Oekraïne, geopolitiek en het moorddadige Westen

[Olive Yao]

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John Mearsheimer onderscheidt: de diepe oorzaak; de verhaastende oorzaak; en de russische reactie.

[Olive Yao]

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[Olive Yao]

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[Revisor]

Putin sets a new red line on NATO expansion

Since its assurances not to move “one inch” outside Germany, the alliance as moved 600 miles closer to Russia.

December 4, 2021

Written by Ted Snider

It is possible to actually measure Washington’s dishonesty. How big is it? It’s about 600 miles.

In 1990, according to declassified documents, Secretary of State James Baker assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “one inch” east of Germany. Thirty years ago, that was Russia’s red line.

On December 2, that red line moved from one inch to 600 miles as Vladimir Putin said he would now seek a promise that NATO would not expand further east to Ukraine.

Since these assurances, NATO has wandered its way through Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and Poland. Six hundred miles of broken pledges have brought the U.S. and NATO to the border of Ukraine.

On September 1, President Biden met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House. Biden used code words for NATO encroachment when he pledged his “support for Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations” and American support for Ukraine’s “being completely integrated in Europe.” He then announced “a new $60 million security assistance package” in addition to the $400 million in security assistance the U.S. has already provided Ukraine this year.

Having retreated 600 miles from Gorbachev’s red line, Putin drew a new red line on December 2, seeking “reliable and long-term security guarantees.” Those guarantees “would exclude any further NATO moves eastward and the deployment of weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to Russian territory.”

Putin is keenly aware that the red line has moved east 600 miles. At the Munich Conference on Security Policy in 2007, Putin asked the world, “And what happened to the assurances our Western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: ‘the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.’ Where are these guarantees?”

The guarantees were a deception, and the red line has moved hundreds of miles and has become a threat. Seven years later, in its review of 2014, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs would note that the “ongoing eastward expansion [and] successive waves of NATO enlargement [are] contrary to the assurances issued at the highest level.” In 2015, Russia’s National Security Strategy would note that NATO’s “continued expansion and the approach of its military infrastructure to Russia’s borders, all create threat to national security.”

The first guarantee was given on February 9, 1990 when Secretary of State Baker assured Gorbachev that if NATO got Germany and Russia pulled its troops out of East Germany, NATO would not expand east of Germany. Gorbachev records in his memoirs that he agreed to Baker’s terms “with the guarantee that NATO jurisdiction or troops would not extend east of the current line.”

In his book Superpower Illusions, Jack F. Matlock Jr., who was the American ambassador to Russia at the time and was present at the meeting, confirms Gorbachev’s account, saying that it “coincides with my notes of the conversation except that mine indicate that Baker added ‘not one inch.’”

The next day, according to West German foreign ministry documents, on February 10, 1990, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher told his Soviet counterpart Eduard Shevardnadze “‘For us . . . one thing is certain: NATO will not expand to the east.’ And because the conversation revolved mainly around East Germany, Genscher added explicitly: ‘As far as the non-expansion of NATO is concerned, this also applies in general.’”

Even earlier, on January 31, 1990, Genscher had said in a major speech that there would not be “an expansion of NATO territory to the east, in other words, closer to the borders of the Soviet Union.”

The National Security Archive published the actual documents detailing what Gorbachev was promised on December 12, 2017. According to the late Stephen Cohen in his book, ”War With Russia?” the documents finally, and authoritatively, reveal that, “the truth, and the promises broken, are much more expansive than previously known: all of the Western powers involved — the US, the UK, France, Germany itself — made the same promise to Gorbachev on multiple occasions and in various emphatic ways.”

It didn’t have to be this way. Like Gorbachev before him at the end of the cold war, Putin has hoped to help create an international community that, rather than building blocs, featured cooperation among equals. He had even suggested Russian membership in NATO. Even in the speech where he drew Russia’s new red line, Putin was still suggesting a cooperative solution. He said that the “working out specific agreements” should be done “in a dialogue with the United States and its allies.” He added, diplomatically, that “we aren’t demanding any special conditions for ourselves and realize that any agreements must take interests of Russia and all Euro-Atlantic countries into account.”

