1285 Peter Myers Newsletter: Oorlog is goed voor de VS. / Oekraine is de facto al NATO. / Neocons lokken oorlog uit.

 Spreekt voor zichzelf. 

Ik wilde het vertalen met DeepL,  maar dat meldt dat sommige paragrafen te groot zijn.  Ik moet het splitsen.   Later misschien.  Dan maar in het Engels. 

Elke bron heeft een hoge mate van 'autoriteit' ( oped in Atlantioc Council,  een CFR lid etc )  èn hun mening is redelijk 'explosief'. 

Vandaar  dat ik er een blog aan wijd. 

Putin going to war would be good for US - op.ed. in NATO Atlantic Council

(1) NATO brains trust put Case for Risking War in Ukraine (Dec 22, 2021)

(2) Putin going to war would be good for US - op.ed. in NATO Atlantic
Council

(3) Ukraine was becoming a de facto member of NATO; that's the cause of
the war

(4) CFR Senior Fellow denounces Neocon "Idealism", calls for return to
Realism

(5) Neocons saw Ukraine as a trap to lure Putin into war; he warns US to
back off

(6) US recruits Israel against Russia

Charles A. Kupchan, in item 4, notes that the 2008 war was initiated by
Georgia:

"NATO in 2008 pledged that Georgia and Ukraine "will become members of
NATO," Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, launched an offensive
against pro-Russian separatists in South Ossetia with whom the country
had been sporadically fighting for years. Russia promptly carved up
Georgia, grabbing control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Mr. Saakashvili
thought the West had his back, but he miscalculated and overreached.

"In a similar fashion, NATO encouraged Ukraine to beat a path toward the
alliance. The 2014 Maidan Revolution toppled a pro-Moscow regime and put
Ukraine on a westward course, resulting in Russia's intervention in
Crimea and Donbas. NATO's open-door then beckoned, prompting Ukrainians
in 2019 to enshrine their NATO aspirations in the Constitution."

(1) NATO brains trust put Case for Risking War in Ukraine (Dec 22, 2021)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/strategic-case-risking-war-ukraine-russia-invasion-putin-national-security-nato-europe-eu-11640186454

The Strategic Case for Risking War in Ukraine

An invasion would be a diplomatic, economic and military mistake for
Putin. Let him make it if he must.

By John R. Deni

Dec. 22, 2021 12:31 pm ET

As Russia continues its destabilizing military buildup around Ukraine,
the U.S. and its allies have made clear they prefer to resolve the
crisis through diplomacy. This reflects not simply the preference of the
Biden administration when it comes to national-security matters but also
the West's desire to avoid inflaming and escalating the situation
through military action.

This makes good sense. Any Russo-Ukrainian war is likely to be bloody
for the combatants, result in a wave of refugees heading west, and
further destabilize an already precarious regional security situation.
Nonetheless, as diplomatic efforts unfold, there are good strategic
reasons for the West to stake out a hard-line approach, giving little
ground to Moscow over its demand to forsake Ukrainian membership in
Western institutions and halt military activity in Central and Eastern
Europe. Rather than helping Russian President Vladimir Putin back down
from the position he's taken, the West ought to stand firm, even if it
means another Russian invasion of Ukraine.

This makes good sense. Any Russo-Ukrainian war is likely to be bloody
for the combatants, result in a wave of refugees heading west, and
further destabilize an already precarious regional security situation.
Nonetheless, as diplomatic efforts unfold, there are good strategic
reasons for the West to stake out a hard-line approach, giving little
ground to Moscow over its demand to forsake Ukrainian membership in
Western institutions and halt military activity in Central and Eastern
Europe. Rather than helping Russian President Vladimir Putin back down
from the position he's taken, the West ought to stand firm, even if it
means another Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Russia's efforts to destabilize and undermine the Ukrainian government
by keeping alive the smoldering war in the Donbas region haven't
returned Kyiv to Moscow's orbit. Instead, Ukraine has used the past
several years to boost its military capabilities gradually, strengthen
its ties to the West, and improve its economy. It's unclear why Mr.
Putin has chosen this moment to demand assurances that Ukraine won't
become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or the
European Union. Perhaps the Kremlin believes time isn't on its side as
Ukraine continues to slide closer to the West. Or Mr. Putin might assume
Washington is more willing to accommodate Russia's demands, given the
intensifying American rivalry with China. Or it could even be that Mr.
Putin hopes to bolster his declining public support with a jingoistic
foreign adventure.

Regardless, Mr. Putin's tactics have placed the West in a reactive mode,
hoping to avoid a war in Europe that could result in tens of thousands
of casualties. The death and destruction could far outpace that of the
relatively more limited war in Donbas, where as many as 14,000 have died
since 2014. But Mr. Putin's price for turning down the heat is anathema
to Western values of national self-determination and sovereignty.
Moreover, a NATO-Russia agreement preventing Ukraine from seeking
membership would violate a 1975 Helsinki agreement on security and
cooperation in Europe—signed by Moscow—which said European states have
the right to belong to any international alliance they choose.

Mr. Putin therefore appears to have taken quite a risk—and the West
ought to exploit his gamble by maintaining a hard-line stance in
diplomatic discussions. In the best case, Mr. Putin is forced to back
down, losing face domestically and internationally, even if his state
media spins it as a victory or claims the buildup was merely part of an
exercise.

In the worst case, if Mr. Putin's forces invade, Russia is likely to
suffer long-term, serious and even debilitating strategic costs in three
ways. First, another Russian invasion of Ukraine would forge an even
stronger anti-Russian consensus across Europe. Although the EU has shown
a remarkable degree of solidarity in maintaining its limited sanctions
on Russia since the 2014 invasion of Ukraine, there are cracks in the
edifice. Germany's new left-leaning government hasn't yet found its
footing on Russia. Italy, Austria, Hungary and even France have shown a
willingness to consider opening up to the Kremlin, despite the Russian
forces in Crimea and Donbas. And NATO's attention and resources remain
split between Russia on the one hand, and instability and insecurity
emanating from across the Mediterranean Sea on the other. Russian tanks
crossing into Ukraine would focus minds and effort.

Second, a Russian reinvasion of Ukraine would likely result in another
round of more debilitating economic sanctions that would further weaken
Russia's economy. Disconnecting Russia from the tools of global finance
and investment—such as the Swift banking-payment system—would make it
difficult for Moscow to earn money from its oil exports. Similarly, a
ban on Western institutions' trading of existing Russian debt in
secondary markets would limit Moscow's ability to finance development.
Over time, a stronger, more effective round of sanctions would hasten
Russia's economic decline relative to the West, reduce its power
overall, and make it far more expensive for Mr. Putin to intimidate and
destabilize his neighbors.

Third, another Russian invasion of Ukraine, even if militarily
successful in the short run, is likely to spawn a guerrilla war in those
areas of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces. This will sap the strength
and morale of Russia's military while undercutting Mr. Putin's domestic
popularity and reducing Russia's soft power globally.

If Russian forces enter Ukraine yet again, Kyiv is likely to lose the
war and the human toll will be extensive. The long-term damage suffered
by Moscow, however, is likely to be substantial as well. The seemingly
impetuous (onbezonnen, ontsatuimig)  Mr. Putin has maneuvered his way into a strategically risky
position, and the West ought to leverage the Kremlin's mistake and drive
a hard bargain in any diplomacy.

