Wolfgang Effenberger

On June 7, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodimir Selenskyi told the Financial Times that "victory must be won on the battlefield."(1) Ukraine's short-term goal, he said, was to return to the situation before the Russian invasion on February 24. Selenskyi cited the recapture of all Russian-controlled territory, including Crimea, as a long-term goal.
Selenskyi's statements are consistent with Resolution 758, passed overwhelmingly (410-10) by the U.S. House of Representatives in December 2014: "Resolved, That the House of Representatives .... strongly supports the efforts of President Poroshenko and the Ukrainian people to achieve a lasting peace in their country.
which includes the complete withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory,
the complete control of Ukraine's international borders,
the disarmament of separatist and paramilitary forces in eastern Ukraine, the adoption of measures that limit the Russian Federation's ability to use energy exports and trade barriers as a means of exerting economic and political pressure,
 and ending Russian Federation interference in Ukraine's internal affairs;"(2)

Selenskyi is only a mouthpiece of this resolution, in which the preliminary goal of the U.S. is firmly outlined and on the basis of which Ukraine has been militarily prepared by the U.S. for this war. This also explains why the security guarantees demanded by the Russian president since mid-December 2021 from the U.S. and NATO were never seriously negotiated.
Since 2014, a war unnoticed by Western media has been taking place in the Donbass until February 24, 2022. The first images of Ukrainian military exercises were published in the West in early March 2021, when the Ukrainian population was purposefully tuned into a conflict with Russia. On March 14, the FAZ headlined, "Klitschko trains anti-tank in shooting exercise." The former world boxing champion Klitschko, mayor of Kiev, and in 2014 Merkel's aspirant for the Ukrainian presidency, had moved into the maneuver with his staff and the city district mayors to let himself be rolled over in a hole in the ground by an approaching tank, followed by throwing hand grenades and firing a machine gun in a publicity-grabbing manner. Images showing Klitschko at the Soviet SU-23 anti-aircraft cannon were also impressive. "I am convinced," said the mayor, "that we must be well prepared to defend our city and its residents and our state if necessary."(3)Ten days later, the ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE N2117 / 2021 "On the Decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine of March 11, 2021, on the Strategy of De-occupation and Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol" came into force. 

"In accordance with Article 107 of the Constitution of Ukraine, I (President Volodymyr Selenskyi) resolve: 


1. implementation of the Decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine of March 11, 2021 "On the Strategy of De-occupation and Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol" (attached).

2. approval of the strategy of de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (attached).

3. The control over the implementation of the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine issued by this decree shall be vested in the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine."(4)

This decree comes very close to a Ukrainian declaration of war on Russia. On April 6-7, 2021, the Ukrainian President and his Chief of General Staff Khomchak met with the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Britain's Stuart Perch, Chief of the Royal Air Force, who subsequently stated, "NATO members are united in condemning Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and its aggressive actions in eastern Ukraine."(5) The U.S. President and Chief of General Staff Khomchak are also on the ground of the U.S. resolution. Thus, with the "forcible annexation" version of Crimea, a senior British officer is also on the ground of the U.S. resolution. According to this version, the West indeed had to take coercive measures - similar to the approach taken in the forcible annexation of Kuwait by Iraq. But the circumstances in Crimea are different. Here, on March 16, 2014, the population living in Crimea overwhelmingly decided in a referendum to break away from Ukraine and return to Russia (Crimea had only been assigned to Ukraine within the Soviet Union in 1954).(6) As commander-in-chief, on April 8, 2021, state leader Selenskyi traveled to Crimea. April 2021, head of state Selenskyi traveled in combat gear to the front lines in the east to motivate Ukrainian soldiers loyal to the government.(7) Nothing remained of his campaign promise to ensure peace in the Donbass first and foremost - or had it been just a lie anyway?

On October 21, 2021, the Süddeutsche Zeitung ran the headline: "NATO gears up for conflict with Moscow"(8). The Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 had led to a reassessment at NATO of the threats from Moscow. As a result, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, a defense plan was defined to respond to possible attacks from Russia. Twenty years before the Western-orchestrated coup in Ukraine, which violated international law, a long-term strategy "for the development of full-dimensional operations for the strategic army of the early twenty-first century" had gone into effect in the United States in TRACOC 525-5.(9)
This document describes a dynamic era, a world in transition. In the two decades (1990-2010), the transition was to be through the stages of turmoil (turmoil), crisis (crisis), conflict (conflict) ultimately leading to war (Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria).

Instead of fighting communism, the 21st century will have to fight national and religious extremism. If in the 20th century one had permanent allies, in the 21st century they are only temporary allies. The U.S. Army should adapt to this, he said, and pay attention to two premises: rapid technological change and the reordering of geostrategy. Modern war theater relies on more advanced technology such as combat robots and drones, as well as "non-nation forces" - mercenary armies that do not have to abide by any laws and are paid according to measured success.

In Ukraine, the stages of escalation described in 525-5 are readily observable: Turmoil (Maidan), Crisis (Slavyansk), Conflict (Crimea), and, since February 24, 2022, All-out War.

"According to 525-5, the path to the intended war leads via the targeted destabilization of the state, in which one wants to bring about a "regime change" for one's own advantage. An important tool here: operations other than war (OOTW) - meaning operations ranging from financial to cyber warfare, the use of covert special forces to drone warfare, and all facets of shadow warfare." At the lowest level of the dynamic is "democracy promotion" in the style of the National Endowment for Democracy.

In early October 2014 - eight months after the Maidan and two months before Resolution 758 - at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) conference, senior officers and representatives of the U.S. Department of Defense showed the vision of future armed conflicts and presented the document Army Operating Concept (AOC) "Win in an Complex World 2020-2040"(10)-surrounded by lobbyists of the weapons industry, whose companies presented the latest weapons systems.
This event prompted Bill Van Auken and David North to write a scathing article in the mouthpiece of the "International Committee of the Fourth International" (ICVI): "US Army Drafts Blueprint for Third World War."(11) Both authors conclude that the text of the document has extremely threatening implications. Bluntly, it admits that the coming military operations will be about changing the geopolitical landscape due to competition for power and wealth. Any country on the globe that opposes the U.S. hegemon will feel the harsh guiding hand of the United States. To that end, the U.S. Army is to develop appropriate capabilities. Future adversaries are to be made unable to respond effectively to U.S. aggression.
The competing powers China and Russia are cited as harbingers of future conflicts. Russia is accused of acting imperially and expanding its territory. A grotesque accusation in view of NATO's expansion and the color revolutions in the former Soviet republics - but one that is used to justify the necessity of stationing American ground troops in Central Europe. In second place are adversarial "regional powers" - e.g., Iran.
The trigger for the processes pointed out is not least the Wolfowitz Doctrine (1992) - the unofficial name for the original version of the Defense Planning Guidelines for fiscal years 1994-1999, which allowed NATO to be used as an instrument of bloody aggression against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya after the Cold War.
In 2019, the RAND Corporation revised the Wolfowitz Doctrine and outlined ways to "overstretch" and, in Kissinger's words, "break" Russia.

Another U.S. Army strategy paper for 2025 to 2040 projects that enemies will launch increasingly massive attacks in a variety of domains - land, sea, air, space, and online-with the lines between war and peace blurring.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Army is preparing for decades of hybrid wars 2025-2040.(12)

Currently, as part of a new security package, the U.S. is supplying Ukraine with modern multiple rocket launchers to defend against the Russian invasion. In an op-ed for the New York Times, U.S. President Joe Biden wrote that the missile delivery will enable the invaded country to more precisely hit "key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine."(13) Russia must pay a high price for attacking Ukraine, he said, or it could lead to the end of the rules-based international order and catastrophic consequences worldwide. Since the war of aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999, which violated international law, the U.S. has undermined international law and the UN's monopoly on the use of force by introducing the vague term "rules-based international order," which in reality describes an order based on "U.S. rules" so that Washington can continue to pursue its unipolar power goals.

For the tireless critics of the public broadcasters Friedhelm Klinkhammer and Volker Bräutigam, the "rule-based order" is linguistically as wrong as the "white white horse"; any order already represents a set of rules itself, it does not need to be additionally "based" on rules.(14)

For both, the notion of "rules-based world order" serves only to camouflage the political intentions of the U.S. empire to advance its interests in violation of international law.
Russia and China, which oppose the "Western community of values," WWG, are usually accused of disrupting the "rules-based international order."(15)
The WWG ruthlessly targets weaker states with sanctions and often with brutal military force. Iraq, Syria, and Libya are recent examples of the WWG's permanent breach of international law. The United Nations Charter, international law, is the only globally valid civil order. However, it does not prevent the WWG from its modern colonial wars.
Biden's assurance that "we do not want a war between NATO and Russia" should also be interpreted against this background. Ukraine's assurance not to attack targets on Russian territory with the U.S.-made HIMARS artillery system must be interpreted to mean that Crimea is still seen as Ukrainian territory and that an attack on the Russian naval arsenal in Sevastopol cannot be ruled out. This would then be the final step into the Third World War.
Russia's head of state Putin still takes a relaxed view of the arms deliveries to date. However, should Ukraine receive long-range missiles, he warns of a Russian reaction.(16)

For grassroots organizations like "Fridays for Future", "Campact" or "CORREKTIV", the war in Ukraine does not have the same importance as e.g. climate protection, although the military (armament, maneuvers and wars) is the biggest environmental destroyer. The demand for "outlawing war" is nowhere to be heard. Is it perhaps also because this demand would be directed primarily against the interests of U.S. corporations?
"No wonder," writes Willy Wimmer, "that the public has the impression that the war in Ukraine is the first NGO war in history. One only has to look at the media, which have been brought into line anyway, and their rounds of experts. The NGOs, from whose ranks the ladies and gentlemen represent the NGOs, are all trimmed for total war against Russia and its president."(17)

According to Wimmer, the way of thinking and the choice of words of today's experts in the German media reveal not only whose brainchild they are, but also what their clients expect from them. The public statements of the German Foreign Minister about Russia and its president are not inferior to this.(18)

The constant escalations lead the Ukraine war closer and closer to the edge of a pan-European conflict. In its wake, Europe could be destroyed and the world economy and financial market could be thrown into unprecedented turmoil.
US and EU sanctions policies will cause global supply chains to collapse, leading to an international food crisis. In parallel, runaway inflation will make the poor even poorer and the rich even richer. With the destruction of the legal system, disenfranchisement will continue. There will probably be further eruptions along all the fault lines of the First World War.
Each war-prolonging day will make peace and a necessary reconciliation more difficult.
But where is the resistance to the all-out war propaganda? Where are the peace movements?

Comments

1) https://article.wn.com/view/2022/06/07/selenskyj_x201eder_sieg_muss_auf_dem_schlachtfeld_errungen_w/
2) https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-resolution/758/text
3) Klitschko trainiert bei Schießübung Panzerabwehr unter https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/bei-bedarf-kiew-verteidigen-klitschko-trainiert-bei-schiessuebung-panzerabwehr-17244659.html vom 14.3.2021
4 https://www.president.gov.ua/documents/1172021-37533
5) https://www.voltairenet.org/article212706.html
6) Laut einer Umfrage des 2015 vom Deutschen Bundestag eingerichteten Zentrums für Osteuropa- und internationale Studien (ZOIS) betrachten sich 80 Prozent der Krimbewohner als russische und nur 3 Prozent als ukrainische Bürger. 13,3 sehen sich nur als Bürger der Krim, darunter viele Tataren, von denen sich rund die Hälfte auch als Russen bezeichnen. Privat sprechen mehr als 80 Prozent nur Russisch, 1 Prozent nur Ukrainisch und 2 Prozent nur Tatarisch
7) https://www.kyivpost.com/multimedia/photo/zelensky-visits-front-line-amid-russian-escalation-in-donbas-photos
8) https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/allianz-nato-ruestet-sich-fuer-konflikt-mit-moskau-1.5445998
9) https://www.help4you.info/pdf/19940801_TRADOC_Pamphlet_525-5.pdf
10) http://www.tradoc.army.mil/tpubs/pams/tp525-3-1.pdf
11) http://www.wsws.org/de/articles/2014/10/15/pers-o15.html
12) https://astutenews.com/2017/10/us-army-is-preparing-for-decades-of-hybrid-wars/
13) https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/usa-waffen-ukraine-krieg-russland-100.html
14) https://www.cashkurs.com/demokratieplattform/beitrag/regelbasierte-ordnung-faustrecht-geht-vor-voelkerrecht
15) https://verfassungsblog.de/voelkerrechtswidrigkeit-benennen-warum-die-bundesregierung-ihre-verbuendeten-fuer-den-syrien-luftangriff-kritisieren-sollte/
16) https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Warnung-aus-Russland-Putin-will-Lieferung-von-Raketen-mit-hoher-Reichweite-an-Ukraine-verhindern-article23379014.html
17) https://seniora.org/politik-wirtschaft/deutschland/voelker-sehet-die-signale
18) Ebd.

