The Avoidable War

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

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

POLAND, THE USA'S TROJAN HORSE IN EUROPE

 The Polish premier attended an economic forum in Bucharest last week and proposed to Bucharest an economic and military alliance between Poland, Romania and Ukraine which is both anti-West and anti-East. Curiously, the project has many similarities with the political philosophy espoused in the inter-war period by the fascist Iron Guard in Romania. 

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 After the refusal of Germany and France to participate in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US decided to split the EU in two: "old Europe", who wishes to avoid American military adventures and wants strategic autonomy, and "new Europe", made up of new NATO members such as Poland, the Baltic states, Romania and maybe Bulgaria.

Already in 2008, at the NATO summit in Bucharest, Poland and Romania seconded the US proposal to include Georgia and Ukraine in the alliance. France and Germany opposed it, in the name of preserving the strategic balance in Europe. A few months after the summit in the summer of 2008, Georgia attacked Russian troops in Ossetia and Abkhazia, which led to war with Russia.

Now the Polish prime minister, who attended an economic summit in Bucharest last week, has launched the project of forming a "strategic triangle " between Poland, Romania and Ukraine, which would represent an economic counterweight directed against EU companies supported by Brussels, as well as a military one, directed against Russia.

It is obvious to me that this absurd project is also inspired by Americans, the "divide and conquer" strategy being obvious. The Polish Prime Minister hopes that this alliance, which would have 100 million members, will be able to economically counterbalance  230 million Western Europeans and, militarily, 180 million Russians.

A. Severin, former Romanian foreign minister, reached similar conclusions: "This is how the war started by the USA in Ukraine is directed not only against Russia, but also against the EU (German Europe), as well as the attempts to form, within the EU or across the borders of the EU, in association with actors from its eastern neighborhood, dissident groups, fundamentally German-sceptic, all of which have as a driving force Poland, with its aspiration to the status of the first European power. Such attempts, of American inspiration and vigorous Polish support, are the Bucharest Format 9 (nine states from the east of the EU, strategic partners of the USA), the Three Seas Initiative (Baltic, Black and Adriatic) and, now, the "Polish-Romanian-Ukrainian confederal strategic triangle".

The Romanian Prime Minister, General Ciuca, did not object to his Polish guest's project. Ciuca fought in Iraq in 2004, and is therefore a man the American hegemonists view as safe. However, in the alliance of this Latin country of 20 million inhabitants with two Slavic states counting together 80 million inhabitants, Romania would be the disadvantaged partner.

Furthermore, as a Latin state, Romania's place is next to France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, not next to Poland and Ukraine. In other words, alongside the states of western Europe, not its neighbours from the north or east.

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: