Was ‘No NATO Expansion East’ More Than a Promise?
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | July 17, 2023
At the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008, eventual membership in NATO was promised to Ukraine and Georgia with the statement that “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agree today that these countries will become members of NATO.” Russian President Vladimir Putin “flew into a rage,” and, according to a Russian journalist quoted by John Mearsheimer, warned that “if Ukraine joins NATO, it will do so without Crimea and the eastern regions. It will simply fall apart.”
A decade and a half later, Putin sent the message to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “Tell me you’re not joining NATO, I won’t invade.”
Putin is consistently accused in the West of dangerous melodrama and of historical revisionism when he points to NATO’s broken promise that it wouldn’t expand east if the Soviet Union permitted a united Germany to join NATO.
In 2007, Putin complained, “What happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them.” A year later, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev complained that the United States “promised that NATO wouldn’t move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and Eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises? It shows they cannot be trusted.”
Then U.S. Secretary of State James Baker has claimed that the discussion of NATO expansion applied only to East Germany, not to Eastern Europe: “There was never any discussion of anything but the GDR (East Germany].” A 2014 NATO report claimed, “No such pledge was made, and no evidence to back up Russia’s claims has ever been produced.”
But declassified documents now reveal that NATO was lying, and that it is Baker, and not Putin, who was engaging in historical revisionism.
After complaining that no one remembers the West’s assurances, Putin went on to remind his audience what they said: “I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: ‘The fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.’ Where are those guarantees?”
Putin was quoting correctly. He might have added, as we know from the recently declassified documents, that Woerner also “stressed that the NATO Council and he are against the expansion of NATO (13 out of 16 NATO members support this point of view).” The NATO Secretary General also assured the Russians on July 1, 1991 that, in an upcoming meeting with Poland’s Lech Walesa and Romania’s Ion Iliescu, “he will oppose Poland and Romania joining NATO, and earlier this was stated to Hungary and Czechoslovakia.” (Document 30)
As for Baker’s insistence that no such promise was made, he articulated some of the most important statements of that promise. On February 9, 1990, Baker famously offered Gorbachev a choice: “I want to ask you a question, and you need not answer it right now. Supposing unification takes place, what would you prefer: a united Germany outside of NATO, absolutely independent and without American troops; or a united Germany keeping its connections with NATO, but with the guarantee that NATO’s jurisdiction or troops will not spread east of the present boundary?”
Baker has been dismissive of this statement, categorizing it as only a hypothetical question. But Baker’s next statement, not previously included in the quotation, but now placed back in the script by the documentary record, refutes that claim. After Gorbachev answers Baker’s question, saying, “It goes without saying that a broadening of the NATO zone is not acceptable,” Baker replies categorically, “We agree with that.” (Document 6)
There are a number of other declassified statements that now solidify the evidence against Baker’s claim. The most important is Baker’s own interpretation of his question to Gorbachev at the time. At a press conference immediately following this most crucial meeting with Gorbachev, Baker announced that NATO’s “jurisdiction would not be moved eastward.” He added that he had “indicated” to Gorbachev that “there should be no extension of NATO forces eastward.”
And while Baker was meeting with Gorbachev, Deputy National Security Adviser Robert Gates was asking the same question of KGB leader Vladimir Kryuchkov in clearly non-hypothetical terms. He asked Kryuchkov what he thought of the “proposal under which a united Germany would be associated with NATO, but in which NATO troops would move no further east than they now were?” Gates then added, “It seems to us to be a sound proposal.” (Document 7)
On that same busy day, Baker posed the same question to Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduard Shevardnadze. He asked if there “might be an outcome that would guarantee that there would be no NATO forces in the eastern part of Germany. In fact, there could be an absolute ban on that.” How did Baker intend that offer? In Not One Inch, M.E. Sarotte reports that in his own notes, Baker wrote, “End result: Unified Ger. Anchored in a changed (polit.) NATO—whose juris. would not be moved eastward!” According to a now declassified State department memorandum of their conversation, Baker had already in this conversation assured Shevardnadze, “There would, of course, have to be ironclad guarantees that NATO’s jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward.” (Document 4)
And, according to a declassified State Department memorandum of the conversation, on still the same day, Baker told Gorbachev and Shevardnadze, not in the form of a question at all, that, “If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east.” (Document 5)
Though these are Secretary of State Baker’s most important assurances, they are not his only assurances. On May 18, 1990, Baker told Gorbachev in a meeting in Moscow, “I wanted to emphasize that our policies are not aimed at separating Eastern Europe from the Soviet Union.” (Document 18) And, yet again, on February 12, 1990, the promise is made. According to notes taken for Shevardnadze at the Open Skies Conference in Ottawa, Baker told Gorbachev that “if U[united] G[ermany] stays in NATO, we should take care about non-expansion of its jurisdiction to the East.” (Document 10)
Baker’s assurances to Gorbachev and Shevardnadze were confirmed and shared by the State Department who, on February 13, 1990, informed U.S. embassies that “[t]he Secretary made clear that… we supported a unified Germany within NATO, but that we were prepared to ensure that NATO’s military presence would not extend further eastward.”
Baker was not the only official making those promises to Russia. As we have seen, assurances came from the highest level of NATO and from Robert Gates, who, unlike Baker and NATO, never deceived about his promises. In July 2000, Gates criticized “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”
And the same promises were made by the leaders of several other nations. On July 15, 1996, now foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov, who had “been looking at the material in our archives from 1990 and 1991,” declared, according to Sarotte, that “It was clear… that Baker, Kohl and the British and French leaders John Major and François Mitterrand had all ‘told Gorbachev that not one country leaving the Warsaw Pact would enter NATO—that NATO wouldn’t move one inch closer to Russia.”
Importantly, those same promises were made by German officials. West German chancellor Helmut Kohl met with Gorbachev the day after Baker on February 10. He assured Gorbachev that “naturally, NATO could not expand its territory to the current territory of the GDR [East Germany].” Clearer still, he told Gorbachev, “We believe that NATO should not expand its scope.” (Document 9) Simultaneously, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher was pointedly telling Shevardnadze, “For us, it is clear: NATO will not extend itself to the East.”
Genscher was one of the clearest and most prolific fonts of the promise. In an important speech in Tutzing on January 31, 1990, Genscher declared that “whatever happens to the Warsaw Pact, an expansion of NATO territory to the East, in other words, closer to the borders of the Soviet Union, will not happen.”
Again making it clear that the promise applied to Eastern Europe and not just to East Germany, Genscher told British and Italian leaders that, “It is particularly important for us to make it clear that NATO does not intend to extend its territory toward the east. Such a declaration must not relate just to the GDR but must be of a general nature.”
Genscher used that same clarifying “in general” formulation in a February 10 meeting when he explained to Shevardnadze, “For us, it’s a firm principle: NATO will not be extended toward the East… Furthermore, with regard to the non-extension of NATO, that applies in general.”
Speaking at a February 2 press conference with Baker, Genscher pointedly clarified that he and Baker “were in full agreement that there is no intention to extend the NATO area of defense and the security toward the East. This holds true not only for GDR… but that holds true for all the other Eastern countries… [W]e can make it quite clear that whatever happens within the Warsaw Pact, on our side there is no intention to extend our area—NATO’s area—of defense towards the East.” He then added, again employing the “in general” formulation, “We agreed that the intention does not exist to extend the NATO defense area toward the East. That applies, moreover, not just to the territory of the GDR… but rather applies in general.”
What is so important about this public declaration is not just the clarity that it applies “in general” to Eastern Europe and not just specifically to East Germany, but that, as Mark Trachtenberg, Professor of Political Science at UCLA has pointed out, “Genscher had made it clear that he was speaking both for himself and Baker.” A point that is “underscored by the fact that Baker was standing at his side as he uttered the words.”
And, when Genscher spoke, he spoke not only for the United States but also for Britain too. Genscher told British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd in a February 6, 1990 meeting that “when he talked about not wanting to extend NATO that applied to other states beside the GDR. The Russians must have some assurances that it, for example, the Polish Government left the Warsaw Pact one day, they would not join NATO the next.” (Document 2) Sarotte reports that “Hurd expressed agreement and said the topic should be discussed as soon as possible within the alliance itself.”
Britain proffered similar promises. On March 5, 1991, British Ambassador to Russia Rodric Braithwaite recorded in his diary that when Russian Minister of Defense Dmitry Yazov had expressed that he was “worried that the Czechs, Poles and Hungarians will join NATO,” British Prime Minister John “Major assure[d] him that nothing of the sort will happen.” (Document 28) When Yazov specifically asked Major about “NATO’s plans in the region,” the British Prime Minister told him that he “did not himself foresee circumstances now or in the future where East European countries would become members of NATO.” (Document 28) On March 26, 1991, British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd informed Soviet Foreign Minister Aleksandr Bessmertnykh that “there are no plans in NATO to include the countries of Eastern and Central Europe in NATO in one form or another.” (Document 28) In a July 2016 article, Braithwaite wrote that “U.S. Secretary of State James Baker stated on 9 February 1990: ‘We consider that the consultations and discussions in the framework of the 2+4 mechanism should give a guarantee that the reunification of Germany will not lead to the enlargement of NATO’s military organization to the East.’”
This overwhelming case that a promise was made has been undermined by the claim that it was only a verbal, and not a written, promise, and, since verbal promises are not binding, the promise was not binding.
