggested by State Department officials when they met with NATO allies ahead of Biden’s December 7 virtual summit with Putin. The logic put out then was that January-February would be very suitable for a land invasion given that the frozen ground would well support tank movements. One might add to that argument on timing, one further argument that was not adduced: in midwinter it is questionable how long the Russians would want to keep 100,000 soldiers camped in field conditions near the border; such stasis in these severe conditions is not conducive to maintaining morale.
In what I would call a rare show of failing confidence in the predictive powers of the Biden Administration, U.S. media admit to uncertainty over Russia’s next moves. However, they cleverly present this by pointing to the uncertainty of the analysts and commentators on the Russian side.
A featured article in The New York Times a couple of days ago by their Moscow correspondent Anton Troianovsky says it all in the title: Putin’s Next Move on Ukraine Is a Mystery. Just the Way He Likes It”
Indeed, all the best known Russian experts appear to be stymied, none more so than the ubiquitous Fyodor Lukyanov, host of the weekly television show “International Overview” and long time research director of the Valdai Discussion Club, where his peers in the front ranks of American international affairs specialists have gotten to know him. Lukyanov has in recent days humbly admitted he hasn’t a clue to what comes next. Another leading figure in the Russian foreign affairs think tank community, Andrei Kortunov, director of the Russian International Affairs Council, has shown in recent interviews that he is no better informed about what is going on in the Kremlin and what comes next.
Western experts are also shown by our media to be clueless. Today’s Financial Times article “Russia writes off security talks…” ends with a quote from Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace: “Nobody knows Putin’s next move. And we’ll all find out at the same time.”
By definition, ‘experts’ cannot declare they know nothing and be taken seriously. This reminds me of the saying of my boss for five years at ITT Europe in the 1980s, Georges Tsygalnitzky. Each time we sat down to prepare the annual Business Plan he told us that if we calculated the sales forecasts badly, we could be up to 100% off, but if we failed to deliver a Plan we would be “infinitely wrong.” The same rules apply to government defense planning.
No right-thinking person likes the idea of a major war coming to the middle of Europe, as the Ukrainians consider themselves to be. The United States has still more reason to worry about a looming war between Russia and Ukraine, because the outcome of total rout for the Kiev military forces equates to a bloody nose for Washington: its acknowledged 2.5 billion dollar investment in arming and training the Ukrainian military will have been in vain, and the loss would rival the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan in terms of American global prestige. The Biden administration would enter the midterm electoral period reeling from its losses in international relations.
Without wishing the Biden administration ill, I believe their scenario of a Russian invasion is wrong-headed and unimaginative. It fails to come to terms with the Russians’ imperatives on altering the security architecture in Europe as drivers of their current policies, not settling scores with Ukraine, or bringing them back to a common homeland, as Blinken & Company repeat ad nauseam.
So what comes next? In successive articles on this website, I have set out several scenarios, or algorithms. My most recent prognosis in yesterday’s piece was that Putin’s Plan B would likely be purely “military-technical” in the sense of roll-out of medium range nuclear capable missiles in Kaliningrad and Belarus, to place all of Europe under threat of attack with ultra-short warning times, such as Moscow finds unacceptable coming from U.S.-NATO encirclement of its territory.
At the same time, Moscow might announce the stationing off of the American East and West Coasts of its submarines and frigates carrying hypersonic missiles and the Poseidon deep sea nuclear capable drone, all to the same purpose, namely putting a pistol to the head of the U.S. leadership. And now there is even talk of Russia building military installations in Venezuela, likely to host Russian strategic bombers capable of swift attack on the Continental United States without having to fly half the world. And a Cuban delegation is reportedly in Moscow, no doubt talking about posssible installation of missiles there. This is all very reminiscent of the goings-on in 1962.
One reader of this essay has written in, saying that news of Russian submarines posted off the coast of New York and Los Angeles could sink the S&P. Yes, indeed, and this financial damage is an aspect of policy that the Russians have taken into account. The sensitivity of Wall Street to bad news was mentioned specifically by Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov earlier in the week in Q&A. The American middle classes may be indifferent to foreign affairs generally but they are very attentive and politically active when the value of their 401k pension fund is hit. It is not for nothing that wealth fund managers in the City of London, board members of leading U.S. banks and insurance companies are readers of my essays as reposted on my LinkedIn account.
I imagine that Russia’s Plan B could begin implementation in the next couple of weeks and would be given three or four weeks to take effect on Western public consciousness. If the United States and NATO still resisted coming to terms over changes to the Alliance that satisfy Russian demands, then I envision a Plan C which would indeed be kinetic warfare, but quite different from the invasion that figures in U.S. public statements and approaches to its allies.
Without putting a single soldier on the ground in Ukraine or contemplating direct overthrow of its regime and occupation, Russia could by “military-technical means,” such as missile and air attacks destroy the Ukraine’s command and control structure as well as “neutralize” the most radical nationalist militias and other hostile units now threatening Donbas. The destruction of Ukraine’s military infrastructure would by itself put an end to Washington’s plans for extensive war games there later in the year. We may assume that Russian forces will remain massed at the border till such operations are completed.
The clean-up of Ukraine, ending its potential to threaten Russian national security, would be a very strong signal to all of Europe to back off in practice even if no formal treaties are signed with Russia at present.
In an exchange with a close colleague in Washington this morning, we agreed a bet on whether my prediction holds. And in this casino of international politics, I invite readers to place their own bets on what comes next.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022
NATO Expansion: Blinken and Stoltenberg lie intentionally and the media let them
By Jan Oberg | The Transnational | January 13, 2022
To deceive, telling half-truths, or a complete lie is nothing new in politics, particularly security in politics. But until some 20-30 years ago, I would – perhaps naively – see it as an exception. Tragically – and perhaps to many readers’ surprise – it is now the rule. At least in U.S. and NATO circles, and that is particularly regrettably since The West professes to be a democratic system with specific values and even a moral leader to The Rest.
Lying systematically about facts – historical facts – and other countries and cultures should be incompatible with The West’s perception of itself. But, today, it isn’t.
Lies are widespread in so-called security politics when some militarist project doesn’t make any (common) sense to intelligent people, when the real motives have to be covered up and war is being prepared or when the sociological cancer called the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex, MIMAC, and the elites it consists of, try to squeeze out even larger military expenditures from their taxpayers.
You lie to manufacture an enemy that can justify what you will do and enrich yourself. With 40+ years of experience in security politics in general and NATO/US policies in particular, I know too much – sorry for the arrogance – and have become too cynical to believe that what goes on goes on for the sake of self-defence, security or peace.
Some quick examples of gross empirically-revealed lying to the word – all the liars still at large:
• In the 1990s, Yugoslav President Milosevic was Europe’s new Hitler (Bill Clinton) and planned a genocide on the Albanians in Kosovo.
• Saddam Hussein’s soldiers threw babies out of their incubators in Kuwait City.