(Ze hebben uiteraard uitgebreid bestudeerd ( gegamed)hoe hij denkt en handelt. Wat zijn on-vervreemdbare waarden zijn. En daar hebben ze ene plot bij bedacht om hem in de val te lokken.  Kleuren revoluties haddenm onvoldoende effect. Toen moest de EU goiuden bergen beloven, en hoge verwachtingen wekken bij het volk. Dan kreeg Yanukovich een aanbod  dat hioj onmogelijk kòn accepteeren ( 1 miljard schadevergoeding ipv 162 miljard , die de schade zou bedragen als hij alle economische banden met de RF zou doorsnijden) , en zo werd 'De Maidan'  bewust veroorzaakt.  ( 2 maanden eerder waren al 3 TV stations opgericht om de Maidan uit te zenden)   Azov werd in dewatten gelegd.  Kolomoisky financierde een TV serie om Zelensky tot held te maken.  Zelensky  won de verkiezingen door Vrede in Donbass te beloven.  Zelensky werd on camrea bedreigd ( Azov) met de dood als hij geen oorlog zou voeren, en kon daarna zelf steedsd fanatieker worden, zonder dat hij als verrader  kon worden aangemerkt.  Hij is de acteur die alles 'verkopt ' aan het westen:  Bloed en Puin en Babies.   Westerse Media doen de rest.  En zo veroorzaken we onze nucleaire oorlog.  De Neocons zullen heel tevreden zijn. JV. )  

Mr. Deni is a research professor at the U.S. Army War College's
Strategic Studies Institute, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic
Council and author of "Coalition of the Unwilling and Unable: European
Realignment and the Future of American Geopolitics."

(2) Putin going to war would be good for US - op.ed. in NATO Atlantic
Council

https://fair.org/home/calling-russias-attack-unprovoked-lets-us-off-the-hook/

MARCH 4, 2022

BRYCE GREENE

Russia's invasion of Ukraine can fairly be called many things, but
"unprovoked" (Roll Call, 2/24/22) is not one of them.

Many governments and media figures are rightly condemning Russian
President Vladimir Putin's attack on Ukraine as an act of aggression and
a violation of international law. But in his first speech about the
invasion, on February 24, US President Joe Biden also called the
invasion "unprovoked."

It's a word that has been echoed repeatedly across the media ecosystem.
"Putin's forces entered Ukraine's second-largest city on the fourth day
of the unprovoked invasion," Axios (2/27/22) reported; "Russia's
unprovoked invasion of Ukraine entered its second week Friday," said
CNBC (3/4/22). Vox (3/1/22) wrote of "Putin's decision to launch an
unprovoked and unnecessary war with the second-largest country in Europe."

The "unprovoked" descriptor obscures a long history of provocative
behavior from the United States in regards to Ukraine. This history is
important to understanding how we got here, and what degree of
responsibility the US bears for the current attack on Ukraine.

Ignoring expert advice

The story starts at the end of the Cold War, when the US was the only
global hegemon. As part of the deal that finalized the reunification of
Germany, the US promised Russia that NATO would not expand "one inch
eastward."  Despite this, it wasn't long before talk of expansion began
to circulate among policy makers.

In 1997, dozens of foreign policy veterans (including former Defense
Secretary Robert McNamara and former CIA Director Stansfield Turner)
sent a joint letter to then-President Bill Clinton calling "the current
US-led effort to expand NATO…a policy error of historic proportions."
They predicted:

In Russia, NATO expansion, which continues to be opposed across the
entire political spectrum, will strengthen the nondemocratic opposition,
undercut those who favor reform and cooperation with the West [and]
bring the Russians to question the entire post-Cold War settlement.

NYT: And Now a Word From X

Diplomat George Kennan (New York Times, 5/2/98) said  NATO expansion
would be "a tragic mistake."

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (5/2/98) in 1998 asked famed
diplomat George Kennan—architect of the US Cold War strategy of
containment—about NATO expansion. Kennan's response:

I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will
gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I
think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever.
No one was threatening anybody else.
Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the
NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the
Russians are—but this is just wrong.

Despite these warnings, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were
added to NATO in 1999, with Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia following in 2004.

US planners were warned again in 2008 by US Ambassador to Moscow William
Burns (now director of the CIA under Joe Biden). WikiLeaks leaked a
cable from Burns titled "Nyet Means Nyet: Russia's NATO Enlargement
Redlines" that included another prophetic warning worth quoting in full
(emphasis added):

Ukraine and Georgia's NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in
Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for
stability in the region.  Not only does Russia perceive encirclement,
and efforts to undermine Russia's influence in the region, but it also
fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously
affect Russian security interests.
Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong
divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic
Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split,
involving violence or at worst, civil war.  In that eventuality, Russia
would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not
want to have to face.

A de facto NATO ally

NYT: NATO Signals Support for Ukraine in Face of Threat From Russia

As Russia threatened to invade Ukraine over the threat of NATO
expansion, NATO's response was to emphasize that Ukraine would some day
join the alliance (New York Times, 12/16/21).

But the US has pushed Russia to make such a decision. Though European
countries are divided about whether or not Ukraine should join, many in
the NATO camp have been adamant about maintaining the alliance's "open
door policy." Even as US planners were warning of a Russian invasion,
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated NATO's 2008 plans to
integrate Ukraine into the alliance (New York Times, 12/16/21). The
Biden administration has taken a more roundabout approach, supporting in
the abstract "Kyiv's right to choose its own security arrangements and
alliances." But the implication is obvious.

Even without officially being in NATO, Ukraine has become a de facto
NATO ally—and Russia has paid close attention to these developments. In
a December 2021 speech to his top military officials, Putin expressed
his concerns:

Over the past few years, military contingents of NATO countries have
been almost constantly present on Ukrainian territory under the pretext
of exercises. The Ukrainian troop control system has already been
integrated into NATO. This means that NATO headquarters can issue direct
commands to the Ukrainian armed forces, even to their separate units and
squads….
Kiev has long proclaimed a strategic course on joining NATO. Indeed,
each country is entitled to pick its own security system and enter into
military alliances. There would be no problem with that, if it were not
for one "but." International documents expressly stipulate the principle
of equal and indivisible security, which includes obligations not to
strengthen one's own security at the expense of the security of other
states ….

In other words, the choice of pathways towards ensuring security should
not pose a threat to other states, whereas Ukraine joining NATO is a
direct threat to Russia's security.

In an explainer piece, the New York Times (2/24/22) centered NATO
expansion as a root cause of the war. Unfortunately, the Times omitted
the critical context of NATO's pledge not to expand, and the subsequent
abandonment of that promise. This is an important context to understand
the Russian view of US policies, especially so given the ample warnings
from US diplomats and foreign policy experts.

The Maidan Coup of 2014

A major turning point in the US/Ukraine/Russia relationship was the 2014
violent and unconstitutional ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych,
elected in 2010 in a vote heavily split between eastern and western
Ukraine. His ouster came after months of protests led in part by
far-right extremists (FAIR.org, 3/7/14). Weeks before his ouster, an
unknown party leaked a phone call between US officials discussing who
should and shouldn't be part of the new government, and finding ways to
"seal the deal." After the ouster, a politician the officials designated
as "the guy" even became prime minister.

