IT'S TIME FOR AN AMERICAN GORBACHEV ?

 This at least is the opinion shared by the foreign news editor of Cotidianul daily from Romania

I think however that a much more appropriate analogy for the current situation the US finds itself in is not with the USSR in its last decade, but with Yeltsin's Russia.

Consider  this . By 1999, Boris Yeltsin was to ill to fulfill his duties as president, same as Biden is now. Both Yeltsin and  Biden  worked for decades as high-ranking officials in their parties, Yeltsin for the CPSU, Biden for the Democratic party. They were both elected presidents at the end of their careers, when they proved unable to adapt to a rapidly changing international environment. 

Moreover, the two were accused of allowing their children to profit from their positions in the state by taking bribes from foreign business people. And finally, given their medical condition , they were both unable in the end  to work for more than a few hours daily and we're eased out of their positions by their political allies and / or family.

A Demented Alliance Serving A Gerontocratic Elite

 

“NATO will stand up for the rights of LGBTQ people.” (source: Chronicles Magazine)

“On the International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia & Transphobia, and every day: all love is equal. LGBTQ+ people deserve respect & dignity, and I am proud to call myself your ally.”(source: X 2024 @jensstoltenberg)

[…] we always need to do more [for LGBTQ+ people]. To push forward with ambition.” (May 17, 2023 speech of NATO Secretary General)

https://florianpantazi.substack.com/p/a-demented-alliance-serving-a-gerontocratic 

HOW US. HEGEMONY SHOULD END

In a world dominated by democracies, American hegemonism should not be decided by its military might, but submitted to a vote in the UN General Assembly.

https://florianpantazi.substack.com/p/how-us-hegemony-should-end

FROM ATLANTIC WAVE TO REVOLUTIONARY CONTAGION

 

"  Palmer and Godechot presented the challenge of an Atlantic history at the Tenth International History Congress in 1955. It fell flat, dismissed by revolutionary historians as a poorly cloaked Cold War attempt to bolster NATO " 

Click here to read the full post:

Https://florianpantazi.substack.com/p/from-atlantic-wave-to-revolutionary. 

THE POLITICS OF HALF-MEASURES

 A document  circulating in American conservative  foreign policy circles for some time now proposes a dormant NATO as a solution to the alliance's current crisis of credibility.

 Paradoxically, although the number of members of the alliance has increased recently, NATO's credibility as a peacekeeping force in Europe has all but evaporated.

According to the document, the burden of the EU's common defense would pass from the US to the Europeans, with the Americans only providing the continent's nuclear protection, the rest of the military obligations falling entirely to the Europeans.

In actual fact , the American nuclear umbrella is not even needed, as France can simply beef up its nuclear arsenal already at its disposal. Accordingly , we arrive at the logical conclusion that the proposal in question is meaningless, as it's generally the case with similar American proposals . In truth , NATO should not be sent "to sleep", but rather dissolved as an alliance .

ON KISSINGER'S PASSING

 I happened to have a brief exchange of views with Kissinger about China in 2000. At the time, I was alarmed by the laxity of the Clinton administration in policing the exports of dual-use high techology to China, which I deemed reckless. Kissinger asked his director of Kissinger Associates, Paul Bremer III – the future governor of Iraq – to answer on his behalf . In it, Bremer wrote that Kissinger told him that he shared my concerns, which were not however shared by the Washington elite at the time.

Whilst in my view he was less important and competent – among US top foreign policy experts – than George Kennan, Kissinger knew how to successfully make the transition from academic life to the corridors of power in Washington DC. I say that he was less competent than Kennan because he never really understood the USSR as Kennan did, nor could he get the better of Soviet diplomats the way he did with Zhou Enlai or Mao of China.

The book that launched his career was not about Metternich, but his 1957 " Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy”, in which he made the case for the feasability of limited nuclear wars among superpowers. The book made him one of the darlings of the military-industrial complex and impressed both Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

Kissinger also knew how to deal with political leaders -from Ceaușescu to Nixon- who had oversized egos, if not downright megalomania, like the Romanian dictator. Nixon did not like Kissinger much, he just used him. For his part, Kissinger was singing praises to Nixon during working hours, whilst calling him unstable and a drunk in evening meetings with his friends.

Kissinger honestly acknowledged that at the origin of his success in China was the chief of the Czechoslovak secret service, which was the first to bring to his attention the existence of the Sino-Soviet split. Chancellor Adenauer of Germany also helped, giving him a book on the subject written by a German intelligence official.

