The Russian invasion of Ukraine, along with rising tensions between NATO and Russia, have drawn comparisons to the outbreak of World War I.
In 2014, back when the open hostilities in Ukraine really began, the journalist Eric Margolis said “We can stumble into a war with Russia. This reminds me of 1914 all over again.”
This “stumbling” of course refers to the “sleepwalking thesis of war” that is part of both popular and scholarly narratives of World War I.
Unfortunately, it’s much worse than that. The United States is marching wide awake toward general nuclear war.
Princeton University historian Stephen Kotkin has criticized the sleepwalking thesis of war as a comforting myth that remains “close to people’s hearts” to this day.
“Nobody ever sleepwalks into war,” he says.
Kotkin points out that the government and military archives of the Great Powers contain thousands of orders to move horses, hay, and weapons systems into place to prosecute the war years before Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. The Great Powers also imposed military conscription to ensure they would have a wealth of young men to feed into the slaughter.
Kotkin says:
You go into the archives, and you see nothing but decisions being made towards war. And somehow this is known as sleepwalking towards war. There was no sleepwalking to World War I. There was only preparation for war. There was nothing but incessant preparation to war.
Libertarian Institute Director Scott Horton agrees; “You call it sleepwalking but everybody’s wide awake. It’s just, they’re stupid.”
There are a lot of people in the chattering classes demanding for more military assistance, more sanctions, and more threats who have never carried a weapon in their lives.
Speaking as someone who has worn the uniform of my country on a foreign battlefield, who has fought under the American flag, don’t let my brothers and sisters do the same in another conflict that isn’t worth their lives.
Elon Musk is a remarkable figure. We’re still waiting to see whether his purchase of Twitter will go through, and if the censorship and artificial suppression of the America First movement will stop under his management of the company.
I’m hopeful though; Musk appears to be giving more consideration to foreign policy, and with a businessman’s mind for efficiency is cutting through the media’s propaganda.
Last week he sent this tweet, asking his Twitter followers if they thought this would be an equitable solution to the Russia-Ukraine War.
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
reddit
LinkedIn
Buffer
It gives priority to self-determination of local populations, and would place Ukraine as a permanently neutral power between Russia and the NATO alliance (similar to Austria during the Cold War).
2.75 million people responded, and whether through automated bots or too many people duped by DC, his proposal was rejected 59% to 41%.
Musk himself appeared confused by the results, and did a follow up poll simply asking whether the residents of Crimea and the Donbas ought to decide for themselves whether to be a part of Russia or Ukraine.
The reverse happened: 59% said yes, 41% said no.
In reality, Musk’s proposal would be a reasonable, diplomatic settlement to end the war. And it almost did.
Even Fiona Hill, the State Department bureaucrat who worked to impeach President Trump, admitted as much.
Last month, writing in Foreign Affairs, she said:
According to multiple former senior U.S. officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement: Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.
The same parameters that Elon Musk thought were so obvious! So why didn’t this terrible war end in April?
Nor do our all-knowing rulers appear concerned with the fact that they have “almost zero” ability to keep track of the myriad sophisticated weapons systems they are sending to Ukraine. CNN quoted briefed sources saying intelligence shows American arms are falling into a “big black hole.” They say it’s worth it.
Now that we have our very own Ministry of Truth, it would appear any national debate over these polices, indeed if such a debate is ever allowed to take place, will likely have to be moderated by cockroaches and Keith Richards.
NATO is set to expand again, bringing in Finland and Sweden. This will extend the alliance’s border with Russia by greater than 800 miles and further stoke nuclear tensions, bringing the current brinksmanship to a whole new level. Moscow plans to respond including by increasing air and naval forces in the Baltic Sea and reinforcing its Kaliningrad exclave, which lies between NATO members Poland and Lithuania, with additional nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles. Until 2004, it was unthinkable that NATO would ever expand to Russia’s borders until that actually happened. Like most of our issues with Russia, this is all Bill Clinton and George W. Bush’s fault.
So, if the regimes of Europe are ever going to stop being the world’s welfare queens—sponging off the hard work of America’s productive population—the US regime is going to have to be starved of defense dollars until the regimes of Europe are forced to go justify the cost of military defense to their own taxpayers.
American policy makers have shown a surprising about of sanity so far in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While some war enthusiasts among the American punditry have certainly been agitating for World War III, the leadership in both the White House and Congress has repeatedly and straightforwardly refused most calls to escalate the conflict.