A 1996 State Department investigation by John Herbst and John Kornblum not only became official U.S. policy but, according to Sarotte “because of the official imprimatur and the broad distribution… helped shape American attitudes toward the controversy of what, exactly had been said…” Herbst and Kornblum concluded that the assurances that were given had no legal force. They were able to make this judgment by separating the verbal promises from the written documents that make “no mention of NATO deployments beyond the boundaries of Germany.”
The investigation did not deny that spoken assurances had been made. And no Russian official has ever claimed that they were written in the documents; in fact, they have regretted that they were not. When Putin presented the United States and NATO with security proposals, including the demand that NATO not be allowed to expand into Ukraine, in the days before the war, he specified that, this time, they must be in the form of “legally binding guarantees” and not “verbal assurances, words and promises.”
The distinction that Herbst and Kornblum rely on is an act of legal sophistry. Commentators are often very quick to end the argument by simply entering into evidence that there was no written promise. There was no written promise. But that is not as case closing as the West likes to quickly claim.
In Deal or No Deal? The End of the Cold War and the U.S. Offer to Limit NATO Expansion, Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson argues that verbal agreements can be legally binding and that “analysts have long understood that states do not need formal agreements on which to base their future expectations.” In his essay, “The United States and the NATO Non-extension Assurances of 1990: New Light on an Old Problem?” Trachtenberg adds that “legal scholars, as a general rule, do not take the view that only written, signed agreements are binding under international law. As [Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago] Charles Lipson pointed out in 1991, ‘virtually all international commitments, whether oral or written,’ are treated in the international law literature as ‘binding international commitments.’ And indeed legal scholars have often argued that unilateral statements made at the foreign ministerial level can be legally binding.”
Trachtenberg cites World Court and International Court of Justice decisions that affirmed that verbal agreements can be binding under international law.
Verbal agreements are the foundation of diplomacy. Shifrinson argues that informal deals are important to politics and diplomacy. Trachtenberg agrees, saying that high officials “are not free to just walk away from the verbal assurances they give by claiming that they are not legally binding because no agreement had been signed. For otherwise purely verbal exchanges could not play anything like the role they do in international political life.”
Shifrinson argues that, historically and relevantly, verbal agreements were particularly important to diplomacy between the United States and Russia during the Cold War. As examples, he cites the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis through informal verbal agreements and the “Cold War order [that] emerged from tacit U.S. and Soviet initiatives in the 1950s and 1960s that helped the two sides to find ways to coexist.” Trachtenberg points out that the important assurance of Western access to Berlin through the Soviet zone was never more than a verbal agreement. Verbal agreements between the U.S. and Russia “abounded during the Cold War,” Shifrinson says. Trusting spoken promises made in the early 1990’s was neither new nor naïve.
It is even possible that what was offered to Russia in 1990 and 1991 was more than a promise. It may have been a deal. Shifrinson, who seems to think the assurances achieved the threshold of a deal, asserts that verbal agreements “can constitute a binding agreement provided one party gives up something of value in consideration” of what the other party promised in return. Trachtenberg, who thinks the assurances fell a little short of the threshold for a deal, states similarly that “assurances that are given as part of a deal—even a tacit bargain—are more binding than those issued unilaterally.”
Deals have the structure of what symbolic logic calls modus ponens. Any argument that takes the form of modus ponens is a valid argument. Such arguments state that if it is the case that if P is true then Q must be true, then, if P is, in fact, true, then Q must be true. In the case of the Western assurances, P was “You allow a united Germany to remain in NATO,” and Q was “NATO will not expand to the east.”
It could be argued that the threshold of a deal was reached and that Gorbachev allowed a united Germany to remain in NATO on condition that the West then honoured its promise that NATO would not expand east. If we allow a united Germany to remain in NATO, then you will not expand NATO east; we allowed a united Germany to remain in NATO; therefore, you will not expand NATO east.
Gorbachev certainly understood Baker’s promises in this way, as he says he only agreed to allow a unified Germany to be absorbed by NATO in return for the “ironclad” guarantee that NATO would expand no further east. It was only after these talks with Baker that Gorbachev agreed to German reunification and ascension to NATO. The “not one inch” promise was the condition for Gorbachev agreeing to a united Germany in NATO. In his memoir, Gorbachev called his February 9 conversation with Baker the moment that “cleared the way for a compromise.” Gorbachev understood the promise to have attained the threshold of a deal.
And that is the way Baker phrased it to him in the famous February 9 question in which he proposed “a united Germany keeping its connections with NATO, but with the guarantee that NATO’s jurisdiction or troops will not spread east of the present boundary.”
That is also the way Baker explained the promise to the public in a February 9 press conference. He told reporters, “What I’m saying is that we will have under the circumstances continued German membership in NATO… Now, that’s clearly, at least in the eyes of—in the position of the United States—not likely to happen without there being some sort of security guarantees with respect to NATO’s forces moving eastward or the jurisdiction of NATO moving eastward.”
If it is true that if one party gives up something conditionally on the other giving up something in return the threshold of a deal has been reached, and that “assurances that are given as part of a deal…are more binding than those issued unilaterally,” then Baker seems to have formulated the promise as, and Gorbachev seems to have understood the promise as, a deal. If that is the case, then what the West offered Russia, even if verbally and never in writing, may have been more than a promise. It may have been a binding deal.
That it is the West, and not Russia, who’s engaged in historical revisionism does not excuse Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But the clarification that the documentary record provides can help not only to understand the start of the war in Ukraine, but also to understand part of what may contribute to a diplomatic solution to the end of the war in Ukraine.
Kiev’s Latest Attack Against The Crimean Bridge Was A Desperate Distraction
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JULY 17, 2023
Kiev’s NATO–backed counteroffensive has failed despite the tens of billions of dollars invested in this endeavor as confirmed by US Defense Intelligence Agency Chief of Staff John Kirchhofer’s candid admission late last week that “we are at a bit of a stalemate.” Ukraine can’t count on much more American aid either after Biden earlier revealed that the US is “low” on ammo after depleting its stockpiles, which National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan later told CNN will take years to replenish.
It was against this backdrop that the US decided to give Ukraine cluster munitions despite previously describing their alleged use by Russia as a “war crime” since it simply doesn’t have much else left to send. President Putin had earlier assessed that the export of provocative weapons like depleted uranium shells was precisely due to the aforesaid predicament, which he reaffirmed in light of the latest news. Quite clearly, the NATO chief’s “race of logistics”/”war of attrition” with Russia isn’t going as planned.
The counteroffensive has failed so spectacularly that Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar was forced to inform her audience that reports about Russia going on the offensive near Kupyansk in Kharkov Region are true but sugarcoated it by claiming that Kiev is “putting up strong resistance.” With Russia regaining the military initiative, it was only a matter of time before Ukraine resorted to terrorism out of desperation to distract from these dynamics, ergo why it once again attacked the Crimean Bridge.
Monday morning’s incident killed at least two people and showed that shortcomings still exist when it comes to defending this strategic piece of infrastructure. Nevertheless, its temporary closure in the aftermath of this attack likely won’t affect Russia’s frontline operations, especially since its rail portion hasn’t been damaged. Even so, this is still a symbolic victory for Kiev that’ll be spun by the Mainstream Media to make it seem like the counteroffensive has finally achieved something significant.
In reality, however, this latest attack has nothing to do with that campaign. It was presumably planned for a while and won’t shift the military-strategic dynamics of this conflict, neither in the broader sense when it comes to Russia’s edge over the West in the “race of logistics”/”war of attrition” nor in the specific one with respect to its offensive in the Kupyansk direction. All that this attack will do is distract from the preceding facts that are too “politically inconvenient” for Kiev’s supporters to acknowledge.
As they indulge in the latest “copium” pushed by the Mainstream Media and online trolls, the fact remains that Kiev’s counteroffensive spectacularly failed and talks will therefore likely resume with Moscow by sometime later this year as explained in detail here. Instead of obsessing over this incident and getting the hopes of Kiev’s supporters unrealistically high, it would be much more responsible to precondition everyone to expect the aforementioned diplomatic development, which appears inevitable.
The New York Times’ Latest Smear Piece Against Tucker Shows That Liberals Have Lost The Plot
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JULY 16, 2023
The New York Times’ (NYT) Jonathan Weisman lost the plot in the article that he wrote in response to Tucker Carlson asking Republican presidential candidates about Ukraine. Titled “Tucker Carlson Turns a Christian Presidential Forum Into a Putin Showcase”, this self-described “veteran journalist” wanted to manipulate his audience’s perceptions about his much more popular peer by getting them to think that he’s shilling for the Russian leader. Instead, Weisman came off as cringey, desperate, and hateful.
Right at the start, the NYT’s correspondent declared that “Jesus is out. Vladimir V. Putin is in”, which was meant to make it seem like the Christians at Friday’s Family Leadership conference in Des Moise abandoned their god for a false idol. Nobody who sincerely respects Christians would ever imply what Weisman just did, which suggests that he was so triggered by Tucker’s questions about Ukraine that he lost his cool by attacking all of his target’s fellow believers as a form of collective punishment.
This wouldn’t be the first time that he couldn’t control his emotions either since he was demoted in August 2019 after an ethno-misogynist bigotry scandal that he sparked on social media. Weisman therefore has a track record of lashing out against certain identity groups in response to being offended by something that one of their representatives said or did, which extends credence to the abovementioned interpretation of what he intended to convey in that particular passage of his article.