Wolfgang Effenberger

In the last week of May, this year's conference of the World Economic Forum took place under the motto "History at a Turning Point".
For the first time after a two-and-a-half-year pandemic break, the elite from politics, business and society had met not in snowy mountains but in a rain-soaked spring landscape. Whereas in the past more than 3,000 exponents of the international leadership had come, in 2022 there were a third fewer. But the expectations of 84-year-old founder Klaus Schwab were all the higher:
"Under the motto 'History at a Turning Point,' this year's annual meeting will be the most topical and important since the World Economic Forum was founded more than 50 years ago."(1)
With the war in Ukraine in mind, Schwab posited:
"Russia's attack will go down in the history books as the collapse of the post-World War II and Cold War world order."(2) By that definition, it was almost inevitable that at the May 23 Davos kickoff, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj would join in on an oversized screen and use his war-and-fight rhetoric to rally attendees for tougher sanctions against Russia. The year before, none other than China's President Xi Jinping had opened the then-virtual WEF event.
In his caricature, Austrian cartoonist Pepsch Gottscheber placed Selenskyi's dominant appearance in a frame showing an oversized and menacing-looking Selenskyi in front of a dwarfed-looking round table(3) representing the WEF.
The cartoon, published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on May 26, sparked a crossfire of criticism(4) which culminated in accusations of anti-Semitism.(5)
A day later, Süddeutsche Zeitung responded to the massive criticism with a brief statement on twitter.

While guests from Russia were misssing 2022, a large delegation from Ukraine traveled to Davos, including several members of parliament and the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko.
In Davos, the private British TBD Media Group -- founded in 2014 and now operating globally - also met with the supposed thought leaders preparing decisions for the future. According to its own statements, the TBD Media Group helps companies, organizations and governments communicate their messages and goals in a "human and direct way."(6) To do so, it runs global campaigns "that address key global challenges such as climate change and technology gaps."(7)
Commenting on the importance of Davos, Paolo Zanini, founder and CEO of TBD Media Group, said, "Davos is where decisions are made about our planet's today and tomorrow." He said TBD Media is proud to help make the philosophies and decision-makers accessible in an engaging and insightful way. Understanding the motivations of the people driving change is essential to effecting positive change, he said. "History is truly at a tipping point with the shockwaves of Covid, the conflict in Ukraine and the climate crisis, and we've been talking to the people who have control over the levers of action. We found out what they plan to do, how they plan to do it, and most importantly, why they make the decisions they do. We all want a cleaner, more just, and more peaceful world. To achieve that, we need to know the people who will be involved in making it happen."(8)

The opaque TBD Media Group thus acts as a mouthpiece, amplifier and PR manipulator. It was founded in the same year when on the Maidan the elected Ukrainian government had to flee in a coup orchestrated by the West(9) and in the USA the long-term strategic concept TRADOC 525-3-1 "Win in a Complex World 2020-2040" came into force, which formulates the reduction of the "threat" from Russia and China as the primary goal of the armed forces.
According to independent geopolitical analyst and author of numerous books Pepe Escobar, at Davos and beyond, NATO's optimistic narrative is being played like a broken record "that never changes its tune while Russia wins victories on the ground that could bring down the Atlantic order."(10)
Klaus Schwab had presented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj in Davos with a glowing tribute, emphasizing that Selenskyj is supported by "the whole of Europe and the international order." In the process, according to Escobar, "the struggle of the West (12 percent) against the rest (88 percent) continues to come to a head in Ukraine."(11)
In Davos, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) called Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine a failure and, referring to President Vladimir Putin, said, "He has already failed to achieve all his strategic goals."(12) But how would Scholz know Putin's strategic goals? In comparison with the wars of aggression of the USA together with the coalition of the willing - Yugoslavia 1999, Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003...- which were contrary to international law, Putin's war of aggression seems to have failed. The "successes" of the USA were produced in each case after murderous bombardment according to "Shock and Awe" from the air. After that, resistance on the ground was largely broken.
In the event of an imminent Russian defeat, Scholz rightly fears the use of nuclear means, and in the event of a possible victory, he warned of the dramatic consequences: "Putin wants to return to a world order in which the strongest dictate what is right; in which freedom, sovereignty and self-determination are just not for everyone," and he added: "That is imperialism!" It is, he said, an "attempt to bomb us back to a time when war was a common means of politics, when our continent and the world lacked a stable peace order."(13)
This worldview of Olaf Scholz needs no comment in its superficiality and obliviousness to history and gives rise to the worst fears.
If there were already numerous armed interventions by both superpowers during the Cold War, the frequency of such interventions even increased after the dissolution of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact) and the Soviet Union: "The U.S. waged wars in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, Russia in Georgia, Ukraine and (other parts of) Syria. In several cases, one of these powers sought to undermine the other by arming its military adversaries, often on a significant scale."(14)

The war in Ukraine has a long antecedent. On December 11, 2017, the foreign and defense ministers of 25 European member states signed the agreement on "Permanent Structured Cooperation" in the field of security and defense, known as " PESCO".

According to the German Ministry of Defense, the aim is for the EU "to be able to act in a security environment that has become more acute, especially since 2014."(15) The agreement was signed in December 2017.
In addition to regularly increasing the defense budget, the signatories to the PESCO agreement have committed themselves, among other things, to improving the sharing of existing capabilities and further enhancing the interoperability of EU battlegroups. In the EU's broad civil-military toolbox, priority is given to expanding military-use infrastructure to the east. So the modernization of the rail line from Bremerhaven - where U.S. tanks are transferred from ship to rail - across the Neisse River to Wroclaw and into Ukraine to Kiev is by no means accidental.(16)
 

Source: DB Netz AG in Aufgewacht Das Politikmagazin für Sachsen, Erstausgabe 2022, S. 34

To speak of a turning point in history today is more than negligent and will torpedo any readiness for peace. The turning point came after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the eastward expansion of NATO, which very early on wanted to integrate Ukraine or Georgia into the alliance.

So far, however, there has been no direct conflict between the forces. But now the conflict is taking place right on Russia's doorstep (memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis may be allowed here). U.S. support of Ukraine through targeted reconnaissance, command support as well as advisors to Ukrainian forces, if not through the covert use of mercenaries, has created a different dimension. Russia now feels existentially threatened. The step toward expanding the war to the point of a possible nuclear war is not far off. For Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev - head of the FSB domestic intelligence agency from Aug. 9, 1999, to May 12, 2008 - "the U.S. and U.K. governments, controlled by big business, are causing an economic crisis in the world and starving millions of people in Africa, Asia and Latin America by restricting their access to grain, fertilizer and energy resources. Through their actions, they are provoking unemployment and a migration catastrophe in Europe. They are not interested in the prosperity of European countries and are doing everything to push them off the pedestal of economically developed countries. And in order to control the region unconditionally, they put Europeans on a two-legged chair called NATO and EU, on which they balance contemptuously."(17) According to Patrushev, it is all about increasing the wealth of a group of tycoons in the City of London and on Wall Street.
A look at current financial flows seems to confirm this. For example, the financial elites in the U.S. and the U.K. seem to have little interest in settling the conflict. Since Putin's attack on Ukraine, the U.S. has achieved almost all of its goals:
- The NATO alliance is stronger than ever and northern expansion is imminent
- U.S. troop buildup in Europe
- Arms spending is fueling the military-industrial complex
- The development of Franco-German fighter planes has been halted
- The Nord Stream project is finished
- Germany's rapprochement with Russia is torpedoed in the long term
- Germany will buy expensive liquefied gas from the USA
- Germany will do without Russian gas, oil and coal
- Russia is weakened by the war and sanctions
- A regime change in Russia becomes possible

In the familiar style of the Anglo-Saxons, Patrushev said, today the U.S. dictates its terms to the world and disregards the sovereign rights of other states. "They disguise their actions with words about the struggle for human rights, freedom and democracy," but in reality they represent the interests of a small moneyed elite.

After Selenskyj's appearance, 98-year-old former U.S. Secretary of State and political scientist Henry Kissinger recalled in Davos that when the Ukraine crisis erupted in an armed coup in Kiev eight years ago, he had advocated that Ukraine become a neutral state and a "bridge between Russia and Europe, not a front line of factions within Europe."(18)
But that was not what the masterminds of the $5 billion coup had in mind. After all, the indispensable goal was the integration of the entire Ukraine into the West.

Kissinger also told the Daily Mail that the West should not contribute to Russia's defeat. He warned against further Western intervention in the Ukraine war and against an escalating confrontation between Beijing and Washington.
The fear of those who notice the writing on the wall that the war will drag on and possibly expand is justified. In parallel, inflation is soaring to previously unseen heights. The specter of impoverishment is again looming.
In the early 1980s, people in Germany recognized the threat posed by the Pershing II buildup. Millions demonstrated in the cities or formed human chains. Although today the threat of war has increased significantly, hardly anyone can be seen on the streets. Is this due to the lack of education by the media? Is the subtle public propaganda so successful or are people just tired?
Oscar Lafontaine, at any rate, is convinced that in the current situation it would be necessary "to take to the streets again in large numbers in the tradition of the peace movement of the 1980s or the demonstrations before the Iraq war."(19)

Notes

1) Kathrin Hondl: Zeitenwende in Davos 22.05.2022
 www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/weltwirtschaftsforum-davos-121.html
2) Ebd.
3) Hat sich der Zeichner hier vom Cover „Die unterschätzte Macht“ inspirieren lassen?
4)  meedia.de/2022/05/27/sz-wegen-selenskyj-karikatur-in-der-kritik/
5)  www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/gesellschaft/id_92263686/sz-karikatur-vorwurf-des-antisemitismus-das-gehoert-nicht-in-eine-zeitung-.html
6)  www.presseportal.de/pm/136020/4834593
7)  www.tbdmediagroup.com
8) Der Welt ein Fenster zu den Diskussionen in Davos öffnen
 www.wallstreet-online.de/nachricht/15516897-welt-fenster-diskussionen-davos-oeffnen
9) Sowohl in der Ukraine als auch in Serbien arbeitete Freedom House eng mit lokalen Gruppen zusammen, die für friedliche demokratische Revolutionen verantwortlich waren Zitiert aus www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=13484 (Original unter www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=249 (abgerufen am 18. Mai 2008) nicht mehr im Netz). Das überparteiliche Freedom House wurde am 10. November 1941 - einen Monat vor Kriegseintritt der USA - von Eleanor Roosevelt, Frau des demokratischen Präsidenten Franklin Roosevelt, und dem republikanischen Kandidaten von 1940, Wendell Willkie, gegründet. Als Ursache gibt Freedom House die zu dieser Zeit hoch im Kurs stehenden isolationistischen Tendenzen an. Zunächst sollte der Nazismus, das totalitäre Böse in Deutschland, abgewehrt werden. Mit Kriegsende wurde der Kampf gegen das totalitäre Böse in der Sowjetunion aufgenommen, wobei Freedom House aggressiv den McCarthyism unterstützte. Auf der anderen Seite setzte sich Freedom House für den Marshall-Plan und die Nato ein. Nach Beendigung des Kalten Krieges bemühte man sich vor allem um die »fragile democracies« im ehemaligen Ostblock. Seit 2001 konnten Büros in der Ukraine, Polen, Ungarn, Bosnien, Serbien, Jordanien, Mexico, und einer Vielzahl von Ländern in Central Asia eröffnet werden
10)NATO gegen Russland: Was passiert als Nächstes?  thecradle.co/Article/columns/10803
11) Ebd.
12)  web.de/magazine/politik/russland-krieg-ukraine/strategischen-ziele-verfehlt-scholz-rechnet-davos-putin-36969696
13) Ebd.
14) Malcolm Chalmers: This War Still Presents Nuclear Risks – Especially in Relation to Crimea  rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/war-still-presents-nuclear-risks-especially-relation-crim
15)  aif.ru/politics/world/pravda_na_nashey_storone_nikolay_patrushev_o_srokah_specoperacii
16)   www.bmvg.de/de/themen/gsvp-sicherheits-verteidigungspolitik-eu/pesco
17)  Ingrid Szagunn: Wieviel Zeit haben wir noch? Das Pentagon hat keine Skrupel, Europa zu opfern, Aufgewacht Das Politikmagazin für Sachsen, Erstausgabe 2022, S. 34
18)  pressefreiheit.rtde.tech/international/139254-ex-us-aussenminister-kissinger-zeit/
19) Ein Gespräch mit Oskar Lafontaine: www.defenddemocracy.press/die-usa-wollen-keinen-frieden/
Wolfgang Effenberger, born in 1946, a former officer in the German armed forces, has been a committed peace advocate since his first book, "Pax americana" (2004). In April 2022, he published "Die unterschätzte Macht: Von Geo- bis Biopolitik - Plutokraten transformieren die Welt". Other books by him on the subject:
"Return of the Hasardeurs" (2014, co-author Willy Wimmer), the trilogy "Europe's Doom 14/18" (2018/19) and "Black Book EU & NATO" (2020).