The US involvement was part of a campaign aimed at exploiting the
divisions in Ukrainian society to push the country into the US sphere of
influence, pulling it out of the Russian sphere (FAIR.org, 1/28/22). In
the aftermath of the overthrow, Russia illegally annexed Crimea from
Ukraine, in part to secure a major naval base from the new Ukrainian
government.

The New York Times (2/24/22) and Washington Post (2/28/22) both omitted
the role the US played in these events. In US media, this critical
moment in history is completely cleansed of US influence, erasing a
critical step on the road to the current war.

Keeping civil war alive

In another response to the overthrow, an uprising in Ukraine's Donbas
region grew into a rebel movement that declared independence from
Ukraine and announced the formation of their own republics. The
resulting civil war claimed thousands of lives, but was largely paused
in 2015 with a ceasefire agreement known as the Minsk II accords.

Nation: Ukraine: The Most Dangerous Problem in the World
Anatol Lieven (The Nation, 11/15/21):
"US administrations, the political establishment, and the mainstream
media have quietly buried…the refusal of Ukrainian governments to
implement the solution and the refusal of the United States to put
pressure on them to do so."

The deal, agreed to by Ukraine, Russia and other European countries, was
designed to grant some form of autonomy to the breakaway regions in
exchange for reintegrating them into the Ukrainian state. Unfortunately,
the Ukrainian government refused to implement the autonomy provision of
the accords. Anatol Lieven, a researcher with the Quincy Institute for
Responsible Statecraft, wrote in The Nation (11/15/21):

The main reason for this refusal, apart from a general commitment to
retain centralized power in Kiev, has been the belief that permanent
autonomy for the Donbas would prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and the
European Union, as the region could use its constitutional position
within Ukraine to block membership.

Ukraine opted instead to prolong the Donbas conflict, and there was
never significant pressure from the West to alter course. Though there
were brief reports of the accords' revival as recently as late January,
Ukrainian security chief Oleksiy Danilov warned the West not to pressure
Ukraine to implement the peace deal. "The fulfillment of the Minsk
agreement means the country's destruction," he said (AP, 1/31/22).
Danilov claimed that even when the agreement was signed eight years ago,
  "it was already clear for all rational people that it's impossible to
implement."

Lieven notes that the depth of Russian commitment has yet to be fully
tested, but Putin has supported the Minsk accords, refraining from
officially recognizing the Donbas republics until last week.

The New York Times (2/8/22) explainer on the Minsk accords blamed their
failure on a disagreement between Ukraine and Russia over their
implementation. This is inadequate to explain the failure of the
agreements, however, given that Russia cannot affect Ukrainian
parliamentary procedure. The Times quietly acknowledged that the law
meant to define special status in the Donbas had been "shelved" by the
Ukranians,  indicating that the country had stopped trying to solve the
issue in favor of a stalemate.

There was no mention of the comments from a top Ukrainian official
openly denouncing the peace accords. Nor was it acknowledged that the US
could have used its influence to push Ukraine to solve the issue, but
refrained from doing so.

Ukrainian missile crisis

WaPo: Putin's attack on Ukraine echoes Hitler's takeover of Czechoslovakia

The Washington Post's Hitler analogy (2/24/22) is a bit much,
considering that the Ukrainian government provides veterans benefits to
militias that actually participated in the Holocaust (Kyiv Post, 12/24/18).

One under-discussed aspect of this crisis is the role of US missiles
stationed in NATO countries. Many media outlets have claimed that Putin
is Hitler-like (Washington Post, 2/24/22; Boston Globe, 2/24/22),
hellbent on reconquering old Soviet states to "recreat[e] the Russian
empire with himself as the Tsar," as Clinton State Department official
Strobe Talbot told Politico (2/25/22).

Pundits try to psychoanalyze Putin, asking "What is motivating him?" and
answering by citing his televised speech on February 21 that recounted
the history of Ukraine's relationship with Russia.

This speech has been widely characterized as a call to reestablish the
Soviet empire and a challenge to Ukraine's right to exist as a sovereign
nation. Corporate media ignore other public statements Putin has made in
recent months. For example, at an expanded meeting of the Defense
Ministry Board, Putin elaborated on what he considered to be the main
military threat from US/NATO expansion to Ukraine:

It is extremely alarming that elements of the US global defense system
are being deployed near Russia. The Mk 41 launchers, which are located
in Romania and are to be deployed in Poland, are adapted for launching
the Tomahawk strike missiles. If this infrastructure continues to move
forward, and if US and NATO missile systems are deployed in Ukraine,
their flight time to Moscow will be only 7–10 minutes, or even five
minutes for hypersonic systems. This is a huge challenge for us, for our
security.
The United States does not possess hypersonic weapons yet, but we know
when they will have it…. They will supply hypersonic weapons to Ukraine
and then use them as cover…to arm extremists from a neighbouring state
and incite them against certain regions of the Russian Federation, such
as Crimea, when they think circumstances are favorable.
Do they really think we do not see these threats? Or do they think that
we will just stand idly watching threats to Russia emerge? This is the
problem: We simply have no room to retreat.

Having these missiles so close to Russia—weapons that Russia (and China)
see as part of a plan to give the United States the capacity to launch a
nuclear first-strike without retaliation—seriously challenges the cold
war deterrent of Mutually Assured Destruction, and more closely
resembles a gun pointed at the Russian head for the remainder of the
nuclear age. Would this be acceptable to any country?

Media refuse to present this crucial question to their audiences,
instead couching Putin's motives in purely aggressive terms.

As the threat of war loomed, Secretary of State Antony Blinken (Twitter,
1/27/22) framed the issue of NATO expansion as "Kyiv's right to choose
its own security arrangements and alliances"—as though NATO were a
public accommodation open to anyone who wanted to join.

By December 2021, US intelligence agencies were sounding the alarm that
Russia was amassing troops at the Ukrainian border and planning to
attack. Yet Putin was very clear about a path to deescalation: He called
on the West to halt NATO expansion, negotiate Ukrainian neutrality in
the East/West rivalry, remove US nuclear weapons from non proliferating
countries, and remove missiles, troops and bases near Russia. These are
demands the US would surely have made were it in Russia's position.

Unfortunately, the US refused to negotiate on Russia's core concerns.
The US offered some serious steps towards a larger arms control
arrangement (Antiwar.com, 2/2/22)—something the Russians acknowledged
and appreciated—but ignored issues of NATO's military activity in
Ukraine, and the deployment of nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe
(Antiwar.com, 2/17/22).

On NATO expansion, the State Department continued to insist that they
would not compromise NATO's open door policy—in other words, it asserted
the right to expand NATO and to ignore Russia's red line.

While the US has signaled that it would approve of an informal agreement
to keep Ukraine from joining the alliance for a period of time, this
clearly was not going to be enough for Russia, which still remembers the
last broken agreement.

Instead of addressing Russian concerns about Ukraine's NATO
relationship, the US instead chose to pour hundreds of millions of
dollars of weapons into Ukraine, exacerbating Putin's expressed
concerns. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy didn't help matters by
suggesting that Ukraine might begin a nuclear weapons program at the
height of the tensions.