• Afghanistan had to be destroyed because of 9/11.
• Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
• The US-led Global War On Terror – GWOT – has been about reducing terrorism.
• The US/NATO orchestrated regime-change attempt in Syria from 2011 to 2016 was exclusively about Dictator al-Assad’s sudden sadist “killing of his own.”
• Gaddafi was just about to murder all who lived in Benghazi.
• The conflict around Ukraine was started by Putin’s “aggression” on Crimea, nothing preceded it.
• Iran has always plotted and lied to acquire nuclear weapons.
• There are only bad things to say about Russia and China and…
You may continue on your own.
A recent lie is particularly nasty because it is not about some limited event or pretext. It is a cynical attempt to rewrite contemporary history to justify (even further) NATO expansion and intimidate Russia.
The lie is this:
• The West’s leaders never promised Mikhail Gorbachev and his foreign minister Edvard Shevardnadze not to expand NATO eastward. They also did not state that they would take serious Soviet/Russian security interests around its borders. And that, therefore, each of the former Warsaw Pact countries has a right to join NATO if they decide to freely.
It is this lie I am going to deal with below, and you can hear these lies presented by Antony Blinken and Jens Stoltenberg – in slightly different versions – with crystal clarity in the following two videos.
Before I start, let me say that it has never been my style to focus on or attack individuals. I’ve always been more interested in structures and processes and in how they shape people. But there comes a time when leaders must be held accountable because they choose to lie repeatedly, although they do have the choice not to.
And because lies have often been war crimes in the making.
Antony Blinken
First, US Secretary-of-State, Antony Blinken on January 7, 2022 – scroll the video below to 38:30 where he begins to speak and distorts the Ukraine conflict history and then, at 43:00-45:00, continues to say that Russia is driving the false narrative that the West had given assurances to Russia/Gorbachev about not expanding NATO back in 1989-90. It wouldn’t and couldn’t, he says. And all the claims Russia makes are false and shall not permit “us” to be diverted from the main thing: Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine.
Right after (45:40) comes another lie – Russia also invaded Georgia. Anyone who has studied the U.S. Congressional Research Service’s analysis of 2009, “Russia-Georgia Conflict in 2008: Context and Implications for U.S. Interests“, knows that this issue was vastly more complex and that it was Georgia – led by hotheaded U.S. friend Mikheil Saakashvili whose political life ever since has resembled a tragicomic farce – that had occupied the larger part of South Ossetia before Russia intervened massively. The responsibility for the war and violence can not seriously be placed on the Russian side alone.
And he continues his self-righteous accusations. Blinken’s list is long, and he reads his accusation list with a submachinegun speed, sometimes so stumbling and unclear that one must wonder whether he is uncomfortable because he is subconsciously aware that he lies, deceives and omits to make his psycho-political projections of the U.S.’s own dark sides sound intelligent, logical and truthful.
This U.S. Secretary of State can’t be bothered by facts or nuances. Neither could his predecessor, Mike Pompeo, who was proud to say that at the CIA, he directed “We Lied, We Cheated, We Stole. We had entire training courses…“. Mr Blinken continues reading his obsessive, hateful listing of all the sins of Russia. As if the US/NATO did not exist and, therefore, there was no conflict which normally takes a least two parties. In his comprehensive conflict illiteracy, this conflict has only one party: Russia.
The intellectual level is deplorable. NATO allies and mainstream media have no public opinion or critical views on any of it. One must assume that they agree and can make no better analyses themselves.
Now, take a look – at least at the sequences, I’ve mentioned above. Then, I show you how Mr Blinken is lying deliberately under the video.
If this link doens’t functionanymore, please use this. You may also see it on C-Span and YouTube here.
Now, how can Mr Blinken flatly deny that assurances were given to Gorbachev?
The only source I have been able to find is an article by Steven Pifer from 2014, which argues that Gorbachev himself denies that NATO expansion was ever discussed, “Did NATO Promise Not to Enlarge? Gorbachev Says “No” which refers to an interview with Gorbachev in Russia Beyond.
But this is a piece of citation fraud.
Steven Pifer quotes from it but stops right before the well-known statement in the interview article by then U.S. Secretary of State, James Baker, that “NATO will not move one inch further east.” He also omits these words by Gorbachev himself:
“The decision for the U.S. and its allies to expand NATO into the east was decisively made in 1993. I called this a big mistake from the very beginning. It was definitely a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990. With regards to Germany, they were legally enshrined and are being observed.”
Can this really be interpreted to mean that Gorbachev says that no assurances were ever given?
We get a key to why Blinken uses a fake analysis: Because it fits his posturing as a paragon of truth and because Mr Pifer is a senior fellow at Brookings but also a former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and adviser to one of the most hawkish think-tanks, Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington.
A slight twist, omission or interpretative casuistry isn’t that important, is it? Well, if you are not yet convinced that Mr Blinken lies deliberately, I ask you to now go to the authoritative National Security Archive at George Washington University. It’s an incredible source of facts, and we should thank it for making the truth available through comprehensive documentation on so many security-related issues.
TFF has reproduced two essential pieces from that archive of irrefutable documentation that Gorbachev indeed was given such assurances – “cascades” of them! as is stated in the article – by all the most influential Western leaders at the end of 1989 and into 1990:
“NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev heard” – and
“NATO Expansion: The Budapest Blow Up 1994”
Read them, and you’ll be shocked.
You’ll find that they have lots of notes and, in sum, no less than 48 original historical documents. For instance, here is just one of the 48 informing us about then NATO Secretary-General Manfred Woerner’s view and statement:
“Woerner had given a well-regarded speech in Brussels in May 1990 in which he argued: “The principal task of the next decade will be to build a new European security structure, to include the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations. The Soviet Union will have an important role to play in the construction of such a system. If you consider the current predicament of the Soviet Union, which has practically no allies left, then you can understand its justified wish not to be forced out of Europe.“
Now in mid-1991, Woerner responds to the Russians by stating that he personally and the NATO Council are both against expansion – “13 out of 16 NATO members share this point of view” – and that he will speak against Poland’s and Romania’s membership in NATO to those countries’ leaders as he has already done with leaders of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Woerner emphasizes that “We should not allow […] the isolation of the USSR from the European community.”
This is just one of the “cascades” of statements and assurances given to the Russians at the time. Over 30 years ago, 13 out of 16 members were against NATO expansion because they respected Russia’s crisis and legitimate security interests! Today – 2022 – NATO has 30 members.
Is the U.S. Secretary of State, his advisors and speechwriters unaware of the next-door National Security Archives and what is in them concerning one of contemporary history’s most important events: the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact? Are we really to believe that they have no clue about the conditions and dialogues at the end of the first Cold War? If so, they ought to resign or be fired for their unbelievable incompetence.
If not so – if they know the content of these historical documents – Mr Blinken, his advisors and speechwriters know that they lie.
