The End of the World as We Know It - Ukraine Edition

A Negotiated Solution is In Everyone's Interest

Within the liberal (meant descriptively) theory of history, events have static meaning that is abstracted from the circumstances that produced them. This is the basis of psychological and characterological explanations of world leaders. Examples from recent history include Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, who are imagined to be motivated by personality quirks--- what they ‘are,’ versus the economic, political, and otherwise contextual, factors that fill-out broader explanations of history.

Quite obviously, this type of explanation precludes broader accounts. Whatever these men and others ‘are,’ they weren’t teleported back in history to send the American Polar Bear Expedition to Russia in 1918 in an effort to prevent the Bolsheviks from prevailing in the Russian Revolution. And they didn’t ally with German and Ukrainian Nazis from the 1930s to today to undermine the Soviet, now Russian, government, did they? But this history did occur.

This may read as impossibly abstract given the urgency of current events. But what other choice is there? Through the ‘American view,’ Vladimir Putin is a Hitleresque madman bent on world domination. First Ukraine, then greater Europe, goes this reasoning. That the Americans have been inserting themselves into Soviet, then Russian, affairs for more than a century didn’t make Vladimir Putin the autocrat that he is claimed to be today, did it? But this history is crucial to understanding current events.

The New York Times claims that the Biden administration is puzzled by how the wily Chinese, so crafty in business dealings and making gadgets for American corporations, are being taken in by historical explanations that place Americans as the cause of the current crisis. Biden reportedly spent three months trying to convince the Chinese political leadership that history started with Russian troop movements in late 2021.

Of consequence for the fate of humanity is that Biden--- up to his eyeballs in the American-led coup in Ukraine in 2014, later as prefect in Ukraine for the Obama administration, later still as cheerleader for the CIA coup called Russiagate, and in the present as representative of the neoconservative cabal that rules Washington, might not know better. Not treating the Chinese like idiots by sharing American rationales for known history would prima facie seem the more productive strategy.

With apologies, being American requires acquainting the readership with history that it probably already knows. The problem is that the American press makes Cold War caricatures of state propaganda under autocratic regimes appear like straightforward representation of facts. History matters, but you won’t find it in the New York Times or the Washington Post. Therefore, below is some history. I will pick back up on the other side.

Evidence to support the claim of a U.S.-led coup in Ukraine in 2014 comes from an intercepted phone call between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Victoria Nuland, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, in which they discussed who the U.S. will install in the post-coup government of Ukraine before the coup had taken place. Nuland’s political appointees, as per the call, were installed following the coup.

It could be granted that Ukraine was an American vassal-state in 2014, but has since reverted to democracy as understood in the Western liberal sense of being controlled by large corporations and oligarchs. However, the OSS / CIA has maintained a relationship with Ukrainian fascists, whose descendants it worked with to affect the 2014 coup, since the 1930s. Some fair portion of the $2.5 billion in American arms that has been delivered to Ukraine since 2014 found their way into the hands of these fascists.

Current U.S. President Joe Biden was mentioned in the intercepted call, and he was subsequently made the American prefect in Ukraine by then U.S. President Barack Obama. Readers may recall that Donald Trump was impeached for temporarily halting the flow of U.S. arms to Ukraine, suggesting continuity in the American relationship with the Ukrainian government. And the coup followed the U.S. effort since 1990 to bring former Soviet states into NATO after pledging not to do so.

Joe Biden’s election in 2020 represented restoration of the neoliberal order that in one form or another has been attacking the Soviet Union, now Russia, since Woodrow Wilson sent U.S. troops to fight the Bolsheviks in 1918. From 1918 through 1990, the American explanation for doing so was ideological opposition to communism. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990, the explanation shifted to stopping ‘Russian aggression.’ Meanwhile, the U.S. has launched eighty-two separate and distinct military operations since 1990.

Readers can judge the (de)merits of the American-led coup in Ukraine for themselves. But why would Russian actions in Ukraine be aggressive, while the U.S. ousting Yanukovych to make Ukraine a vassal-state not be? The difference is that Russia has a clear interest in Ukraine while the Americans don’t. Ukraine is on Russia’s western border, it was formerly joined with Russia through the Soviet Union, and the ‘breakaway regions’ of Ukraine are Russian speaking enclaves against whom a war has been waged by U.S. backed Ukrainian fascists since 2015.