While this would obviously be the least confrontational path, it is the least likely to be be taken, as the only assurances being given today come in the form of Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin, who recently reassured Georgia and Ukraine that the “door is still open” to NATO membership, much to the chagrin of Moscow.


https://responsiblestatecraft.org/20...ato-expansion/

[Olive Yao]

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...B. Obama is medeschuldig

B. Obama’s geopolitiek tegen Rusland was:

Rusland isoleren, Ruslands economische en politieke banden met het buitenland afsnijden, russische expansie naar buurlanden beperken, een internationale consensus tegen Rusland, Rusland een paria maken.


...De VS beraamde en beraamt plannen en listen, tactieken en strategieën om Rusland te verzwakken, isoleren, omsingelen, provoceren en ondermijnen

De Freedom Fighters Manual was een sabotagehandleiding voor de terreurcampagne tegen Nicaragua.

Extending Russia - Competing from advantageous ground is een sabotagehandleiding voor de geopolitieke campagne tegen Rusland. Hierboven lees je de inhoud.

In Nigaragua werd de terreurcampagne uitgevoerd met de contra's.
In Ukraïne werkte en werkt de VS samen met fascisten, waaronder nieuwe nazi's.

De NAVO en de EU waren erbij betrokken.


Het volgende artikel, Diana Johnstone: US Foreign Policy is a cruel sport,

is vertaald op De Wereld morgen,

Oekraïne en het cynische buitenlands beleid van de VS

[Olive Yao]

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Diana Johnstone: US Foreign Policy is a cruel sport

by Diana Johnstone / Consortium News February 23, 2022


Bear baiting was long ago banned as inhumane. Yet today, a version is being practiced every day against whole nations on a gigantic international scale
In the time of the first Queen Elizabeth, British royal circles enjoyed watching fierce dogs torment a captive bear for the fun of it. The bear had done no harm to anyone, but the dogs were trained to provoke the imprisoned beast and goad it into fighting back. Blood flowing from the excited animals delighted the spectators.

This cruel practice has long since been banned as inhumane.

And yet today, a version of bear baiting is being practiced every day against whole nations on a gigantic international scale. It is called United States foreign policy. It has become the regular practice of the absurd international sports club called NATO.

United States leaders, secure in their arrogance as “the indispensable nation,” have no more respect for other countries than the Elizabethans had for the animals they tormented. The list is long of targets of U.S. bear baiting, but Russia stands out as prime example of constant harassment. And this is no accident. The baiting is deliberately and elaborately planned.

As evidence, I call attention to a 2019 report by the RAND corporation to the U.S. Army chief of staff entitled “Extending Russia”. Actually, the RAND study itself is fairly cautious in its recommendations and warns that many perfidious tricks might not work. However, I consider the very existence of this report scandalous, not so much for its content as for the fact that this is what the Pentagon pays its top intellectuals to do: figure out ways to lure other nations into troubles U.S. leaders hope to exploit.

The official U.S. line is that the Kremlin threatens Europe by its aggressive expansionism, but when the strategists talk among themselves the story is very different. Their goal is to use sanctions, propaganda and other measures to provoke Russia into taking the very sort of negative measures (“over-extension”) that the U.S. can exploit to Russia’s detriment.

The RAND study explains its goals:

“We examine a range of nonviolent measures that could exploit Russia’s actual vulnerabilities and anxieties as a way of stressing Russia’s military and economy and the regime’s political standing at home and abroad. The steps we examine would not have either defense or deterrence as their prime purpose, although they might contribute to both. Rather, these steps are conceived of as elements in a campaign designed to unbalance the adversary, leading Russia to compete in domains or regions where the United States has a competitive advantage, and causing Russia to overextend itself militarily or economically or causing the regime to lose domestic and/or international prestige and influence.”