Their words, therefore, should never be trusted. Neither should the media that avoid highlighting these lies and thereby become complicit. The task of a supposedly free press is to reveal the power abuse of democratically elected people who deliberately fill their constituencies with lies.
Simple as that.
Jens Stoltenberg
In this press conference video from January 7, 2022, NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg states some of the same rhetoric, distortions, simplifications and lies. Not to mention platitudes accompanied by an almost funny body language of bombastic gestures to compensate for his weak content, mantras and repetitions.
Listen at around 19:00 minutes how he maintains that NATO enlargement has been “extremely important for stability and peace and freedom and democracy in Europe” where it can indeed be argued that that enlargement is the main reason that Europe is now in a situation which can reasonably be called the 2nd Cold War.
Why else has NATO not created the desired and stipulated peace and stability since it was created in 1949? So, no, Mr Stoltenberg, you cannot continue – like your masters in Washington – to argue that the present war risks are caused by Russia and Russia alone? If that’s what they order you to say, you have the option to choose decency and resign.
The NATO Secretary-General repeats that each state has a sovereign right to decide its own course and choose its own security arrangements. And that NATO has not dragged in anybody, and they have all just decided democratically to become a member.
That is simply not true.
NATO as an alliance has enormous resources to influence opinions in potential member states. Contrary to his open door talk, NATO’s Charter speaks only about inviting new members, not about holding a door open for anyone who might want to join.
It should be well-known by now – but isn’t – that in the late 1990s, Vladimir Putin asked to join NATO – but it didn’t happen, did it, Mr Stoltenberg? And why not? Because Putin – Russia – wanted to be invited as an equal partner and not sit and wait till Montenegro had become a member, to put it bluntly. NATO decided to close the door at Putin’s request.
This – fantastic – story is told by a former NATO Secretary-General, George Robertson; there is no reason to assume that is not credible or just a rumour. Or, for that matter, that Putin was not serious.
And what an exciting thought: Russia in NATO! Who would Mr Stoltenberg and Mr Blinken – and all the rest of the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex, MIMAC, then have to put all the blame on? How then legitimate NATO’s permanent armament and 12% higher military expenditures than Russia’s?
Mr Stoltenberg must know that he lies when saying NATO has an open door. It doesn’t for Russia. It doesn’t even have open ears for Russia’s security concerns (which each and every NATO member, the U.S. in particular, would consider reasonable if a Russian military alliance incrementally crept close to their borders).
And he must know that he lies when he acts as though he does not know that Russia has been against that very NATO enlargement that he fakes has been so positive for all of Europe during no less than 30 years.
Funnily, Stoltenberg first emphasises (around 19:30) that all new NATO members have freely decided to join. Then he boasts about all NATO does to train, help, support candidates and how important Ukraine is as a NATO partner while not a member. As he says, candidates need to carry through reforms to meet NATO standards. And NATO gives them “practical and political support” so they can – later – meet NATO standards and become members.
What an extraordinary altruism NATO radiates! Are we really to believe that NATO certainly drags in no one, as he maintains?
NATO set up an office in Kyiv, Ukraine, already in 1994, and here you can see how – incrementally – Ukraine has been dragged in, seduced, and promised a great Euro-Atlantic future in one document after the other.
And here you’ll see how Olga Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, standing at NATO’s H.Q. with Stoltenberg, consistently talks about NATO as Ukraine’s “allies,” expect all kinds of guarantees and – in Foreign Policy of course – argues that Ukraine Needs a Clear Path to NATO Membership in the face of Russian aggression.
And now, the integration process has probably gone so far that neither NATO nor Ukraine would be able to see any other alternative but full membership at some point. Being fiancées, why not marry through a formal membership – as has been said about Sweden?
In its Russia-humiliating policies, NATO has not even seen it coming: That with all the promises, structures and processes accumulating and creating expectations, the alliance would, at some point, run into serious conflict with Russia. If so, the entire alliance suffers from conflict illiteracy and a tremendous lack of foresight.
An that is why you have to construct Russia as a huge militarily aggressive state with an unsympathetic leader – one “we” can freely demonise and don’t even have to listen to.
Now, listen then to this Stoltenberg statement about the – real – importance of NATO’s help (20:45): “…It also makes the societies of Ukraine and Georgia stronger. So resilient, well-functioning societies are also less vulnerable from interference from Russia.”
Just a welcoming open NATO door to countries that decide freely and democratically that they want to knock on it?
It’s time for a reality check in NATO Realpolitik’s – outdated – world. If you do not manifestly want to provoke and increase war risks, you would do it completely differently every day since 1989.
The NATO expansion basis is obvious: Get as many as possible into NATO, demonise Russia and Putin and make it impossible for Russia to have any influence in Europe and on its future.
How strange, indeed, that Russia perceives the Alliance’s expansion right up to its borders as a deliberate military threat and a politically motivated undermining of its status and power!
How surprising that it thinks its security interests in its near-abroad should be respected, just because it has been invaded historically from the West and contained all along its borders since the Second World War in which, by the way, it lost some 24 million people!
It is tragic beyond words that the West has not a single politician today like Willy Brandt, Egon Bahr, Olof Palme or any of the real statesmen who gave Gorbachev cascades of assurance because they possessed two essentially important qualities: intellectual competence and empathy, a wish and ability to try to live themselves into the situation of “the other” and thereby think in terms of common security at lower military levels.
They were mature personalities basing their policies on analysis and consultations. They knew that you can only achieve security with and not against “the other”.
Instead, NATO has only anti-intellectual, self-centred and -aggrandising militarists running the self-defeating “know-everything-listen-to-nobody” show foolproven by history to lead to war.
And it is tragic beyond words that the peoples of Europe do not debate these issues and that all alternatives to militarism have been deprived of all their resources while NATO militarism costs trillions of dollars what are desperately needed in all other sectors of Western society.
In summary, the US/NATO world threw away the most significant and precious opportunity to create peace in Europe after 1945, when it decided to take advantage of Russia’s weakness. As suggested by Gorbachev and many security and peace intellectuals at the time, the members of the old blocs could have joined forces and created an entirely new all-European security and peace architecture.
We are now facing the tragic consequences of the arrogant winner-takes-it-all policy manifested by the US Clinton administration’s decision to ignore all the assurances and begin expanding NATO eastward in 1994, helped by submissive European allies that had neither the intellectual capacity nor political will to manifest their own interests.
That is why they have to lie to us today.
Notes
1. Over the years, TFF has published numerous analyses that can serve as supplements to this article. Several of them contain predictions and early warnings about the situation we are now facing:
TFF PressInfo # 390 – Ten articles on the new Cold War and a reflection (2016)
NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev heard and how he was cheated (2017)Various on Ukraine
Jan Oberg’s blog: Maktspelet vid Rysslands gränser – Power games at the borders of Russia (2021) Containing also a series of highly relevant links
2. When you see the two videos above, note that all questions from the media are very understanding of the two speakers’ statements. Like – how will NATO ensure that it can react swiftly if Russia should invade Ukraine, etc. Press conferences have become carefully planned stage events with written statements being read allow and carefully selected pro-military media – critical questions a prior cancelled by organisers and reinforced by self-censorship. Where did we see that before? In the Soviet Union, but just done more clumsily.