A recently declassified cable* from 2008, written by Biden-appointed CIA Director William Burns, reveals that Burns understood the risk of a geopolitical conflagration that included Russian military action in Ukraine as far back as 2008. The cable was written while Burns was the U.S. Ambassador to Russia. Its value comes from providing the Russian reasoning around American actions that would lead to the Russians entering Ukraine militarily.

From the cable, Russian reasoning was that continued U.S. efforts to bring Ukraine into NATO would 1) inflame ethnic tensions to produce a civil war between U.S.-backed Ukrainian nationalists and the Russian-speaking population that 2) would provoke a military response from Russia as it moved to re-stabilize the region. The 2014 coup accelerated this process by adding urgency to Russian fears of regional instability. As it did in Iraq, the U.S. sided with one ethnic group against another in Ukraine, thereby generating a civil war in addition to the coup.

The political frame of ‘nation’ poses Ukraine as a singularity in the American mind, while deep internal divisions exist along ethnic lines. Again, the OSS / CIA has been allied with Ukrainian Nazis--- Ukrainians who allied with German Nazis in WWII, since the 1930s. Ethnic Russians in Ukraine oppose Ukraine’s entry into NATO, while the nationalists / Nazis support doing so. This was the Russian rationale, covered in Burns’ 2008 cable, for why the ongoing American effort to bring Ukraine into NATO would destabilize Ukraine.

The Americans either understood the Russian objection and didn’t care or they didn’t understand it. The Russians likely assumed that the Americans aren’t criminally stupid, which would suggest that they assumed that the Americans were purposely trying to destabilize Ukraine. The alternative, that the Americans are criminally stupid, is held by a not-insignificant number of military-adjacent Americans. In either case, from Burns’ 2008 cable, it is evident that if the Americans continued to destabilize Ukraine, the Russians would be forced to intervene militarily to stabilize it.

This problem of destabilization is likely tied by the Russians to the broader problems of NATO encroachment, as well as the Americans arming anti-Russian factions (Ukrainian Nazis) on Russia’s border. Americans incredulous that ‘new Hitler’ Vladimir Putin intends to de-nazify Ukraine apparently don’t know of the long CIA alliance with Ukrainian (and German) Nazis, the ethnic basis of Ukraine’s political instability, or that the Soviets lost twenty-million people to both German and Ukrainian Nazis in WWII.

The question that rarely gets asked by Americans during the regular nation-killing exercises that the U.S. engages in is: what’s in it for the American people? The ‘American interest,’ like the mythical ‘political center,’ conflates the interests of multinational oil and gas companies, munitions makers, and Wall Street, with those of the citizens and human beings who fight American wars.  To understand this difference, here is George W. Bush explaining the ‘American interest’ in launching the U.S. war against Iraq in 2003. Every single word is a lie.

The follow-on question is that if the reasons given by the U.S. government are untrue, what are the real reasons for American hostilities towards Russia? In fact, oligarchs and corporations (‘money’) determine legislative outcomes. The U.S. has the worst healthcare system amongst rich nations because the health insurance industry controls legislative outcomes. The U.S. has the worst internet service in the developed world because regional monopolies are granted to internet service providers. Recently, the Pentagon budget was increased while subsidies for poor children were slashed.

This isn’t some generalized complaint. The point is that the role of government in the U.S. is to provide political cover for economic actors. American geopolitics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was to lower wages and to install business-friendly (aka citizen-hostile) governments. Before the Nord Stream oil and gas pipelines were built between Russia and Germany, Russian pipelines ran through Ukraine. Pipelines are central to all prospective negotiations for ending the current crisis.

Not mentioned in the American press is that the European no-fly zone over Ukraine is a declaration of war against Russia. A no-fly zone is an explicit threat to shoot down aircraft that fly into designated airspace. This is likely why Russia chose to escalate as it did.

The Chinese don’t agree with the facts as the Biden administration has presented them. They couldn’t and still conclude that the Americans provoked the Russian incursion into Ukraine. This is likely why the U.S. response has been to charge that an alliance between two enemies of America explains the disagreement. But the Chinese didn’t have to disagree with the facts to form or maintain an alliance with Russia. The whole point of NATO is that disagreements over facts had no bearing on mutual defense obligations.