Moving along, Weisman described Tucker as “confrontational” for reacting to former Vice President Mike Pence’s criticism of the Biden Administration’s supposedly slow dispatch of military aid to Ukraine after he wondered aloud why that Republican presidential candidate is so distressed about this. There’s nothing “confrontational” in asking why a person running for the country’s top office cares more about a foreign country than their own, however, which is another example of Weisman’s false framing.
The next one came right after when he wrote that “For good measure, Mr. Carlson called Ukraine an American ‘client state,’ accused Ukraine’s Jewish leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, of persecuting Christians and strongly indicated Mr. Pence had been conned, despite evidence to the contrary.” Weisman wanted his audience to think that Tucker was just peddling conspiracy theories, but the reality is that it’s this NYT correspondent who was yet again attempting to manipulate his audience by falsely framing everything.
To debunk each of his points in the order that they were shared: 1) Ukraine’s top commander Valery Zaluzhny complained to the Washington Post on the same day as Weisman’s article that Kiev’s allies have placed conditions on the use of the weapons they’ve provided; 2) Kiev is cracking down against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) on the pretext that it’s a ‘fifth column’; and 3) Zelensky’s former advisor Alexey Arestovich recently admitted that Ukraine only has “emotional” influence over the West.
Expanding on the above: 1) No truly sovereign state would ever accept anyone telling them what they can do with weapons in the hands of their own soldiers; 2) Pope Francis’ and the UN’s public expressions of concern over this crackdown prove that it’s not just the Kremlin that’s critical of Kiev’s campaign against the UOC; and 3) Arestovich, who can’t credibly be described as a so-called “Russian agent”, has a solid point about the means that Ukraine employs to manipulate Western perceptions about the conflict.
It should also be said that Weisman’s reference to Zelensky’s Jewish faith doesn’t discredit Pope Francis’ and the UN’s concern about Kiev’s latest campaign against a particular Christian community, which is being carried out for Russophobic reasons, not any other ones. In fact, drawing attention to the Ukrainian leader’s religion risks being interpreted by anti-Semites as a dog whistle prompting them to remind everyone that local Jews were responsible for the Romans putting Jesus to death.
This observation is tragically ironic since Weisman’s brief NYT bio mentions that he’s the author of “(((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump”, which warns about what he claims is the revival of anti-Semitism in the US. He previously told NPR that he was inspired to write it after being viciously trolled by fascists on Twitter, yet now he might have just unwittingly provoked them into more online hatemongering after falsely implying that Zelensky’s faith means that Kiev can’t be anti-Christian.
Nobody’s identity immunizes them from being bigoted towards anyone else, which Weisman himself knows for a fact as proven by his previously cited ethno-misogynist bigotry scandal. Likewise, Zelensky’s Jewish faith is irrelevant to his regime’s anti-Christian policies, just like any particular aspect of an anti-Semite’s identity is irrelevant to their hatred of Jews. Had Weisman not been so triggered by Tucker getting Pence to discredit himself before voters, then he’d likely never have suggested otherwise.
His train wreck of an article then continued after he declined to address the indisputable fact brought up by his much more popular peer in his question to Senator Tim Scott about why he cares more about dead Ukrainians than about his own fellow Americans who are killed by fentanyl from Mexico. All that Weisman could muster in response was to describe Tucker’s question as “a signature dismissive response”, which was actually another example of he himself attempting to dismiss Tucker’s valid point.
He then tries to explain away his efforts thus far to manipulate his audience’s perceptions by writing that “The divide in the Republican Party between traditional conservatives who favor the projection of American military might and a new, more isolationist wing that leans toward Russia is nothing new. But the Family Leadership Summit was supposed to be a showcase of Christian values, where social issues like abortion and transgender rights were expected to be center stage.”
What Weisman either can’t countenance due to his hardcore liberal bias or is too dishonest to openly admit is that Tucker’s questions about Ukraine are inextricably connected to Christian values from the Republican base’s perspective. As they see it, pumping a country with tens of billions of dollars’ worth of taxpayer-provided weapons to fight a proxy war that’s impossible for their side to win perpetuates the internecine slaughter of tens of thousands of fellow believers, which is anti-Christian to the core.
While he has the right to see things differently, it was extremely disrespectful for him to mock Christians in the way that he did in his response to Tucker, which shows that Weisman was once again unable to remain calm after being triggered by a contrarian opinion. The NYT’s editors should have caught his thinly disguised attack against that entire religious community, especially considering his earlier bigotry scandal, but it’s likely that they agree with him and that’s why they declined to remove that part.
The takeaway is that liberals have lost the plot now that they’re attacking Christians like Weisman just did in his piece for the NYT after one the world’s most popular journalists questioned Republican presidential candidates about their support for NATO’s proxy war on Russia in Ukraine. They can’t accept that Kiev’s counteroffensive failed and peace talks will thus likely resume by year’s end since it goes against their ideology, which is why they’re attacking an entire religion out of cognitive dissonance.
What is behind the current tension in Turkish-Iranian relations?
By Alexandr Svaranc – New Eastern Outlook – 16.07.2023
Turkey and Iran continue to be important Middle Eastern nations. Due to their geographical proximity, imperial past, violent rivalry, theological tensions (between Sunnism and Shiism), and, of course, the continuous divergence of geopolitical interests, both nations have a rich history of relations.
There were multiple Turkish-Persian clashes and wars, with various interruptions and varying degrees of success, during the Ottoman and Persian empires. Regarding the significance of the harem in the Ottoman Empire, historians have observed that, unlike the Turkish-Persian conflicts, which occasionally came to an end during periods of truce, the harem wars continued unabatedly. The reasons for these wars were varied, with religion often becoming a justification for the ambitions of Istanbul or Tehran. As a rule, it was a struggle for the right to own border territories from the Caucasus to Asia Minor, for the right to control strategic trade and military communications (for example, the area between Tigris and Euphrates, Eastern or Western Armenia and Syria).
In fact, such a confrontation lasted from the Middle Ages until World War I. The long military and political conflict between the Persians and Turks in such important regions, where the interests of the leading powers of Europe and Russia were represented, led to the establishment of a special international border commission with the participation of Britain and Russia at the turn of the twentieth century to facilitate the delimitation of Persia and the Ottoman Empire. But because London and St. Petersburg had their own distinct interests in the Near and Middle East, this commission never accomplished its mission.
There were also more stable times between Iran and Turkey in the new era. After World War II, from 1955 to 1979, Tehran and Ankara became even politico-military allies in the CENTO (Central Treaty Organization or Baghdad Pact) regional bloc, which emerged thanks to the Middle East diplomacy of Britain and the United States. While the Shah’s regime in Iran remained an ally of the West and Iranian oil and gas were exploited in the interests of London and Washington, Tehran was a regional partner of NATO member Turkey.
The situation changed after the February 1979 revolution in Iran, as the overthrow of the pro-American Shah’s regime and the ascension to power of the Shiite mullocracy brought about a major change in the disposition of forces in the Middle East. Since then, there have been renewed notes of mistrust and tension in Iranian-Turkish relations across the Middle East and global agenda, some of which remain relevant to this day.
It cannot be said that pragmatism in the approaches of Turkey and Iran has lost importance after the overthrow of Shah Reza Pahlavi. Despite harsh anti-Iranian sanctions, Ankara was forced to retain trading with Iran and keeps shipping gas in varying volumes due to its limited own energy supplies.
With the change of political regime in Iran after the 1979 revolution in Kemalist Turkey, where the secular regime suppressed the sprouts of Islamic revival, the politicization of Islam (albeit of Shiite origin) in the 1980s and 1990s still influenced the public consciousness of the Turkish masses in favor of the growing role of religion in the state.
The Kurdish issue remains a common concern between Turkey and Iran. Ankara and Tehran oppose all forms of Kurdish statehood and threats of ethnic separatism. However, in the situation of the Kurds after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran there have been some changes. Some experts believe, not unreasonably, that the phenomenon of the Shiite revolution in February 1979 has both external and internal justifications.
The external reason was to prevent the leading Anglo-Saxon countries (the US and Britain) from monopolizing and plundering Iran’s strategic resources (oil and gas), as well as to prevent the corrosive influence of Western pop culture on the minds of Iranian youth and the general population. The internal reason, however, was related to the idea of preventing the weakening and collapse of Persian statehood under the threat of ethnic separatism with different colors (Kurds, Azeris, Baluchis). At the same time, Islam, namely political Shiism, assumed the religious consolidation of Iranian society regardless of ethnic origin.
Following the revolution’s victory, Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini summoned Mustafa Barzani, the leader of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, then in exile, to Tehran for a final settlement of the Kurdish crisis on an Islamic basis. According to some reports, such an agreement was accepted by a Kurdish politician, but he never made it to Tehran. CIA handlers then announced an emergency surgery on Mustafa Barzani, but the surgery ended in his death.
The main contradictions between Tehran and Ankara include Turkey’s continued membership in NATO and Shiite-Sunni religious differences between different madhhabs. At the same time, as key countries in the Middle East region, it is natural that Turkey and Iran have different approaches on a number of regional topics (including the Syrian crisis, the situation in Libya and Iraq, and the relationship with Pakistan). The adjacent territories of the South Caucasus and Central Asia occupy a distinctive place in this package of contradictions following the breakup of the Soviet Union and the parade of sovereignties of post-Soviet states.