Clearly, in U.S. ruling circles, this is considered “normal” behavior, just as teasing is normal behavior for the schoolyard bully, and sting operations are normal for corrupt FBI agents.

This description perfectly fits U.S. operations in Ukraine, intended to “exploit Russia’s vulnerabilities and anxieties” by advancing a hostile military alliance onto its doorstep, while describing Russia’s totally predictable reactions as gratuitous aggression. Diplomacy involves understanding the position of the other party. But verbal bear baiting requires total refusal to understand the other, and constant deliberate misinterpretation of whatever the other party says or does.

What is truly diabolical is that, while constantly accusing the Russian bear of plotting to expand, the whole policy is directed at goading it into expanding! Because then we can issue punishing sanctions, raise the Pentagon budget a few notches higher and tighten the NATO Protection Racket noose tighter around our precious European “allies.”

For a generation, Russian leaders have made extraordinary efforts to build a peaceful partnership with “the West,” institutionalized as the European Union and above all, NATO. They truly believed that the end of the artificial Cold War could produce a peace-loving European neighborhood. But arrogant United States leaders, despite contrary advice from their best experts, rejected treating Russia as the great nation it is, and preferred to treat it as the harassed bear in a circus.

The expansion of NATO was a form of bear-baiting, the clear way to transform a potential friend into an enemy. That was the way chosen by former U.S. President Bill Clinton and following administrations. Moscow had accepted the independence of former members of the Soviet Union. Bear-baiting involved constantly accusing Moscow of plotting to take them back by force.

Russia’s Borderland

Ukraine is a word meaning borderlands, essentially the borderlands between Russia and the territories to the West that were sometimes part of Poland, or Lithuania, or Habsburg lands. As a part of the U.S.S.R., Ukraine was expanded to include large swaths of both. History had created very contrasting identities on the two extremities, with the result that the independent nation of Ukraine, which came into existence only in 1991, was deeply divided from the start. And from the start, Washington strategies, in cahoots with a large, hyperactive anti-communist anti-Russian diaspora in the U.S. and Canada, contrived to use the bitterness of Ukraine’s divisions to weaken first the U.S.S.R. and then Russia. Billions of dollars were invested in order to “strengthen democracy” – meaning the pro-Western west of Ukraine against its semi-Russian east.

The 2014 U.S.-backed coup that overthrew President Viktor Yukanovych, solidly supported by the east of the country, brought to power pro-West forces determined to bring Ukraine into NATO, whose designation of Russia as prime enemy had become ever more blatant. This caused the prospect of an eventual NATO capture of Russia’s major naval base at Sebastopol, on the Crimean peninsula.

Since the Crimean population had never wanted to be part of Ukraine, the peril was averted by organizing a referendum in which an overwhelming majority of Crimeans voted to return to Russia, from which they had been severed by an autocratic Khrushchev ruling in 1954. Western propagandists relentlessly denounced this act of self-determination as a “Russian invasion” foreshadowing a program of Russian military conquest of its Western neighbors – a fantasy supported by neither facts nor motivation.

Appalled by the coup overthrowing the president they had voted for, by nationalists threatening to outlaw the Russian language they spoke, the people of the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk declared their independence.

Russia did not support this move, but instead supported the Minsk agreement, signed in February 2015 and endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution. The gist of the accord was to preserve the territorial integrity of Ukraine by a federalization process that would return the breakaway republics in return for their local autonomy.

The Minsk agreement set out a few steps to end the internal Ukrainian crisis. First, Ukraine was supposed to immediately adopt a law granting self-government to eastern regions (in March 2015). Next, Kiev would negotiate with eastern territories over guidelines for local elections to be held that year under OSCE supervision. Then Kiev would implement a constitutional reform guaranteeing eastern right. After the elections, Kiev would take full control of Donetsk and Lugansk, including border with Russia. A general amnesty would cover soldiers on both sides.