Kissinger was an enormously ambitious individual. He wanted a big success in China and to get it, he made the error of agreeing to the demands of the Chinese to formally consider Taiwan as part of China. He did so without informing Nixon first or indeed without having his approval. Critics contend that he did in effect hand over Taiwan to China.

Finally, unlike Kennan, Kissinger was not known to oppose NATO’s eastern expansion, nor advocate for its dissolution . His last proposal was not to keep Ukraine neutral, but to convince Kiev to give up part of Ukraine’s territory in exchange for NATO membership. Sad but true.

What is BRICS' Global Agenda ?

 BRICS is putting together the world's biggest balance of power mechanism to date.

*

By now we all know who was the ‘godfather’ of BRICS. In 2001 as chief economist at Goldman Sachs, Jim O’Neill used the acronym BRIC in a research paper. At the time, grouping together Brazil, Russia, India and China made a lot of sense, as Western capitals were eager to invest in faster-growing developing economies. 

The launch of BRICS unfortunately coincided with the launch of America’s Athenian-styled informal empire, which aimed to become the sole global hegemon economically, politically and militarily. 

Such hubristic ambitions greatly alarmed most emerging economic powerhouses, like China and Brazil, as well as India and Russia. Two decades later, BRICS’ combined share of global GDP is already higher than that of the G7 nations. The US, the leader of G7 , has these days a share of only 16 percent of global GDP, a far cry from the 50 percent it enjoyed back in 1945. 

Undaunted, the Americans are willing to risk an all-out war with the leading members of BRICS, China and Russia, in the hope of clinging to the self-appointed position of global hegemon. With this objective in mind, the US is dragging along both G7 and the members of the NATO alliance, a fact which actually elevates the importance of BRICS even more, according to the same Jim O’Neill:

“I think if I go right back to my initial paper, I cannot believe how narrow-minded or naïve leaders in the G7 countries are. The whole idea that this group of seven “industrialised” or “more developed” or “earlier developed” countries can run the world is embarrassing. Because, first of all, their share of the world GDP has declined. Japan’s not shown any net increase in its GDP for 20 years. Italy virtually never grows. So, this idea that they are some kind of thing for the whole world to follow is erroneous.

And then on top of it, G7 is effectively a hostage to whatever Washington wants. So how do you solve the mammoth global issues of our time with just those guys ? I mean, it’s embarrassing and that’s quite depressing, because the whole reason why I created the BRICS was to suggest we needed a better form of global governance than the G7.” (interview in African Business, June 1st, 2023)

After more than 20 years, from an economic grouping meant to rival the G7, BRICS morphed into an alliance of countries determined to thwart, in any way possible, the US’ drive for global hegemony. 

Not too many experts are clear about this, and quite possibly not even most BRICS members realise the fact that they actually helped put together a classic, European-style balance of power mechanism, meant to contain and defeat America’s global leadership ambitions.

Sure, there are many differences and even frictions among the leading BRICS countries. These, however, do not interfere with the main item on the 

BRICS’ agenda, namely that of stopping American hegemonism in its tracks. 

This is the key to understanding why more than 20 countries on all continents have expressed a desire to join the group at the recent BRICS summit in Johannesburg. Tired of being bullied by the US and to have their sovereignty diminished, these aspiring countries have decided to side with the BRICS in its quest to contain and defeat America’s hegemonic designs. 

To be sure, the size of this balance of power mechanism put together by BRICS under own eyes is unprecedented as far as size goes and is global in scope, as well. It includes not only Russia and China – the world’s largest and the world’s most populous countries, but also leading countries from Africa and South America. 

With its great economic and human resources , BRICS is fully able - economically and militarily - to tilt the balance in favour of developing countries for good, and thus put a stop to the absurd hegemonic ambitions of the US and its Western allies.

Europe for Europeans

Two hundred years years ago, President Monroe asked the European powers of the time to stop interfering in the affairs of their former colonies, in the Americas. It is now time Europeans ask the US to reciprocate, in order for the EU to be able to build its own security architecture on the continent.

*

In his speech before the US Congress on the 2nd of December 1823, US President Monroe outlined what has since become known the "America for Americans" doctrine:

"It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such interposition in any form with indifference. If we look to the comparative strength and resources of Spain and those new Governments, and their distance from each other, it must be obvious that she can never subdue them. It is still the true policy of the United States to leave the parties to themselves, in hope that other powers will pursue the same course..."

By and large, European powers heeded Monroe's call. Now it is  European leaders who need to call on the Americans to reciprocate and to dissolve the NATO alliance,  thus enabling European countries to make their own security arrangements.