3. The Guardian, January 12, 2022
Russia’s belief in Nato ‘betrayal’ – and why it matters today
A new book on this problem.
Blinken’s blinkered vision of Russia
By Scott Ritter | RT | January 12, 2022
“One lesson of recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult to get them to leave.”
The level of hubris-laced ignorance it would take an ostensibly intelligent, well-informed individual to make such a statement, in public, in an official capacity, goes beyond political parody.
And yet, there was the American Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, uttering those words at the tail end of a press statement where he questioned the legitimacy of Russia’s dispatch of military forces to Kazakhstan. The Russian actions took place in the wake of widespread violence that prompted the Kazakh President to request help from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which Russia leads.
It should be noted that Russia was invited to send troops to Kazakhstan. Russia was also invited to send troops to Syria. As Blinken was speaking, the US had between 900 and 1,200 troops inside Syria, none of whom were there at the request of the Syrian government. Likewise, the US continues to maintain a force of some 2,500 troops in Iraq, even though the Iraqi parliament has called for their withdrawal for more than a year.
When it comes to understanding what an “unwanted houseguest” looks and acts like, Tony Blinken need only look in the mirror for the perfect illustration.
The US is scrambling to seize the moral high ground when it comes to the issue of military intervention, seeking to exploit the 2008 Russian-Georgian War, the 2014 reabsorption of Crimea, and the 2015 military intervention in Syria to illustrate its position.
While the issue of Russo-Georgian relations is a difficult one, dating to before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it is an undisputed fact – indeed, one backed up by the European Union’s inquiry into the incident – that the 2008 conflict was triggered by a Georgian military incursion into South Ossetia, including an unprovoked attack on Russian peacekeeping forces stationed there. Subsequent Russian actions are attributable to Georgian aggression.
Likewise, Russia’s actions vis-à-vis Crimea and the Donbass region, where Moscow supports ethnically Russian separatists, all derive from the so-called ‘Maidan Revolution’, a US and EU-backed insurrection that overthrew Viktor Yanukovich, the duly elected president of Ukraine, and replaced him with a more Washington-friendly government.
And, lastly, the Russian intervention in Syria came at the request of the legitimate government in Damascus, which was under siege from foreign-funded and trained terrorists and insurrectionists. Russia’s actions were decisive, helping shift the military balance in favor of the Syrian government, and leading to the defeat of most of the anti-government fighters. The irony behind the Russian intervention is that it exposed the hypocrisy of the US, in so far as several of the terrorist groups Russia helped defeat were not only affiliates of Al-Qaeda but were also being funded by the US and its allies.
The US presence in Iraq and Syria, however, is the direct consequence of the illegal US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. Between the US and Russia, only one nation has violated international law when it comes to disregarding the sovereignty of others – and it is not Russia.
Tony Blinken did not limit his Russo-phobic commentary simply to the issue of unwanted houseguests. When asked during an interview on a Sunday morning talk show on January 9 whether he agreed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was seeking to restore the Soviet Union, Blinken answered: “I think that’s right… I think that’s one of President Putin’s objectives, and it is to re-exert a sphere of influence over countries that previously were part of the Soviet Union,” something that, Blinken added, was “unacceptable.”
First and foremost, as Russia has been making clear during its ongoing European security framework discussions with the US, NATO, and the OSCE this week, the issue of what is or isn’t acceptable when it comes to defining the scope and scale of Russian national security and related spheres of interest, is not something Moscow is willing to subordinate to Washington or its allies. Rather, it is a matter for Russia alone to decide.
It is the US, not Russia, which is seeking to continuously breathe life into the Cold War relic that is the NATO alliance. The history of broken American promises when it comes to the issue of NATO expansion – “not one inch east” has a different meaning in Brussels than anywhere else, it seems.
The ostensibly “defensive” NATO alliance has been, since the end of the Cold War, used for almost exclusively offensive military action, much of which has taken place outside the geographic boundaries defined by the treaty. Whether it be intervention in the former Yugoslavia, the dismemberment of Serbia, intervention in Libya, supporting the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, or sustaining the illegal presence of US forces in Syria, NATO has made itself an unwanted houseguest across the globe.
Truth be told, if it were not for NATO actively seeking to attract both Georgia and Ukraine to its roster, the events of 2008 and 2014 might have unfolded completely differently.
Tony Blinken’s comments about the suitability of Russia as a houseguest are as fact-free as any made by senior international statesmen in modern times. The reality is the US is the unwanted houseguest, habitually overstaying its welcome, sowing chaos, death, and destruction in its path.
Using this analogy, Russia could be seen as the emergency clean-up crew tasked with trying to clean up the mess that accrues in the wake of America’s foreign policy tornado. Tony Blinken and his boss, President Joe Biden, seem to have difficulty focusing on the real consequences of their words and deeds, as their gaze is constantly fixed on an artificial horizon that only they can see.
Unfortunately for Washington, the rest of the world knows the truth, and who is to blame for what. Blinken can continue uttering nonsense about Russia but, from such ignorance, does not sound policy come. This should be a lesson for any nation, especially those in Europe, who are looking to the US for sound guidance and leadership when it comes to solving the world’s problems.
Where Are the Realists?
US foreign policy endangers Americans without delivering any benefits
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JANUARY 11, 2022
Sometimes it seems that when it comes to international relations Russian president Vladimir Putin might be the only head of state who is capable of any rational proposals. His recent negotiating positions conveyed initially by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybakov to step back from the brink of war between his country and the United States over Ukraine are largely eminently sensible and would defuse the possibility that Eastern Europe might become a future Sarajevo incident that would ignite a nuclear war. Per Putin, “We need long-term legally binding guarantees even if we know they cannot be trusted, as the US frequently withdraws from treaties that become uninteresting to them. But…something [more is needed], not just verbal assurances.”
Putin and President Biden discussed the Russian proposals and other issues in a phone conversation on December 30th, in which Biden called for diplomacy, and both he and Putin reportedly took steps to defuse the possible confrontation. In the phone call the two presidents agreed to initiate bilateral negotiations described as “strategic stability dialogue” relating to “mutual security guarantees” which have now begun on Sunday, January 9th, in Geneva. That will be followed by an exploratory meeting of the NATO-Russia Council on Wednesday and another meeting with the Organization for Security and Cooperation on Thursday.