First, Iran is concerned about the renaissance of Turkey’s pan-Turkic and pan-Turanist ambitions toward the Turkic countries of the CIS, which could seriously weaken Iran’s position if the Turan project succeeds.
Second, Tehran watches with great caution the geo-economic projects in the Caspian energy region, which with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the weakening of Russia got a start and developed thanks to the joint initiatives of Turkey and its NATO allies (primarily, the UK and the US). At the same time, this concern of the Persian state is determined not only, or rather, not so much by the considerations of the new direction of oil and gas exports to Turkey as by Ankara’s plans to create alternative energy transit routes bypassing Russia and Iran to bring exporters from Turkic countries to world markets (especially to Europe) and turn the Turkish territory into a major hub. In other words, Iran, as an oil and gas-rich country, is concerned about the geopolitical consequences of transformations in the South Caucasus and Central Asia in favor of the strengthening of Turkey, the United States and Britain.
Third, taking into account the Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem that has formed on Iran’s northern borders, Tehran is anxiously observing the trend of Israel showing up along the Iranian-Azerbaijani border line on the Arax River, the increased intelligence presence of the Mossad and Aman in the same Azerbaijan with the approval of NATO member Turkey.
Fourth, there is now a certain geopolitical rivalry between Turkey and Iran, with a religious connotation in as yet predominantly Shiite Azerbaijan. Given that the Azerbaijani authorities have based their relations with Turkey on the pan-Turkic slogan and the principle of “one nation, two states,” Iran notes the active political persecution of Azerbaijani Shiites (including often with accusations of spying for IRI) by Baku. Moreover, IRGC sources in Azerbaijan note an increasing number of cases of religious interference by Turkey in the Sunnization of Azerbaijani Shiites. Tehran sees all these actions as an attempt by Ankara to weaken the influence of Shiite Iran in this Transcaucasian republic.
After Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s victory in the elections and his visit to Baku, assessing the situation with the Zangezur corridor in Armenia, the Turkish leader, not by chance, stressed that the main reason for blocking this corridor was not Yerevan, but Tehran. Iran indeed publicly through the mouths of Ayatollah Ali Khomenei, President Ibrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian has repeatedly noted that for it the Zangezur corridor remains a “red line,” it is unacceptable to change the borders of neighboring republics of the South Caucasus (in particular, Armenia) and it is important to maintain the direct multi-millenial border of Iran with Armenia.
Tehran does not want NATO to strengthen in the region on the shoulders of its member Turkey, nor does it want to see the Turan project implemented with pan-Turkic content. Otherwise, Iran will be blocked by unfriendly forces on its northern borders, including the emergence of a bridgehead of Zionist Israel on the banks of the Arax River.
With his statement, Erdoğan not only expresses his dissatisfaction with the regional policy of Iran that three Muslim states (Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Iran) through the fault of Persians can’t solve the road question peacefully and get economic dividends but actually says that Iran is not allowing the Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem to start a war with Armenia again and take by force the Meghri segment of the Zangezur corridor (if not all of Zangezur – Syunik Province) from the latter.
Given that Russia is now forced to engage in the western flank of the geopolitical confrontation with the West in Ukraine and is therefore interested in maintaining a partnership with Turkey for the same transit and out into the world, it cannot strain relations with Ankara in Armenia (Transcaucasus). Iran becomes the main opponent of Turkey in this theater.
In the second half of June 2023, Turkey and Azerbaijan announced the formation of a unified system of control and management of airspace from the Aegean Sea to the Caspian Sea according to NATO standards (the Turkish HAKİM Air Command Control System). The latter is practically capable of establishing airspace control in the South Caucasus region and threatening not only Armenia but also Iran. Given the existence of a common air defense system between Armenia and Russia within the CSTO, such a move by the tandem of Ankara and Baku is in some ways a challenge for Russia’s regional interests as well.
Since the beginning of 2023, trade turnover between Iran and Turkey has decreased by 20%, where the main export commodity for the Turkish side remains gas. Apparently, such a decline in economic relations between these countries was the result of a number of objective and subjective reasons (such as the crisis in the energy market due to anti-Russian sanctions and rising prices, the earthquake and rising inflation in Turkey, the devaluation of the Turkish lira, and Ankara’s pressure on the issue of the Zangezur corridor). In response to Moscow’s proposal to create a gas hub in Turkey, Iran came up with an equally ambitious similar project in the Persian Gulf. All these processes testify to the growing Iranian-Turkish contradictions.
Moreover, the information about the ongoing closed-door talks between Iran and the USA on the subject of the deblocking of Iranian assets in exchange for American prisoners and, most importantly, about the end of the “tanker war” between Tehran and Washington in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman and the export of Iranian oil to world markets (as we know, in the USA itself there is a rise in gasoline prices and an increasing need for oil) creates additional tension in Turkish politics as well.
The US is not yet interested in the implementation of alternative communications from China to Europe through the territory of Turkey (under the One Belt, One Road Initiative). Perhaps Washington is proposing an Indian project through Iran to Europe as an alternative to Chinese transit. And in this geographic preference of the states, a new confrontation between Iran and Turkey is created.
Accordingly, if Iran develops strategic partnerships with countries such as China and India, and can establish certain relationships with the US administration on the nuclear program and oil exports, Turkey will find it difficult to count on success in a battle with Tehran. Moreover, today’s Iranian authorities are interested in strengthening President Erdoğan’s policy independent of the United States, which makes it possible to weaken Washington’s pressure on the region. These are the complicated patterns of the contemporary geopolitical mosaic in the Greater Middle East.
Aleksandr SVARANTS, PhD in political science, professor.
Russia Could Reverse Engineer Its Trophy NATO Weapons – Putin
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 16.07.2023
The Western alliance has sunk tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry into Ukraine over the past year, including everything from outdated 1960s junk to the latest high-tech systems. Russian forces have managed to capture some of this equipment in fierce battles with Ukrainian forces and mercs.
Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t rule out the reverse engineering of NATO equipment captured in Ukraine in cases where doing so could improve Russia’s own weapons.
“There’s the expression ‘reverse engineering’. We’ll see what happens, because modern equipment… we have it, and it’s very effective, let’s take the T-90 Proryv tank for example, which is the best tank in the world without any exaggeration. But the enemy also produces modern equipment. And if there’s an opportunity to look inside and see if there’s something there that we can use, well, why not?” Putin said in an interview with Russian television on Sunday.
The United States and its European and Asian allies have committed over $94.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine over the past 18 months, far outstripping the size of Russia’s entire defense budget of $56.6 billion. These expenditures, which included the delivery of some of NATO’s most cutting-edge, battle-tested equipment, have nevertheless failed to enable Ukrainian forces to puncture Russian defensive lines in the Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson.
NATO powers have committed everything from Leopard 2 tanks (including some of their latest modifications) to Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Stryker armored fighting vehicles, ATACMS rocket launchers, Caesar howitzers, Storm Shadow cruise missiles, NASAMS and Patriot air defense systems, with some countries sending virtually their entire stockpiles of some of these weapons. NATO has also sent a range of modern man-portable weapons, including Panzerfaust and Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, and a range of drones, jamming equipment, radar, engineering and other equipment.
Some of these weapons, including everything from Javelins and Stingers to Bradleys and Leopards, have been captured by Russian forces, with some equipment now serving with Russian forces.
The Incredible Shrinking NATO
By Dmitry Orlov | July 15, 2023
I’ve been waiting for the hubbub to die down since the NATO conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 11-12 July 2023, waiting for someone — anyone — to point out the obvious reason for why the Ukraine’s cocaine-sniffing mascot-president Zelensky, having been lionized only a year ago, has suddenly fallen into disfavor with this organization. Yes, the Ukraine might still some day be invited to start the long and arduous process of joining NATO, but only after some undefined number of NATO members decide that it has done enough to comply with “NATO standards” (I’ll explain what those are later) and various other vague things. Keeping in mind that back on 20 September 2018 the Ukrainian parliament approved amendments to the constitution that would make the accession of the country to NATO and the EU a central goal and the main foreign policy objective, such a turn of events is most embarrassing for the mascot president and his backers and handlers.
Oh, the vicissitudes of fortune! Lots of analysis and commentators offered ready explanations for this turn of events. Yet not a single one of them saw it fit to dig just the tiniest bit and discover the glaringly obvious reason for this momentous shift. Perhaps all of them, for a variety of reasons, loathe to admit the reality of what NATO is, what it does, and why the Ukraine is suddenly a threat rather than a boon to its core mission. You may want to read all of that commentary at your leisure — if you have trouble falling asleep. The official NATO Summit Communiqué, fantastically verbose and filled with irrelevancies, makes for particularly somniferous reading.
So, what did the Ukraine do to fall into such disfavor? Perhaps it did something that jeopardized NATO’s core mission? That seems like a good guess. But then what is NATO’s core mission?
In the movie “Silence of the Lambs,” Hannibal Lecter refers to a quote by Marcus Aurelius when he says to Clarice Starling, “First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?” The quote is from Book Three of “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius, and it emphasizes the importance of understanding the essence of things.