At the end of the Cold War, German Foreign Minister Genscher, French President Mitterrand and Soviet leader Gorbachev fully expected NATO to be dismantled, as the Warsaw Pact was. They intended to create a new European security architecture, which would have included Russia, but excluded NATO and the United States. The project was rejected out of hand by American leaders, who decided to not only keep NATO going, but opted for its eastward expansion after the implosion of the USSR.

Since 1999, NATO ceased to be a guarantor of peace on the European continent. It started a series of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now, by proxy, in Ukraine.

As of two years ago, NATO even intends to drag European nations into military confrontations in the Indo-Pacific with China, a drive which leading European nations oppose. 

Although most leading IR specialists believe that the current war in Ukraine is a result of NATO's expansion, the fact remains that this is but a consequence of not dismantling NATO in 1991.

Accordingly, today's European leaders should collectively push for the dissolution of the Alliance and for its replacement by a collective security arrangement, not only autonomous but independent of the United States.

In truth, stopping NATO's expansion and the neutrality of Ukraine will not address the root cause of Europe's security woes and will not guarantee that Europe can become again a peaceful continent.

As matters now stand, European nations are captive to a military alliance  emulating  Athens' ancient Delian League, which has become toxic to most of its members. It is therefore not in the interest of Europeans to continue to be part of an alliance that has been redefined after 2000 as an instrument of American global hegemonism.

An Agenda for NATO's 2024 Washington Summit

"The most serious danger to the security of the world right now ? The United States itself. The United States has become the most profound source of instability and an uncertain exemplar of democracy." (Richard Haass, former President, Council on Foreign Relations, July 2023)

*

It is not by accident that I decided to write this post on the national day of France. 

Since NATO's foundation, the French have always been ill-at-ease with the US' leadership style of the alliance. In 1949, 13 American senators were also opposed to its foundation. Senator Robert A Taft, the son of the 27th American president, William Taft, refused to vote in favour because 

: “If we undertake to arm all the nations around Russia from Norway on the north to Turkey on the south, and Russia sees itself ringed about gradually by so-called defensive arms from Norway and … Denmark to Turkey and Greece, it may form a different opinion. It may decide that the arming of western Europe, regardless of its present purpose, looks to an attack upon Russia. Its view may be unreasonable, and I think it is. But from the Russian standpoint it may not seem unreasonable…. How would we feel if Russia undertook to arm a country on our border; Mexico, for instance?”

To be sure, NATO's recent enlargement around the Baltic Sea cannot obscure the fact that this alliance has outlived its usefulness by some two decades and that it has, unfortunately, become the main war provocateur and a menace to global peace. 

No European expert or politician of note really believes that EU nations are under threat of invasion from Russia. By contrast, Russia has rightfully complained for years about NATO's expansion from Central Europe eastwards, to no avail. Its misgivings were proven prescient, as NATO has expanded right up to Russia's borders.

Since 1999, NATO has become an offensive alliance, as the wars in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq and the bombing campaigns in Syria and Libya have demonstrated. Gone are the days when NATO tasked itself with preserving peace in Europe. Nowadays there is even talk of dragging European NATO allies into the Indo-Pacific, presumably to deter China from invading Taiwan. American policymakers cannot truly hope to enlist NATO's European allies to participate in a conflict with China: in 2003 the US was unable to convince them to take part in the invasion of Iraq - a much less dangerous adversary.

These are only a few reasons why the upcoming NATO 2024 summit in Washington should have only one item on its agenda: the peaceful dissolution of this alliance. It can no longer justify its existence in geostrategic terms, and it has become toxic to its European allies. NATO officials should forget about building expensive new headquarters in Europe, opening liaison offices in Japan or pressing its members to increase their military spending. The US is no longer in a position to be the global hegemon, since it now lacks a strong industrial base and its budget deficits have become unbearable for the average American taxpayers. Putting its fiscal house in order should be the main priority for the US. Nowadays it can ill-afford to maintain its 750 military bases worldwide and to simultaneously finance NATO's European allies' defence, as well as Ukraine.

As in our nuclear age the dismantling of NATO is the only rational choice, the entire US political class should give their full support to the executive branch and back a decision to curtail the agony of an alliance which lacks a solid geostrategic justification for its existence. In other words, NATO's main preoccupation in 2024 should not be Ukraine or Russia, but how to fold its war tents from Europe as peacefully as the Soviets did in 1991.

The Avoidable War

It's not that the US lacks competent experts. It's the fact that nobody in Washington heeds their advice.

*

The war in Ukraine is still raging 16 months after its start. Sadly, a totally neglected aspect of the conflict is being deliberately brushed aside by mainstream American politicians and military brass alike.