Pat Buchanan, who is somewhat skeptical about Russian overreach, has summed up the Putin position, which he refers to as an ultimatum, as “Get off our front porch. Get out of our front yard. And stay out of our backyard.” Putin has demanded that NATO cease expansion into Eastern Europe, which threatens only Russia, while also scaling back planned missile emplacements in those former Warsaw Pact states that are already members of the alliance. He also has called on the US to reduce harassing incursions by warships and strategic bombers along the Russian border and to cease efforts to insert military bases in the five ‘Stans along the Russian federation’s southern border. In other words, Russia believes that it should not have hostile military forces gathering along its borders, that it should have some kind of legally guaranteed and internationally endorsed strategic security zone such as the United States enjoys behind two oceans with friendly governments to north and south.
Buchanan concludes that there is much room for negotiating a serious agreement that will satisfy both sides, observing that the US now has through NATO untenable security arrangements with 28 European countries. He notes how “The day cannot be far off when the US is going to have to review and discard Cold War commitments that date to the 1940s and 1950s, and require us to fight a nuclear power such as Russia for countries that have nothing to do with our vital interests or our national security.”
Secretary of State Tony Blinken has been openly skeptical about the Russian proposals, arguing that Moscow is a threat to Europe, though the extent that the Biden administration will play hard ball over the details is difficult to assess. Blinken and NATO have already declared that they will continue their expansion into Eastern Europe and the White House is reportedly preparing harsh new sanctions against Russia if the talks are not successful. To be sure, Administration pushback may be a debating technique to moderate or even eliminate some of the demands, or there may actually be hard liners from the Center for New American Security who have the administration’s ear who want to confront Russia. Either way, both Blinken and Biden have warned the Russians “not to make a serious mistake over Ukraine,” also stating that there would be “massive” economic consequences if there were any attack by Russian troops. After a meeting with Germany’s new Foreign Minister, Blinken asserted last week that there would be no progress in diplomatic approaches to the problem as long as there is a Russian “gun pointed at Ukraine’s head.” In reality, of course, Moscow is 5,000 miles away from Washington and the truly dangerous pointed gun has been in the hands of NATO and the US right on Russia’s doorstep.
To be sure, fighting Russia is popular in some circles, largely a result of incessant negative media coverage about Putin and his government. Opinion polls suggest that half of all Americans favor sending troops to defend the Ukrainians. The Republicans, notably Senators Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio, appear to be particularly enthusiastic regarding going to war over Ukraine as well as with China over Taiwan and openly advocate both admitting Ukraine into NATO as well as sending troops and weapons as well as providing intelligence to assist Kiev. They argue that it is necessary to defend American democracy and also to maintain the US’s “credibility,” the last refuge of a scoundrel nation, as Daniel Larison observes , since Washington frequently “goes back on its word.” And then there are the crazies like Ohio Congressman Mike Turner who says that US troops must be sent to Ukraine to defend American democracy. Or Republican Senator from Mississippi Roger Wicker who favors a possible unilateral nuclear first-strike to “rain destruction on Russian military capability,” leading to a global conflict that wouldn’t be so bad as it would only kill 10 to 20 million Americans.
Russia has a right to be worried as something is brewing in Kazakhstan right now that just might be a replay of the US-supported NGO-instigated successful overthrow of the Ukrainian government in 2014. The Collective Security Treaty Organization members Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia, have sent soldiers responding to the Kazakh government’s request for help. Unfortunately, US foreign policy is not only about Russia. The Taiwan issue continues to fester with a similar resonance to the Ukraine crisis. China, a rising power, increasingly wants to assert itself in its neighborhood while the US is trying to alternatively confront and contain it while also propping up relationships that evolved after the Korean War and during the Cold War. The status quo is unsustainable, but US moves to “protect” Taiwan are themselves destabilizing as they make the Chinese suspicious of American intentions and will likely lead to unnecessary armed conflict.
And let’s not ignore America’s continued devastation by sanctions and bombs of civilian populations in Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan and Yemen to punish the governments of those countries. And, of course there, is always Israel, good old loyal ally and greatly loved by all politicians and the media, Israel, the Jewish state. Biden continues to waffle on reentry into the Iran nuclear non-proliferation agreement, which is good for the US, under pressure from Israel and its domestic “Amen chorus.” Just last month, speaking at a Zionist Organization of America Gala, former CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo intoned that “There is no more important task of the Secretary of State than standing for Israel and there is no more important ally to the United States than Israel.” Add to that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s unforgettable bleat about her love for Israel, “I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid… and I don’t even call it aid…our cooperation with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are.”
You might ask how any American leader could so blatantly state that US interests are subordinate to those of a foreign country, but there we are. And it is tragic that our president is willing to sacrifice American military lives in support of interests that are completely fraudulent. The truth is that we have a government that in bipartisan fashion does everything ass backwards while the American people struggle to pay the bills and watch their quality of life and even their security go downhill. Again citing Vladimir Putin’s wisdom on the subject, one might observe that as early as 2007 at the Munich Security Conference, the Russian president said that the “lawless behavior” of the United States in insisting on global dominance and leadership did not respect the vital interests of other nations and undermined both the desire for and the mechanisms established to encourage peaceful relations. He got that right. That is the crux of the matter. There is neither credibility nor humanity to American foreign policy, and everyone knows that the United States and allies like Israel are basically rogue nations that obey no rules and respect no one else’s rights. This has been somewhat true since the Second World War but it has become routine practice in nearly all of America’s international relations since 9/11 and the real losers are the American people, who have to shoulder the burden of an increasingly feckless and hopelessly corrupt political class.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Americans ‘underestimate gravity of situation,’ Russia warns after European security talks
Key security issues ‘still pending,’ Moscow’s envoy says after Geneva discussions
RT | January 10, 2022
While the US delegation came to Europe to “seriously” discuss Moscow’s security proposals, on Monday, they have not shown an understanding of how the key issues need to be resolved, Russia’s top negotiator said afterwards.
The Americans “underestimate the gravity of the situation,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters after bilateral with his US counterparts in Geneva. Russia has laid all of its cards on the table in the proposals made public last month, and those represent “demands that we cannot retreat from,” he added.
Ryabkov described the Geneva talks as useful because they discussed the matters previously considered off the table, and said he did not think the situation was hopeless. The greatest difference of views between the US and Russia was on the further expansion of Washington’s NATO military bloc.
“For us, it’s absolutely mandatory to make sure that Ukraine never ever becomes a member of NATO,” Ryabkov said, and Moscow is insisting that the institution amend its policies to reflect this reality.
“We are fed up with loose talk, half-promises, misinterpretations of what happened in different negotiations behind closed doors,” he said, referring to the State Department’s claims in recent days that NATO and the US never promised Moscow that NATO would not expand to the east.
“We do not trust the other side, so to speak,” Ryabkov said. “It’s over, enough is enough.”
Following Monday’s talks in Geneva, Ryabkov will meet with NATO representatives on Wednesday, and with the OSCE on January 13, after which Moscow will make a decision whether to continue the negotiations further.