NATO was formed on 4 April 1949 with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, more popularly known as the Washington Treaty, supposedly for the purpose of thwarting the Soviet Union in Europe. The USSR responded by forming the Warsaw Treaty Organization (also known as the Warsaw Pact) — a political and military alliance established on May 14, 1955 between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries for the express purpose of defending them from NATO. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved on 1 July 1991 and, shortly thereafter, on 26 December 1991, the USSR itself followed suit, but NATO continues to exist. By this point, the Warsaw Pact had existed for slightly less than NATO has existed, and the USSR had existed for only slightly more than that. Clearly, the communist threat as a rationale for NATO’s existence was but a ruse, a smokescreen… a red herring.
So, what was NATO’s real purpose? There are many ways to answer this question, but the Ukraine’s sudden fall from grace offers what is perhaps the most graphic explanation.
• Was it that the war there was dragging on? No, a slow burn would be exactly what the Pentagon ordered, so that it would have a chance to keep up with Russia’s hectic pace of weapons and ammunition deliveries.
• Was it that the Ukraine was losing the war? No, the Ukraine wasn’t losing; it just wasn’t winning. In particular, its attacks on Russia’s defensive lines, which the Russian troops termed “meat attacks” because of the huge and useless losses they incurred on the Ukrainian side, seemed rather futile.
• Was it that the Ukraine was about to be defeated? Again, no, the Russians were happy to advance a few kilometers here and there, with their main objective the establishment of a buffer zone wide enough so that Ukrainian artillery would stop shelling what are now Russian civilian districts.
• Was it that NATO ran out of weapons and ammo to give to the Ukrainians? Again, no, there is still quite a lot of semi-obsolete junk that could be handed over to the Ukrainians.
So, what did the Ukrainians do to raise the ire of the Pentagon so suddenly, and as a direct consequence, fall into disfavor with NATO? In short, the Ukrainians demonstrated that NATO’s weapons are crap. Evidence of this built up slowly over time. First, it turned out that various bits of US-made shoulder-fired junk — anti-aircraft Stingers, anti-tank Javelins, etc — are rather worse than useless in modern combat. Next, it turned out that the M777 howitzer and the HIMARS rocket complex are rather fragile and aren’t field-maintainable.
The next wonder-weapon thrown at the Ukrainian problem was the Patriot missile battery. It was deployed near Kiev and the Russians quickly made a joke of it. They attacked it with their super-cheap Geranium 5 “flying moped” drones, causing it to turn on its active radar, thereby unmasking its position, and then fire off its entire load of rockets — a million dollars’ worth! — after which point it just sat there, unmasked and defenseless, and was taken out by a single Russian precision rocket strike.
This was sure to have seriously pissed off US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, whose major personal cash cow happens to be Raytheon, the maker of the Patriot. Yes, the Patriot proved useless using the First Gulf War, where it failed to protect Israel against ancient Iraqi Scud missiles; and it proved useless later on when it failed to protect Saudi oil installation against ancient Yemeni Scud missiles… but you aren’t supposed to advertise that fact. And now this!
And to top it all off, the German-donated Leopard 2 tanks and the US-donated Bradley infantry vehicles, not to mention the silly French wheeled non-tanks, performed absolutely miserably during the recent Ukrainian efforts to approach, never mind penetrate, Russia’s first line of defense. Rubbing salt into the wounds, Putin remarked off-the-cuff that Western armor burns rather more easily than the old Soviet-made stuff.
The latest desperate move would be to give the Ukrainian air force (which, by the way, no longer exists) some older F-16 fighter jets. These can be anywhere up to 50 years old and are peculiar in having an air intake that’s very close to the ground, making them very effective as runway vacuum cleaners during takeoff. They cannot operate from the dirty and pitted runways that are typical in the Ukraine because the debris would get sucked into the engine and destroy it. If the Ukrainians attempt to pave new runways for them, the Russians would instantly spot this from the geosynchronous satellite that is permanently pointed at Ukrainian territory. Rather than put some fresh bomb craters on these new runways, they could do something more subtle: use one of their super-cheap Geranium 2’s to spread metal shaving for the F-16’s engines to vacuum up… and burn up in flight. And since these are single-engine planes, there is no possibility of limping home on the remaining engine: the pilot would have to catapult and the plane would crash. But there is an even more important reason why the idea of giving F-16’s for the Ukraine is unworkable: these planes are able to carry nuclear bombs and Russia has already announced that it would see this step as a nuclear escalation. But provoking a nuclear conflict with Russia is verboten, so F-16’s are a no-go.
Why is the failure of relentlessly propagandized Western weaponry more important than just about anything else, including the increasingly dire state of Western finances, the ridiculous failure of anti-Russian sanctions, the obscenely huge numbers of Ukrainian casualties or the general Western fatigue with all things Ukrainian and especially with the flood of Ukrainian refugees that the West can no longer cope with?
The reason is simple: NATO is not a defensive organization (remember, USSR has been gone for over 30 years); nor is it an offensive organization (well, it did bomb Serbia and a few other relatively defenseless countries, but it can’t possibly think about facing off against Russia or any other well-armed nation).
Rather, NATO is a captive buyers’ club for US-made weapons. That is what vaunted NATO standards, with which the Ukraine must comply before it is deemed worthy to be invited to join NATO, are all about: to comply with these standards, your weapons have to be mostly US-made. That is also the reason for all of the various wars of choice, from Serbia to Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya and Syria: these were demonstration projects for US weapons, with the additional goal of using up the weapons and the munitions so that the Pentagon and the rest of NATO would have to reorder them. The geopolitical rationales for these military conflicts are mere rationalizations. For instance, between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. dropped more than 2.5 million tons of bombs on Laos during 580,000 bombing sorties—equal to a planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years. What was the geopolitical rationale? Nobody can even remember if there ever was one. But those bombs were about to expire and needed to be used up and reordered to keep the money flowing.
In response to such strange inducements, US-made weapons tend to be overly complex (so that their makers can charge more for the useless extra features) and rather fragile (never tested against a peer adversary like Russia or China, or even against Iran), developed slowly (to clean up on R&D funding), built slowly (because what’s the rush?) and very high-maintenance (so that US defense contractors can get even richer delivering spare parts and service). These weapons were supposed to be tested ever so gently by giving hell to backward tribesmen armed with old Kalashnikovs and RPGs.
Ukraine is a different story altogether. There, the Ukrainians, with their mismatched hand-me-down Western armor, are being asked to penetrate three lines of hardened Russian defenses. After about a month of effort and staggering losses of men and equipment, they haven’t yet been able to reach the first defensive line. The sight of Western armor ablaze does not make good advertising. Consequently, the US defense contractors must be very eager to stop this steady stream of negative advertising for their products to stop right this second — before their reputations end up completely ruined; hence the unseemly haste with which the entire Ukrainian project is being orphaned.
The alternative to active warfare, now that that’s failed, is what in the West is usually called “negotiation” but in reality would involve acceding to Russian demands made in November of 2021 (which include NATO rolling back its weapons to where they were in 1997), plus more recent requirements, such as denazification, demilitarization and neutrality for what remains of the Ukraine, recognition of Russia’s new borders (which include Crimea, Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk and Lugansk regions) and prosecution for all of the Ukrainian war criminals, including all the ones that have been torturing prisoners of war and shelling civilians since 2014. Oh, and the lifting of all the insipid sanctions would be required as well.
But this is rather a lot to take in at a single sitting, and so NATO has decided to take lots of bite-sized pieces. The official NATO document linked above is maximally verbose and full of fluff, but a close reading of its turgid bureaucratese will reveal quite a number of concessions, or at least hints at concessions:
• “We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met.” To use a vernacular Russian saying, this will happen “when a crawfish up on a mountain whistles” — i.e., never. That is, the Ukraine will never become part of NATO.
• “The circumstances in which NATO might have to use nuclear weapons are extremely remote.” Translation: We’re standing down! Please don’t kill us! Apparently, NATO heads have been briefed on the capabilities of Russia’s new strategic weapons, both offensive and defensive, and don’t want to even consider any sort of direct military confrontation with Russia.
• “We urge all countries not to provide any kind of assistance to Russia’s aggression…” Translation: we wish they would stop, although we’ve asked enough times already and they haven’t listened and so we aren’t holding out much hope that they will listen now.
• “The deepening strategic partnership between the PRC and Russia and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests.” But the deepening strategic partnership is entirely congruent with both Russia’s and China’s values and interests and they aren’t about to ask anyone for permission. Yammering on about the “rules-based international order,” even though it no longer exists, is a bit pathetic, but what else is there left for them to do? Boo-hoo!
• “Russia’s deepening military integration with Belarus, including the deployment of advanced Russian military capabilities and military personnel in Belarus, has implications for regional stability and the defence of the Alliance.” Well, that’s exactly what that military integration was designed to accomplish and it’s good that they’ve noticed. The implication is that NATO will never mess with Belarus again.
• “We remain willing to keep open channels of communication with Moscow to manage and mitigate risks, prevent escalation, and increase transparency.” That’s welcome news indeed! Phone the Kremlin any time you want to hear a recitation of Russia’s security demands, to refresh your memory.
• “The People’s Republic of China’s stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values.” And NATO’s interests and values challenge the PRC and its security, so we’re at an impasse. In other news, Russia just passed a law banning all sex change operations; how does that comply with “Western values”? Come on, shake your tiny fists in impotent rage!