I am referring to the fact that for the United States this was very clearly an avoidable war. It took Russia 8 years and two abortive Minsk agreements to decide to put a military stop to NATO's designs in Ukraine, which were perceived by Moscow as an imminent threat to its security. During all this time no major American diplomatic initiative took place to lessen the tensions in the region and to avoid the outbreak of a war. This, to be sure, is a first in the diplomatic relations between the US and Russia.

Connected to all this is the fact that for almost a decade the bureaucrats in charge of framing American foreign policy have ignored their own experts' warnings about the high probability of an outbreak of hostilities with Moscow. 

Thus, James W Carden, former adviser to the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission at the State Department during the Obama administration, explains in a recent article how the current impasse was reached:

 "For years, the U.S. national security establishment was warned by voices from the right, left, and center that America needed to change its policy toward Russia. It was warned that Russia could not be defeated in their near abroad. It was warned that Kiev—by launching an “anti-terrorist” campaign against its Russian speaking citizens—was recklessly antagonizing Russia. It was warned that making a semi-deity out of a corrupt tool of Ukrainian oligarchs was an obvious mistake. It was warned against conflating the interests of ethno-nationalist far-right factions in Kiev and Lviv (and their allies in Warsaw, Riga, Tallinn, and Vilnius) with U.S. national interests. It was warned to take President Putin’s numerous protestations against NATO expansion seriously. Yet America’s bipartisan ruling elite decided to ignore these warnings, and the results speak for themselves."

This geopolitical entanglement in Europe is not only unnecessary for the US, but it has the potential, if unchecked in a timely fashion, to lead to an all-out nuclear war between America and Russia. 

The wisdom of reversing course in Ukraine and starting peace negotiations with Russia is clear for all to see. Alas, to date no one can claim that the current US administration has the required statecraft skills and political wisdom to come up with a negotiated solution.

How and Why the Democrats Botched the "Reset" with Russia

 Every American administration since Ronald Reagan has attempted to get on the Russians' good side and normalise diplomatic relations with Moscow. 

Some presidents, most notably Bill Clinton but also Donald Trump, have been more successful than others in this endeavour. The worst performer in this area -until now- has been president Obama with his ill-inspired choice of advisers and Russia policies.

The key actor responsible for Obama's failure was Stanford professor Michael McFaul, a mediocre Russia expert. In 2007 he was approached by then-senator Obama and was subsequently put in charge of the Russian Department in the National Security Council after 2008. In this capacity he initiated the ill-fated policy of the "reset" of relations between the two countries. 

McFaul's main helper was Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State at the time. Together with the neocons still lurking within the State Department's structures after the Iraq debacle, McFaul and Hillary Clinton tried to torpedo Vladimir Putin's 2012 presidential campaign through a plethora of American-backed NGOs. 

Such gross interference in Russia's internal affairs was quite unprecedented, save for the brief Yeltsin interlude during the 1990s. 

For all McFaul's multiple academic credentials, he failed to grasp a basic fact, namely that liberal democracy is totally ill-suited for a country like Russia.

All Obama's intended "reset" policy achieved in practical terms, therefore, was a near-total breakdown of relations between Washington and Moscow.

Obama's vice-president at the time, Joe Biden, took over from McFaul and since 2014 until today he oversaw the Maidan Square coup d'etat and the gradual but relentless escalation of US and Nato conflict with Russia.

As much as his political enemies would like to assign all the blame on Joe Biden's administration for the disastrous state of America's relationship with Russia, the truth is that the seeds of the discord were planted more than a decade ago by Obama's decision to appoint McFaul as his top Russia affairs adviser. 

The Weaponisation of the International Criminal Court

When it comes to crimes against humanity in Ukraine, one should start looking for culprits in one's own backyard.

*

As American readers might recall, Daniel Ellsberg had been a leading military expert working for Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara during the Vietnam war. He became famous after leaking to the press secret DOD memos which proved to the public the fact that four US presidents lied regarding the extent of the US military involvement in Vietnam.

Ellsberg has recently commented on the war in Ukraine, accusing British prime minister Boris Johnson and US State Department officials of crimes against humanity there:

[Ellsberg] added that the alleged decision of Boris Johnson and other Western leaders to dissuade Volodymyr Zelenskyy from signing a peace deal in April 2022 was a 'crime against humanity':

"Zelenskyy and Putin essentially had an agreement, were very close to an agreement, returning to a prewar status quo in Crimea and the Donbas, in relation to Nato and everything else, but the US and the British, Boris Johnson, went over and said, 'We are not ready for that. We want the war to continue. We will not accept a negotiation.' I would say that was a crime against humanity. And I say that, with all seriousness, the idea that we needed to see people killed on both sides in order, quote, 'to weaken the Russians', not for the benefit of the Ukrainians, but for an overall geopolitical strategy, was wicked."