In this special Pangea's Grandangolo episode Jean Marazzani Visconti interviews Prof.  Michel Chossudovsky - award-winning, author of 11 books, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, and Founder, and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Prof. Chossudovsky discusses current geopolitical events, including the war in Ucraine and the possibility of nuclear escalation. He remarks that the US Military-Industrial Complex and nuclear weapons manufacturers, through a progressive whitewashing operation started in 2003, have gradually convinced government decision-makers to soften the thresholds for using nuclear bombs, even in conventional wars, claiming their limited danger to the population. He also talks about the privatization of war and governments and how this impacts current events.

Traduzione in Italiano (video in Inglese)
In questo episodio speciale di Grandangolo di Pangea Jean Toschi Marazzani Visconti intervista il Prof. Michel Chossudovsky - pluripremiato, autore di 11 libri, Professore (emerito) di Economia all'Università di Ottawa, Fondatore e Direttore del Centro di Ricerca sulla Globalizzazione (CRG).

Il Prof. Chossudovsky discute gli attuali eventi geopolitici, inclusa la guerra in Ucraina e la possibilità di un'escalation nucleare. Osserva che il complesso militare-industriale degli Stati Uniti e i produttori di armi nucleari, attraverso un'operazione di sbiancatura progressiva iniziata nel 2003, hanno gradualmente convinto i responsabili delle decisioni nei governi a ridurre le soglie per l'uso delle bombe nucleari, anche nelle guerre convenzionali, perché limitatamente pericolose per le popolazioni. Parla anche della privatizzazione della guerra e dei governi e di come ciò influisca sull'attualità.

Wolfgang Effenberger

Obviously, in the 21st century, the U.S. is consistently implementing the global strategy of the long-serving and influential Polish-born U.S. security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski with his road-map to "empire."

Rough drafts of a globalist road map were already sketched out by the British geographer Alfred Mackinder with his theory of the three steps to world domination published in 1904:
Via Eastern Europe, the Russian Heartland (eastward of the Urals, south of the Arctic Sea to the Caucasus), and the World Island (Eurasia) to domination of the world. Above all, according to Mackinder, it is a matter of preventing the domination of the world island of Eurasia by powers other than the USA and GB. For he who dominates the world island, dominates the world.

The long-serving and influential Polish-born U.S. national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski has done much to further fine-tune this road map to empire and, above all, has had a lasting influence on the Democratic elite - from President Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama. In his 1997 book, The Only World Power: America's Strategy for Domination (English: The Grand Chessboard. American Primacy and is geostrategic Imperatives), Brzezinski explains a comprehensive and self-contained "geostrategy" with regard to "winning" Eurasia. The very first page of the introduction states:
''The extent to which the United States can assert its global preeminence depends on how a globally engaged America copes with the complex power relations on the Eurasian continent-and whether it can prevent the emergence of a dominant adversary power there.''(1)
Of central importance to future American foreign policy, he said, is the space from Lisbon to Vladivostok. It is necessary to prevent "the emergence in Eurasia of a power that could challenge U.S. primacy; indeed, not even the refereeing role of the United States may cease."(2) According to Brzezinski, this requires a high degree of tactics and manipulation. Ultimately, the European states are supposed to be the bridgehead for the USA to keep all of Eurasia under control. And not only that: As vassals of the USA, they are to pay for and enforce the domination of the Eurasian continent. In this, France and Germany are given a special position.  They are to be the vanguard in Europe and, together with Poland and Ukraine, are to be given special privileges by the USA.(3)
Moreover, the process of EU enlargement and the expansion of the transatlantic security alliance should proceed in well-considered stages.(4)
Brzezinski takes a visionary view of the coming developments in Europe: the time frame between 2005 and 2015 should be envisaged for a successive integration of Ukraine.(5)
Brzezinski's prevision was probably a bit too euphoric: "After Romania and the Baltic states, Sweden and Finland will be subordinated to the U.S. after 2005 and Ukraine by 2010."(6)
According to Brzezinski, the possible stalling of NATO enlargement means the end of a comprehensive U.S. policy for all of Eurasia. "Such a failure would discredit American leadership; it would destroy the plan for an expanding Europe."(7)
The foreword for the German edition was written by the go-getting German politician Hans-Dietrich Genscher (FDP) - who, among other things, was Germany's foreign minister almost continuously from 1974 to 1992. Right at the beginning, he pointed to the end of bipolarity after the Cold War and the new global challenges that have arisen as a result: "It is a matter of shaping a stable world order in the age of globalization" and taking to heart Brzezinski's plea to view the area from Lisbon to Vladivostok as a single entity.(8)
Given the developments in Eastern Europe and especially in Ukraine, one might think that Brzezinski has provided the script here:

"Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent state contributes to Russia's transformation. Without Ukraine, Russia is no longer a Eurasian empire.... However, if Moscow were to regain dominion over Ukraine, with its 52 million people, significant mineral resources, and access to the Black Sea, Russia would automatically gain the means to become a powerful empire spanning Europe and Asia. If Ukraine lost its independence, this would have immediate consequences for Central Europe and would make Poland a geopolitical pivot on the eastern border of a united Europe."(9)
It is against this backdrop that the U.S./NATO and EU orchestrated influences on Ukraine should be understood: the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Maidan coup in 2014.
On August 7, 2014, NATO Secretary General Fogh Rasmussen pledged in Kiev that the Western alliance stood firmly by Ukraine's side, accusing Russia of destabilizing the country and supporting the pro-Russian separatists.(10)

How could the NATO Secretary General arbitrarily make such far-reaching promises to a country without EU or NATO membership?
A month later, the new U.S. long-term strategy, Win in a Complex World 2020-2040 (TRADOC 525-3-1), went into effect. In it, the Army, Navy and Air Force were attuned to future conflicts: First was the threat from Russia and China, then Iran and North Korea, and only last was the threat from transnational terrorists.
On December 4, 2014, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H. Res. 758, which strongly condemned the actions of the Russian Federation under President Vladimir Putin: The Russian Federation was pursuing a policy of aggression against neighboring countries aimed at political and economic domination.(11)
The resolution was passed with a speed unusual in the history of the U.S. legislative process. In just 16 days, H.RES.758 was debated in the Foreign Affairs Committee and then referred back to the House of Representatives for debate and passage. Subsequently, the resolution passed by a vote of 411 to 10!
On the very day the resolution was passed, congressional veteran Ron Paul called it "one of the nastiest pieces of legislation" on his website in the article "Reckless Congress 'Declares War' on Russia."(12) He saw this 16-page bill as pure war propaganda that should make even neocons blush with shame.
And Canadian economist Michel Chossudovsky worried about global security. In his view, the House of Representatives had effectively given the U.S. president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces a "green light" to enter into a process of military confrontation with Russia without further congressional approval.(13) "This historic vote," Chossudovsky said, "potentially affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world, was virtually blanketed in the media." To this day, the public hardly knows anything about it! Former Reagan Administration Deputy Treasury Secretary and Wall Street Journal editor Paul Craig Roberts saw the resolution against Russia as a pack of lies(14) at the time, and he asks today, "Will we be destroyed in a war before we lose our freedom to the establishment's orchestrated "covid pandemic"?
On December 18, 2014, U.S. President Obama signed another bill to combat "Russian military intervention in Ukraine" (referring to Russian support for separatists in the Donbass): the "Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014" (H.R. 5859).

In October 2017, another strategic concept went into effect, U.S. Army Is Preparing For Decades Of Hybrid Wars 2025-2040.(15)

Also indicative of clandestine war preparations is the spring 2019 re-establishment of the Committee on the Present Danger: China.(16)This committee existed during the McCarthy era in the 1950s, but now it has been re-established and is directing its activities solely against China. Thus, the Anglo-American financial oligarchy is planning war against Russia and China as a way out of its own misery.
In view of their geopolitical goals, the transatlantic tacticians were able to ensure a suitable EU leadership duo. The EU's most important posts were divided between Germany and France, with Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen inheriting Claude Juncker. She had cleverly placed a commentary in the New York Times(17) on January 18, 2019, throwing her candidacy into the transatlantic ring. In it, she pathetically described NATO as an alliance based on the "common aspirations of its members and determined to protect the freedom, common heritage, and civilization of peoples founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law."(18) She also described NATO as an alliance based on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law.
She cited Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, the Chinese show of force in the South China Sea, and the terror of the Islamic State as counterpoints to this noble worldview.
During her appearances at the Bilderbergers, the Atlantic Bridge and the Munich Security Conference, von der Leyen clearly demonstrated that there is no doubt about her loyalty to the United States. She came up with the slogan of the "military union," the forced advancement of military cooperation all the way to a European army. She stands for the militarization of the entire EU and is a representative of the military-industrial complex.(19)

With Christine Lagarde, a woman without any experience in banking inherited ECB President Mario Draghi. To compensate, she can think strategically, because as a member of the think tank "Center for Strategic and International Studies" (CSIS) she led the USA-EU-Poland Action Committee together with Zbigniew Brzezinski from 1995 to 2002. From 1995 to 2002, she was especially involved in the working group "Arms Industry USA-Poland". In 2003, she was also a member of the "Euro- Atlantic Action Commission" in Washington.(20) When analyzing Poland's military activities today, it must be noted that Ms. Largarde did great groundwork, which was purposefully continued by Ms. von der Leyen.
Since the war against Yugoslavia, which violated international law, NATO has reserved the right to intervene militarily in exceptional cases and on the basis of a consensus decision by the allies, even without a UN mandate. NATO as an offensive alliance! Paul Craig Roberts put it in a nutshell:
"If the majority of humanity does not wake up soon and resolutely oppose this madness, Washington will destroy the world!"
The warning fizzled out unheard, and the war drums beat louder and louder. Just before America's national holiday, July 4, 2019, influential think tanks Bloomberg and Council on Foreign Relations promoted war against the Sino-Russian alliance. The originators of this intention, which is momentous for the world, are not unserious cranks, but renowned men from the academic, military and financial worlds: Professor Hat Brands, an expert on geostrategy at Johns Hopkins University, and James Stavridis, the former admiral and current financial analyst at the Carlyle Group.
The Ukraine conflict has a long lead-in. The Los Alamos Study Group - one of the most respected and well-informed anti-nuclear war groups in the world, according to John Pilger - sees the main cause in the current Ukrainian war as the 1992 Wolfowitz Doctrine, which postulated preventing the reemergence of a new rival to the United States, whether in the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere. Any hostile power must be prevented from dominating a region whose resources would be sufficient to produce a global power.(21)
In 2019, the RAND Corporation - an influential think tank founded in 1948 - outlined ways to overextend and unbalance Russia in its study (Overextending and Unbalancing Russia).(22)
On the benefits of increased arms deliveries to Ukraine, the study states:
"Expanding U.S. aid to Ukraine, including lethal military support, would likely increase the cost of holding the Donbass region for Russia, both in blood and in the national budget. More Russian aid to the separatists and an additional Russian troop presence would lead to higher costs, equipment losses, and Russian casualties. The latter could become quite controversial at home, as it did when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan."(23)

On January 10, 2022, the nuclear engagement paper, "The Nuclear Disposition Review: What It Is and Why It Matters," became public. Putin's February 21, 2022 statement was likely a response to U.S. threats to use nuclear weapons preemptively against Russia.(24)

On February 28, 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly (417:10) passed the "Ukrainian Democracy Defense Land-Lease Act," a reauthorization of the January 1941 Land-Lease Act - the same year the U.S. was then in World War 2. The bill had been introduced on January 19, 2022 - one month before the outbreak of war in Ukraine(!). In view of such an overwhelming majority in the U.S. Congress for a war-promoting law, it is not to be expected that peace-promoting impulses will emanate from this Congress, especially since this war will again flush a lot of money into the U.S. arms industry. Thus, it cannot be ruled out that the United States is aiming to "provoke Russian President Vladimir V. Putin into a major war."(25)
On March 27, 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz bluntly admitted on Anne Will's talk show that the elaborate sanctions against Russia had been decided long before the Russian attack on Ukraine.
On May 3, 2022, to the horror of many transatlanticists, Pope Francis stated in an interview with Corriere Della Sera, "it may have been NATO's barking at Russia's gates that prompted Putin to invade Ukraine." He does not know whether his (Putin's) anger was provoked, but he suspects the West's attitude played its part."(26)
Since this war could not only drag on but escalate further, it is worth recalling the cautionary words of important contemporaries:

Ramsey Clark 1991:
"The greatest crime since World War II has been American foreign policy.
I warn Europeans not to believe that the U.S. would have any qualms about intervening militarily in Europe as well, within the framework of the New World Order. The U.S. would not tolerate a European nuclear and economic superpower for long."