Unfortunately, a number of foreign parliaments among the US’s NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) “partners” have not been nearly as hesitant to escalate matters. Among the most reckless on this issue have been lawmakers from a number of Eastern European states. For example, policymakers in the Baltics in recent weeks have called for a no-fly zone in Ukraine. Newsweekreported this month:
Lithuania’s parliament unanimously approved a resolution calling for a no-fly zone over Ukraine—joining other NATO members Estonia and Slovenia in the appeal. Rihards Kols, chairman of the Latvian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, also announced [on March 17] his country is calling for such a zone.
But here’s the problem: a so-called no-fly zone would be a de facto declaration of war on Russia by NATO. Moreover, when we say “by NATO,” we mostly mean “by the United States.”
At around the same time, the Polish regime began its own scheme to escalate the war and bring the US into direct conflict with Moscow. Warsaw, apparently without consulting Washington, hatched a plan to send fighter jets to Ukraine via US military bases and then have the US “backfill” Poland’s air force with F-16s. This would have constituted a significant escalation as well, and was fortunately quashed by the White House.
This sort of behavior that free rides on the American taxpayer has become an identifiable pattern with countries that see themselves as benefiting enormously from US military spending but who contribute next to nothing to US security or even to the NATO alliance.
As a result, when Estonian lawmakers—Estonia being a country that has no air force at all beyond a few unarmed surveillance aircraft—want a no-fly zone, these people know it will be mostly somebody else who will fight, die, and sacrifice to pay for it all. “Someone else,” of course, will often mean American pilots and American taxpayers.
Moreover, the idea that these countries offer any sort of strategic advantage to the US in terms of defending vital American interests is implausible. The current war in Ukraine has well illustrated just how weak the Russian regime is in terms of projecting power anywhere beyond its immediate neighbors. The idea that Poland and Estonia serve as valuable “buffer states” between the US and a second-rate power like Russia is hardly convincing. These NATO members are simply not critical allies. Rather, they are net liabilities that may even end up forcing an escalation that draws the US into a war with another nuclear-armed power. The US’s pledge to defend Eastern Europe through organizations like NATO can at best be described as a form of humanitarian aid for member states that have nothing to offer in terms of vital American geopolitical benefits.
Russia has declared a nuclear test alert. The Ukraine crisis is beginning to become very scary.
When the old Soviet Union broke up, I and other moderates called for the former Moscow-dominated states of East Europe to become neutral. Otherwise, East-West conflict would, I warned, be inevitable (see my book ‘War at the Top of the World’).
Instead, the rabidly anti-Russian US war party drove NATO east to the former Soviet borders, making a major confrontation near certain.
We are there today, playing Russian roulette with nuclear weapons.
Washington is beating the war drums and sounds borderline hysterical, warning ‘the Russians are coming.’ Moscow scoffs at the whole business, saying President Joe Biden is trying to divert attention from the big economic and political mess in the US.
Nothing like a jolly little war to distract public opinion at a time when rightwing forces are fast gaining ground in the US and now, of all places, in placid Canada.
The trucker’s blockade that shut down the Canada-US border cost Ottawa billions in lost trade, seriously damaged the image of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and showed that less than 100 ZZ Top look-alike truckers could hold Canada to ransom.
It was also a vivid rehearsal for what the hard right may have in store for November elections. The mob assault on the Capitol on 6 January was only a trial run.
Meanwhile, back in darkest Ukraine, pro- and anti-government factions are trading occasional shells while the US government in Washington claims war is imminent.
The facts on the ground do not support such alarmism. Russia may have up to 150,000 troops positioned around Ukraine (similar to the same strategic advantage that Germany enjoyed over Poland in 1939) but all these units are so far positioned inside Russia. Most of the NATO troops rushed to the east are from outside their home territory.
Crimea and Ukraine were ruled by the Ottoman Empire, and then Crimean Tatars, until annexed by Russia’s Catherine the Great in 1783. They remained an integral part of the Russian Empire until the 1920’s, and, after a brief bout of independence after WWI, until the Communist era.