After Putin announced his recognition of the breakaway republics,
Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled talks with Putin, and began
the process of implementing sanctions on Russia—all before Russian
soldiers had set foot into Ukraine.

Had the US been genuinely interested in avoiding war, it would have
taken every opportunity to de-escalate the situation. Instead, it did
the opposite nearly every step of the way.

In its explainer piece, the Washington Post (2/28/22) downplayed the
significance of the US's rejection of Russia's core concerns, writing:
"Russia has said that it wants guarantees Ukraine will be barred from
joining NATO—a non-starter for the Western alliance, which maintains an
open-door policy." NATO's open door policy is simply accepted as an
immutable policy that Putin just needs to deal with. This very
assumption, so key to the Ukraine crisis, goes unchallenged in the US
media ecosystem.

'The strategic case for risking war' WSJ: The Strategic Case for Risking
War in Ukraine

John Deni (Wall Street Journal, 12/22/21): "There are good strategic
reasons for the West to stake out a hard-line approach, giving little
ground to Moscow."

It's impossible to say for sure why the Biden administration took an
approach that increased the likelihood of war, but one Wall Street
Journal piece from last month may offer some insight.

The Journal (12/22/21) published an op-ed from John Deni, a researcher
at the Atlantic Council, a think tank funded by the US and allied
governments that serves as NATO's de facto brain trust. The piece was
provocatively headlined "The Strategic Case for Risking War in Ukraine."
Deni's argument was that the West should refuse to negotiate with
Russia, because either potential outcome would be beneficial to US
interests.

If Putin backed down without a deal, it would be a major embarrassment.
He would lose face and stature, domestically and on the world stage.

But Putin going to war would also be good for the US, the Journal op-ed
argued. Firstly,  it would give NATO more legitimacy by "forg[ing] an
even stronger anti-Russian consensus across Europe." Secondly, a major
attack would trigger "another round of more debilitating economic
sanctions," weakening the Russian economy and its ability to compete
with the US for global influence. Thirdly, an invasion is "likely to
spawn a guerrilla war" that would "sap the strength and morale of
Russia's military while undercutting Mr. Putin's domestic popularity and
reducing Russia's soft power globally."

In short, we have part of the NATO brain trust advocating risking
Ukrainian civilians as pawns in the US's quest to strengthen its
position around the world.

'Something even worse than war'

NYT: Europe Thinks Putin Is Planning Something Even Worse Than War

What would be worse than thousands of Ukrainians dying? According to
this New York Times op-ed (2/3/22), "a new European security
architecture that recognizes Russia's sphere of influence in the
post-Soviet space."

A New York Times op-ed (2/3/22) by Ivan Krastev of Vienna's Institute of
Human Sciences likewise suggested that a Russian invasion of Ukraine
wouldn't be the worst outcome:

A Russian incursion into Ukraine could, in a perverse way, save the
current European order. NATO would have no choice but to respond
assertively, bringing in stiff sanctions and acting in decisive unity.
By hardening the conflict, Mr. Putin could cohere his opponents.

The op-ed was headlined "Europe Thinks Putin Is Planning Something Even
Worse Than War"—that something being "a new European security
architecture that recognizes Russia's sphere of influence in the
post-Soviet space."

It is impossible to know for sure whether the Biden administration
shared this sense that there would be an upside to a Russian invasion,
but the incentives are clear, and much of what these op-eds predicted is
coming to pass.

None of this is to say that Putin's invasion is justified—FAIR
resolutely condemns the invasion as illegal and ruinous—but calling it
"unprovoked" distracts attention from the US's own contribution to this
disastrous outcome. The US ignored warnings from both Russian and US
officials that a major conflagration could erupt if the US continued its
path, and it shouldn't be surprising that one eventually did.

Now, as the world once again inches toward the brink of nuclear
omnicide, it is more important than ever for Western audiences to
understand and challenge their own government's role in dragging us all
to this point.

(3) Ukraine was becoming a de facto member of NATO; that's the cause of
the war

The Economist is solidly anti-Putin; this article is a rare exception -
Peter M.

https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/03/11/john-mearsheimer-on-why-the-west-is-principally-responsible-for-the-ukrainian-crisis

By Invitation | Russia and Ukraine

John Mearsheimer on why the West is principally responsible for the
Ukrainian crisis

The political scientist believes the reckless expansion of NATO provoked
Russia

Mar 19th 2022

THE WAR in Ukraine is the most dangerous international conflict since
the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Understanding its root causes is
essential if we are to prevent it from getting worse and, instead, to
find a way to bring it to a close.

There is no question that Vladimir Putin started the war and is
responsible for how it is being waged. But why he did so is another
matter. The mainstream view in the West is that he is an irrational,
out-of-touch aggressor bent on creating a greater Russia in the mould of
the former Soviet Union. Thus, he alone bears full responsibility for
the Ukraine crisis.

But that story is wrong. The West, and especially America, is
principally responsible for the crisis which began in February 2014. It
has now turned into a war that not only threatens to destroy Ukraine,
but also has the potential to escalate into a nuclear war between Russia
and NATO.

The trouble over Ukraine actually started at NATO's Bucharest summit in
April 2008, when George W. Bush's administration pushed the alliance to
announce that Ukraine and Georgia "will become members". Russian leaders
responded immediately with outrage, characterising this decision as an
existential threat to Russia and vowing to thwart it. According to a
respected Russian journalist, Mr Putin "flew into a rage" and warned
that "if Ukraine joins NATO, it will do so without Crimea and the
eastern regions. It will simply fall apart." America ignored Moscow's
red line, however, and pushed forward to make Ukraine a Western bulwark
on Russia's border. That strategy included two other elements: bringing
Ukraine closer to the eu and making it a pro-American democracy.

These efforts eventually sparked hostilities in February 2014, after an
uprising (which was supported by America) caused Ukraine's pro-Russian
president, Viktor Yanukovych, to flee the country. In response, Russia
took Crimea from Ukraine and helped fuel a civil war that broke out in
the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

The next major confrontation came in December 2021 and led directly to
the current war. The main cause was that Ukraine was becoming a de facto
member of NATO. The process started in December 2017, when the Trump
administration decided to sell Kyiv "defensive weapons". What counts as
"defensive" is hardly clear-cut, however, and these weapons certainly
looked offensive to Moscow and its allies in the Donbas region. Other
NATO countries got in on the act, shipping weapons to Ukraine, training
its armed forces and allowing it to participate in joint air and naval
exercises. In July 2021, Ukraine and America co-hosted a major naval
exercise in the Black Sea region involving navies from 32 countries.
Operation Sea Breeze almost provoked Russia to fire at a British naval
destroyer that deliberately entered what Russia considers its
territorial waters.

The links between Ukraine and America continued growing under the Biden
administration. This commitment is reflected throughout an important
document—the "us-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership"—that was
signed in November by Antony Blinken, America's secretary of state, and
Dmytro Kuleba, his Ukrainian counterpart. The aim was to "underscore … a
commitment to Ukraine's implementation of the deep and comprehensive
reforms necessary for full integration into European and Euro-Atlantic
institutions." The document explicitly builds on "the commitments made
to strengthen the Ukraine-u.s. strategic partnership by Presidents
Zelensky and Biden," and also emphasises that the two countries will be
guided by the "2008 Bucharest Summit Declaration."