And Thomas Mann, in U.S. exile, had recognized the Americans' inclination,
"to treat Europe as an economic colony, a military base, a glacis in the future atomic crusade against Russia, as a piece of the earth which may be antiquarian interesting and worth traveling, but about whose complete ruin one will give a damn when the struggle for world domination is on."(27)

On May 8, the day on which world peace is praised as the highest good worldwide and especially in Germany, and no parliament can do without the dogma of gaining peace for the future from an unpeaceful past, the U.S. continues its unreserved march to expand its global domination, even at the price of world peace.

Notes

1) Zbigniew Brzezinski: „Die einzige Weltmacht: Amerikas Strategie der Vorherrschaft“ 1999 (Englisch: The Grand Chessboard. American Primacy and ist geostrategic Imperatives 1997), S. 15
2) Ebd., S. 283
3) Ebd., S. 128
4) Ebd., S. 126
5) Ebd., S. 128
6) Ebd.
7) Ebd., 129
8) Ebd., S. 10
9) Ebd. 74/75
10) https://rotefahne.eu/2014/08/nato-rasmussen-kiew-wir-stehen-bereit/
11) https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-resolution/758/text
12) http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2014/december/04/reckless-congress-declares-war-on-russia/
13) Michel Chossudovsky: Amerika auf dem »Kriegspfad«: Repräsentantenhaus ebnet Krieg mit Russland den Weg vom 6.112.2014 unter http://info.kopp-verlag.de/hintergruende/geostrategie/prof-michel-chossudovsky/amerika-auf-demkriegspfad- repraesentantenhaus-ebnet-krieg-mit-russland-den-weg.html
14) Paul Craig Roberts: Russia Has Western Enemies, Not Partners vom 5. Dezember 2014, unter http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/12/05/russia-western-enemies-partners-paul-craig-roberts/
15) Multi-doman Battle: Evolution of Combined Arms fort he 21st Century
https://admin.govexec.com/media/20171003_-_working_draft_-_
16) https://presentdangerchina.org/
17) Ursula von der Leyen: The World Still Needs NATO, NYT am 18. Januar 2019
18) Ebd.
19)Top oder Flop? Die aussichtsreichsten Kandidaten für die EU-Spitzenpositionen:

htts://de.sputniknews.com/politik/20190703325375732-kandidaten-eu-spitzenposten/
20) Wolfgang Effenberger: NATO und EU teuflische Institutionen – kreiert durch US-Geheimdienste? Mit EU-Triumvirat in den NATO-Krieg gegen Russland und China: http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=26077&css=print
21) seniora.org/wunsch-nach-frieden/der-wunsch-nach-frieden/ein-loesungsvorschlag-fuer-den-ukraine-krieg
22) https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html
23) Zitiert nach https://linkezeitung.de/2021/05/04/was-die-rand-corporation-2019-in-einer-studie-geschrieben-hat-ist-zwei-jahre-spaeter-alles-eingetreten/
24) https://www.globalresearch.ca/preemptive-nuclear-war-a-third-world-war-spells-the-end-of-humanity-as-we-know-it/5772695
25) United States seeks to provoke Russia into escalation in Ukraine
http://www.defenddemocracy.press/united-states-seeks-to-provoke-russia-into-escalation-in-ukraine/
26) https://www.corriere.it/cronache/22_maggio_03/pope-francis-putin-e713a1de-cad0-11ec-84d1-341c28840c78.shtml
27) Thomas Mann: Deutsche Hörer! Europäische Hörer! Verlag Darmstädter Blätter 1986
Wolfgang Effenberger, born in 1946, a former officer in the German armed forces, has been a committed peace advocate since his first book, "Pax americana" (2004). In April 2022, he published "Die unterschätzte Macht: Von Geo- bis Biopolitik - Plutokraten transformieren die Welt". Other books by him on the subject:
"Wiederkehr der Hasardeure" (2014, Koautor Willy Wimmer), die Trilogie „Europas Verhä

 An indisputable authority on NATO affairs reveals the truth – without knowing he does and without the media
understanding his sensational statements

Jan Oberg

April 8, 2022

Truth will out, as they say, and sometimes it in strange ways. On March 9, 2022, the former Danish Prime Minister and former NATO Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, gave an interview to Danish Television 2. Here a 30 sec excerpt.

In my view, it was deeply shocking for three reasons.

First, what he actually says:

“If we send planes, it’s to protect Ukrainian airspace, and then we have to be ready to shoot down Russian planes. That would undeniably mean war between NATO and Russia.”

That doesn’t worry him. He does not say that the West/NATO should therefore refrain from doing so. See below how he thinks it will go.

“I think if it’s going to deter Putin, we shouldn’t rule anything out. And I’m among those who say we should keep Putin in maximum uncertainty.”

Not ruling out anything in NATO parlance indisputably means that the use of nuclear weapons is also a possibility. And he knows that very well as a former NATO S-G.

Fogh Rasmussen does not mention nuclear weapons. It is better not to. But he does know that NATO is based on nuclear weapons and reserves the right to be the first to use them even against conventional attacks, so that is what he must be interpreted to mean. Precisely with the background he has.

Keeping an adversary in “maximum insecurity” in a dangerous conflict is, from a risk-analytic perperspective, an insane and dangerous philosophy. The conflict is already heavily militarized and both sides have large arsenals of nuclear weapons; moreover, all Western media and commentators are now claiming that Putin has probably gone mad in the psychiatric meaning of mad.

So it is not just a completely irresponsible philosophy. The statement testifies that Fogh Rasmussen, despite his background, is conflict illiterate.

“We cannot exclude that NATO sends fighter aircraft against Russia, says Fogh”

“The Ukrainians have shown an amazing willingness to fight, and we will support them to the end.”

To the end?

In the context of his escalation idea, it is reasonable to assume that he also – by that formulation – includes nuclear bombing of Russia until it stops its military activities in Ukraine.

It also says that in Fogh Rasmussen’s view Ukraine is in effect a NATO member that we should support – even though formally it is not. He does not stress that the West has no obligation to support Ukraine since it is not a NATO member and therefore not covered by NATO’s musketeer oath (Art 5 in the NATO Treaty).

Then TV2 continues: “And should the Russian president end up interpreting the West’s weapons as a declaration of war, the former secretary general has no doubt who would ultimately win?

And listen carefully to Fogh Rasmussen’s answer with no hesitation:

“Putin will be beaten to a pulp by NATO. Once NATO moves, it will be with enormous force. You have to remember that the investments we make in defence are ten times greater than Putin’s,” he says.

So what has not been mentioned in the Danish and Western media so far suddenly comes out here: Russia is a military dwarf compared to NATO’s 30 members. It can beat Putin – Russia – to a pulp (in Danish “Plukfisk” – fish meat torn to pieces).

Says a man who knows NATO from the inside.

In other words, you and I have been deceived – grossly – the last three decades. Tax payers money squeezed out by lying about the immense Russian threat and, thereby, increasing citizens’ fears.

The exact situation right now, I can inform you, is that Russia’s military expenditure is 8% of NATO’s – namely US$ 66 billion and has been decreasing the last few years. There will now be a gigantic further over-armament within NATO – all up to 2% of their GNP, or more.

Germany has shrugged off all restrictions and will henceforth have a military budget of US$ 112 – that alone is almost double Russia’s.

In other words, Fogh Rasmussen speaks as the suddenly militarily superior, victory-proof militarist who in reality does not at all see Russia as a threat but is confident that the formidable alliance can beat Putin – by which he means by definition all of Russia and its people – to a “pulp.”

I wrote “shocking” above.

It is deeply shocking what is actually being said here: nuclear war in Europe is perfectly OK, even if it is not something Fogh Rasmussen wants. But that bastard in Moscow, we can corner even further so he might overreact again – and then we beat the crap out of him.

Russia, which we have heard for decades is a gigantic threat to us, must be crushed with our superior power. We’re not the least bit afraid of Putin Plukfisk!

The second shocking thing is that TV2 does not understand what it is doing – or not doing with these sensational views.

He is allowed to state them unchallenged, without their content being problematised, without others being asked to comment on such extremist positions or point out that Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s statements are completely unacceptable both professionally and ethically.

How long will TV2 – and virtually all other media – continue to cheer on the West’s self-righteous war of revenge? How far will they go? Consciously or because editors and journalists have no relevant expertise on war – let alone peace – but think mainly in terms of ratings.

And then it’s shocking for a third reason. If it had come to light that twenty years ago Fogh Rasmussen had put his hand on a woman’s thigh, the Danish press would be in a frenzy to condemn him in the media court.

So far, he has – only – been partly responsible, as NATO S-G, for the suffering of millions in Iraq and Libya, in total violation of international law and the UN Treaty.

Now he says – only – that we must win over Russia once and for all even if it means major war.

Nuclear war.

And nobody reacts.

In the Danish spirit pond and its media, he is regarded as a great statesman who speaks wise words.

About nuclear war for the sake of good democracies.

Source: https://transnational.live

Wolfgang Effenberger

At the invitation of U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, representatives of 40 countries discussed the Ukraine war at U.S. Air Force Base Ramstein/Rhineland-Palatinate on Tuesday, April 26, 2022, one day after his departure from Kiev. Among them were countries that are not members of NATO. In the run-up, the U.S. Department of Defense had stressed that the meeting was not taking place under the umbrella of the alliance.

Why did the meeting not take place in Washington, why not in Brussels, but at the U.S. base in Ramstein? On a military airfield of the "United States Air Force", which is located on German territory but has immunity similar to an embassy and is thus exempt from German jurisdiction,(1) "Ramstein Air Base" also hosts the headquarters of the "United States Air Forces Europe", the "Air Forces Africa" and the "Allied Air Command Ramstein", a NATO command authority for the command of air forces. Furthermore, the base is home to the "US-603d Air and Space Operations Center"(2) which conducts the control of combat drone missions with targeted killings of terror suspects in Africa (Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan and formerly Afghanistan).(3) Potentially illegal US arms deliveries as well as prisoner transfers running through Ramstein are also off-limits to German law enforcement agencies. Most importantly, the U.S. base, always a hub of U.S. military operations, has been increasingly used for cargo and troop shipments to Rzeszów-Jasionka in southern Poland, near the Ukrainian border, for several months. On March 25, 2022 -U.S. President Joe Biden visited the U.S. garrison there and pointed out the importance of their deployment far beyond Ukraine. Should these U.S. soldiers be wounded, they would be transported to the "Landstuhl Regional Medical Center", the largest U.S. military hospital outside the United States, located just 13 kilometers from Ramstein Air Base.

Largely unnoticed by the public, the not only largest but also most modern American military clinic is now being built within walking distance of Ramstein: nine operating theaters, a total of more than 4,500 rooms (a large part of the costs are borne by the Federal Republic).(4) The best U.S. military surgeons and trauma specialists will be working here as late as 2022. So the U.S. is well prepared for a major war in Europe.

Departing Kiev on 4/25/2022, Austin emphasized that the Ukrainians could win "if they have the right equipment and the right support."(5) As a war goal, Austin stated, "We want Russia weakened to the point where it is no longer capable of something like invading Ukraine."(6) Pushing Russia even below the status of a regional power means, in plain English, conjuring up a nuclear war.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke of a "historic meeting" at the opening of the Ukraine consultations in Ramstein.
The Ukraine conflict, he said, is about a challenge to all free people around the world.
"We are all here because we admire Ukraine's courage and because we cannot bear to see your people suffer and civilians killed." And addressing the representatives of Ukraine, "Your country was invaded, your hospitals were bombed, your citizens were executed, your children were traumatized."(7) In conclusion, Austin praised the outstanding defense performance and predicted that the courage and capabilities of Ukrainians would go down in military history.
Austin promised Ukraine "our help" even after the war ended. "We're behind you." Yet a look at U.S. war history should sober Ukrainians. The U.S. paid five billion U.S. dollars for the coup it orchestrated in 2013/14 - there's a dividend coming.
With this emotionally charged pro-war welcome, there is unlikely to be room for peacemaking approaches in the "consultations." Thus, suffering is likely to continue on both sides and Ukraine will have to endure unimaginable destruction.
The longer the war lasts, the more difficult the necessary reconciliation will be later on.
And this war does not seem to be just about a proxy war: The U.S. is implementing the goals set out in its 2014 long-term strategy TRADOC 525-3-1: "Win in a Complex World 2020-2040." U.S. forces are primarily to reduce the threat posed by Russia and China: The only way to do that is through one or more wars.
Unfortunately, the geopolitical context of the conflict is largely ignored and the blame is placed solely on Russia, which is accused of pursuing a policy of unilateral conquest. Further motives for Russia's "special military operation" must not be asked.

There is no doubt that the Russian leadership disregarded the prohibition of the use of force under international law by invading Ukraine and united left and right, liberals and conservatives, nationalists and globalists in one front with this operation. In March 1999, at the start of the war against Yugoslavia/Kosovo, the United States permanently enshrined NATO's crisis intervention role with the new NATO Strategy MC 400/2. Since then, the alliance has reserved the right to intervene militarily even without an explicit mandate from the United Nations Security Council. Thus, Serbia was then bombed for 78 days and nights with appropriate enemy propaganda. In 2001, the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan followed. The only offense: The Taliban had not delivered asylum seeker Osama bin Laden fast enough.
Before the war against Iraq, U.S. President G.W. Bush had codified the Pre-Emptive Doctrine in a National Security Directive to legitimize a new type of war. Since an armed attack on the United States or a neighboring state of Iraq, which the U.S. could then have come to the aid of, was not imminent, the "pre-emptive war" was conjured out of the hat.(8) It is intended to nip "possible" dangers in the bud - similar to the murder of the children of Bethlehem after the birth of Christ. This concept also includes the "preventive military strike" (e.g. the strike against Iraqi nuclear research on June 7, 1981). Then, in 2003, the destruction of Iraq took place. Scanty evidence of (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction sufficed as a pretext. In 2011, the Libyan army was destroyed, plunging the country into continuing chaos. And a year later it was Syria's turn (after 9/11, seven Arab countries were put on a destruction list by the Pentagon that same month). Even today, military units of the NATO countries USA and Turkey are on Syrian soil in violation of international law, against the declared will of the internationally recognized government.
Since April 18, 2022, NATO member Turkey has been conducting an air and land military operation beyond its borders in northern Iraq in violation of international law - without any protests from the "Western community of values." Ankara argues that Turkey has the right to this cross-border military action according to the principle of so-called disadvantages.(9) This view is accepted by Washington, and so this war has been simmering on since 1984. Turkey is militarily superior, but cannot defeat the Kurdish Workers' Party, PKK, in northern Iraq.
For the self-proclaimed Western community of values, the law of the fist seems to apply, and not only since 1999.
On October 25, 1983, the superpower USA invaded the mini-Caribbean island of Grenada as part of its Operation Urgent Fury. U.S. President Reagan justified the invasion with a preceding violent coup d'état by "leftist murderers" on the island. It was necessary to "protect our own citizens (on the island) ... and to help rebuild democratic institutions in Grenada"(10). After four days, the unequal battle ended in absolute victory for the U.S.(11)
Most people in the world certainly do not want the law of the strongest to prevail. Rather, the strength of the law should prevail. This is always consensual when the value West wants to assert its interests. For example, Angela Merkel insisted on the primacy of the strength of the law vis-à-vis Russia on the occasion of the Crimea crisis, just as she did vis-à-vis her hosts on a trip to China in 2016. And in January 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz admonished Russia with similar words.
That the United States has now rediscovered international law is more than welcome, if not necessarily credible.
In the run-up to the Ukraine consultation in Ramstein, the largest opposition faction in the Bundestag (CDU/CSU) clearly spoke out in favor of supplying heavy weapons to Ukraine, as did FDP defense politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann.(12) The Greens' willingness to do so is unbroken anyway.
And Ramstein will send a clear signal for extensive deliveries of war-critical material.
The U.S. wants to help Ukraine defeat Russia, supply it with armaments and support it with advisors, but prevent the U.S. or NATO from officially becoming a party to the war. This sounds like wash me, but don't get me wet. Such decisions should include input from the opposing belligerent's assessment of the facts. Before the heatedly discussed topic of arms deliveries, serious tones came from Moscow. On April 25, 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, according to the Interfax news agency, that the Ukraine war could degenerate into a world war: "The danger is serious, it is real, it is not to be underestimated."(13) In this regard, Russia views the NATO arms deliveries as legitimate targets for attack by Russian forces. "When NATO enters into a de facto war with Russia through a proxy and arms that proxy, "Lavrov said, "you do in war what you have to do in war."(14)
The looming catastrophe could have been avoided. Once by consistent application of international law - even externally organized regime change is a crime - and recognition of the rights of others. In the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs, U.S. political scientist at the University of Chicago, John J. Mearsheimer wrote the seminal article "Why the West is to Blame for the Ukraine Crisis." Mearsheimer, who focuses primarily on International Relations, believes it is the height of folly to admit new members to NATO that others are unwilling to defend. Previous NATO expansions, he says, were made on the assumption that, according to the liberal worldview, the alliance would never have to honor its new security guarantees. But the recent Russian power play proved that Russia and the West would be on a collision course if Ukraine became a NATO member.
Continuing current policies would strain the West's relations with Moscow and bring Moscow and Beijing even closer together.
"The U.S. and its European allies face a choice on the Ukraine issue. They can continue their current policies, intensifying hostilities with Russia and wrecking Ukraine - a scenario from which all parties would emerge as losers. Or they can change course and aim for a prosperous but neutral Ukraine that poses no threat to Russia and allows the West to patch up its relations with Moscow. With such an approach, all sides would win."(15)

Mearsheimer can only be agreed with this. However, this honorable approach collides with the Anglo-Saxon competitive ideology of "the winner takes it all". At the time of publication of his article, Mearsheimer could not have known anything about the strategy paper TRADOC 525-3-1 "Win in a Complex World 2020-2040", which was also published in September 2014.
Fatally, the U.S. risks only the destruction of its allies in Europe with its aggressive policy, so one may well ask to what extent American and European interests are still in harmony. According to Klaus von Dohnanyi, former Federal Minister of Education and Science and First Mayor of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg from 1981 to 1988, Germany and Europe today are anything but sovereign in matters of security and foreign policy. "It is the U.S. that sets the direction here in Europe."(16) Against this background, the choice of the U.S. airbase in Ramstein as a "place of consultation" in the Ukraine conflict has more than symbolic character. It is more likely to have been a matter of issuing orders to the dependent allies.

Notes

1)Wissenschaftliche Dienste „Der Bundestag“: https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/531932/f011954610186c3edadc3cf94c6f1e86/wd-2-086-17-pdf-data.pdf
2)https://web.archive.org/web/20101227075807/http://www.3af.usafe.af.mil/units/index.asp
3)https://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/archiv/2013/US-Drohnenkrieg-laeuft-ueber-Deutschland,ramstein109.html
4)https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/nahe-ramstein-im-bau-groesstes-amerikanisches-krankenhaus-100.html
5)https://www.gmx.at/magazine/politik/russland-krieg-ukraine/ukraine-krieg-news-ticker-us-verteidigungsminister-austin-richtigen-militaerausruestung-ukraine-krieg-gewinnen-36757878
6)Ebd.
7)https://www.merkur.de/politik/ukraine-krise-us-verteidigungsminister-40-staaten-gipfel-deutschland-ramstein-news-91501345.html
8)https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2717104
9)https://www.srf.ch/news/international/fruehjahrsoffensive-gegen-pkk-wenn-der-schnee-schmilzt-schlaegt-die-tuerkei-im-nordirak-zu
10)Grenada-Invasion: »Ronald Reagans größte Stunde«
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/grenada-invasion-ronald-reagans-groesste-stunde-a-0563f4c3-0002-0001-0000-000014024311
11)19 Tote auf amerikanischer Seite und 70 tote Soldaten und 24 Zivilisten auf der anderen Seite
12)Bundestag diskutiert über Waffenlieferung
https://www.br.de/nachrichten/deutschland-welt/schwere-waffen-fuer-die-ukraine-ein-streitgespraech-im-br24live,T42pojD
13)Lawrow sieht „reale Gefahr“ eines Weltkriegs - und nennt Nato-Waffenlieferungen legitime Angriffsziele
https://www.merkur.de/politik/ukraine-news-lawrow-russland-dritte-weltkrieg-nato-waffen-angriffsziele-usa-verhandlungen-zr-91501592.html
14)Ebd.
15)John J. Mearsheimer: Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin unter http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141769/john-j-mearsheimer/why-the-ukraine-cri- sis-is-the-wests-faul
16)Klaus von Dohnany: Nationale Interessen. Orientierung für deutsche und europäische Politik in Zeiten globaler Umbrüche. Siedlerverlag 2022, S. 10

NOW - China: "The US is the master of disinformation."pic.twitter.com/VpJtfp8HSN

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) April 25, 2022

Pirkko Turpeinen-Saari, MD. Chief psychiatrist, former member of Finnish Parliament

 

The propaganda stream from last week has reminded me strongly of the propaganda surrounding the US-EU-Germany initiated destruction and occupation of Yugoslavia 30 years ago.

The actions of Ruder-Finn marketing firm, economically supported by CIA and US-nazi-diaspora resembled the present ”western” propaganda. Now it is not only one firm but more than 100 firms.

Ruder-Finn had a permanent collaboration with 400 journalists, to whom they fed the  information CIA and US-foreign policy and EU-Germany’s BND wanted them to convey. The journalists needed to visit places of action only briefly in order to get the taste of genuinity and blood to their stories.

Serbs, who supported democracy, international law and the independence of Yugoslavia, not the splitting, had to be demonized. Deeply humane general Ratko Mladic, who because of his intelligence and creativity described the false images conveyed by the ”west” as questionable, had to be proven a ”war criminal”, just like president Putin is described in the present conflict in Ukraine.

The explosions in Markale square and bread-line were false flags and gave the reason to bomb the Serbs by NATO. The collaboration between caliphate building Bosnian muslims, NATO and American generals leading the muslim troops like John Galvin was seamless.

The ”Srebrenica massacre” had been ordered by president Clinton already in 1993. Now it was reinvented in August 1995 by ICTY official visiting Tuzla, 80 km apart from Srebrenica. At the same time, side by side with him was an UN-official interviewing Srebrenica inhabitants, out of whom no one had seen any massacres.

During 25  years scientists have collected enourmous amounts of information about what happened during 1992-93 in Serb-villages around Srebrenica, when muslim villagers attaced and killed Serbs. There is also piles of information, what happened after Bosnian Serb army had arrived in Srebrenica, the Muslim army had fled fighting its way towards Tuzla.

Every bone has been studied. Has the person died of artillery barrage, in the minefields or been executed. The number of executed persons has been around 400.

I have on my desk a massive book: Srebrenica, Reality and Manipulations. Articles have been written by scientists, generals, UN-commanders out of whom general Karremans has explaned how massive the politcal pressure was right after the conflict, to describe what happened according to the western narrative.

In spite of all the information available, the first propaganda narrative is very much alive and is in use again in the information war concerning the Russian military operation in Ukraine.

The governments of Finland in the 1990s  gave their unconditional support to the Ruder-Finn war-narrative. Finland wanted to be a member of EU. That is why it wanted to please the US-led NATO, but especially EU-Germany and Helmut Kohl. That decennium was in a way psychological and physical; military rehearsal to join the unipolar US-led world, where the expansion was performed through bombings and horrendous economic sanctions.

For me it is most painful to tell my grand-children to which extent the Finnish government led by Paavo Lipponen was ready to go to serve the US and Germany.

President Bill Clinton wanted to occupy militarily the whole of Yugoslavia. It had a strong military presence in Europe already  by occupying Germany. He wanted however more. He wanted to rule the whole of Balkans to rule the oil- and drugtrade and human trafficing. Finnish president Ahtisaari was a helping hand in all of this.

Yugoslavia had been threatened with new bombings since the Dayton accords. Nazi-Croats and Osama bin Laden’s jihadists were president Clintons allies. Kosovo Albanians were not for democarcy but for direct action and violence. They did not want to participate in democratic rule for 9 years. In 1998 president Clinton renamed the terrorists as freedom-fighters.

The Serbian government police-force informed the media and society that it was 15.1.1999 going to empty the village of Racak in Kosovo of terrorists and weapons as the Albanians had killed local police-officers. AP-TV cameras recorded the fights from early morning until afternoon about 15.pm. Several journalists, OSCE- inspecors were stationed at the hill tops. The bodies could not be fethced from the hills as there was sporadic shooting at judical officers trying to get the bodies down.

As the judge and policemen came the next day to verify the situation, the US chairman of Kosovo OSCE, William Walker was already at the scene with a large group of journalists. The group convened around a ditch, which was full of dead bodies 45, all together. Walter claimed that the people had been executed in a brutal way. Heads cut, shot at neck as victims had tried to climbe from the ditch.

This false statement was telephoned to all NATO-governments during the week-end, before the journalists had got their articles and films out for the public.

As a result of this provocation all the NATO-countries agreed that there is no space for any negotiations longer. The only alternative is to bomb Yugoslavia.

The Yugoslav government invited a Finnish forensic team to study the Racak bodies and find out if the victims had died of execution or fighting.

The Finnish forensic specialists found that no one had been shot from short distance. None the less there were any decpitations, as Clinton had claimed. There were no minors either.

The government of Finland had chosen a dentist, Helena Ranta, to function as the chairman of the forensic team in spite of the fact that a dentist has nothing to do with finding the cause of death of the victims. She did not explain at all to the media what her collagues had found. Instead of clearly saying the results, she pondered filosophically about matters, which had nothing to do with the team’s task. The term crime against humanity was on her vocabulary, not the facts.

It seems that the chosen chairman was politically suitable for the task.

The government of Finland in collaboration with the German ministry of foreign affairs decided to hide the results of the forensic team, permanently. They could care less, what would be the result of their omission.