• “NATO does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia. In light of its hostile policies and actions, we cannot consider Russia to be our partner.” And in light of NATO’s hostile policies and actions, Russia considers NATO countries to be hostile nations (and certainly not partners). How does giving weapons to Ukrainian Nazis not pose a threat to Russia?
• “We reiterate our clear determination that Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon. We remain deeply concerned about Iran’s escalation of its nuclear programme.” So, Iran is the only country that toothless old NATO can still find the courage to bark at. That seems safe, since by now Iran can’t even hear them.
And that’s where it stands. Europe looks in horror at the US, which is still its weapons purveyor and security guarantor, but is headed by a barely functioning senile old man whose furious outbursts are causing his cabinet members to shy away from the Oval Office, and whose only possible replacement — the imbecilic, cackling Kamala — would hardly be any better. It may be slowly dawning on some of the more lucid European leaders that a way of backing out of the Russophobic cul-de-sac, of their own creation, in which they now find themselves, must somehow be found, but they see no way of achieving that without a massive loss of face. Let’s give it another year and see whether by then they still have a face to save.
‘20% of Ukrainian weapons destroyed in just two weeks’
RT | July 15, 2023
The Ukrainian military lost 20% of the equipment it sent to the battlefield during the first two weeks of its counteroffensive, the New York Times reported on Saturday. This high attrition rate was reportedly a key factor in Kiev’s decision to pause the operation.
Beginning in early June, Ukrainian forces launched a series of attacks all along the front line from Kherson to Donetsk. Advancing through minefields and without air support, the Ukrainian military lost 26,000 men and more than 3,000 pieces of military hardware, according to the latest figures from the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Ukrainian losses were at their highest during the initial two weeks of the offensive, the New York Times claimed, citing unnamed American and European officials. These officials said that up to 20% of Ukraine’s tanks and armored vehicles were destroyed in this period, including many Western-provided vehicles.
For some units, Western equipment was lost at an even higher rate, the Times continued, citing figures from a pro-Ukrainian organization. Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade – a NATO-trained unit – apparently lost 30% of its 99 Bradley Infantry Fighting vehicles in two weeks, while the 33rd Mechanized Brigade lost nearly a third of its 32 German-made Leopard tanks in a single week.
“They all burned,” said one Ukrainian soldier who witnessed at least six Western vehicles destroyed in a single Russian artillery barrage. Another Ukrainian fighter told the Times that his unit’s Bradleys run over anti-tank mines on a daily basis. While the troops inside often survive, the vehicles are left immobilized long before they reach Russian lines.
According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian forces have destroyed a total of 311 Ukrainian tanks since June 4. “At least a third of them, I believe, were Western-made tanks, including Leopards,” Putin told Russia 24 TV on Thursday.
After the first two weeks, Ukrainian commanders decided to pause the counteroffensive, and losses subsequently dropped to 10%, the Times claimed. President Vladimir Zelensky acknowledged the pause this week, but blamed the West for failing to supply him with enough weapons and equipment for a successful operation.
With little territorial gain to show for Kiev’s losses, Western officials have expressed disappointment at the pace of the offensive, according to a steady trickle of media reports since mid-June. Zelensky and some of his top officials still insist that the decisive phase of their counteroffensive has yet to begin.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Western backers are running low on ammunition, particularly 155mm artillery shells. US President Joe Biden admitted this week that “we’re low” on these shells, explaining that the shortage compelled him to send controversial cluster munitions in their stead. The US has also stalled on approving the training of Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets, something that Kiev insists will help restart the faltering counteroffensive.
U.S. Soldiers Don’t Belong in Ukraine
By Eve Ottenberg | CounterPunch | July 14, 2023
So how many American soldiers fight in Ukraine? The Biden bunch is careful not to reveal or refer to their presence, mercenary or otherwise, but the question keeps coming to mind. It popped up again June 27, when Russia bombed what the Ukraine press called simply a restaurant in Kramatorsk. However, this supposedly innocuous restaurant was part of a hotel complex that apparently attracted lots of western men of fighting age, specifically American soldiers and others from NATO countries. We know this because eyewitnesses heard them speaking American English and saw their U.S. military tattoos (3rd Ranger Battalion) and the American flags on their helmets. Also, American mercenaries were reported dead in twitter accounts. We also know that this missile attack killed 50 Ukrainian officers and two generals and at least 20 of the westerners, including Americans, proving yet again that one American soldier in Ukraine is one too many.
The problem is that we don’t know how many U.S. soldiers – to say nothing of American mercenaries – are in Ukraine. The Russian ministry of defense estimates that there have been over 900 American mercenaries in Ukraine. Meanwhile Washington remains mum, closely guarding its knowledge of this secret for the obvious reason that not doing so might provoke an open confrontation with Moscow. And since they don’t want a nuclear World War III, the white house and pentagon nurture an intense interest in concealing facts about the U.S. military footprint in Ukraine and their possible encouragement of it. Even if large numbers of American NATO officers were killed there, we, back in the so-called homeland, would doubtless be kept in the dark.
The scraps of news we do get indicate that the fighting goes poorly for U.S. troops. “This is my third war I’ve fought in, and this is by far the worst one,” Troy Offenbecker told the Daily Beast July 1. “You’re getting fucking smashed with artillery, tanks. Last week I had a plane drop a bomb next to us, like 300 meters away. It’s horrifying shit.”
The Daily Beast quotes another U.S. soldier, David Bramlette: “The worst day in Afghanistan or Iraq is a great day in Ukraine.” Regarding reconnaissance missions, he said, “if two of them get injured… there’s no helicopter coming to get you… shit can go south really, really frickin’ quickly.” In other words, this is a different enemy, a very competent one, and U.S. soldiers in Ukraine sub rosa could die in large numbers that people back home never hear about.
Take the case of the March missile attack on Lvov. We have no idea if the rumors swirling around this assault, rumors of hundreds of NATO dead, including Americans, were true or not. Insofar as they mentioned this alleged catastrophe at all, U.S. press outlets hastened to impugn these reports’ veracity. So this attack received little to zero western coverage. Savvy observers like Moon of Alabama steered clear of it, presumably because the fog of war was just too thick. However, a regular commentor on that site, Oblomovka Daydream, did post an account on the Moon of Alabama open thread on April 15. It’s worth a look for its elsewhere unreported details. But caveat lector: little is known about Oblomovka Daydream’s track record.
According to this source, back in March Russia launched “Daggers” – Kinzhal missiles – at a NATO command center in the Lvov region. This secret facility, at a depth of one hundred meters, was “a reserve command post of the former Carpathian military district… well protected and equipped with modern communication systems.” NATO generals and colonels chose it. They felt so safe, they dropped their guard: “Sometimes dozens of cars gathered at the entrance to the headquarters even in broad daylight.”
The Dagger was chosen “because such a bunker is invulnerable to conventional missiles.” The Russian assault left no survivors. “And there were more than 200 of them. Including, say some ‘informed’ Western journalists, several American generals and senior officers. And also – British, Polish, Ukrainian.” According to the Greek portal ProNews, which is close to the Greek ministry of defense and was quoted in this post, “dozens of foreign officers were killed” when the Kinzhal hypersonic missiles hit the secret facility. This was “a disaster for NATO forces in Ukraine.”
As aforementioned, western news outlets hastened either not to report one word of this or to cast doubt on these accounts’ credibility. According to Newsweek March 31, claims that a NATO command center had been hit were “baseless.” Newsweek singled out ProNews as “highly questionable,” nonetheless conceding that on the night of March 9 Russia retaliated for sabotage in Bryansk, with Kinzhals, and that one targeted region was Lvov.
So it’s unclear what happened. Oblomovka Daydream cites some convincing details: “Some Kiev sites have also blabbed: after the emergency, representatives of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were called to the carpet at the U.S. Embassy, where they were reprimanded ‘for the poor security of the control center,’ and at the same time handed a list of the dead senior American officers and ordered ‘to get them at least from the underground.’”
The point is this: dozens of Americans could have been killed and if so, you can be sure, we’d never hear a peep about it. That’s because this is a proxy war and the U.S. supposedly has nothing to do with it. Even though billions of American dollars and lots of U.S. military hardware have disappeared who knows where into Ukraine. Even though Americans fight and die there. And even though no one, outside of their families and government officials, knows who they are.
But never doubt that Americans have been in Ukraine since the start of this war. Reports surfaced on twitter July 9 quoting an Azov commander, Volyn, to Turkish media that the U.S. and Russia arranged the Azov surrender at Azovstal last year in exchange for the withdrawal of several “high-ranking U.S. officers” from the facility. Indeed, there were rumors of Americans at Azovstal at the time. This Turkish interview would appear to confirm them. Far from objecting, many Americans would support this. But then again, many Americans discount the threat of nuclear war with Russia, something no sane person wants to gamble with.
All of which adds up, yet again, to the argument that Washington should retract its claws and try to bargain. Moscow has said it will strike command centers. How long before a large contingent of American NATO “trainers” are killed and can’t be concealed? Then what? Oopsies… we didn’t mean to start World War III? Washington should look for a negotiated settlement. A peace plan, like the one arranged by neutral countries in spring 2022, which western geniuses scuttled. Or Washington could swallow its pride and follow up on the Chinese peace proposal. If there was the slightest concern for human life, bigwigs in the imperial capital would do so. One can only conclude there is not.