The weaponisation of the ICC in The Hague in order to serve the US's hegemonic geopolitical objectives makes a mockery of the Court's latest ruling targeting Vladimir Putin. 

As the Ellsberg interview demonstrates, the originators of crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine could be found much closer to home, working for administrations of countries claiming to be global champions of democracy.

Pivoting Great Powers

 In geopolitics, pivoting is not something only pivot-states do.

*

The current debate concerning the management of international relations centres around two key concepts: multipolarity and unipolarity. The opposition of the two concepts is creating a lot of tensions and global security headaches at present, as the Ukraine war illustrates. Consequently, it is worth recalling the origins of multipolarity and of its counterpart, unipolarity.

Multipolarity has a proven historical track record of keeping the peace between great powers, through its balance of power mechanism. It originated in Europe and flourished after the fall of Napoleon, when it included 5 great powers: Britain, France, Austria, Prussia and Russia. Through regular meetings between them, the five powers succeeded in keeping relative peace in Europe for a hundred years, until 1914.

Unipolarity was born out of the ashes of the bi-polar world around the year 2000, being the brainchild of American neoconservatives, with no precedent in modern history. In assuming the role of the only hegemonic power, the US has engaged in almost continuous warfare in the Middle East, Asia and now in Europe, violating - in the process - the UN charter and provoking the devastation of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine. 

In the first decade of the 21st century, a number of former and current military powers from Asia and Europe, such as China, France, Russia or Germany, have started to push for the demise of unipolarity and for the transition to a European-style multipolar world order, dominated initially by 4 great powers: the US, the EU (the Franco-German alliance), Russia and China. ( A 5th member, India, would join this exclusive great power club in the next few years). By the end of the current decade, this multipolar system will very likely replace the broken unipolar system put in place by the US two decades ago.

One other issue that is connected with the advent of multipolarity is that of pivot states, which I have already discussed elsewhere. There is, however, one essential aspect I have omitted to mention. That is, whilst no great power can be considered a pivot state, some of them are themselves pivoting quite significantly.

The first to do so was the United States. We all remember the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia". Disappointed by Western Europe's "ungratefulness" for the role the US played in the prosperity achieved by the continent after the devastation of WWII, the Obama administration decided to turn its back on Europe and pivot towards the Pacific region and China instead.

The second superpower pivoting was the EU, under the leadership of France and Germany. After refusing to endorse the US' invasion of Iraq, the two leading European countries started lobbying for "strategic autonomy" from both the US and NATO and pivoted economically towards Russia and especially China.

The latest great power to pivot was Russia, following the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev. Disillusioned with repeated Western invasions of its homeland and the presence of NATO at its borders, Russia itself pivoted east towards China. By 2023, the two countries concluded a comprehensive alliance, directed against what they regard as NATO's expansionist drive in Europe and Asia and against the regime-change crusade promoted by Washington recently.

The only great power that does not need to pivot and keeps to its millenary Middle Kingdom tradition is China. For a few decades now, China's huge market has become a magnet for all the other great powers, which covet Chinese low labour costs and access to the pockets of its large and growing middle class. 

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that China has emerged as the only great power interested in maintaining global peace and stability, as its contributions to the peace efforts between Iran and Saudi Arabia have recently proved.

Accordingly, US policymakers would be well-advised to abandon their mindless quest to keep unipolarity going, and to take their rightful place among the other great powers. Such a course of action could only pay dividends for global peace and prosperity.

How Pivot States Can Affect Global Peace and Security

 The transition from American unipolarity to a multipolar world order is well and truly underway and cannot be reversed. When dealing with threats to international security, Western policymakers should contemplate action starting from this new reality. 

*

On the 1st of January 2014, four researchers from The Hague and London published a ground-breaking research report on pivot states and their role in regional and global security. The 57-page report identified 22 pivot states from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America and listed 4 great powers currently in existence : the US, the EU, Russia and China. On its way to achieving the status of a great power, India is currently the only major regional country that still clings to its famed neutrality.

The basis of the report is - clearly - multipolarity, while the notion of spheres of interest and its importance in international relations is fully recognised as such. For the authors, the definition of pivot countries is as follows:

"Pivot states are states that possess military, economic or ideational strategic assets that are coveted by great powers. Pivot states are caught in the middle of overlapping spheres of influence of multiple great powers, as measured by associations that consist of ties that bind (military and economic agreements and cultural affinities) or relationships that flow (arms and commodities trade and discourse).