The premise that the U.S. has good reason to risk nuclear annihilation to manage outcomes in Ukraine begs the question: why? There are plausible explanations for Russia’s actions that have nothing to do with ‘unchecked aggression.’ India’s Modi is calling for good faith negotiations, Implied is that past negotiations haven’t been. Even cursory examination of the evidence suggests that American imperial hubris is to blame. And the Ukrainians were killing one another with American-made weapons before the Russian military incursion into Ukraine. But the Americans care about ordinary Ukrainians?

The U.S. should back away from everything to do with Ukraine as quickly as possible. But pipeline politics, corporate profits, and defense budgets suggest otherwise. If this goes as the Americans apparently want it to, it has been nice knowing you fellow humans. Stop this madness / stupidity before it is too late. The Americans could end it in a matter of days. Just promise to stop screwing with the Russians, and stop doing so. There is no American national interest in Ukraine.

* (This was copied from wikileaks.org before the link was made inaccessible by actors outside of wikileaks. The content is exactly as it was presented. The memo was referenced by experts in Russia – Ukraine relations. That is how I found it. The content presented here matches the description provided by the experts).

B. MOSCOW 182 

Classified By: Ambassador William J. Burns.  Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

1.  (C) Summary.  Following a muted first reaction to

Ukraine's intent to seek a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP)

at the Bucharest summit (ref A), Foreign Minister Lavrov and

other senior officials have reiterated strong opposition,

stressing that Russia would view further eastward expansion

as a potential military threat.  NATO enlargement,

particularly to Ukraine, remains "an emotional and neuralgic"

issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also

underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and

Georgia.  In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue

could potentially split the country in two, leading to

violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force

Russia to decide whether to intervene.  Additionally, the GOR

and experts continue to claim that Ukrainian NATO membership

would have a major impact on Russia's defense industry,

Russian-Ukrainian family connections, and bilateral relations

generally.  In Georgia, the GOR fears continued instability

and "provocative acts" in the separatist regions.  End

summary.

MFA: NATO Enlargement "Potential Military Threat to Russia"

--------------------------------------------- --------------

2.  (U) During his annual review of Russia's foreign policy

January 22-23 (ref B), Foreign Minister Lavrov stressed that

Russia had to view continued eastward expansion of NATO,

particularly to Ukraine and Georgia, as a potential military

threat.  While Russia might believe statements from the West

that NATO was not directed against Russia, when one looked at

recent military activities in NATO countries (establishment

of U.S. forward operating locations, etc. they had to be

evaluated not by stated intentions but by potential.  Lavrov

stressed that maintaining Russia's "sphere of influence" in

the neighborhood was anachronistic, and acknowledged that the

U.S. and Europe had "legitimate interests" in the region.

But, he argued, while countries were free to make their own

decisions about their security and which political-military

structures to join, they needed to keep in mind the impact on

their neighbors.

3.  (U) Lavrov emphasized that Russia was convinced that

enlargement was not based on security reasons, but was a

legacy of the Cold War.  He disputed arguments that NATO was

an appropriate mechanism for helping to strengthen democratic

governments.  He said that Russia understood that NATO was in

search of a new mission, but there was a growing tendency for

new members to do and say whatever they wanted simply because

they were under the NATO umbrella (e.g. attempts of some new

member countries to "rewrite history and glorify fascists").

4.  (U) During a press briefing January 22 in response to a

question about Ukraine's request for a MAP, the MFA said "a

radical new expansion of NATO may bring about a serious

political-military shift that will inevitably affect the

security interests of Russia."  The spokesman went on to

stress that Russia was bound with Ukraine by bilateral

obligations set forth in the 1997 Treaty on Friendship,

Cooperation and Partnership in which both parties undertook

to "refrain from participation in or support of any actions

capable of prejudicing the security of the other Side."  The

spokesman noted that Ukraine's "likely integration into NATO

would seriously complicate the many-sided Russian-Ukrainian

relations," and that Russia would "have to take appropriate

measures."  The spokesman added that "one has the impression

that the present Ukrainian leadership regards rapprochement

with NATO largely as an alternative to good-neighborly ties

with the Russian Federation."