But one must remember that in the 1930’s, Josef Stalin and his ‘Jewish Himmler,’ Lazar Kaganovitch, murdered some six million Ukrainians by starvation or shootings in an effort to eradicate Ukrainian nationalism and independent farming. This was likely the worst atrocity in Europe until 1944 – done by the key US/British wartime ally. Small wonder the invading Germans in WWII were initially greeted as liberators.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, an ally of billionaire George Soros, now claims that Moscow will stage a false flag operation to justify invading Ukraine. It’s true, Russia just about invented such ploys in the 1919-1920 period when Moscow’s secret police rounded up and crushed the anti-communist opposition. KGB has always loved such deft operations.
But who is Blinken to make such allegations? British media revealed that George W. Bush and UK PM Tony Blair discussed painting US aircraft in UN colors, then buzzing Iraqi anti-aircraft units to provoke a false flag attack on the UN, justifying a US-British attack against Iraq. In fact, the entire Iraq invasion was based on a farrago of lies, double-dealing and torture.
Right on cue, former US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland (born Nudelman), remerges to press for war against Russia. She spent US$5 billion engineering the overthrow of Ukraine’s former elected government which leaned towards Moscow.
American foreign policy, wrapped up in hubris inside American exceptionalism, is incapable of recognizing a dangerous situation.
And a dangerous situation is what we have.
The Russian deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov speaking for the Kremlin has made it clear that Russia will tolerate no further movement of NATO toward Russia’s borders.
Russia has ruled out any possibility of the former Russian provinces of Ukraine and Georgia becoming NATO members. If this red line is ignored, the consequences, Ryabkov said, “will be dire.” Russia will respond militarily, and the West, he said, will find it has undermined its own security, not Russia’s.
In other words, as the Kremlin sees it, the incorporation of Ukraine and/or Georgia into NATO is an unacceptable threat to Russian national security. Period. It is not negotiable.
In a rational world such an unequivocal statement by a preeminent military power with hypersonic nuclear missiles would be taken seriously.
But the Western World is no longer rational. It is a world drunk on arrogance. The NATO secretary replied to what is, in effect, an ultimatum from a nuclear power by rejecting out of hand that power’s security concern:
“Whether kii joins NATO is up to the bloc’s member states and its leadership, and Moscow doesn’t have input into the decision.” The idiot NATO secretary went on to boast, foolishly, that NATO was so little impressed with Russian objections that NATO was “already training Ukrainian troops and consulting with them, and are conducting joint exercises and providing military supplies and technology.”
The White House spokesperson replying for President Biden and the National Security Council said Washington “will not compromise” on NATO expansion, adding that Washington won’t accept the idea of halting NATO expansion, despite what Russia demands.
In other words–be certain to understand this and its consequences–Washington’s position is that Russia has NO legitimate national security interests except as defined by Washington.
Here we have a highly dangerous situation. One power says you are treading on me and we won’t tolerate it; the other power says you have no say in the matter.
During the 20th century Cold War we Cold Warriors heard every word, every intonation of what the Soviets said. To risk nuclear war because some fool had wax in his ears or was feeling macho that day was out of the question. In those days there were departments of Russian studies in US universities that were not dependent on funding from the military-security complex. There was public debate. There was always an independent expert, such as Stephen Cohen, to remind everyone of how the Russians saw the situation.Russia Has Western Enemies, Not Partners
Today independent scholarship has disappeared. Russian studies programs in universities are Russophobic in keeping with their funding. As there are no objective scholars, there are no knowledgeable people in the US intelligence community. We can see this in the recent statement of Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan, who reports that US intelligence agencies believe that Putin is “giving serious consideration” to an invasion of Ukraine.
Washington has been saying this since 2014 when Washington overthrew the Russian friendly Ukrainian government hoping to seize in the process the Russian naval base in Crimea. It is a fixed message. There is no thought. Just repetition of propaganda. So we have a National Security Council incapable of nothing but the repetition of propagandistic slogans.
In effect Washington is already at war with Russia.
Meanwhile last Thursday evening, December 16, Washington and its neo-nazi Ukraine puppet decided to confirm Russian suspicions that Washington and Ukraine represent revanchist Nazism. Only two countries voted against the UN resolution condemning Nazism. Yes, it was the United States and Ukraine. The utter total stupidity of the US vote is extraordinary. That Washington supports Nazism is the last thing the Kremlin needed to hear.
My generation was the last generation in the West to be educated instead of indoctrinated, and even we were fed lies about World War I and World War II.