What War With Russia Would Look Like
By Scott Ritter | Consortium News | January 10, 2022
If ever a critical diplomatic negotiation was doomed to fail from the start, the discussions between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine and Russian security guarantees is it.
The two sides can’t even agree on an agenda.
From the Russian perspective, the situation is clear: “The Russian side came here [to Geneva] with a clear position that contains a number of elements that, to my mind, are understandable and have been so clearly formulated—including at a high level—that deviating from our approaches simply is not possible,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the press after a pre-meeting dinner on Sunday hosted by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who is leading the U.S. delegation.
Ryabkov was referring Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands to U.S. President Joe Biden in early December regarding Russian security guarantees, which were then laid out by Moscow in detail in the form of two draft treaties, one a Russian-U.S. security treaty, the other a security agreement between Russia and NATO.
The latter would bar Ukraine from joining NATO and rule out any eastward expansion by the trans-Atlantic military alliance. At the time, Ryabkov tersely noted that the U.S. should immediately begin to address the proposed drafts with an eye to finalizing something when the two sides meet. Now, with the meeting beginning on Monday, it doesn’t appear as if the U.S. has done any such thing.
“[T]he talks are going to be difficult,” Ryabkov told reporters after the dinner meeting. “They cannot be easy. They will be business-like. I think we won’t waste our time tomorrow.” When asked if Russia was ready to compromise, Ryabkov tersely responded, “The Americans should get ready to reach a compromise.”
All the U.S. has been willing to do, it seems, is to remind Russia of so-called “serious consequences” should Russia invade Ukraine, something the U.S. and NATO fear is imminent, given the scope and scale of recent Russian military exercises in the region involving tens of thousands of troops. This threat was made by Biden to Putin on several occasions, including a phone call initiated by Putin last week to help frame the upcoming talks.
Yet on the eve of the Ryabkov-Sherman meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken simply reiterated these threats, declaring that Russia would face “massive consequences” if it invaded Ukraine.
“It’s clear that we’ve offered him two paths forward,” Blinken said, speaking of Putin. “One is through diplomacy and dialogue; the other is through deterrence and massive consequences for Russia if it renews its aggression against Ukraine. And we’re about to test the proposition of which path President Putin wants to take this week.”
It is as if both Biden and Blinken are deaf, dumb, and blind when it comes to reading Russia.
Ryabkov has alluded to a fact already made clear by the Russians—there will be no compromise when it comes to Russia’s legitimate national security interests. And if the U.S. cannot understand how the accumulation of military power encompassed in a military alliance which views Russia as a singular, existential threat to its members’ security is seen by Russia as threatening, then there is no comprehension of how the events of June 22, 1941 have shaped the present -day Russian psyche, why Russia will never again allow such a situation to occur, and why the talks are doomed before they even begin.
As for the American threats, Russia has given its response—any effort to sanction Russia would result, as Putin told Biden last month, in a “complete rupture of relations” between Russia and those countries attempting sanctions. One need not be a student of history to comprehend that the next logical step following a “complete rupture of relations” between two parties that are at loggerheads over matters pertaining to existential threats to the national security of one or both is not the peaceful resumption of relations, but war.
There is no mealy-mouthed posturing by Foggy Bottom peacocks taking place in Moscow, but rather a cold, hard, statement of fact—ignore Russia’s demands at you own peril. The U.S., it seems, believes that the worst-case scenario is one where Russia invades Ukraine, only to wilt under the sustained pressure of economic sanctions and military threats.
Russia’s worse-case scenario is one where it engages in armed conflict with NATO.
Generally speaking, the side that is most prepared for the reality of armed conflict will prevail.
Russia has been preparing for this possibility for more than a year. It has repeatedly shown a capability to rapidly mobilize 100,000-plus combat-ready forces in short order. NATO has shown an ability to mobilize 30,000 after six-to-nine-months of extensive preparations.
What would a conflict between Russia and NATO look like? In short, not like anything NATO has prepared for. Time is the friend of NATO in any such conflict—time to let sanctions weaken the Russian economy, and time to allow NATO to build up sufficient military power to be able to match Russia’s conventional military strength.
Russia knows this, and as such, any Russian move will be designed to be both swift and decisive.
First and foremost, if it comes to it, when Russia decides to move on Ukraine, it will do so with a plan of action that has been well-thought out and which sufficient resources have been allocated for its successful completion. Russia will not get involved in a military misadventure in Ukraine that has the potential of dragging on and on, like the U.S. experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. Russia has studied an earlier U.S. military campaign—Operation Desert Storm, of Gulf War I—and has taken to heart the lessons of that conflict.
One does not need to occupy the territory of a foe in order to destroy it. A strategic air campaign designed to nullify specific aspects of a nations’ capability, whether it be economic, political, military, or all the above, coupled with a focused ground campaign designed to destroy an enemy’s army as opposed to occupy its territory, is the likely course of action.
Given the overwhelming supremacy Russia has both in terms of the ability to project air power backed by precision missile attacks, a strategic air campaign against Ukraine would accomplish in days what the U.S. took more than a month to do against Iraq in 1991.
On the ground, the destruction of Ukraine’s Army is all but guaranteed. Simply put, the Ukrainian military is neither equipped nor trained to engage in large-scale ground combat. It would be destroyed piecemeal, and the Russians would more than likely spend more time processing Ukrainian prisoners of war than killing Ukrainian defenders.
For any Russian military campaign against Ukraine to be effective in a larger conflict with NATO, however, two things must occur—Ukraine must cease to exist as a modern nation state, and the defeat of the Ukrainian military must be massively one-sided and quick. If Russia is able to accomplish these two objectives, then it is well positioned to move on to the next phase of its overall strategic posturing vis-à-vis NATO—intimidation.
While the U.S., NATO, the EU, and the G7 have all promised “unprecedented sanctions,” sanctions only matter if the other side cares. Russia, by rupturing relations with the West, no longer would care about sanctions. Moreover, it is a simple acknowledgement of reality that Russia can survive being blocked from SWIFT transactions longer than Europe can survive without Russian energy. Any rupturing of relations between Russia and the West will result in the complete embargoing of Russian gas and oil to European customers.
There is no European Plan B. Europe will suffer, and because Europe is composed of erstwhile democracies, politicians will pay the price. All those politicians who followed the U.S. blindly into a confrontation with Russia will now have to answer to their respective constituents why they committed economic suicide on behalf of a Nazi-worshipping, thoroughly corrupt nation (Ukraine) which has nothing in common with the rest of Europe. It will be a short conversation.
If the U.S. tries to build up NATO forces on Russia’s western frontiers in the aftermath of any Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia will then present Europe with a fait accompli in the form of what would now be known as the “Ukrainian model.” In short, Russia will guarantee that the Ukrainian treatment will be applied to the Baltics, Poland, and even Finland, should it be foolish enough to pursue NATO membership.