Unsurprisingly, Moscow found this evolving situation intolerable and
began mobilising its army on Ukraine's border last spring to signal its
resolve to Washington. But it had no effect, as the Biden administration
continued to move closer to Ukraine. This led Russia to precipitate a
full-blown diplomatic stand-off in December. As Sergey Lavrov, Russia's
foreign minister, put it: "We reached our boiling point." Russia
demanded a written guarantee that Ukraine would never become a part of
NATO and that the alliance remove the military assets it had deployed in
eastern Europe since 1997. The subsequent negotiations failed, as Mr
Blinken made clear: "There is no change. There will be no change." A
month later Mr Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine to eliminate the
threat he saw from NATO.

This interpretation of events is at odds with the prevailing mantra in
the West, which portrays NATO expansion as irrelevant to the Ukraine
crisis, blaming instead Mr Putin's expansionist goals. According to a
recent NATO document sent to Russian leaders, "NATO is a defensive
Alliance and poses no threat to Russia." The available evidence
contradicts these claims. For starters, the issue at hand is not what
Western leaders say NATO's purpose or intentions are; it is how Moscow
sees NATO's actions.

Mr Putin surely knows that the costs of conquering and occupying large
amounts of territory in eastern Europe would be prohibitive for Russia.
As he once put it, "Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart.
Whoever wants it back has no brain." His beliefs about the tight bonds
between Russia and Ukraine notwithstanding, trying to take back all of
Ukraine would be like trying to swallow a porcupine. Furthermore,
Russian policymakers—including Mr Putin—have said hardly anything about
conquering new territory to recreate the Soviet Union or build a greater
Russia. Rather, since the 2008 Bucharest summit Russian leaders have
repeatedly said that they view Ukraine joining NATO as an existential
threat that must be prevented. As Mr Lavrov noted in January, "the key
to everything is the guarantee that NATO will not expand eastward."

Tellingly, Western leaders rarely described Russia as a military threat
to Europe before 2014. As America's former ambassador to Moscow Michael
McFaul notes, Mr Putin's seizure of Crimea was not planned for long; it
was an impulsive move in response to the coup that overthrew Ukraine's
pro-Russian leader. In fact, until then, NATO expansion was aimed at
turning all of Europe into a giant zone of peace, not containing a
dangerous Russia. Once the crisis started, however, American and
European policymakers could not admit they had provoked it by trying to
integrate Ukraine into the West. They declared the real source of the
problem was Russia's revanchism and its desire to dominate if not
conquer Ukraine.

My story about the conflict's causes should not be controversial, given
that many prominent American foreign-policy experts have warned against
NATO expansion since the late 1990s. America's secretary of defence at
the time of the Bucharest summit, Robert Gates, recognised that "trying
to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching". Indeed,
at that summit, both the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the
French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, were opposed to moving forward on
NATO membership for Ukraine because they feared it would infuriate Russia.

The upshot of my interpretation is that we are in an extremely dangerous
situation, and Western policy is exacerbating these risks. For Russia's
leaders, what happens in Ukraine has little to do with their imperial
ambitions being thwarted; it is about dealing with what they regard as a
direct threat to Russia's future. Mr Putin may have misjudged Russia's
military capabilities, the effectiveness of the Ukrainian resistance and
the scope and speed of the Western response, but one should never
underestimate how ruthless great powers can be when they believe they
are in dire straits. America and its allies, however, are doubling down,
hoping to inflict a humiliating defeat on Mr Putin and to maybe even
trigger his removal. They are increasing aid to Ukraine while using
economic sanctions to inflict massive punishment on Russia, a step that
Putin now sees as "akin to a declaration of war".

America and its allies may be able to prevent a Russian victory in
Ukraine, but the country will be gravely damaged, if not dismembered.
Moreover, there is a serious threat of escalation beyond Ukraine, not to
mention the danger of nuclear war. If the West not only thwarts Moscow
on Ukraine's battlefields, but also does serious, lasting damage to
Russia's economy, it is in effect pushing a great power to the brink. Mr
Putin might then turn to nuclear weapons.

At this point it is impossible to know the terms on which this conflict
will be settled. But, if we do not understand its deep cause, we will be
unable to end it before Ukraine is wrecked and NATO ends up in a war
with Russia.

John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service
Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.

(4) CFR Senior Fellow denounces Neocon "Idealism", calls for return to
Realism

https://afroworldnews.com/putins-war-in-ukraine-is-a-watershed-time-for-america-to-get-real/

Putin's War in Ukraine Is a Watershed. Time for America to Get Real.

By Charles A. Kupchan

Mr. Kupchan Is A Professor Of International Affairs At Georgetown
University And A Senior Fellow At The Council On Foreign Relations.
April 11, 2022

During his recent speech in Warsaw, President Biden said that Vladimir
Putin "cannot remain in power," only to clarify a few days later that he
was merely expressing outrage, not announcing a new U.S. policy aimed at
toppling Russia's leader. The episode, interpreted by many as a
dangerous gaffe, underscored the tension in U.S. foreign policy between
idealism and realism.

Mr. Putin's invasion of Ukraine should provoke moral outrage in all of
us, and, at least in principle, it warrants his removal from office. But
Mr. Putin could well remain the leader of a major power into the next
decade, and Washington will need to deal with him.

This friction between lofty goals and realpolitik is nothing new. The
United States has since the founding era been an idealist power
operating in a realist world — and has on balance succeeded in bending
the arc of history toward justice. But geopolitical exigency at times
takes precedence over ideals, with America playing power politics when
it needs to.

During the Cold War, Washington promoted stability by tolerating a
Soviet sphere of influence and cozying up to unsavory regimes willing to
fight Communism. In contrast, after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
America operated under conditions of geopolitical slack; great-power
rivalry was muted, enabling Washington to put front and center its
effort to promote democracy and expand a liberal, rules-based
international order.

What, then, is the path forward? The war in Ukraine now confronts the
United States with the need to tilt back toward the practice of
realpolitik. Washington's commitment to keeping NATO's doors open to
Ukraine was a laudable and principled stand against an autocratic
Russia. Yet America's idealist cause has run headlong into Russian
tanks; Washington's effort to do right by Ukraine has culminated in
Russia's ruthless effort to put the country back under Moscow's sway.

Mr. Putin has just sent history into reverse. The United States should
seek to foil and punish Moscow's aggression, but Washington also needs
to be pragmatic to navigate a world that, even if more unruly, is also
irreversibly interdependent.

The Gap Between Means and Ends

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has exposed a gap between America's
ideological aspirations and geopolitical realities that has been
widening since the 1990s. During the heady decade after the end of the
Cold War, Washington was confident that the triumph of American power
and purpose cleared the way for the spread of democracy. A primary
instrument for doing so was the enlargement of NATO.

But from early on, the American foreign policy establishment allowed
principle to obscure the geopolitical downsides of NATO enlargement.
Yes, NATO membership should be open to all countries that qualify, and
all nations should be able to exercise their sovereign right to choose
their alignments as they see fit. But geography and geopolitics still
matter; major powers, regardless of their ideological bent, don't like
it when other major powers stray into their neighborhoods.