The chief specialist of the forensic team, world known professor Antti Penttilä could not accept this end result. He published the results in an international forensic journal – two years after the bombings had already occurred.

Because of the decisions by the Finnish governent, the bombings of Yugoslavia started some days after the media statements by Helena Ranta.

***

In the case of Srebrenica the end results are the following:

The political ICTY-court has sentenced, as a result of the western propaganda, Serb-generals to long prison sentences.

Facts based on scientific research and scientific research as such have been declared criminal.

After Dayon accords in 1995, the highest official in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been the High Comissionen, the first commisioner having been Swedish Carl Bild.

The US has had through NATO- occupation and later a bit lighter EU-military presence a position which resembles a colonial ruler just like US has now in Ukraine.

The last High comissioner Christian Schmidt, German christian democrat, has been member of the German government until 2018. One could say the the country is ruled by US-German tandem.

Christian Schmidt has ruled questioning of the ”Srebrenica western truth” a crime . If a person according to scientific research questions the western narrative, he is threatened by a jail  sentence.

***

Denial of the western narrative about Racak ”execution” and telling the truth about the fight in the village is a crime in Kosovo.

Ivan Todosijevic, a Serb-member of Kosovo parliament spoke the truth about Racak in a speech commemorating the 20 year anniversary of Yugoslav-bombings in 2019. He told that the execution was staged by William Walker.

The ”high court” of Kosovo sentenced him to 2 years in prison. If the government of Finland would like to save mr Todosijevic, they should tell the truth.

William Walker has got a statue in Racak village in a celebration in  2017 in the presence of that time president HashimThaci.

***

The procedures by the government of Finland have distanced themselves further and further from the truthful reality  and humanity which it valued before entering the membership in EU.

Former Finnish prime minister Alexander Stubb visits, these weeks, all around Sweden to encourage the country to join NATO.

Alexander Stubb served the US- and EU- interests remarkably as he as EU-representative claimed in 2008 that Russia had attacked Georgia in 8.8.2008. The truth was that president Saakashvili of Georgia had attacked Russian peace-keepers in South-Ossetia and bombed Tsinvali expecting for support from the US.

As prime minister of Finland Alexander Stubb prepared the steps together with president Sauli Niinistö towards Finland joining the military alliance NATO.

The first task was to educate the Finnish media and prepare them to fit the NATO-narrative. To achieve that he found that by sending 100 Finnish journalists and civil servants to Harvard for special CIA-indoktrination would do the job. (In Jugoslav wars, the CIA had too much work preparing the news by itself, in order to deliver them to journalists. It would be smoother as the journalists themselves would have the right attitude to start with)

The government in power after Alexander Stubb, was Juha Sipilä’s right wing government. They put the Harvard-education  to action. In addition to that education, NATO-hybrid information Center was invited to start its function in Helsinki, Finnish capital. So the collaboration between educated journalists, civil servants and NATO would be smooth.

President Sauli Niinistö let the representative of Finnish army to sign NATO- host country agreement, during the summer vacation of the parliament, in 2014. So the parlament was not bothered by discussing and deciding this strong allignment with NATO. Locating nuclear weapons on Finnish soil were not forbidden in the agreement. President Niinistö made several bilater military collaboration agreements for example with the US, Britain and Germany.

The Swedish parliament worked through the NATO-host agreement and bringing nuclear weapons to Sweden became forbidden.

Finland has a committee for security matters. The highest civil servants of each ministry form the committee, the chief civil-servant of Finlans’s president included.

This security committee, supports economically so called ”Mediapool”, the task of which is to secure the co-ordination of all newspapers, publishing houses and State TV according to the NATO-narrative.

***

Russia started its military operation in Ukraine February 24, 2022. Its goal is to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine and secure Donbass, which has been for 8 years under military threat by the government of Ukraine.

Russia has tried diplomatic approach for 8 years to save the Russian speaking parts of the country from annihilation. EU-countries Germany and France, even though signatories of the Minsk treaties, have done nothing to persuade the government of Ukraine to proceed to fulfilment of the treaty.

14000 killed during the 8 years, 400 children too. Continuous pressure and sleeping nights in cellars have made all children of the area vulnerable according to a study by a Finnish doctor. He compared children from Donbass, to children on middle Ukrainian areas and western parts. The differense in mental stress is enormous.

Finnish NATO-educated media does not reveal that it knows about US led military coup in Ukraine in 2014. It does not reveal that it knows that president Obamas vice president ruled Ukraine as a colonial ruler. Biden’s son Hunter’s role in supporting economically the founding of military laboratories in Ukraine, has not reaced the Finnish media. Neither they know that president Obama threatened to make Russia to become a pariah-state.

The Finnish media does not know about the US and British military advisers in Ukraine nor the NATO exercises there. They do not know that the, in the military coup so essential, nazi- army has been integrated to the Ukrainian army seamlessly. Nor do they know that all opposition parties have been denied their function. Russian language is forbidden to be spoken in public. Education in Russian language is forbidden. A multitude of TV-stations have been closed.

In the UN vote, fall 2021,  conserning support to nazism, only USA and Ukraine did not mind nazism. The EU-countries absteined as they could not revel their positive attitude to Ukrainian nazism. However EU-countries have supported and allied with nazis and jihadists in Libya, Syria, Afganistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Ukraine.

The western media claimed that in Mariupol the maternity hospital had been bombed by Russian forces. Without any further information , president of Finland and prime minister Marin, condemned with a stern voice, the horrific attac to the hospital by Russians.
Only some days later, the information reached audiences, that the hospital had been occupied by Ukrainian Azov battallion, who had emptied the location of its patients before the bombing. It became also known that the Azov-forces had misused the patients and inhibited them from escaping the city, by shooting at them while being evacuated.

The publicly announced principal of the Ukrainian nazis is to systematically kill all Russians, roma and Russian speaking ukrainians or expell them accross the border to Russia.

In the neighbourhood of capital Kiev, in the city of Bucha the Russian army was accused of killing civilians and leaving the bodies laying along the streets. After the initial report, the Finnish president and prime minister again condemd the brutality of Russian soldiers on twitter.

From several sources the story appeared to be different.

After the Russian troops left the city March the 30th, the mayor of Bucha rejoiced the recapture of the city by Ukrainian army and  the Azov nazi-groups arrived the following day. A female city council member in military gear boasted on TV that the Azov had arrived and started clensing the city of collaborators. They killed civilians who had Russian army rations in their hands or had white ribbons on their arms symbolizing to Russian soldiers that these civilians are their friends.

Ilja Kiva, member of Ukraine’s parliament until last month and chairman of socialist party, reported Bucha killings by Russian forces to be a false flag planned and organized by the SBU, Ukrainian intelligence service together with MI6, the British intelligence.

The US/EU-media denies the Ukrainian war from being a civil war, where Ukrainians fight between themselves. The war was initiated after the US-led coup, when the newly formed illegal government had been formed and the illegal chairman of the parliament, Mr Turchinov, declared a war against Eastern Ukrainians, who did not want to obey the illegal coup, the illegal government and the parliament clensed from major parties.

***

Mariupol steel factory in Donbass is now the last bastion of the nazi-Azov-army. One part of the military escaped in two helicopters. Among the passengers were US military advisers, just like in Syria. After the liberation of Aleppo, US- and other NATO- advisers were found in the cement tunnels built by the western forces for the rebel-fighters.

Why do the president and prime minister of Finland support the false flag information case after case even though there is no proof from what has really happened.

Why the government of Finland hides the scientific forensic results of what happened in the village of Racak in winter 1999.

Why the Finnish government and the media have built a horrific and disgusting  atmosphere of hate towards Russia and Russians that they hope all inhabitants of Finland to aquire and identify with.
It was awkward to watch the chairman of the German Green party and German minister of foreign affairs Annalena Baerbok to almost shout in her speech to increase the sanctions against Russia because of the Bucha killings. Even though even the nazi-killings in Bucha have no comparison with German bombings of Yugoslavia or US killing of millions of people in Libya, Afganistan, Irak and Laos.

In the destruction of Yugoslavia, German minister of foreign affairs, Joschka Fisher was most eager to bomb the Serbs. He declaired right after he became minister of foreign affairs that ”Serbs must be put on their knees”. It felt unbelievable that a relative of nazi-occupiers should treat holocaust survivors like that.

Now it is the turn of Russians to be in place of Serbs. Russians have managed to overcome the nazi-invasion in 1940- 45.They will never forget the atrozities of nazis no matter wether in Eastern Europe or Ukraine now. The Russians are on the right side of the history, building a multipolar world together with countries who are tired of US atrocities, military oppression,killings, economic sanctions, injustice, and colonial attitude towards other countries.

Too many countries are still afraid of US power-using and cannot act independantly. Russia is corageous and hopefully soon wins the battle against nazism everywhere where it still excists.

Über das Jahr 1914, Hetzkampagnen gegen Russland und einen klugen Schweizer Exoberst
Von Stefan Siegert

imago/United Archives International
Auf Pferderücken: Munition auf dem Weg zu den Verbündeten (Hamel, Frankreich, 1916)

Man kommt in Gedanken immer wieder darauf zurück. 1914. So ungefähr muss es gewesen sein, die Hetze, der Hass, der – heute durchgeschaltet wertebasierte – Propagandapilz in voller Entfaltung. Mit allerdings dem einen, alles entscheidenden Unterschied: Es gab 1914 noch keine Atomwaffen. Das heißt, alle konnten mit Begeisterung und ohne Angst vor dem Globalsuizid die einzig gerechte Strafe für soviel Greuel und Schlechtigkeit auf seiten des Feindes herbeisehnen – der Feind, das waren damals die Serben, die es frech gewagt hatten, den österreichischen Thronfolger zu ermorden; es war vor allem der Franzos’, er sann ja die ganze Zeit schon auf Rache für »70/71«; und es waren natürlich mal wieder die Russen. Die einzig gerechte Strafe: der Krieg. Jeder Krieg der Neuzeit begann mit einer Hetzkampagne, mit fundamentalen Lügen. Der Feind musste mit allen Mitteln bis hin zu raffinierten Greuelinszenierungen verachtet, gehasst, verdammt sein.

Es waren wenige, die 1914 einen kühlen Kopf behielten. Selbst ein mit Recht als Leuchtturm des bürgerlichen Journalismus bewunderter Autor wie Theodor Wolff brauchte zwei Jahre, bis er sich von seiner Kriegsbegeisterung geheilt hatte. Thomas Mann brauchte länger, immerhin: Er schaffte es auf beeindruckende Weise noch im Exil.

Heute sieht es eher aus, als müssten wir auf die Theodor Wolffs, die Alfred Döblins und Erich Maria Remarques, die Hermann Hesses und Brüder Mann lange warten. Heute schallt es uns von überall dröhnend entgegen: »Stimmt ja alles nicht!« Die freieste Presse, die es je auf deutschem Boden gab, weiß es besser: »Im Unterschied zu 1914«, triumphiert sie, »war es Putin, der, wie 1914 der deutsche Kaiser, den Krieg vom Zaun brach!«

Aber sage niemand etwas gegen die sozialen Medien. Neben allem Schlechten, was sie in Händen schlechter Menschen anrichten, haben sie ihr Gutes in Händen guter Menschen. Ob indes der ehemalige schweizerische Oberst Jacques Baud ein guter oder schlechter Mensch ist, entzieht sich meiner Kenntnis. Er ist ein bürgerlicher Mensch, er hat sich akademisch mit den Ursachen des Krieges beschäftigt und ist als Schweizer Militär für die UNO und für die NATO unterwegs gewesen, unter anderem vier Jahre in der Ukraine. Und er hat sich, über die sozialen Medien verbreitet, von einer Schweizer Zeitung interviewen lassen. Als Bürger eines neutralen Landes, das aus schlechten Gründen auf der russischen Liste »unfreundlicher« Staaten gelandet ist, zeigt er sich geradlinig empört über die westliche Art Berichterstattung. Was er als exzellenter Kenner der Situation und ihrer Vorgeschichte dagegen setzt, dürfte in manchen Punkten selbst linke Durchblicker überraschen. Im Ergebnis kommt er zu dem Schluss: Nein, Putins Krieg ist eine Katastrophe wie jeder Krieg, aber er ist kein Angriffskrieg. Er ist ein Verteidigungskrieg gegen eine aggressive NATO, die Russland seit dem Verschwinden der Sowjetunion Schritt für Schritt systematisch eingekreist hat (kurzelinks.de/baud-ukraine).

Wenn es, neben zahllosen Fakten, eines letzten Beweises dafür bedürfte, wer der Angreifer und wer der Angegriffene ist, dann liegt er in der Antwort auf die Frage: Wo war die große Hetzkampagne vor diesem, dem ukrainischen Krieg? Von seiten Russlands gab es zwar die kriegsüblich extrem einseitige Sicht auf die jeweilige Situation. Aber weder vor dem Krieg noch in seinem Verlauf waren aus Moskau hasserfüllte Töne in Richtung Gegenseite wahrzunehmen. Statt dessen anhaltendes Dringen auf friedliche Lösungen bis zuletzt, ja noch während des Krieges, alles NATO-seitig abgebogen. Der Westen dagegen arbeitet seit mehr als einem Jahrzehnt in einer Weise an der Dämonisierung Putins, die von Anfang an auf einen Krieg hindrängte. Wer ist der Angreifer, wer der Angegriffene?