Sweden’s NATO membership not a done deal – Erdogan aide
RT | July 14, 2023
Türkiye has opened the door to the process of Sweden joining NATO but has not yet given its approval, Omer Celik, spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, said on Friday.
In a live broadcast on Haberturk TV, Celik said there was a tripartite memorandum between Türkiye, Sweden and NATO about the preconditions for membership, in which Stockholm pledged to undertake certain steps.
If the Turkish parliament is told that Sweden has produced “a strong satisfactory result” by complying with its obligations, AKP deputies will vote to ratify its membership of the US-led military bloc, Celik told Haberturk.
Asked when this might happen, Celik said “at the next session” of the parliament, meaning not before October or November.
Earlier this week, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Türkiye had agreed to support Sweden’s application after a months-long delay.
Erdogan had reportedly attempted to tie his approval of Sweden’s membership bid to Türkiye being admitted to the European Union. In return, the US has signaled willingness to unblock a sale of F-16 fighters to Ankara.
Commenting on Türkiye’s relations with the US, Celik said the meeting between Erdogan and US President Joe Biden promised “a new page,” but that remained to be seen. Relations could improve much faster if the US would change its mind about supporting Kurdish-led militants in Syria, Celik noted.
NATO had hoped to admit Sweden and Finland together before the bloc’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania this week. Finland eventually joined on its own, after Türkiye held up Sweden’s application over concerns that Stockholm was protecting Kurdish organizations that Ankara has labeled as terrorists. The US-dominated bloc technically requires the consensus of all 31 members before admitting new ones.
Western media calls Baltic Sea “NATO lake” after summit in Vilnius
By Lucas Leiroz | July 14, 2023
The Western mainstream media is enthusiastic about the possibility of Sweden joining NATO and consequently making the country’s Baltic coast a zone of control for the alliance. Analysts are saying that the West’s moves in Vilnius have made the Baltic Sea a “NATO lake”. The words are bold and somewhat inaccurate, as they do not seem to adequately echo the actual strategic situation in the region.
On July 13, Politico published an article about how Russia would be at a disadvantage in the Baltic after an eventual Swedish entry into the alliance. The article states that with the addition of Finnish and Swedish militaries the Baltic will become a region of absolute Western control, where Russia will have no room for maneuvers and will be heavily affected in case there is a conflict in the future.
“[Sweden and Finland] make NATO much more geographically coherent. The Baltic Sea becomes a NATO lake, which is generally useful, also because of the Arctic’s increased importance”, Ulrike Franke, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Politico’s journalists.
In the same vein, Kristine Berzina, managing director for the German Marshall Fund’s Geostrategy North, stated:
“You need to have enough in place that, in case of a Crimea or a Ukrainian scenario, there’s actual ability to defend territory (…) With Finland and Sweden in, and [the Swedish Baltic island of] Gotland so close to Kaliningrad, in case of highly unlikely yet possible aggression from Russia, Russia cannot use the sea to its strategic advantage as it could right now.”
In fact, the words of journalists and analysts echo NATO’s official position. On the same day that the Politico article was published, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated at a press conference in Vilnius:
“Sweden has a strong, professional, well-trained defense and is strategically located at the Baltic Sea … The borders with Norway and Finland allow for better coordination of land troops. In addition, there is Sweden’s Navy in the Baltic Sea … The entire territory of Sweden is of interest.”
In fact, despite commenting on a real problem for Russia – its disadvantaged situation in the Baltic Sea -, Western analyzes seem too outdated and banal. For example, this Russian disadvantage in the region did not start now, but between 1999 and 2004, when, breaking the promise of non-expansion, NATO granted access to Poland and the Baltics. During the Cold War, the USSR had a status of control in the Baltic, as only West Germany and Denmark – in the extreme west of the Sea – were members of NATO. But since the end of the 1990s the scenario has been reversed and Russia is indeed at a disadvantage.
NATO’s presence in the region has always been favored by Sweden and Finland, which have always been extremely politically, economically, militarily and culturally integrated to the Collective West, regardless of formal affiliation to NATO. For Moscow, as emphasized several times, the entry of Sweden and Finland into the military alliance means nothing, since both countries were already de facto members of the Collective West, with the admission sounding like a mere bureaucratic procedure. So, the Russian disadvantage in the Baltic will not be really increased by this.
However, it must be emphasized that Russia’s situation of disadvantage in the Baltic is of little significance because Moscow, as explained in several official declarations, does not have a foreign policy focused on Western Europe, but on its own strategic environment in the East. Russia does not see NATO’s presence in the Baltic Sea as a threat as big as the one posed by the alliance in Kiev. Ukraine is historically, ethnically and culturally part of the Russian civilization, in addition to its borders being at short distance from Moscow – a different scenario from that of the Baltic and Scandinavian nations.
Russia is only interested in the military presence in the Baltic from a defensive point of view. In other words, if NATO launches an aggression against the country, Moscow will use all possible means to reverse its disadvantage in the region by gaining territorial control. In this scenario, the naval environment will not be the only one relevant, according to some specialists, and Russia will be able to use its land and air forces to neutralize the hostile countries in the region.
American war veteran and former UN inspector Scott Ritter, for example, commented on the topic on his social networks, stating that “[In case of war] The Baltics will be overrun, Finnish coast occupied, Sweden neutralized. You [Western analysts] focus on the sea; a future war will be won on the ground and in the air.”
In this sense, the Western media’s belief that the Baltic Sea has become a “NATO lake” seems irresponsible and illogical optimism. It is a complex and disputed scenario in which Russia has been at a disadvantage for years, but over which it could regain control in a scenario of open conflict, where it would be able to use all its land and air forces in combination with its fortified navy from the Kaliningrad exclave. Furthermore, it must be remembered that in the North there is the Arctic, an area of great Russian presence, which would certainly help to reduce the effects of a “western siege” in this hypothetical scenario.
This, however, would only happen in case of an aggression from NATO, as Russia has no plans to expand to the West.
Lucas Leiroz is a journalist and researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
NATO adopts new anti-Russia defense plan
RT | July 13, 2023
NATO passed a new defense plan at the Vilnius summit on Tuesday. The whopping 4,400-page document details the defense of critical locations in case of “an emergency” and lists a potential attack by Russia as one of the biggest threats, according to German media. The bloc’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg has welcomed what he called “the most comprehensive defense plans since the end of the Cold War.”
The document addresses two “main threats – Russia and terrorism,” and accuses the former of being “the greatest and most immediate threat to the security of allies and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic region,” according to Germany’s Bild tabloid.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also called on his country and the other NATO members to “arm ourselves against a threat to our territory,” Bild added. The new plan also lists the military capabilities the bloc’s members must demonstrate, including new member Finland and applicant, Sweden.
The document reportedly claims a “violent” and “revisionist” Russia could potentially attack NATO territory. “We recognized that we could indeed be faced with an Article 5 situation again, in which part of NATO territory is under direct attack,” a military bloc official told German news agency, dpa.
To counter the supposed ‘Russian threat,’ the bloc plans to massively increase its Response Force (NRF) from the current 40,000 troops to over 300,000, comprising land, sea and air units, as well as rapidly deployed Special Forces.
The bloc also plans to significantly increase weapons production and stockpiling. The new strategy includes a “new Defense Production Action Plan to accelerate joint procurement, boost production capacity, and enhance Allies’ interoperability,” the NATO statement said.
According to Bild, the bloc would seek to build up armored “heavy forces,” and deploy more long-range artillery systems and missiles, as well as air defense systems.
NATO also plans to enhance what it calls ‘deterrence measures’ by sending additional forces to the Baltics and Eastern Europe. Battlegroups comprising 1,000 soldiers are to support the national armies of the Baltic States and Poland, Bild reported, citing the document.
The UK will be responsible for Estonia, Canada for Latvia, Germany for Lithuania, and the US for Poland, the German media outlet said. Berlin also plans to station a brigade of 4,000 soldiers in Lithuania, according to the German media.
Germany is also reportedly expected to serve as the NATO logistics hub in case of a major conflict. The bloc is also considering establishing a second Land Command, in addition to the existing station in Türkiye’s Izmir. Wiesbaden in Germany is being considered as a potential location since it already hosts a large US base, Bild reported.
Russia repeatedly stated that it considers NATO’s buildup on its borders as well as the bloc’s expansion to the east a threat to its national security. It also named preventing Ukraine from joining the bloc among the main reasons for launching its military operation in the neighboring country in February 2022.
NATO Spent Decades Preparing For Proxy War With Russia in Ukraine
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 12.07.2023
Even before the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, Britain, Sweden, Canada, and the United States were investing in Ukraine and building up their capabilities, the UK defense minister has stated at the NATO summit in Vilnius. Does it mean NATO has long prepared for a proxy war with Russia?
The US neocons and their likeminded NATO allies have long been apparently seeking to knock Russia out of the political arena before trying to crack down on China in a bid to preserve the US dominance, retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski believes.
“I think that the US officials and advisors (along with those in NATO) believe that they must be able to exploit Russian resources prior to any direct confrontation with China,” Kwiatkowski, who is also a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, told Sputnik. “The neoconservative ideology that over half of Congress embraces, and that the US defense and security complex embraces, envisions and demands a unipolar globe, with the US and its debt-funded governmental system, at the top. For them, this is an existential issue, albeit most Americans don’t see it that way.”