It's true that Moscow's dismay at the prospect of Ukraine's membership
in NATO most likely is fed in part by nostalgia for the geopolitical
heft of the Soviet days, Mr. Putin's paranoia about a "color revolution"
arising in Russia, and mystical delusions about unbreakable
civilizational links between Russia and Ukraine. But it is also true
that the West erred in dismissing Russia's legitimate security concerns
about NATO setting up shop on the other side of its 1,000-mile-plus
border with Ukraine.

All major powers desire strategic breathing room — which is precisely
why Russia has objected to NATO's eastern expansion since the end of the
Cold War. NATO may be a defensive alliance, but it brings to bear
aggregate military power that Russia understandably does not want parked
near its territory.

Indeed, Moscow's objections to NATO membership for Ukraine are very much
in line with America's own statecraft, which has long sought to keep
other major powers away from its borders.

The United States spent much of the 19th century ushering Britain,
France, Russia and Spain out of the Western Hemisphere. Thereafter,
Washington regularly turned to military intervention to hold sway in the
Americas. The exercise of hemispheric hegemony continued during the Cold
War, with the United States determined to box the Soviet Union and its
ideological sympathizers out of Latin America. When Moscow deployed
missiles to Cuba in 1962, the United States issued an ultimatum that
brought the superpowers to the brink of war.

After Russia recently hinted that it might again deploy its military to
Latin America, the State Department spokesman, Ned Price, responded, "If
we do see any movement in that direction, we will respond swiftly and
decisively." Given its own track record, Washington should have given
greater credence to Moscow's objections to bringing Ukraine into NATO.

NATO's open door policy has meanwhile encouraged countries in Europe's
east to lean too far over their strategic skis. While the allure of
joining the alliance has encouraged aspirants to carry out the
democratic reforms needed to qualify for entry, the open door has also
prompted prospective members to engage in excessively risky behavior.

Not long after NATO in 2008 pledged that Georgia and Ukraine "will
become members of NATO," Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili,
launched an offensive against pro-Russian separatists in South Ossetia
with whom the country had been sporadically fighting for years. Russia
promptly carved up Georgia, grabbing control of South Ossetia and
Abkhazia. Mr. Saakashvili thought the West had his back, but he
miscalculated and overreached.

In a similar fashion, NATO encouraged Ukraine to beat a path toward the
alliance. The 2014 Maidan Revolution toppled a pro-Moscow regime and put
Ukraine on a westward course, resulting in Russia's intervention in
Crimea and Donbas. NATO's open-door then beckoned, prompting Ukrainians
in 2019 to enshrine their NATO aspirations in the Constitution.

Now Russia has again invaded the country to block its westward path.
Given its unenviable proximity to Russia, Ukraine would have been better
off playing it safe, quietly building a stable democracy while sticking
with the neutral status that it embraced when it exited the Soviet
Union. Indeed, Ukraine's potential return to neutrality figures
prominently in the talks between Kyiv and Moscow to end the war.

NATO has wisely avoided direct involvement in the fighting in Ukraine in
order to avert war with Russia. But NATO's unwillingness to protect
Ukraine has exposed a troubling disconnect between the organization's
stated goal of making the country a member and its judgment that
defending Ukraine is not worth the cost.

In effect, the United States and its allies, even as they impose severe
sanctions on Russia and send arms to Ukraine, are revealing that they do
not deem the defense of the country to be a vital interest. But if that
is the case, then why have NATO members wanted to extend to Ukraine a
security guarantee that would obligate them to go to war in its defense?

NATO should extend security guarantees to countries that are of
intrinsic strategic importance to the United States and its allies, but
it should not make countries strategically important by extending them
security guarantees. In a world that is rapidly reverting to the
Hobbesian logic of power politics, when adversaries may regularly test
U.S. commitments, NATO cannot afford to be profligate in handing out
such guarantees. Strategic prudence requires distinguishing vital
interests from lesser ones and conducting statecraft accordingly.

Beginning the World All Over Again

Americans have long understood the purpose of their power to be not only
security but also the spread of liberty at home and abroad. As Thomas
Paine wrote in 1776, "We have it in our power to begin the world all
over again."

Paine was surely engaging in hyperbole. But successive generations of
Americans have taken the nation's exceptionalist calling to heart, with
quite impressive results. Through the power of its example as well as
its many exertions abroad — including World War I, World War II and the
Cold War — the United States has succeeded in expanding the footprint of
liberal democracy.

But the ideological aspirations of the United States have at times
fueled overreach, producing outcomes at odds with the nation's idealist
ambitions. The founding generation was determined to build an extended
republic that would stretch to the Pacific Coast. The exalted banner of
Manifest Destiny provided ideological justification for the nation's
westward expansion — but also moral cover for trampling on Native
Americans and launching a war of choice against Mexico that led to U.S.
annexation of roughly half of Mexico's territory.

President William McKinley in 1898 embarked on a war to expel colonial
Spain from Cuba, insisting that Americans had to act "in the cause of
humanity." Yet victory in the Spanish-American War turned the United
States itself into an imperial power as it asserted control over Spanish
possessions in the Caribbean and Pacific, including the Philippines. The
resulting Filipino insurgency led to the deaths of some 4,000 U.S.
troops and more than 200,000 Filipino fighters and civilians.

As he prepared the country for entry into World War I, President Woodrow
Wilson declared before Congress that "the world must be made safe for
democracy." After U.S. forces helped bring the war to a close, he played
a leading role in negotiations over the League of Nations, a global body
that was to preserve peace through collective action, dispute resolution
and disarmament. But such idealist ambitions proved too much even for
Americans. The Senate shot down U.S. membership in the League; Wilson's
ideological overreach cleared the way for the stubborn isolationism of
the interwar era.

"The Iraqi people are deserving and capable of human liberty," President
George W. Bush proclaimed just before launching the invasion of Iraq in
2003. But the war resulted in far more bloodshed and chaos than liberty.
Likewise, two decades of exhaustive U.S. efforts to bring stability and
democracy to Afghanistan fell far short, with the American withdrawal
last summer giving way to Taliban rule and a humanitarian nightmare.
Across these historical episodes, noble ambitions became divorced from
strategic realities, yielding dreadful results.

Getting Real

NATO meant well in opening its doors to Ukraine, yet good intentions
have again stumbled on geopolitical realities. To be sure, Mr. Putin had
the opportunity to settle his objections to Ukraine's membership in NATO
at the negotiating table. Last June, President Biden admitted that
whether Ukraine joins the alliance "remains to be seen"; more recently,
President Emmanuel Macron of France floated the idea of "Finlandization"
for Ukraine — effective neutrality — and proposals for a formal
moratorium on further enlargement circulated. Mr. Putin could have
picked up these leads, but he instead opted for war — and now owns the
resulting death and destruction.

Russia's relationship with the West is fast heading toward militarized
rivalry. In light of the tight strategic partnership that has emerged
between Moscow and Beijing — and China's own geopolitical ambitions —
the next Cold War may well pit the West against a Sino-Russian bloc
stretching from the Western Pacific to Eastern Europe.