Russian Opposition Neuralgic and Concrete

-----------------------------------------

5.  (C) Ukraine and Georgia's NATO aspirations not only touch

a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about

the consequences for stability in the region.  Not only does

Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine

Russia's influence in the region, but it also fears

unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would

seriously affect Russian security interests.  Experts tell us

that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions

in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the

ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a

major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war.  In

that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to

intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.

6.  (C) Dmitriy Trenin, Deputy Director of the Carnegie

Moscow Center, expressed concern that Ukraine was, in the

long-term, the most potentially destabilizing factor in

U.S.-Russian relations, given the level of emotion and

neuralgia triggered by its quest for NATO membership.  The

letter requesting MAP consideration had come as a "bad

surprise" to Russian officials, who calculated that Ukraine's

NATO aspirations were safely on the backburner.  With its

public letter, the issue had been "sharpened."  Because

membership remained divisive in Ukrainian domestic politics,

it created an opening for Russian intervention.  Trenin

expressed concern that elements within the Russian

establishment would be encouraged to meddle, stimulating U.S.

overt encouragement of opposing political forces, and leaving

the U.S. and Russia in a classic confrontational posture.

The irony, Trenin professed, was that Ukraine's membership

would defang NATO, but neither the Russian public nor elite

opinion was ready for that argument.  Ukraine's gradual shift

towards the West was one thing, its preemptive status as a de

jure U.S. military ally another.  Trenin cautioned strongly

against letting an internal Ukrainian fight for power, where

MAP was merely a lever in domestic politics,  further

complicate U.S.-Russian relations now.

7.  (C) Another issue driving Russian opposition to Ukrainian

membership is the significant defense industry cooperation

the two countries share, including a number of plants where

Russian weapons are made.  While efforts are underway to shut

down or move most of these plants to Russia, and to move the

Black Sea fleet from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk earlier than

the 2017 deadline, the GOR has made clear that Ukraine's

joining NATO would require Russia to make major (costly)

changes to its defense industrial cooperation.

8.  (C) Similarly, the GOR and experts note that there would

also be a significant impact on Russian-Ukrainian economic

and labor relations, including the effect on thousands of

Ukrainians living and working in Russia and vice versa, due

to the necessity of imposing a new visa regime.  This,

Aleksandr Konovalov, Director of the Institute for Strategic

Assessment, argued, would become a boiling cauldron of anger

and resentment among the local population.

9.  (C) With respect to Georgia, most experts said that while

not as neuralgic to Russia as Ukraine, the GOR viewed the

situation there as too unstable to withstand the divisiveness

NATO membership could cause.  Aleksey Arbatov, Deputy

Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, argued that Georgia's

NATO aspirations were simply a way to solve its problems in

Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and warned that Russia would be

put in a difficult situation were that to ensue.

Russia's Response

-----------------

10.  (C) The GOR has made it clear that it would have to

"seriously review" its entire relationship with Ukraine and

Georgia in the event of NATO inviting them to join.  This

could include major impacts on energy, economic, and

political-military engagement, with possible repercussions

throughout the region and into Central and Western Europe.

Russia would also likely revisit its own relationship with

the Alliance and activities in the NATO-Russia Council, and

consider further actions in the arms control arena, including

the possibility of complete withdrawal from the CFE and INF

Treaties, and more direct threats against U.S. missile

defense plans.

11.  (C) Isabelle Francois, Director of the NATO Information

Office in Moscow (protect), said she believed that Russia had

accepted that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually join NATO

and was engaged in long-term planning to reconfigure its

relations with both countries, and with the Alliance.

However, Russia was not yet ready to deal with the

consequences of further NATO enlargement to its south.  She

added that while Russia liked the cooperation with NATO in

the NATO-Russia Council, Russia would feel it necessary to

insist on recasting the NATO-Russia relationship, if not

withdraw completely from the NRC, in the event of Ukraine and

Georgia joining NATO.

Comment

-------

12. (C) Russia's opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine

and Georgia is both emotional and based on perceived

strategic concerns about the impact on Russia's interests in

the region.  It is also politically popular to paint the U.S.

and NATO as Russia's adversaries and to use NATO's outreach

to Ukraine and Georgia as a means of generating support from

Russian nationalists.  While Russian opposition to the first

round of NATO enlargement in the mid-1990's was strong,

Russia now feels itself able to respond more forcefully to

what it perceives as actions contrary to its national

interests.

BURNS