It seems that Ukraine appeared a convenient candidate for the role of a “hammer” against Russia.
For How Long Has Ukraine Received Western Military Assistance?
Ukraine has been a leading recipient of Western military supplies since the early 1990s when the country gained independence, with the US spearheading the initiative. In the first ten years after independence, Ukraine received almost $2.6 billion in assistance from the US. Until 2014, Ukraine had been receiving an estimated $105 million per annum, including foreign military financing.
NATO’s North Atlantic Cooperation Council embraced Ukraine as a “partner country” in 1991 and included it in the Partnership for Peace program in 1994. Washington’s NATO ally, the UK, played an important role in the effort, holding joint military exercises with the Ukrainians, as well as providing training and funding to the nation’s armed forces.
Thus, the first joint Ukrainian-British military exercises “Cossack steppe” were held in the second half of the 1990s as part of NATO’s Partnership for Peace program. The NATO-Ukraine Commission was established in 1997 with the aim of developing the relationship between the nation and the bloc and directing cooperative activities.
As per UK government documents, the Ministry of Defense spent approximately £3.9 million supporting Ukraine through the Defense Assistance Fund and the Conflict Pool between 2009 and 2014.
Many of the activities funded through these mechanisms supported “command, control and communications capabilities (C3).” In particular, the UK held joint exercises with the Ukrainian military, provided military education to the nation’s specialists, and “contributions to NATO coordinated activities.” Both UK civilian and military personnel had been deployed to Ukraine during that period of time while Ukrainian personnel were sent to the UK.
Following the illegitimate coup d’etat in Kiev in February 2014, the West stepped up military assistance to the new Ukrainian authorities.
Between 2014 and 2021, the United States provided over $2.5 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, which included the provision of trainers, selected weaponry systems (such as counter-mortar radars), and Javelin anti-tank missiles.
The boost in military assistance was justified by NATO member states by the alleged “Russian invasion” in Donbass. However, it is well documented that Donbass declared independence in response to the illegitimate coup d’etat in Kiev fomented with the assistance of nationalist and neo-Nazi paramilitary groups and subsequent Russophobic policies of the new government. The Donbass breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk Republics started largely forming militias after the interim Kiev government kicked off what it called “anti-terrorist” operations (ATO) against the region.
“Kiev had been on the offensive with the Donbass with Western support, for a number of years, even before 2014, and this is well documented,” explained Kwiatkowski. “Other Eastern and Southern European countries had been ‘encouraged’ by Western powers, as we saw with Yugoslavia, to break up into smaller national and ethno-cultural countries, and the peaceful divide between the Czech Republic and Slovakia was also allowed and supported. This is primarily because the newly smaller countries added potential members to NATO and the EU – all controlled and controllable by the US-EU elites.”
Moscow came up with the idea of the Minsk Agreements to stop hostilities in Eastern Ukraine. Russia, France and Germany played the role of guarantors of the accords.
Nonetheless, as ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President François Hollande admitted last year, the Minsk agreements were signed by Western powers to buy time in order to bolster the Ukrainian military capacity.
“In the case of the political separation desired by the Donbass, and the Minsk agreements that were designed to allow that autonomy, the Russian-speaking East, if autonomous, would not have chosen to be a part of the NATO borg,” said the former Pentagon analyst. “Hence, that independence would not be allowed. Yes, NATO and the US supported such an offensive, and were preparing for it actively, as comments from many US and European officials and diplomats have confirmed. Assistant US Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel have publicly confirmed this, as have many others.”
Ukraine Extensive Training and Naval Provocations
US allies jumped on the bandwagon, forwarding their military assistance to Ukraine through the NATO-Ukraine Commission, and through initiatives such as the US/Canada/UK/Ukraine Joint Commission for Defense Reform and Security Cooperation which was established in July 2014.
In particular, Britain kicked off and then expanded Operation Orbital, envisaging extensive training of the Ukrainian military including combat actions in urban environments.
These activities included:
· medical, infantry and survival skills training;
· countering improvised explosive devices;
· training for defensive operations in an urban environment;
· operational planning;
· engineering;
· countering attacks from snipers, armored vehicles and mortars.
It meant that those Ukrainian soldiers that had undergone training under the program would pass on their knowledge and techniques to their military peers. Britons also expanded the scope of the training package to embrace all branches of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
In June 2020, Ukraine was offered Enhanced Opportunity Partner status with NATO which provided Ukraine with preferential access to NATO’s exercises, training and exchange of information and situational awareness. The status envisaged increasing interoperability between Ukraine and NATO member states. In September 2020, Ukraine hosted the Exercise Joint Endeavour with British, US and Canadian troops, held within the framework of Ukraine’s new enhanced NATO status.
In June 2021, the UK, Ukraine and industry signed a Memorandum of Implementation to a new Naval Capabilities Enhancement Program (NCEP). The program in particular included:
· Ukraine’s acquisition of two refurbished Royal Navy Sandown-class minehunters;
· the sale and integration of missiles on new and in-service Ukrainian Navy patrol and airborne platforms, including a training and engineering support package;
· The UK’s assistance in building new naval bases in the Black and Azov Seas;
· the development and joint production of eight fast missile warships;
· The participation in the Ukrainian project to deliver a modern frigate capability.
The same month, the UK Carrier Strike Group led by HMS Defender was deployed in the Black Sea “in a show of solidarity with Ukraine” and illegally entered Russian waters off Crimea and proceeded to sail through, prompting Russian warships and aircraft to surround the ship and fire warning shots in its vicinity to force it to leave. Even though the UK initially denied that it resorted to deliberate provocations, leaked British government documents proved otherwise.
Russia’s Draft Security Agreements
Russia has repeatedly raised the red flag over the NATO-Ukraine rapprochement and the transatlantic bloc’s enlargement. In accordance with its Declaration of State Sovereignty (July 16, 1990) Ukraine pledged to permanently remain a neutral country. In addition, in the early 1990s, Western powers asserted to Moscow that NATO wouldn’t expand towards Russia. At the same time, the US and its allies refused to consider Russia’s bid to join NATO while encouraging former Soviet Republics and Warsaw Pact member states to join.
Russia outlined its longstanding concerns with regard to Ukraine’s military buildup on its doorstep and NATO’s expansion in draft security agreements which were handed over to the US and NATO in December 2021.
The agreement particularly sought guarantees of NATO’s non-enlargement and non-admission of Ukraine to the bloc. The US and NATO rejected the major provisions of the agreement leading to Russia’s special military operation aimed at de-militarizing and de-Nazifying Ukraine in February 2022.
Ukraine Conflict is US/NATO Proxy War Against Russia
Even though in March 2022, Ukraine and Russia struck a preliminary deal in Istanbul to stop hostilities, the US and the UK openly opposed the agreement, pledging more weapons to Kiev and declaring the goal of bleeding Russia white.
“The US is waging a proxy war, because that is what the US has been waging against various named enemies, for the past 70 years, and it is how we are organized to fight,” said Kwiatkowski. “It is an open secret that the Pentagon, even with close to a trillion dollar budget, does not and, at this point, cannot defend US territory. The US elites and the US defense establishment self-perpetuation is wholly disconnected from the people here who pay its bills. Poor and non-strategic US leadership placed the US in a lose-lose situation.”
According to the US military expert, three problems have emerged in the result of Washington’s misreading of the Russia and Ukraine conflict:
· First, that intent of weakening and isolating Russia did not play out “as it must have done in Jake Sullivan’s brainstorming sessions.”
· Second, the supplies have illustrated a variety of strategic weaknesses in US and NATO defense industrial production, where we see Joe Biden actually stating the obvious that the “US is out of ammunition.”
· Third, taking the Ukraine-Russia destruction project on at a time when the US is experiencing financial weakness, with very limited reserves of gold, guns and “war spirit” demonstrates that the “war planning” of the White House and Pentagon has been done in a vacuum, and under false assumptions.
As per Kwiatkowski, peace is possible but it may require a difficult re-evaluation of the US role in the world while neocons and war profiteers do not accept this re-evaluation.
“Their ideology is mated to unipolar US power,” the US military veteran said. “I suspect some leaders in the West are beginning to understand that there is a way to peace, and it starts with acceptance of the truth of all sides, and negotiations based on that truth. Imagine a sane US government, a concerned NATO, a true patriot of Ukraine in Kiev, and the Russians all speaking honestly. As Trump stated months ago, this war could be ended in one day.”
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Book Review
The Greatest Threat to World Peace? A Review of Daniele Ganser’s ‘USA: The Ruthless Empire’
Review by Marilyn Langlois | November 10, 2023
If you regard the United States as perhaps flawed but overall a force for good in the world . . .
If you scoff at the notion that the US, a republic founded on principles of freedom and democracy, has morphed into a world empire, perpetrating assassinations, coups d’état, acts of terror and illegal warfare . . .
If you want to promote peace but haven’t yet explored deceptive events that precipitate US warmongering . . .
. . . here is a volume that will clear the air and paint an honest picture of the significant, not-so-rosy impact US foreign policy and actions have had in the world around us.
USA: The Ruthless Empire, by Swiss historian and peace researcher Daniele Ganser, is the newly published English language translation of his book Imperium USA, originally written in German and published in 2020. Here is a summary of key points — including some lesser-known ones — along with remedies for a more peaceful future, that are covered in the book. … continue
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