However, although it signed the agreement, Kiev has never implemented any of these points and refuses to negotiate with the eastern rebels. Under the so-called Normandy agreement, France and Germany were expected to put pressure on Kiev to accept this peaceful settlement, but nothing happened. Instead, the West has accused Russia of failing to implement the agreement, which makes no sense inasmuch as the obligations to implement fall on Kiev, not on Moscow. Kiev officials regularly reiterate their refusal to negotiate with the rebels, while demanding more and more weaponry from NATO powers in order to deal with the problem in their own way.

Meanwhile, major parties in the Russian Duma and public opinion have long expressed concern for the Russian-speaking population of the eastern provinces, suffering from privations and military attack from the central government for eight years. This concern is naturally interpreted in the West as a remake of Hitler’s drive to conquest neighboring countries. However, as usual the inevitable Hitler analogy is baseless. For one thing, Russia is too large to need to conquer Lebensraum.

You Want an Enemy? Now You’ve Got One

Germany has found the perfect formula for Western relations with Russia: Are you or are you not a “Putinversteher,” a “Putin understander?” By Putin they mean Russia, since the standard Western propaganda ploy is to personify the targeted country with the name of its president, Vladimir Putin, necessarily a dictatorial autocrat. If you “understand” Putin, or Russia, then you are under deep suspicion of disloyalty to the West. So, all together now, let us make sure that we DO NOT UNDERSTAND Russia!

Russian leaders claim to feel threatened by members of a huge hostile alliance, holding regular military manoeuvers on their doorstep? They feel uneasy about nuclear missiles aimed at their territory from nearby NATO member states? Why, that’s just paranoia, or a sign of sly, aggressive intentions. There is nothing to understand.

So, the West has treated Russia like a baited bear. And what it’s getting is a nuclear-armed, militarily powerful adversary nation led by people vastly more thoughtful and intelligent than the mediocre politicians in office in Washington, London and a few other places.

U.S. President Joe Biden and his Deep State never wanted a peaceful solution in Ukraine, because troubled Ukraine acts as a permanent barrier between Russia and Western Europe, ensuring U.S. control over the latter. They have spent years treating Russia as an adversary, and Russia is now drawing the inevitable conclusion that the West will accept it only as an adversary. The patience is at an end. And this is a game changer.

First reaction: the West will punish the bear with sanctions! Germany is stopping certification of the Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline. Germany thus refuses to buy the Russian gas it needs in order to make sure Russia won’t be able to cut off the gas it needs sometime in the future. Now that’s a clever trick, isn’t it! And meanwhile, with a growing gas shortage and rising prices, Russia will have no trouble selling its gas somewhere else in Asia.

When “our values” include refusal to understand, there is no limit to how much we can fail to understand.

To be continued.



vertaald op De Wereld morgen,

Oekraïne en het cynische buitenlands beleid van de VS

[Olive Yao]

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Mearsheimer onderscheidt:

19e eeuws geostrategisch wereldbeeld – Rusland
draait om machtsevenwicht;
verstoring van machtsevenwicht leidt tot oorlog (door een machtige agressieve staat of een in het nauw gedreven staat);
daarom moet macht tussen grote mogendheden in evenwicht blijven.

21 eeuws geostrategisch wereldbeeld – VS
Na 1989: Sovjet Unie is verslagen, triomf van VS; communisme is verslagen, er is mondiale consensus over kapitalisme; nieuwe wereldorde, VS heeft het rijk alleen;
VS en NAVO negeren machtsevenwicht met Rusland.

Deze wereldbeelden botsen met elkaar.

Mearsheimer spreekt van core strategic interests, ‘areas of the world where you’re willing to fight and die’ (3:14)

Voor Rusland is Oekraïne een core strategic interest.

– terecht, gezien de ligging van Oekraïne en gezien westerse en NAVO-agressie wereldwijd in het algemeen en tegen Rusland in het bijzonder.