Subsequent generations are largely unaware that in German-occupied Western Ukraine large armies were organized and incorporated into the German army’s march into Russia. It was remnants of these “Banderas” (Stepan Bandera) that Washington used to overthrow the Ukrainian government and install an American puppet state on former Russian territory while the Kremlin, ignoring its backyard, was enjoying the Sochi Olympics.
The mistakes that people make have more to do with world history than any good decisions.
I am watching Washington, which I know so well from a quarter century of high level participation, make the mistake of a lifetime. The Washington regime is so full of arrogance that it is unable to comprehend that Russia has run out of patience.
The Russians see a real problem. All Washington sees is a propaganda opportunity. This is a situation that leads directly to Washington miscalculating. The miscalculation will be fatal.
Update to America’s Foreign Policy Dilemma
In America Russophobia is running amuck.
The Propaganda Ministry repeats daily that Russia is on the verge of invading Ukraine.
The American people, long trained to regard Russia as the enemy, have heard the allegation so many times it has become a fact.
The arrogant Biden regime has rebuffed Russia’s security concern, and the Republicans are no better. Blind belligerence towards Russia is building as Republican senators add their voices to the propaganda that Putin intends to invade Ukraine and “rob the Ukrainian people of their sovereignty.”( Washington already did that when it overthrew the elected Ukrainian government in 2014 and established a puppet state in Kiev.)
The Republicans want to rush $450 million more in weapons to “the brave Ukrainian armed forces.” And for good measure, the Republicans want to have Russia designated a terrorist state.
The Ukraine crisis is in part an armaments marketing program as the Republicans backing the bill are in tight with the military/security complex. But everyone is overlooking the effect on the Kremlin whose trust in Washington has reached zero on the scale.
Perhaps in preparation for what the Kremlin sees will be a showdown over Washington’s indifference to Russia’s security concern, the Kremlin has ordered two strategic nuclear missile forces to combat duty. Additionally, Russia has closed the northern sea route and deployed radio engineering regiments and electronic domes to jam US over-the-horizon radar. If US naval provocations continue in the Black Sea, Russia might also close the Black Sea.
Meanwhile, the neo-nazi Ukrainian battalions armed by Washington are escalating the situation with the Donbass Russians.
Washington is setting itself up for an embarrassing backdown or a major confrontation for which Washington holds few cards.
This came into being the instant Joe Biden took the oath of office as president, and it’s only part of an overall strategy to engage Russia in a winner take all confrontation that many experts say, is long overdue. And the has taken unilateral aggressive steps toward the Donbass region and any pocket of the pro-Russia sentiment inside Ukraine.
EU’s Three Seas Initiative (3SI), which is an asymmetrical warfare economic platform to cut Russia off from the EU, and install the U.S. and central European powers in her place in East Europe.
For what it is worth the link below is FB blocked.
A foreign military bloc of nations is inching closer to Moscow, Vladimir Putin reacts in kind, and somehow Russia is the aggressor. And learned Ph.D.’s scribble on, defying pure logic from Washington’s Think Tank Row. Here’s the latest sensational proof that the world will never, ever be at peace.
Dr. Mamuka Tsereteli and James Carafano have a new plan for defeating Russia for good. Now get this, in America, we have institutions like The Heritage Foundation that fund supposed research to perpetuate wars. No, really. The latest report of the foundation “Putin Threatens Ukraine—Here’s the Danger and What US, Allies Should Do About It” is a blueprint for continuing friction between west and east. Let’s examine the three takeaways Heritage Foundation puts forward.
According to Tsereteli and Carafano, Putin is about to attack Ukraine. These well-paid foreign policy geniuses say a military buildup inside Russian territory, which was in response to threats from Kyiv, proves beyond a doubt the dastardly Putin is about to overrun Russia’s neighbor. To quote the report, “Putin plans to use Russian forces in a full-blown military engagement with that country [Ukraine].” Well, let’s find out why Russia’s president alerted his military.
Didn’t I just read how Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced that his country’s National Security and Defense Council had approved a strategy aimed at retaking Crimea and reintegrating the strategically important peninsula? Yes, I am sure of it. Another Washington think tank has already outlined something called the Crimean Platform Initiative, another genius plan hatched in the bowels of CIA headquarters, to make Crimea an expensive proposition for Russia.