The return of a two-bloc world that plays by the rules of realpolitik
means that Washington will need to dial back its efforts to expand the
liberal order, instead of returning to a strategy of patient containment
aimed at preserving geopolitical stability and avoiding great-power war.
A new strategic conservatism will require avoiding the further extension
of defense commitments into geographic areas that Russia and China
consider their rimlands.

Instead, the United States should seek stable balances of power in the
European and Asia-Pacific theaters. Washington will need to strengthen
its forward presence in both theaters, requiring higher and smarter
military spending and the strict avoidance of demanding wars of choice
and nation-building adventures in the Middle East or other peripheral
regions.

At the same time, taming an interdependent world will require working
across ideological lines. Washington should ease off on the promotion of
democracy and human rights abroad and the Biden administration should
refrain from its tendency to articulate a geopolitical vision that too
neatly divides the world into democracies and autocracies. Strategic and
economic expedience will at times push the United States to partner with
repressive regimes; moderating oil prices, for example, may require
collaboration with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

Even though the United States will continue teaming up with its
traditional democratic allies in Europe and Asia, many of the world's
democracies will avoid taking sides in a new era of East-West rivalry.
Indeed, Brazil, India, Israel, South Africa and other democracies have
been sitting on the fence when it comes to responding to Russia's
invasion of Ukraine.

Russia clearly poses the most immediate threat to geopolitical stability
in Eurasia, but China, because of its emergence as a true competitor of
the United States, still poses the greater geopolitical challenge in the
longer term. Now that Russia and China are regularly teaming up, they
could together constitute an opposing bloc far more formidable than its
Soviet forebear. Accordingly, the United States should exploit
opportunities to put distance between Moscow and Beijing, following the
lead of the quintessential realists Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger,
who in the 1970s weakened the Communist bloc by driving a wedge between
China and the Soviet Union.

The United States should play both sides. Russia's invasion of Ukraine
marks a fundamental breach with the Atlantic democracies, yet the West
cannot afford to completely turn its back on Russia; too much is at
stake. As during the Cold War, Washington will need a hybrid strategy of
containment and engagement. Russia should remain in the penalty box for
now, with the United States pushing back against the Kremlin's
territorial expansionism and other aggressive behavior by reinforcing
NATO's eastern flank and maintaining harsh economic sanctions.

But Washington should also remain on the lookout for opportunities to
engage with Moscow. Its invasion of Ukraine has just made Russia an
economic and strategic dependent of China; Mr. Putin will not relish
being Xi Jinping's sidekick. The United States should exploit the
Kremlin's discomfort with becoming China's junior partner by signaling
that Russia has a Western option.

Assuming an eventual peace settlement in Ukraine that permits the
scaling back of sanctions, the Western democracies should remain open to
cautious and selective cooperation with Moscow. Areas of potential
collaboration include furthering nuclear and conventional arms control,
sharing best practices and technologies on alternatives to fossil fuels,
and jointly developing rules of the road to govern military and economic
activity in the Arctic.

Russia needs China more than China needs Russia, so Washington should
also seek to pull Beijing away from Moscow. Beijing's ambiguous response
to the invasion of Ukraine suggests at least a measure of discomfort
with the economic and geopolitical disruption that has been produced by
Russian recklessness. Yet Beijing continues to benefit from Russian
energy and strategic cooperation and from the fact that Mr. Putin is
forcing the United States to focus on Europe, thereby stalling the U.S.
"pivot to Asia." Nonetheless, Washington should keep an eye out for
opportunities to work with Beijing in areas of common interest — trade,
climate change, North Korea, digital governance, public health — to
improve relations, tackle global problems and potentially weaken the
bond between China and Russia.

(5) Neocons saw Ukraine as a trap to lure Putin into war; he warns US to
back off

https://www.indianpunchline.com/putin-warns-the-us-to-back-off-in-ukraine/

APRIL 27, 2022 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

Putin warns the US to back off in Ukraine

The Western narrative of the two-month old war in Ukraine imbued with
the rhetoric of "democracy versus autocracy," has dramatically changed
with the assertion by the US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin at a news
conference in Poland Monday following his and Secretary of State Antony
Blinken's trip to Kiev, that Washington wants to "to see Russia weakened."

David Sanger at the New York Times noted that Austin was "acknowledging
a transformation of the conflict, from a battle over control of Ukraine
to one that pits Washington more directly against Moscow." But this is
not really a transformation. Sanger's colleague at the Washington Post,
David Ignatius, had written over three months ago that the Biden
Administration was working on a road map to get Russia blogged down in
Ukraine and attrition it in a way that it becomes a much diminished
power on the world stage.

For the Kremlin, most certainly, Austin's remark would not have come as
surprise. As recently as on Monday, President Vladimir Putin repeated at
a meeting in the Kremlin that the US and its allies have sought to
"split Russian society and destroy Russia from within." Putin revisited
the topic again on Wednesday pointing out that "the forces that have
been historically pursuing a policy aimed at containing Russia just
don't need such an independent and large country, even enormously large,
in their view. They believe that its very existence poses a threat to
them."

In fact, several perceptive Western observers had estimated that the
Kremlin has effectively fallen into a trap laid by the US that is
intended to bring down Putin's regime. Come to think of it, that famous
gaffe on 26 March wasn't a gaffe after all, when President Biden,
speaking in Warsaw, had blurted out the impromptu, unscripted remark:
"For God's sake, this man (Putin) cannot remain in power."

All the same, Austin's remark signifies that a dramatic change is taking
place in the geopolitical situation, which could have positive or
negative results. On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
warned the West that staying involved in the Russia-Ukraine war posed
"serious" and "real" risks of a World War III and "we must not
underestimate it."

To be sure, the conflict is slowly but steadily turning into a new
phase. Foreign fighters and soldiers from NATO regular units are
increasingly beefing up the depleted Ukrainian army's front lines.

That said, the optics also need to be understood. Austin's war cry comes
soon after Mariupol fell to the Russian forces. A couple of thousands
Ukrainian nationalists and a few hundred military personnel from NATO
countries are trapped in an underground labyrinth at the Azovstal
complex in the city, which Russian forces have sealed off. It has been a
severe blow to the US' prestige.

The Russian special operation is on track — "grinding" the Ukrainian
forces to the ground, to borrow the graphic expression from UK prime
minister Boris Johnson. On Monday, Russian high-precision missiles hit
at least six railway substations in Western Ukraine destroying railway
facilities in Krasnoe, Zdolbunov, Zhmerinka, Berdichev, Kovel, Korosten,
which were meant to be key transshipment points for the supply of
Western weaponry to the Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region. Rail
communication in several western regions of Ukraine is effectively blocked.

Reports from the east show that Ukrainian forces are suffering heavy
losses. Russian forces have taken the city of Kremennaya and are
approaching the town of Lyman, which would give them control of a direct
road to Slavyansk from the east.

Austin's hyped up rhetoric notwithstanding, Ukraine is not only not
showing any signs of winning but keeps bleeding, and the territory under
the actual control of the Ukrainian government is steadily shrinking.
The US officials admit that Pentagon lacks the ability to track the
weapons that are going in. Yet, the Biden administration has so far
spent around $4 billion on Ukraine. Therein hangs a tale. Who are the
real beneficiaries of the US supplies? The level of corruption in
Ukraine is a legion.