Mearsheimer vergelijkt de situatie met de Monroe-doctrine (25:10). Hij herinnert aan de Cuba crisis van 1962 (25:27). Stel dat over 25 jaar China een militaire alliantie met Canada en Mexio vormt en militaire bases in die landen vestigt – hoe zou de VS daarop reageren? (25:45)

NAVO geeft een signaal af aan Georgië en Oekraïne dat NAVO ze steunt.
Gevolg: die landen stellen zich niet neutraal en niet diplomatiek op jegens Rusland.

“(…) a war between Russia and Georgia in august 2008. That war was a consequence of this.” (16:25)

“(…) we’re encouraging the ukranians to get tough with the russians (…) the ukranians are almost completely unwilling to compromise with the russians and instead want to pursue a hardline policy.” (40:40)

[Olive Yao]

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EU handelspolitiek als oorzaak van de oorlog

De EU heeft een handels- en investeringspolitiek onder leiding van directoraat-generaal handel van de Europese Commissie.

Aspecten hiervan zijn:

● de EC hecht hier groot geo-economisch belang aan, bepalend voor de toekomst van Europa,
● mondiaal,
● kapitalistisch,
● handels- en investeringsverdragen veranderen de constituties van landen; kapitalisme wordt quasi-constitutioneel verankerd.

zie daaover David Schneiderman, Constitutionalizing economic globalization (2008)
zie ook Gus van Harten, Investment rules and the denial of change (2010)

● Het Handelsdirectoraat tracht handels- en investeringsverdragen tot stand te brengen door strategisch handelen in de zin van J. Habermas, Theorie van het communicatieve handelen. Dit handelen is antidemocratisch.
● Er bestaat wereldwijd grote weerstand tegen, buiten en binnen EU-landen.

Het Associatieverdrag van de EU met Oekraïne ligt in dat kader.

In 2014 stelde Rusland voor:
Oekraïne moet zich economisch ontwikkelen.
Daartoe economische samenwerking Oekraïne – Rusland – EU – IMF.
Rusland zegt $ 15 miljard toe voor Oekraïne.

Oekraïne en Rusland grenzen aan elkaar en kunnen voordeel hebben van wederzijdse handel.
In grote delen van Oekraïne spreken mensen russisch; in handelstheorie geldt dat als natuurlijke handelsbevorderende factor.

De EU wees Ruslands voorstel af. De EU weigert met Rusland samen te werken. Dat was dom en slecht van de EU.
Mearsheimer: "The EU foolishly said no." (39:10). Dit was de isolatiestrategie tegen Rusland.

Goed zou zijn:
– economische samenwerking met Rusland,
– geo-economische en daardoor politieke toenadering tot Rusland.

De EU doet het tegenovergestelde:
– sluit Rusland uit van economische samenwerking, niet alleen met de EU maar ook met Oekraïne, een natuurlijke handelspartner voor Rusland,
– wakkert geo-economische en daardoor geopolitieke strijd aan.

Om handels- en investeringsverdragen van de EU erdoor te duwen is een standaard verkooppraatje echter:

“(…) dat internationale handel en investeringen mensen nader tot elkaar brengen, economieën verbinden en politieke tegenstellingen overbruggen. Goede economische relaties bevorderen vreedzame politieke samenwerking en verminderen het risico op gewelddadige conflicten.”

Minister S. Kaag (D66), antwoord 6, Memorie van Toelichting aan Eerste Kamer 8 mei 2020.

Het Handelsdirectoraat en de EU Ministerraad zijn inconsistent en inconsequent. Het is ook hypocrisie, loze woorden.

In de vrijhandelsstrijd rond 1900 eiste Engeland dat er made in Germany op duitse importproducten stond.
Over de eerste wereldoorlog zeiden engelsen: 'The cause of the war was made in Germany'. Duitsers antwoordden:
'Made in Germany was the cause of the war'.

De EU had in 2014-2015 op Ruslands economische samenwerkingsvoorstel van Oekraïne – Rusland – EU – IMF moeten ingaan. Misschien zou Oekraïne er dan nu anders hebben uitgezien.