A change in a pivot state's association has important repercussions for regional and global security. States that find themselves in overlapping spheres of interest are focal points of where great power interests can collide and also clash. States located at the seams of the international system have at various moments in history been crucial to the security and stability of the international system.

Intra-state cleavages often divide pivot states. Such cleavages can be religious, ethnic, linguistic or cultural in nature, and more often than not they are a combination of all of the above. And it is precisely when these pivot states are caught in the middle, when opposing great powers push and pull in opposite directions, that they are torn apart. Hitherto weak centrifugal forces might suddenly become unleashed. Ukraine is currently succumbing to divisive forces, and Iraq is at real risk of falling apart.

In some cases there is an increased likelihood of great power conflict when pivot states fall victim to great powers encroaching on each other's spheres of influence. Great powers competing over respective spheres of influence (think here the US vs Russia) employ what is commonly called brinksmanship, either to change or, alternatively, to uphold the status quo. But brinksmanship can be exercised by pivot states too. These pivot states can be moral hazards or "rogue pivots" if they behave recklessly while betting on the opposing great power to come to their rescue. Georgia in the run-up to the 2008 war with Russia is a case in point. Georgia had been keen on bolstering ties with the West and was betting on Western assistance in its conflict with Russia, while the latter did not materialise in the end. Brinksmanship of pivot states also introduces a real risk of direct or indirect confrontation between great powers. The solution seems simple: do not let a rogue pivot state pull you into a great conflict."

The report provides a useful guide to understanding the current war in Ukraine, as well as the political instability in Georgia and elsewhere. It should be a must-read for policymakers and diplomats alike. 

By clinging to unipolarity, the US foreign policy establishment is actually depriving international relations of the needed shock absorbers and it could, unfortunately, lead the world to nuclear catastrophe.

Do the Americans and the British REALLY understand the nature of the Ukraine war ?

Western war propaganda has all but obscured the nature of the conflict in Ukraine. To better understand it, two recent analogies could help Americans and the British avoid the traps used by the Ukraine war spin doctors to pull the wool over their eyes.

The analogies of TG Carpenter from TAC and that of Anatol Lieven between the war waged by Russia in Ukraine and the American civil war or the potential secession of Scotland are both pertinent.

For Americans, TG Carpenter's analogy between the American civil war and the one in Ukraine is the most appropriate. Both the civil war and the one in Ukraine have in common their fratricidal character. Neither Russia today nor the USA in the 1860s can be classed as great military powers. What they have in common is their solid industrial base and human resources, superior to those of the enemy.

Anatol Lieven's analogy between Ukraine and Scotland is more relevant for European politicians and the public from the EU states, but especially from Great Britain, whose meddling in the conflict is incomprehensible, considering Scotland's own challenge :

" In the centuries since Russia captured Kiev from Poland in the 1660s and Peter the Great defeated the Swedes and their Ukrainian Cossack allies at Poltava in 1709, Ukraine has been in one way or another under Russian rule. As Scots from the British Empire, ambitious Ukrainians entered the Russian and Soviet bureaucracies and armies, and Ukrainian writers and filmmakers worked in Russian." (A.Lieven, Time )

In the case of the American civil war, England and France avoided intervening militarily on the side of the southerners, but they helped with weapons  and credits, in a manner similar to the financial and military equipments support offered by NATO to Ukraine today. Both the USA in the 1860s and Russia blocked the ports of their enemies. European powers did not intervene militarily in support of the Confederates because " The Confederate states were incapable of winning enough consecutive victories to convince European governments that they could sustain independence." ( US Office of the Hisorian, State Department ) Sounds familiar ? It should ...

The fact that the USA is fully involved today in the Russian-Ukrainian war is due to a totally erroneous understanding of the American national interest on the part of the current officials in Washington. In reality, the strategic and military interests of the USA are not and have not been harmed in any way by the war in Ukraine:

Who Are Ukraine's 'Palestinians' ?

 Last year in April I stumbled upon a project by Zelensky called the "Big Israel" which went largely overlooked by Western media until last week. A few days before the one-year anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine, National Interest published an article by Leon Hadar about this outlandish project for post-war Ukraine.

Zelensky's " Big Israel" project advocates emulating Israel and building Ukraine up as a militarised nation, continuously at war with its internal and external enemies, i.e. mainly its Russophone citizens and Russia. Hadar considers that Zelensky's project has merit and he explains why:

'But the notion that Ukraine will try to be “like Israel” may not sound so farfetched. For instance, like the Jewish State, Ukraine enjoys wide public support among Americans and their representatives on Capitol Hill, who believe that the Ukrainians, like the Israelis, are “like them,” while the Russians, like the Arabs, are the detested “other.”