Russia won’t wait until the U.S. has had time to accumulate sufficient military power, either. Russia will simply destroy the offending party through the combination of an air campaign designed to degrade the economic function of the targeted nation, and a ground campaign designed to annihilate the ability to wage war. Russia does not need to occupy the territory of NATO for any lengthy period—just enough to destroy whatever military power has been accumulated by NATO near its borders.
And—here’s the kicker—short of employing nuclear weapons, there’s nothing NATO can do to prevent this outcome. Militarily, NATO is but a shadow of its former self. The once great armies of Europe have had to cannibalize their combat formations to assemble battalion-sized “combat groups” in the Baltics and Poland. Russia, on the other hand, has reconstituted two army-size formations—the 1st Guards Tank Army and the 20th Combined Arms Army—from the Cold War-era which specialize in deep offensive military action.
Even Vegas wouldn’t offer odds on this one.
Sherman will face off against Ryabkov in Geneva, with the fate of Europe in her hands. The sad thing is, she doesn’t see it that way. Thanks to Biden, Blinken and the host of Russophobes who populate the U.S. national security state today, Sherman thinks she is there to simply communicate the consequences of diplomatic failure to Russia. To threaten. With mere words.
What Sherman, Biden, Blinken, and the others have yet to comprehend is that Russia has already weighed the consequences and is apparently willing to accept them. And respond. With action.
One wonders if Sherman, Biden, Blinken, and the others have thought this through. Odds are, they have not, and the consequences for Europe will be dire.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.
Last Chance Saloon: best chance to ease East-West tensions cannot be missed
By Tony Kevin | Pearls and Irritations | January 7, 2022
We are at a crunch point now in Russia-US relations. Their high-level talks starting next week will be closely observed by China, Russia’s de facto strategic ally. The coming days and weeks will determine the shape of world security for decades to come.
On Monday, January 10, vital Russia-US talks will start in Geneva. Russia’s delegation will be headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and the US by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
These are ‘precursor’ negotiations – ‘talks about talks’, in the old strategic arms limitation treaties (SALT) terminology. Russia is driving the pace. The US is in reactive mode, trying unsuccessfully to slow things down, to trim Russia’s sails. So far they are not succeeding.
Russia’s best-case scenario for Monday is this. Successful precursor talks will be followed soon after by substantive detailed Foreign Minister level negotiations, led by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, with participation of top military brass from both sides. Russia will seek to secure detailed US-Russia agreements on mutual security guarantees in Europe.
Unusually, Russian drafts of these agreements were handed over by Russia to the US and at the same time made public on December 17. Russia will want to achieve these solemn written mutual commitments, as well-summarised by Patrick Lawrence in Consortium News on December 28.
- NATO will cease all efforts to expand eastward, notably into Ukraine and Georgia.
- NATO guarantees that it will not deploy missile batteries in nations bordering Russia.
- An end to NATO military and naval exercises in nations and seas bordering Russia.
- The effective restoration of the treaty covering intermediate-range nuclear weapons. The US abandoned the INF pact in August 2019.
- An ongoing East-West security dialogue.
These desired agreements would be backed up by early NATO-Russia negotiations to achieve corresponding agreements at that level. Finally, the two presidents would formally seal the deal.
Russia’s worst-case scenario: that if the US fails to negotiate towards this complete package – if the US tries in its usual way to equivocate, delay, or cherry-pick Russia’s proposed deal – Russia will terminate the talks.
Russia-US and Russia-NATO relations would then enter the deepest of deep freezes since the worst years of Cold War One. Russia would focus its economic and diplomatic resources entirely on relations with the East and South – backstopped by the Belt and Road Initiative of its reliable friend China. Russia would effectively stop trying to dialogue with US and NATO Europe and call the US bluff on enhanced sanctions. On the now highly militarised Russia-NATO frontier, armies, navies and tactical intermediate range missile forces (sufficient to destroy most of Europe and European Russia) would confront each other. Risks of East-West war by provocation or accident would be far greater than in the years 1989-2014, before the sharp deterioration in East-West relations brought about by the illegal 2014 Ukraine coup.
These present talks instigated by Russia are thus really the Last Chance Saloon: the last opportunity maybe for decades to pursue relaxation of East-West tensions – ‘détente’, in the old nearly — forgotten word of late Cold War One. Russia has had enough of years of creeping security deterioration and has drawn its red lines. These are not in my view ‘ultimatums’ though they do demand major military pullbacks by the US and NATO not matched by Russia, because almost all Russian forces are within Russian territory. In my view these proposed written agreements would enhance European and global security if achieved.
In 2021, Russia decided that it has had enough of decades of Western duplicity and creeping aggression, as persuasively analysed by Marshall Auerback in The Scrum, December 1, 2021.
Russia has seen how under successive US presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, Trump, and now Biden, a strategically destructive pattern of US and NATO behaviour had emerged since 1999, when President Bill Clinton welshed on the solemn though unwritten 1989-91 agreements between Reagan and George H.W. Bush with Gorbachev, that NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe following the reunification of Germany.
As the West offered soothing words and prevarications, NATO expanded, first with Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary in 1999. There were further large expansions in 2004 and 2009, bringing NATO right up against Russia’s Western frontiers. Provocatively, NATO then listed Ukraine and Georgia as candidates for NATO membership. The West successfully engineered an anti-Russia ‘colour revolution’ in Ukraine in 2014 and nearly succeeded in doing so in Belarus in 2020. It continued even to try to subvert Russia itself through lavish funding of anti-government human rights NGOs. Military and naval manouevres and build-ups continued on Russia’s Western approaches.
An angry Russia saw every expansion and interference as Western betrayals and as violations of its sovereignty and strategic depth. Russia was initially too weak to do anything about it. As Putin rebuilt Russian strength and morale, Russia began to fight back: first in Georgia in 2008, then in Crimea and East Ukraine in 2014, and in Belarus since 2020.
World events have now decisively turned in Russia’s favour. The global strategic balance is shifting. China firmly has Russia’s back, as seen in recent statements by President Xi Jinping and China’s Foreign Minister. China has repelled Western regime-change pressures in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and around Taiwan. Iran has joined the Belt and Road initiative. The West was expelled from Afghanistan. Syria has somewhat stabilised.
Russia and China see now that they are stronger against their common Western adversary if they stand together. Important non-Western powers and groupings such as India, Japan, South Korea and ASEAN are quietly adjusting their diplomacy to suit. The Quad is dead in the water, and AUKUS is a diplomatic joke.
In publishing these draft treaty texts, Russia is appealing to the world outside the Atlantic alliance to see that its cause is just, and in accordance with the five principles of peaceful coexistence proposed by China to the non-aligned world in 1954.
These five principles as articulated by Chinese foreign minister Zhou Enlai first appeared in the Sino–Indian Agreement signed in April 1954, and subsequently at the Bandung Conference of non-aligned nations, which Indonesia hosted one year later. These principles are mutual respect for sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in the internal affairs of others, equality for shared benefit, and peaceful coexistence. These are very much the stated principles of current Russian foreign policy.