Wolfgang Effenberger

On Monday, March 28, 2022, the Pentagon submitted a $773 billion budget request for fiscal year 2023, asking Congress for a significant increase in spending to build new weapons "to curb the emerging Chinese military, check Russia's aggression in Europe, and boost pay for troops."(1)

"I am calling for one of the largest investments in our national security in history," U.S. President Biden said of the budget request, "with the funding necessary to ensure that our military remains the best-prepared, best-trained, and best-equipped military in the world"; he noted that the funds were being requested to " forcefully respond to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's aggression against Ukraine."(2) However, the request was largely completed before Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine on February 24.
For U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Senator Jack Reed, D-(Rhode Island), this budget is only a "starting point." While it would recognize "China and Russia as the most important strategic competitors to our military," he said, it must still take into account the broader needs of the U.S. military. Reed called on Congress to "make thoughtful decisions about how we equip and transform our national instruments of power. Now that President Biden has submitted his budget request, the committee can begin crafting a [National Defense Authorization Act] that meets America's needs now and in the future."(3)
Among the most pressing needs of the United States since the end of World War II has been the dismantling of the Soviet Union. To this end, the DROPSHOT war plan went into effect on December 19, 1949, a few months after NATO was formed. It was to be triggered after the economic reconstruction of Western Europe (Marshall Plan) and the establishment of the Bundeswehr in 1957.

The U.S. responded to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 with dynamic imperial geopolitics that quickly filled the resulting power vacuum - a policy that virtuously uses the connections between geography and space for its strategic visions in foreign policy.

It is not currently about Putin Biden or even Selensky, it is about a gigantic power game that has been set in motion at the latest since the collapse of the Soviet Union: Five days before the bombing of Yugoslavia began, the U.S. House of Representatives had passed the "Silk Road Strategy Act." It stated:
"The five former Soviet republics that make up Central Asia - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan - are eager to establish relations with the United States. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have large oil and gas reserves around the Caspian Sea that they are desperate to exploit."(4)
The template for this law was Polish-American political scientist and geostrategist Zbigniew Brzeziński's 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard(5). It formed the blueprint for U.S. global policy in recent decades, the goal of which is to bring both China and Russia under its control. Pentagon planners see both a strong Russia and a powerful China as threats.(6) And Ukraine is a pivotal point for U.S. long-term strategists in the struggle for world power. According to Brzeziński, Ukraine's very existence as an independent state contributes to Russia's transformation: "Without Ukraine, Russia is no longer a Eurasian empire."(7)
His prediction as early as 1997 was that "sometime between 2005 and 2010, Ukraine should be ready for serious negotiations with both the EU and NATO, especially if in the meantime it has made significant progress in its domestic reforms and has more clearly identified itself as a Central European state."(8) By integrating Ukraine into the EU and NATO, Brzeziński wanted to put Russia in its place.
Since the Taiwan crisis in 1995/96, the U.S. has (once again) seen China as a potential military adversary and has aligned its strategic plans accordingly. In the South China Sea, the American claim to free access to the world's oceans continues to collide with Chinese efforts to establish a security zone there. "The geopolitical conflict over the South China Sea is also intertwined with the nuclear dimension. China appears to be developing this sea in the sense of a protected bastion for nuclear-armed submarines with which it wants to ensure second-strike capability against the United States."(9)
Already in his first year in office - on November 13, 2009 - U.S. President Barack Obama referred to himself as the "first Pacific president" of the U.S. in a keynote address to his Pacific ally Tokyo, because the "history of America and the Asia-Pacific region have never been more closely connected."(10) At the same time, he announced greater engagement with Asian countries and emphasized U.S. leadership in the world. In early October 2011, then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton underscored her "first Pacific" president's new foreign policy as a "swing to Asia": "The future of policy will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be at the center of the action."(11) Thus, the shift of the U.S. military's operational focus from the greater Middle East to Asia would be inevitable. And on February 9, 2012, Admiral Samuel Locklear spoke plainly to the U.S. Senate Defense Committee on the occasion of his nomination to head U.S. Pacific Command: "We are a major power in Asia. The Chinese and the other countries in the region need to understand that the United States is prepared to defend their national interests there."(12)

In Ukraine, after the initial successes of the 2010 "Orange Revolution" were challenged with the election of Viktor Yanukovych, Western-directed unrest erupted in late 2013, eventually leading to the president's flight to Russia on February 21, 2014. This brought the coup to a "successful" conclusion. The U.S. sponsored the coup to the tune of $5 billion. In parallel, George Soros also supported the Maidan revolution.(13) In current reporting, however, Putin alone was and is seen as responsible for the Ukrainian tragedy.
One day after the referendum in Crimea - here the Crimean population had voted with an overwhelming majority for annexation to the Russian Federation - the NATO summit began in Wales (March 17-19, 2014). The subsequently published conference report outlining the new strategic concepts(14) states that strategic communications and outreach are critical "if the Alliance is to be properly positioned for the challenges and shocks that the 21st century beyond 2014 will undoubtedly bring."(15) The summit is also a time when the Alliance must be prepared for the challenges and shocks that the 21st century will undoubtedly bring.
In this regard, the Ukraine/Crimea crisis must be seen in a historical context: "This is not the beginning of a new Cold War, unless Putin overreaches and invades all of Ukraine. However, the European security and defense architecture must be strengthened and made fit for the challenges of the 21st century."(16)
The report's authors logically recognized that the Syria and Ukraine crises highlight the danger of "multiple threats merging as great powers compete for influence which prevents solutions to humanitarian tragedies."(17) China's emergence and growing tensions in the Asia-Pacific region would also highlight "the extent to which the Alliance must prepare for challenges across the spectrum of conflict and around the world." The text then definitely states, "NATO is the ultima ratio for safeguarding freedom and security."(18)

In early October 2014, at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) conference, senior officers and representatives of the U.S. Department of Defense revealed the vision of future armed conflicts. Amidst weapons industry lobbyists whose companies presented the latest weapons systems, the new TRADOC document 525-3-1 "Win in an Complex World 2020-2040"(19) was unveiled. The United States Army "Training and Doctrine Command" (TRADOC) is one of three Army-level commands, and thus one of the most important commands in the U.S. Armed Forces.

This event prompted Bill van Auken and David North to write a blistering article on wsws.org, the mouthpiece of the "International Committee of the Fourth International" (ICVI): "U.S. Army Drafts Blueprint for Third World War."(20) Both authors infer extremely ominous implications from the text of the document, as the first priority for the armed forces was to reduce the threat from Russia and China, second was the threat from North Korea and Iran, and only third was terrorism. Successfully, the U.S. military under its first "Pacific" president shifted its capabilities massively toward Asia.

On December 4, 2014, the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly (only 10 votes against) passed H. Res. 758. On the same day, long-time Congressman Ron Paul commented on it on his website with the article "Reckless Congress 'Declares War' on Russia"(21), saying:
"Today in the U.S. House of Representatives, in my opinion, one of the most evil pieces of legislation was passed."
Ron Paul sees this 16-page bill as pure war propaganda that should make even neoconservatives blush with shame. Resolution 758 reminds him of 1998, when he argued vehemently against passage of the Iraq Liberation Act. At that time, he had stated that this law would lead to war. "I voted against the bill at that time" said Paul, "not because I was an admirer of Saddam Hussein. Nor am I an admirer of Vladimir Putin or any other foreign leader. What made me vote against the bill at the time was a personal belief that another U.S. war against Iraq would not solve the underlying problems. Rather, it became apparent even then that such a war would tend to make things worse in the region. We all know today what happened in the aftermath"(22). This is one of the reasons "why I can hardly believe that this development is now repeating itself and that those responsible are ruthlessly imposing their will. And this time it is about much more: namely provoking a war against Russia, which could end in a total destruction of the world we know!"(23)
Former Reagan Administration Deputy Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts saw the resolution against Russia as a pack of lies(24), and Canadian economist Michel Chossudovsky worried about global security. For him, the House of Representatives had effectively given the U.S. president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces a "green light" to enter into a process of military confrontation with Russia without further congressional approval.(25) "This historic vote," Chossudovsky said, "potentially affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world, has been virtually blanketed in the media - and this state of affairs continues."(26)
 
The speed with which the resolution was passed is unusual in the history of the U.S. legislative process. In just 16 days, H. Res.758 had been debated in the Foreign Affairs Committee and then sent back to the House of Representatives for debate and passage.
 
This legislation can be activated at any time by the sitting U.S. President.  
On March 30, the Austrian "Standard" published an interview with Gerard Toal, representative of "Critical Geopolitics" and professor of International Relations at Virginia Tech in the United States. He sees the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a string of hubris, misinformation and misinterpretation. From a military standpoint, this view seems accurate. But Russia's military operation is more likely to be politically motivated. Consequently, Toal recognizes that the Vladimir Putin of today has been honed by interactions with the West over the past 20 years: Putin "is angry, he drew red lines that were neither accepted nor respected. He operates out of a massive distrust of the West. He believes they always want to humiliate and undermine Russia. For Putin, the autocrat, Western ideology is liberal imperialist warfare along with constant expansion of democratic institutions, constant expansion of a kind of capitalist economy and politics. For Putin, this presents itself as a kind of permanent revolution against him and his worldview - the color revolutions, for example, which were supposed to trigger a kind of domino effect. This is his revanchism."(27)
Toal's statement on Putin's operating may contain some kernels of truth, but it is ultimately too superficial and not conducive to finding a peace solution for Europe.
What will happen next?
The fighting in Ukraine could drag on for a long time, while Selensky and parts of the Polish and American elite want NATO to be involved in this war. A cause will be quick to construct (see Tonkin 1964 - Meddox, Iraq 1991- incubators. Iraq 2003 WMD etc).
And that could happen now - even with the threat of nuclear war.
Today's winners are again in the US. Money flows to the drug companies, to the defense companies, to the oil and gas companies. Non-Americans are once again bleeding to death for interests across the Atlantic.
Regardless of the war propaganda, however, the suffering of the people maltreated in this fratricidal war must now urgently be ended and a lasting peace solution set in motion.

Notes

1) https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2022-03-28/defense-department-budget-troops-pay-raises-china-russia-5505695.html?utm_source=Stars+and+Stripes+Emails&utm_campaign=a0d39cf547-Newsletter+-+Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0ab8697a7f-a0d39cf547-296504235
2) Ebd.
3) Ebd.
4) Silk Road Strategy Act of 1999 (H. R. 1152 –106th Congress): "To amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to Target Assistance to Support the Economic and Political Independence of the Countries of the South Caucasus and Central Asia. The term "Countries of the South Caucasus and Central Asia" means Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan." Unter Bush im Mai 2006 modifiziert: Silk Road Strategy Act of 2006 (S. 2749 – 109th Congress)
5) Zbigniew Brzeziński: Die einzige Weltmacht: Amerikas Strategie der Vorherrschaft. Rottenbuch 2015
6) Ebd. S. 62-63
7) Ebd. S. 65
8) Ebd. S. 109
9) https://www.swp-berlin.org/publikation/strategische-rivalitaet-zwischen-usa-und-china
10) „Obama umwirbt Asiens Staaten“
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/us-praesident-in-tokioobama-umwirbt-asiens-staaten-a-661256.html
11) Hillary Clinton: America’s Pacific Century vom 11. Oktober 2011
https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/americas-pacific-century/
https://www.hintergrund.de/politik/welt/gehen-china-und-usa-auf-konfrontation/
12) NOMINATIONS BEFORE THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE, SECOND SESSION, 112TH CONGRESS
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-112shrg80073/html/CHRG-112shrg80073.htm
13) https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/welt/osteuropa/politik/ukraine-soros-kampagne-100.html
14) Conference Report NATO’s post 2014 strategic narrative WP1
15) https://www.wiltonpark.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/WP1319-Report.pdf, S. 1
16) Ebd. S. 2
17) Ebd. S. 4
18) Ebd.
19) http://www.tradoc.army.mil/tpubs/pams/tp525-3-1.pdf
vom 7. Oktober 2014
20) http://www.wsws.org/de/articles/2014/10/15/pers-o15.html
vom 15. Oktober 2014
21) http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2014/december/04/reckless-congress-declares-war-on-russia/
Ronald Ernest „Ron“ Paul (*1935) ist US-amerikanischer Arzt und Politiker, Mitglied der Republikanischen Partei und war zwischen 1976 und 2013 (mit Unterbrechungen) Abgeordneter im Repräsentantenhaus der Vereinigten Staaten. Er war bei der US-Präsidentschaftswahl 1988 Kandidat der Libertarian Party und Bewerber um die republikanische Kandidatur für die Präsidentschaftswahl 2008 und 2012.
22) Ron Paul: Rücksichtsloser US-Kongress hat Russland gerade den Krieg erklärt, Institute for Peace and Prosperity unter http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/ [08.12.14], als Gastbeitrag in Cashkurs vom 8.12.2014 unter http://www.cashkurs.com/kategorie/wirtschaftsfacts/beitrag/gastbeitrag-dr-ron-paul-ruecksichtsloser-us-kongress-hat-russland-gerade-den-krieg-erklaert/
23) Ebd.
24) Paul Craig Roberts: Russia Has Western Enemies, Not Partners vom 5. Dezember 2014, unter http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/12/05/russia-western-enemies-partners-paul-craig-roberts/
25) Michel Chossudovsky: Amerika auf dem »Kriegspfad«: Repräsentantenhaus ebnet Krieg mit Russland den Weg vom 6.112.2014 unter http://info.kopp-verlag.de/hintergruende/geostrategie/prof-michel-chossudovsky/amerika-auf-demkriegspfad- repraesentantenhaus-ebnet-krieg-mit-russland-den-weg.html
26) Ebd.
27) https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000134372634/geopolitiker-toal-putin-hat-seine-eigene-propaganda-geglaubt

Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner
Slavic Studies Panel Addresses “Who Promised What to Whom on NATO Expansion?”