And, indeed, like in the case of Israel, Ukraine’s efforts to position itself as a natural ally of Washington, in both interests and values, has been accepted as a diplomatic axiom by powerful American foreign policy forces. Both Republican neoconservatives as well as many “conservative nationalists” on the political Right, and by liberal internationalists who dominate the thinking among Democrats, including the one currently occupying the White House, have come on board.'

One does not have to be an expert in international relations to realise how absurd and illogical such a project is. It is, however, revealing for the thinking that dominates  Kiev"s current political elite. For them, Western Ukrainians have much  in common with the Jews of Israel, whereas the Russophones from the Donbas region are viewed as Ukraine's equivalent of the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and Ramallah.

The division of Ukraine along ethnic lines was envisaged first during the 1990s by Samuel Huntington, a valued National Interest contributor and leading national security expert. In truth, since Kiev refused the Minsk agreements, there just aren't any other solutions than the separation of the Donbas region inhabited by Russophones from the rest of Ukraine. 

This separation should not necessarily have caused a war, if the civilised parting of Czechia from Slovakia was any guide. Unfortunately, the Kiev regime knowingly preferred to emulate Yugoslavia's example in dealing with its internal ethnic strife. Worse still, it chose to involve the United States, which obviously saw an opportunity to advance their hegemonic agenda against Russia.

The project shows Zelensky and the other ministers or advisors of Jewish descent from his cabinet are trying to position Ukraine as America's 52nd state, immediately behind Israel. By putting an equal sign between Russia and the Arab countries in the Middle East and by forcing the Russophones of Ukraine to accept Kiev's rule, Zelensky hopes to position Ukraine geopolitically as the US's main outpost against its foe Russia in Europe.

The Jewish minority in today's Ukraine is minuscule. This large country cannot become a Jewish ethnic state in Europe, like Israel is in the Middle East. Indeed, Europe as a whole is unlikely to be fertile ground for the creation of such a huge US military outpost - potentially nuclearly armed - in its midst. Nor is Russia, with its old military tradition and its nuclear arms, willing to play the role of the Arabs for the US and Ukrainian military establishments. 

Although so far Zelensky's lobbying in Washington has proved lucrative, with the $130 billion already received, Ukraine is simply too big and situated in the wrong geopolitical region to be endlessly supported financially by the United States, as is the case with Israel. Last but not least, the Russophones from Donbas have demonstrated since 2014 that they resolutely reject the part of "European Palestinians" in this tragedy, directed by Zelensky on behalf of the Kiev regime.

AN EPISODE OF COLLECTIVE MADNESS

 For a number of years now, especially since 2014, I have been trying hard to understand the rationale behind Western officials' actions in Ukraine and NATO expansion. 

Alas, despite all my efforts, I haven't been able to find any logical argument in favour of the US and EU's presence in Ukraine or for the rabid Russophobia fanned by their media. 

A few weeks ago, however, I finally realised that I was approaching the whole thing the wrong way. 

What makes Western officials act the way they do is not based on sound strategy or reason, but it is instead the expression of an acute form of collective madness. 

This is best encapsulated in an ancient dictum, which I would like to quote below:

"Quos Deus vult perdere Prius Dementat"

JFKennedy would have certainly agreed with my harsh assessment of today's Washington political elite's actions . In the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis from 1962, this is what he had to say about the conduct of relations between nuclear powers :

 "Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy — or of a collective death-wish for the world. "  

In the US Russophobia Rules

 The leaders in Kiev have so far been able to milk the US and UK governments of hundreds of billions of dollars by simply taking advantage of the virulent russophobia that is deeply entrenched in the education of English-speaking elites.

***

In 2014 Paul Starobin, formerly Businessweek's Moscow bureau chief, wrote an article about the russophobia affecting elites in the Anglosphere. In it, Starobin traces the origins of the current russophobia displayed by American political and intellectual elites to the UK.

During most of its modern history, Russia was less developed than Europe when it came to standards of modernity. The country was relegated to the status of "other" by Victorian political and intellectual elites, during the competition between Britain and Russia for colonial expansion in Asia. Books like George Stoker's "With the Unspeakables", written in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, gave further impetus to anti-Russian feelings within Britain and its far-flung territories.