Quite suddenly, the West is on the diplomatic defensive. Its years of salami-slice aggression against Russia and China are now coming to an end.
For years since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the West used the vital consensus agreed by Reagan and Gorbachev, that nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, as cover for creeping aggression in Eastern Europe, violating and weakening Russia’s sphere of security.
Now, with the Russian initiative last week for the UN Security Council P5 to reaffirm the Reagan-Gorbachev doctrine, with which the Western nuclear powers had perforce to agree, the tables have been turned.
Putin is in effect telling the West now: we all agree that none of us can allow military conflict between us to escalate to nuclear war. But we and China are strong enough now to defeat you in non-nuclear conflicts close to our borders, if you should be foolish enough to instigate such conflicts. These are the military facts of the matter: Russia could easily occupy Ukraine and China could easily occupy Taiwan. And you, the US and NATO, could not stop this without risking nuclear war.
Putin has no wish to invade Ukraine but he is determined to stop now the erosion of Russia’s security. The new harder and more confident tone in Russian diplomatic language is unmistakable. A confused West has not yet worked out how to respond. Urgent talks have taken place between Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and between the US and NATO. One hopes that Biden has been preparing the ground for a prudent Western accommodation. A wise old owl, he can smell the coffee.
Putin is now holding the strongest negotiating cards. My betting — indeed my hope — is that Russia will achieve its demanded mutual security guarantees in Europe in coming weeks.
International security – Australia’s security — will be greatly strengthened if he succeeds.
Much could still go wrong. There are troublemakers in the Western bloc whose careers depend on maintaining East-West tensions at just below the level of war. They will try hard to subvert and derail Russia’s goals.
In Australia there is almost complete public ignorance of this subject matter. Be prepared for massive disinformation in coming weeks from the US-fed think tanks like ASPI and our mainstream media, and a hysterical whipping-up of alleged threats of imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine. This propaganda offensive is already under way.
Australia sadly no longer has the intellectual resources for an informed and balanced public discussion of these momentous developments. Ignorance and groundless fears of Russia prevail. Dissenting voices such as mine have been marginalised and almost silenced.
One might hope there is more reality-based knowledge in our national security community. But if there is, they are not telling the public. I fear that there too, ignorance and prejudice have taken hold. We are leaving the strategic thinking on Russia to our Big Brother.
I expect this article to be either mocked or ignored. But let us see how events develop in coming weeks.
Tony Kevin is a former Australian senior diplomat, having served as ambassador to Cambodia and Poland, as well as being posted to Australia’s embassy in Moscow. He is the author of six published books on public policy and international relations.
Presidential hopeful says France should leave NATO and partner with Russia
RT | January 3, 2022
The leader of a French leftist party and presidential hopeful has called for the country to pull out of the NATO alliance, revealing that he regards Russia as a partner for Paris rather than an adversary.
The leader of the leftist La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, shared his insights on the new Cold War and France’s place in it during a major interview with France Inter radio on Monday. Melenchon further elaborated on the points he made during the interview in a long Twitter thread.
The politician said the country should take part in efforts to “de-escalate” the international situation rather than follow Washington in the new Cold War against China and Russia. Leaving the NATO alliance altogether would therefore be beneficial for France, as it won’t be part of the “military adventurism” of the US, Melenchon believes.
“I am for leaving NATO. We need to de-escalate. If we leave NATO, we will not be dragged into the cold war logic that the Americans maintain with Russia and China,” he stated.
The politician also said he regards Russia as France’s partner rather than an adversary. It was the West that got the NATO bloc into the current standoff with Moscow, breaking its promises on eastward expansion of the alliance, Melenchon stressed.
“Russia is a partner. I do not agree with making an enemy of it. We brought 10 countries into NATO in the east, which was seen as a threat by Russia. Especially when you install anti-missile systems in Poland,” the politician said.
He also voiced opposition towards any plans to accept Ukraine into NATO. A move like this would further erode the security situation in Europe, as it would be inevitably perceived by Moscow as a new “threat” against it, he said.
The veteran politician has announced he intends to run for president in the upcoming election in April. During the last presidential election in France, Melenchon won around 20% of the vote in the first ballot. However, he did not make it to the second round.
Russia says it will put a stop to continued NATO enlargement
By Jonny Tickle | RT | December 28, 2021
At upcoming talks with Washington, Moscow will not only obstruct but will put a complete stop to any eastwards expansion of the US-led NATO military bloc, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister said on Tuesday.
Speaking to news agency Interfax, Sergey Ryabkov said his country would go into the negotiations with a clear agenda and reject any attempts by US diplomats to dilute the proposed agreement between the two parties.
“Our leadership has repeatedly said we can no longer tolerate the situation that is developing in the immediate vicinity of our borders. We cannot tolerate NATO expansion. We will not just prevent it. We will put a stop to it,” Ryabkov said.
The talks, due to be held on January 10, will focus on two publicly released draft treaties that include a list of promises Russia wants to obtain from the US and NATO. As well as pledges that the bloc won’t expand eastwards, the proposals also include the end of Western cooperation with post-Soviet countries, the removal of US nuclear weapons from Europe, and the withdrawal of NATO troops and missiles away from the Russian border.
However, according to Ryabkov, the US wants to ignore Russia’s firm demands, instead proposing a less structured form of negotiations. “We should not come up with some kind of dimensionless agenda when it is in our interest to include topics that have long been sorted out through other channels. We have to focus exclusively on the two draft documents that we have presented,” he said.
Ryabkov’s comments followed quotes in the Western media from unnamed sources in the White House claiming the forthcoming talks would focus on arms control, as well as the situation on the Russian-Ukrainian border.
“That in itself is a very difficult task, given the degree of disagreement between us and the US, and us and NATO, on these issues,” the deputy FM said, explaining that Russia would not accept any American attempt to “dilute” the discussion over the proposed treaties.
“We would conclude, in such a case, that the US is not ready for a serious conversation. We call for negotiations, intensively and quickly. We believe that the issue is not just overdue. It is overripe,” he added.
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- Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ offers ‘limited’ shield against ballistic missiles: Defense official
- Ukraine Seeks to Provoke a Nuclear Conflict: Zakharova
- US squares up to China over Panama Canal
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- Far Right Israeli Settler Movement Enters Syria in a Push for “Greater Israel”
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- Who are the women and girls behind Gaza war’s horrific casualty toll?
- Beloved Gaza doctor detained “indefinitely” without charge – Daily Update
- By Week’s End, Trump’s War Will Be Plainly Illegal
- CBS News Reportedly Ousts London Bureau Chief Over Differences With Bari Weiss Over Gaza Coverage
- State Department Says US Is in Conflict With Iran ‘At the Request’ of Israel
- What ceasefire? Israel won’t stop killing in Gaza, Lebanon – Daily Update
- No Tricks Zone
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
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