The plain truth is that it will be many weeks or months before
meaningful volumes of heavy weapons could be delivered to Ukrainian
combat units but in the meanwhile, the Battle of Donbass will be fought
almost entirely on the basis of the current strength on the ground. In a
<https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/04/can-western-tanks-artillery-and-missiles-save-ukraine-dont-count-on-it/>
detailed analysis this week, a former colonel in the US Army and
prolific media commentator Daniel Davis concluded: "It will take too
long for Western governments to come up with a coherent equipping plan
and then prepare, ship, and deliver the kit to its destination in a
timeframe that could provide Kyiv's troops the ability to tip the
balance against Russia."

The bottom line is this: The Biden Administration's geopolitical agenda
is to prolong the military conflict, which apart from weakening Russia
militarily and diplomatically, turns Europe into a battlefield and makes
the continent heavily dependent on the US leadership for a very long
time to come. For Biden, the war provides a useful distraction in US
politics in an election year.

Austin hosted a conference of the US' allies on Monday at the American
base in Germany to
<https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2022/04/26/us-allies-to-meet-monthly-on-ukraine-defense-needs/>
form a monthly contact group on Ukraine's self defence to coordinate the
"efforts to strengthen Ukraine's military for the long haul." It has the
ominous look of a "coalition of the willing."
<https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2022/04/26/us-allies-to-meet-monthly-on-ukraine-defense-needs/>
Even Israel was recruited. But the US is underestimating the steely
Russian resolve to fully realise the objectives behind the special
operation in Ukraine. Moscow will not brook any roadblocks, no matter
what it takes.

<https://tass.com/politics/1444327 Putin issued a stern warning today:
"If someone from outside moves to interfere in the current developments,
they should know that they will indeed create strategic threats to
Russia, which are unacceptable to us, and they should know that our
response to encounter assaults will be instant, it will be quick."

He was explicit that Russia has military capabilities that the US cannot
match. "We have all the tools to do it, the tools that others can't
boast of at the moment, but as for us, we won't be boasting. We will use
them if the need arises and I would like everyone to be aware of it. We
have made all the necessary decisions in this regard," Putin warned.

(6) US recruits Israel against Russia

https://www.indianpunchline.com/us-recruits-israel-against-russia/

APRIL 25, 2022 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

For more than one reason, the US President Joe Biden's call with Israeli
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday is hugely consequential. This
has been Biden's second phone conversation with Bennett in four weeks.
On March 30 Biden called to express his "deepest condolences" following
the terrorist attacks that killed 11 people in three Israeli cities.

This time around, his call coincided with the joint meeting of the US
secretaries of state and defence with the Ukrainian president in Kiev on
Sunday signifying that Washington is raising the ante in the conflict
with Russia and marking a shift in the conflict, signalling readiness to
wade deeper into the conflict after initial qualms.

The US and NATO allies are showing readiness to supply heavier equipment
and more advanced weapons systems to Ukraine. After the trip to Kiev,
Defence Secretary Austin told journalists in Poland that Ukraine can win
the war against Russia if it has the right equipment. "We believe that
we can win, they can win if they have the right equipment, the right
support," he said.

Officials in Kiev had earlier drawn up a list of weapons that they
urgently needed from the US, which includes anti-missile and
anti-aircraft systems. Ukraine is known to have sought advanced weaponry
from Israel previously, including the famous "Iron Dome" anti-missile
system and the infamous Pegasus spyware for use against Russia. But
Israel didn't want to stick out its neck for Ukraine due to fears of
jeopardising its tacit deconfliction measures with Moscow during its
operations against Iranian targets in Syria.

However, things changed dramatically in the past fortnight or so, as
Israel gave up its neutrality toward Russia's special operation and
accused Moscow of committing war crimes. Biden's conversation with
Bennett took place as Russia-Israel relations began plummeting.
Interestingly, the White House readout flagged a pointed reference by
Biden to Israel's Iron Dome system.

Both the White House readout (here) and the statement from Bennett's
office (here) mentioned the situation around Iran. It is entirely
conceivable that the sudden unexplained shift in Israel's stance
vis-a-vis Russia in the Ukraine conflict is prompted by some sort of
modus vivendi with the Biden Administration regarding the lifting of
sanctions against Iran.

Israel has been pulling out all stops to prevent the Biden
administration from conceding the Iranian demand for the removal of the
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) from Washington's watchlist on
terror groups. The Israeli statement not only mentioned that the IRGC
issue was  discussed but quoted Bennett as saying, "I am sure that
President Biden, who is a true friend of Israel and cares about its
security, will not allow the IRGC to be removed from the list of
terrorist organisations. Israel has clarified its position on the issue:
The IRGC is the largest terrorist organisation in the world." Biden has
accepted an invitation from Bennett to visit Israel "in the coming months."

In the entire West Asian landscape, there is not a single country other
than Israel that the US can count on today as an ally against Russia.
Clearly, the security climate in West Asia will change phenomenally if
the Biden Administration were to turn its back at this point on the
negotiations relating to JCPOA. The White House readout highlighted that
Biden and Bennett discussed "shared regional and global security
challenges, including the threat posed by Iran and its proxies."

A powerful lobby in the Beltway, starting with none other than the
Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, Chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, is opposed to any deal with Iran. These lobbyists
argue that with Iran continuing to rapidly escalate its nuclear program
and making clear that its ballistic missiles and regional policies are
not negotiable, there is little left for the US to salvage out of the JCPOA.

Speaking at the US Senate Armed Services Committee, the Chairman of the
US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, said recently, "In my
personal opinion I believe the IRGC Quds Force to be a terrorist
organisation and I do not support them being delisted from the Foreign
Terrorist Organisations list." ...

Viewed from another angle, now that Europe is not contemplating an oil
/> gas embargo against Russia, Washington is no longer under pressure to
lift the sanctions against Iran's energy exports. And at any rate, the
US will be mindful of the possibility that Iran may provide a lifeline
to Russia to beat Western sanctions.

Meanwhile, Biden administration's priority is also shifting away from
economic sanctions against Russia to "finally breaking the back of
Russia's ability to project power outside of Russia to threaten Georgia,
to threaten Moldova, to threaten our Baltic allies" — to borrow the
words of former US Army Europe Commander Ben Hodges from a recent interview.

Austin has called at short notice a meeting tomorrow at the American
base in Germany with counterparts from allied countries to discuss the
scope for vastly increased military supplies to Ukraine on a long-term
basis. Biden's call to Bennett just prior to that meeting suggests that
the US may have persuaded Israel to be an active participant in the war
in Ukraine, which would "bleed" Russia "white."

What motivates Israel would be that the Biden administration is willing
to accommodate Israeli concerns over a US-Iran nuclear deal. That
explains Bennett's "confidence" that Biden will not concede Iran's
demand to remove IRGC from the terror watchlist.

The bottom line is that Tehran is left with no other option now but to
either accept a new deal or stick to its demands and pay for the
consequences. The US estimates that Tehran, having come so close to the
US lifting the sanctions, which will of course be a game changer for
Iran's besieged economy, would think twice about walking away with empty
hands.

Biden's call with Bennett messages to Tehran that the US is prepared to
turn to other options if the negotiations fail in Vienna.