In his 1950 book "The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain", historian J.H. Gleason concluded that British antipathy towards Russia was the brainchild of the imperial-minded political elite in Britain, worried that Russia would advance beyond the Himalayas into India.

As it usually happens, British attitudes towards Russia crossed the Atlantic into the United States. One of the main American foes of Russia was President Theodore Roosevelt himself who, in 1905, portrayed Russians as "untrustworthy in every way" and - by contrast - the Japanese as a " wonderful and civilised people"...

It is thus unfortunate that, with the shining exception of George F. Kennan, the quasi-totality of 20th century American intellectual and political elites were badly affected by Russophobia.

Not even the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union brought much of a respite in anti-Russian phobia. 

As Starobin astutely observed, more than 150 years after the Crimean War, russophobia is still gravely affecting the minds of politicians involved in framing US foreign policy in the 21st century, from the late Senator John McCain who derided Russia as a "gas station masquerading as a country", to former Moscow bureau chief of The Economist Edward Lucas and many others. Anglosphere experts and politicians indulge in Russia-bashing in the Western media on a regular basis, with potentially dire consequences for their countries.  

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that English-speaking states are now almost totally devoid of policymakers able to negotiate a peace treaty with Russia.

In truth, when it comes to the aforementioned policymaking circles, russophobia has reached Freudian proportions. That acts as a paralysing factor which stymies meaningful political action and prevents the adoption of a set of adequate political solutions to the challenges posed by Russia internationally. Against this background, it is very hard - if not impossible - to foresee how future conflicts, including a nuclear one, with Russia could be indefinitely avoided.

The mammoth task of re-educating British and American elites could conceivably take between 25 to 50 years, and this only after russophobia is recognised as an intellectual pathology and dealt with accordingly. Alas, the leaders of the Anglosphere have allowed the problem to fester for so long that it now seems next to impossible to rectify matters before a catastrophe happens.

UKRAINE IS A GEOPOLITICAL BLACK HOLE

 The readers of my blog can be forgiven if they are still under the illusion that what the world is doing in Ukraine is safeguarding the independence of a newly-minted country against the aggression of Russia. On a superficial level this seems indeed to be the case.

In fact, we should look at Ukraine as the ultimate - man-made - geopolitical black hole. 

Such a place sucks up the resources of neighbouring countries, human or material, leading to their economic and even physical destruction. This black hole has a sick form of nationalism at its centre of gravity, which is aggressive, domineering and intolerant with other ethnic groups happening to live within the same borders. 

The Ukrainian black hole has a history of 31 years and it started after the implosion of the USSR with Kiev's refusal to allow ethnic groups at its fringes to revert to the countries they were severed from, by Stalin or his successors.

The saga continued with the involvement in the region of the US, which since 2008 started sponsoring Kiev's intolerant nationalism in earnest, with a view to weakening, destroying or partitioning its old (new) foe, Russia. 

By 2014, all the essential elements that led to the creation of the Ukrainian black hole were in place, culminating with the Maidan coup against the Yanukovich government.

Gradually, the new geopolitical black hole, an initial creation of western services, went from bad to worse. From 2014 to 2022, the US, EU and Russia all fought a losing battle to use and control the political centre of this black hole. The Russians lost first, hence the Ukrainian intervention and their annexation of Donbas. This however does not mean that the Americans or the EU won, and this is why:

The peculiarity of a geopolitical black hole is that it eventually becomes uncontrollable. Its political leaders develop an agenda of their own and bleed their sponsors dry, financially, militarily or economically. Thus, it is enough to consider the 60+ billion dollars spent only by the US so far this year, or the economic disaster currently affecting Europe from London to Berlin, to grasp the danger of the existence on the edges of the continent of the Ukrainian geopolitical black hole.

Like Serbia before it, Ukraine will not ultimately end up in control of the territories - inherited from the USSR - it now claims as its own. We now know that the Serbian black hole was also a man-made one, having been the creation of a freemasonry bent on destroying the Austro-Hungarian and Tsarist empires. The Serbs ended up controlling parts of the former Austro-Hungarian territories like Croatia and Slovenia, but they lost it all some decades later. An identical fate is in store for Kiev's ultranationalist regime, although I suspect its territorial losses are coming much sooner, if the Russian annexation is any guide.

The task of politicians everywhere is to resist being sucked into the Ukrainian black hole - an occurrence that would have disastrous consequences for world peace. 

The Kiev regime has no intention to run a normal country. It refuses to correct the errors of its ways and negotiate an end to the conflict. This attitude, however, is in perfect accordance with the essential characteristics of a geopolitical black hole, whose gravitational pull towards generalised conflict is very hard, if not impossible, to resist.