This came into being the instant Joe Biden took the oath of office as president, and it’s only part of an overall strategy to engage Russia in a winner take all confrontation that many experts say, is long overdue. And the has taken unilateral aggressive steps toward the Donbass region and any pocket of the pro-Russia sentiment inside Ukraine. A statement by Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova on this issue bears repeating here:
“All efforts by Kyiv to reclaim Crimea are illegitimate and cannot be interpreted in any other way but a threat of aggression against two Russian [federal] subjects. We reiterate that we will consider the participation of any states or organizations in such activities, including the Crimean Platform initiative, as a hostile act against Russia and direct encroachment on its territorial integrity.”
Now that we’ve established who the aggressor is, let’s take a look at Tsereteli’s and Carafano’s next brilliant takeaway point. The dynamic duo of war strategies says cosmetic measures against Russia will not do! The “west” (meaning NATO), they say, needs a more clear strategy. Which certainly means a massive arms buildup west of the Siverskyi Donets River. The Zelensky government is being pushed from Washington to take even more drastic measures to force Russia into a war stance. The editorial board of the Washington Post recently advised Zelensky:
“Mr. Zelensky now has the opportunity to forge a partnership with Mr. Biden that could decisively advance Ukraine’s attempt to break free from Russia and join the democratic West. He should seize on it.”
So, now that we’ve shown who is doing the pushing here, let’s turn to the final takeaway from Heritage Foundation master strategists. Tsereteli and Carafano come right out and say “countries left outside of NATO will remain targets of Russian aggression and manipulations.” So, the purpose of all this supposed spread of militaristic-based democracy is to expand NATO to? I mean, seriously. Washington is not reaching out with the Peace Corps to shore up a budding Eastern European democracy. The United States is kidnapping another former Soviet republic on the way to the big score. My country has military bases in almost every country in the world, has had more wars than the Mongols, and spends more on weapons than everybody else combined – but Russia is being aggressive! Who believes this bullshit?
Let’s be real here. First, please understand who is doing the “thinking” there in Washington. Take James Carafano, the former Lt. Colonel who wrote speeches for the head of the U.S. Army Chief of Staff. Carafano teaches at West Point, what the hell else can he advise, of war with Russia does not come about? The man’s life is about justifying war. Then there’s Mamuka Tsereteli, who’s also the Founding Executive Director at the America-Georgia Business Council. America-Georgia business, hmm? I wonder if there is an America-Ukraine business council in the works soon? But, you can see where this new strategy from Heritage Foundation is headed, can’t you? Taking advice on foreign policy from these so-called experts is putting the foxes in charge of the hen house. Only they’re not as smart as foxes. They don’t need to be. The public is just that numbed and misinformed these days.
Is heavily involved in helping promote the EU’s Three Seas Initiative (3SI), which is an asymmetrical warfare economic platform to cut Russia off from the EU, and install the U.S. and central European powers in her place in East Europe. This report from Mamuka Tsereteli at Emerging Europe lays out the plan. To learn more about Tsereteli’s role, readers should research the so-called Frontier Europe Initiative, currently propagandizing for greater Georgia-Ukraine strategies against Russia. Make no mistake, the narrative and strategies these people are discussing are the precursors to including not only Ukraine in NATO but Georgia as well. Retired Air Force General Phillip Breedlove and former CENTCOM Commander General Joseph Votel are two of the “experts” helping to draft these strategies. And The Heritage Foundation stands center stage of the move for NATO to force Putin and Russia into an inescapable corner.
And there, is your true geopolitical Eurasia picture. The “west” will run on to Moscow, start World War III, and then blame Putin for the holocaust.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
Amid uprisings in Libya and Egypt, in 2011 Syrians rebelled against their own oppressive government.
Documents from Wikileaks show that the U.S. State Department wanted to help rebels overthrow Syrian ruler Assad in order to strengthen Israel’s position against Iran.
Iran, Syria, and Russia are the main allies in the region with conflicting interests of the USA and Israel.
Saudi Arabia says they intend to invade Syria. Ash Carter is non-committal about about whether the US will send US soldiers to their death for Saudi Arabia (and Israel).
Russia says they would consider tactical nukes in Turkey. What about SA?
We all know what happens when the US decides to “help” a country. Death and destruction on a massive scale is usually the result. When the US deems “help” is necessary that generally means there is a communist threat or the subject government doesn’t obey the pentagon’s directives.
“Help” often involves regime change. That is just what the neocon warparty wants in Russia.
MCViewPoint 