[Rob Gosseling]

Stoltenberg is een schijtluis. Hij laat een heel volk midden in Europa in de steek en zit dat ook nog schaamteloos te verdedigen. En wie hier de smerige rol van de EU en Navo ter discussie durft te stellen wordt door de bekende eurofielen van dit forum beschimpt. Stel smerige klootzakken.

[Rob Gosseling]

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EU handelspolitiek als oorzaak van de oorlog

De EU heeft een handels- en investeringspolitiek onder leiding van directoraat-generaal handel van de Europese Commissie.

Aspecten hiervan zijn:

● de EC hecht hier groot geo-economisch belang aan, bepalend voor de toekomst van Europa,
● mondiaal,
● kapitalistisch,
● handels- en investeringsverdragen veranderen de constituties van landen; kapitalisme wordt quasi-constitutioneel verankerd.

zie daaover David Schneiderman, Constitutionalizing economic globalization (2008)
zie ook Gus van Harten, Investment rules and the denial of change (2010)

● Het Handelsdirectoraat tracht handels- en investeringsverdragen tot stand te brengen door strategisch handelen in de zin van J. Habermas, Theorie van het communicatieve handelen. Dit handelen is antidemocratisch.
● Er bestaat wereldwijd grote weerstand tegen, buiten en binnen EU-landen.

Het Associatieverdrag van de EU met Oekraïne ligt in dat kader.

In 2014 stelde Rusland voor:
Oekraïne moet zich economisch ontwikkelen.
Daartoe economische samenwerking Oekraïne – Rusland – EU – IMF.
Rusland zegt $ 15 miljard toe voor Oekraïne.

Oekraïne en Rusland grenzen aan elkaar en kunnen voordeel hebben van wederzijdse handel.
In grote delen van Oekraïne spreken mensen russisch; in handelstheorie geldt dat als natuurlijke handelsbevorderende factor.

De EU wees Ruslands voorstel af. De EU weigert met Rusland samen te werken. Dat was dom en slecht van de EU.
Mearsheimer: "The EU foolishly said no." (39:10). Dit was de isolatiestrategie tegen Rusland.

Goed zou zijn:
– economische samenwerking met Rusland,
– geo-economische en daardoor politieke toenadering tot Rusland.

De EU doet het tegenovergestelde:
– sluit Rusland uit van economische samenwerking, niet alleen met de EU maar ook met Oekraïne, een natuurlijke handelspartner voor Rusland,
– wakkert geo-economische en daardoor geopolitieke strijd aan.

Om handels- en investeringsverdragen van de EU erdoor te duwen is een standaard verkooppraatje echter:

“(…) dat internationale handel en investeringen mensen nader tot elkaar brengen, economieën verbinden en politieke tegenstellingen overbruggen. Goede economische relaties bevorderen vreedzame politieke samenwerking en verminderen het risico op gewelddadige conflicten.”

Minister S. Kaag (D66), antwoord 6, Memorie van Toelichting aan Eerste Kamer 8 mei 2020.

Het Handelsdirectoraat en de EU Ministerraad zijn inconsistent en inconsequent. Het is ook hypocrisie, loze woorden.

In de vrijhandelsstrijd rond 1900 eiste Engeland dat er made in Germany op duitse importproducten stond.
Over de eerste wereldoorlog zeiden engelsen: 'The cause of the war was made in Germany'. Duitsers antwoordden:
'Made in Germany was the cause of the war'.

De EU had in 2014-2015 op Ruslands economische samenwerkingsvoorstel van Oekraïne – Rusland – EU – IMF moeten ingaan. Misschien zou Oekraïne er dan nu anders hebben uitgezien.

Mee eens. De EU is de oorzaak van deze oorlog. Zonder Associatieverdrag was het niet gebeurd. En nu zeggen de lidstaten dat het hun conflict niet is.