Washington D.C., December 12, 2017 – U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).

The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.

The documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”[1] The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to believe.”

President George H.W. Bush had assured Gorbachev during the Malta summit in December 1989 that the U.S. would not take advantage (“I have not jumped up and down on the Berlin Wall”) of the revolutions in Eastern Europe to harm Soviet interests; but neither Bush nor Gorbachev at that point (or for that matter, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl) expected so soon the collapse of East Germany or the speed of German unification.[2]

The first concrete assurances by Western leaders on NATO began on January 31, 1990, when West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher opened the bidding with a major public speech at Tutzing, in Bavaria, on German unification. The U.S. Embassy in Bonn (see Document 1) informed Washington that Genscher made clear “that the changes in Eastern Europe and the German unification process must not lead to an ‘impairment of Soviet security interests.’ Therefore, NATO should rule out an ‘expansion of its territory towards the east, i.e. moving it closer to the Soviet borders.’” The Bonn cable also noted Genscher’s proposal to leave the East German territory out of NATO military structures even in a unified Germany in NATO.[3]

This latter idea of special status for the GDR territory was codified in the final German unification treaty signed on September 12, 1990, by the Two-Plus-Four foreign ministers (see Document 25). The former idea about “closer to the Soviet borders” is written down not in treaties but in multiple memoranda of conversation between the Soviets and the highest-level Western interlocutors (Genscher, Kohl, Baker, Gates, Bush, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Major, Woerner, and others) offering assurances throughout 1990 and into 1991 about protecting Soviet security interests and including the USSR in new European security structures. The two issues were related but not the same. Subsequent analysis sometimes conflated the two and argued that the discussion did not involve all of Europe. The documents published below show clearly that it did.

The “Tutzing formula” immediately became the center of a flurry of important diplomatic discussions over the next 10 days in 1990, leading to the crucial February 10, 1990, meeting in Moscow between Kohl and Gorbachev when the West German leader achieved Soviet assent in principle to German unification in NATO, as long as NATO did not expand to the east. The Soviets would need much more time to work with their domestic opinion (and financial aid from the West Germans) before formally signing the deal in September 1990.

The conversations before Kohl’s assurance involved explicit discussion of NATO expansion, the Central and East European countries, and how to convince the Soviets to accept unification. For example, on February 6, 1990, when Genscher met with British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd, the British record showed Genscher saying, “The Russians must have some assurance that if, for example, the Polish Government left the Warsaw Pact one day, they would not join NATO the next.” (See Document 2)

Having met with Genscher on his way into discussions with the Soviets, Baker repeated exactly the Genscher formulation in his meeting with Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze on February 9, 1990, (see Document 4); and even more importantly, face to face with Gorbachev.

Not once, but three times, Baker tried out the “not one inch eastward” formula with Gorbachev in the February 9, 1990, meeting. He agreed with Gorbachev’s statement in response to the assurances that “NATO expansion is unacceptable.” Baker assured Gorbachev that “neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,” and that the Americans understood that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” (See Document 6)

Afterwards, Baker wrote to Helmut Kohl who would meet with the Soviet leader on the next day, with much of the very same language. Baker reported: “And then I put the following question to him [Gorbachev]. Would you prefer to see a united Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position? He answered that the Soviet leadership was giving real thought to all such options [….] He then added, ‘Certainly any extension of the zone of NATO would be unacceptable.’” Baker added in parentheses, for Kohl’s benefit, “By implication, NATO in its current zone might be acceptable.” (See Document 8)

Well-briefed by the American secretary of state, the West German chancellor understood a key Soviet bottom line, and assured Gorbachev on February 10, 1990: “We believe that NATO should not expand the sphere of its activity.” (See Document 9) After this meeting, Kohl could hardly contain his excitement at Gorbachev’s agreement in principle for German unification and, as part of the Helsinki formula that states choose their own alliances, so Germany could choose NATO. Kohl described in his memoirs walking all night around Moscow – but still understanding there was a price still to pay.

All the Western foreign ministers were on board with Genscher, Kohl, and Baker. Next came the British foreign minister, Douglas Hurd, on April 11, 1990. At this point, the East Germans had voted overwhelmingly for the deutschmark and for rapid unification, in the March 18 elections in which Kohl had surprised almost all observers with a real victory. Kohl’s analyses (first explained to Bush on December 3, 1989) that the GDR’s collapse would open all possibilities, that he had to run to get to the head of the train, that he needed U.S. backing, that unification could happen faster than anyone thought possible – all turned out to be correct. Monetary union would proceed as early as July and the assurances about security kept coming. Hurd reinforced the Baker-Genscher-Kohl message in his meeting with Gorbachev in Moscow, April 11, 1990, saying that Britain clearly “recognized the importance of doing nothing to prejudice Soviet interests and dignity.” (See Document 15)

The Baker conversation with Shevardnadze on May 4, 1990, as Baker described it in his own report to President Bush, most eloquently described what Western leaders were telling Gorbachev exactly at the moment: “I used your speech and our recognition of the need to adapt NATO, politically and militarily, and to develop CSCE to reassure Shevardnadze that the process would not yield winners and losers. Instead, it would produce a new legitimate European structure – one that would be inclusive, not exclusive.” (See Document 17)

Baker said it again, directly to Gorbachev on May 18, 1990 in Moscow, giving Gorbachev his “nine points,” which included the transformation of NATO, strengthening European structures, keeping Germany non-nuclear, and taking Soviet security interests into account. Baker started off his remarks, “Before saying a few words about the German issue, I wanted to emphasize that our policies are not aimed at separating Eastern Europe from the Soviet Union. We had that policy before. But today we are interested in building a stable Europe, and doing it together with you.” (See Document 18)

The French leader Francois Mitterrand was not in a mind-meld with the Americans, quite the contrary, as evidenced by his telling Gorbachev in Moscow on May 25, 1990, that he was “personally in favor of gradually dismantling the military blocs”; but Mitterrand continued the cascade of assurances by saying the West must “create security conditions for you, as well as European security as a whole.” (See Document 19) Mitterrand immediately wrote Bush in a “cher George” letter about his conversation with the Soviet leader, that “we would certainly not refuse to detail the guarantees that he would have a right to expect for his country’s security.” (See Document 20)

At the Washington summit on May 31, 1990, Bush went out of his way to assure Gorbachev that Germany in NATO would never be directed at the USSR: “Believe me, we are not pushing Germany towards unification, and it is not us who determines the pace of this process. And of course, we have no intention, even in our thoughts, to harm the Soviet Union in any fashion. That is why we are speaking in favor of German unification in NATO without ignoring the wider context of the CSCE, taking the traditional economic ties between the two German states into consideration. Such a model, in our view, corresponds to the Soviet interests as well.” (See Document 21)

The “Iron Lady” also pitched in, after the Washington summit, in her meeting with Gorbachev in London on June 8, 1990. Thatcher anticipated the moves the Americans (with her support) would take in the early July NATO conference to support Gorbachev with descriptions of the transformation of NATO towards a more political, less militarily threatening, alliance. She said to Gorbachev: “We must find ways to give the Soviet Union confidence that its security would be assured…. CSCE could be an umbrella for all this, as well as being the forum which brought the Soviet Union fully into discussion about the future of Europe.” (See Document 22)

The NATO London Declaration on July 5, 1990 had quite a positive effect on deliberations in Moscow, according to most accounts, giving Gorbachev significant ammunition to counter his hardliners at the Party Congress which was taking place at that moment. Some versions of this history assert that an advance copy was provided to Shevardnadze’s aides, while others describe just an alert that allowed those aides to take the wire service copy and produce a Soviet positive assessment before the military or hardliners could call it propaganda.

As Kohl said to Gorbachev in Moscow on July 15, 1990, as they worked out the final deal on German unification: “We know what awaits NATO in the future, and I think you are now in the know as well,” referring to the NATO London Declaration. (See Document 23)

In his phone call to Gorbachev on July 17, Bush meant to reinforce the success of the Kohl-Gorbachev talks and the message of the London Declaration. Bush explained: “So what we tried to do was to take account of your concerns expressed to me and others, and we did it in the following ways: by our joint declaration on non-aggression; in our invitation to you to come to NATO; in our agreement to open NATO to regular diplomatic contact with your government and those of the Eastern European countries; and our offer on assurances on the future size of the armed forces of a united Germany – an issue I know you discussed with Helmut Kohl. We also fundamentally changed our military approach on conventional and nuclear forces. We conveyed the idea of an expanded, stronger CSCE with new institutions in which the USSR can share and be part of the new Europe.” (See Document 24)

The documents show that Gorbachev agreed to German unification in NATO as the result of this cascade of assurances, and on the basis of his own analysis that the future of the Soviet Union depended on its integration into Europe, for which Germany would be the decisive actor. He and most of his allies believed that some version of the common European home was still possible and would develop alongside the transformation of NATO to lead to a more inclusive and integrated European space, that the post-Cold War settlement would take account of the Soviet security interests. The alliance with Germany would not only overcome the Cold War but also turn on its head the legacy of the Great Patriotic War.

But inside the U.S. government, a different discussion continued, a debate about relations between NATO and Eastern Europe. Opinions differed, but the suggestion from the Defense Department as of October 25, 1990 was to leave “the door ajar” for East European membership in NATO. (See Document 27) The view of the State Department was that NATO expansion was not on the agenda, because it was not in the interest of the U.S. to organize “an anti-Soviet coalition” that extended to the Soviet borders, not least because it might reverse the positive trends in the Soviet Union. (See Document 26) The Bush administration took the latter view. And that’s what the Soviets heard.

As late as March 1991, according to the diary of the British ambassador to Moscow, British Prime Minister John Major personally assured Gorbachev, “We are not talking about the strengthening of NATO.” Subsequently, when Soviet defense minister Marshal Dmitri Yazov asked Major about East European leaders’ interest in NATO membership, the British leader responded, “Nothing of the sort will happen.” (See Document 28)

When Russian Supreme Soviet deputies came to Brussels to see NATO and meet with NATO secretary-general Manfred Woerner in July 1991, Woerner told the Russians that “We should not allow […] the isolation of the USSR from the European community.” According to the Russian memorandum of conversation, “Woerner stressed that the NATO Council and he are against the expansion of NATO (13 of 16 NATO members support this point of view).” (See Document 30)

Thus, Gorbachev went to the end of the Soviet Union assured that the West was not threatening his security and was not expanding NATO. Instead, the dissolution of the USSR was brought about by Russians (Boris Yeltsin and his leading advisory Gennady Burbulis) in concert with the former party bosses of the Soviet republics, especially Ukraine, in December 1991. The Cold War was long over by then. The Americans had tried to keep the Soviet Union together (see the Bush “Chicken Kiev” speech on August 1, 1991). NATO’s expansion was years in the future, when these disputes would erupt again, and more assurances would come to Russian leader Boris Yeltsin.

The Archive compiled these declassified documents for a panel discussion on November 10, 2017 at the annual conference of the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) in Chicago under the title “Who Promised What to Whom on NATO Expansion?” The panel included:

* Mark Kramer from the Davis Center at Harvard, editor of the Journal of Cold War Studies, whose 2009 Washington Quarterly article argued that the “no-NATO-enlargement pledge” was a “myth”;[4]

* Joshua R. Itkowitz Shifrinson from the Bush School at Texas A&M, whose 2016 International Security article argued the U.S. was playing a double game in 1990, leading Gorbachev to believe NATO would be subsumed in a new European security structure, while working to ensure hegemony in Europe and the maintenance of NATO;[5]

* James Goldgeier from American University, who wrote the authoritative book on the Clinton decision on NATO expansion, Not Whether But When, and described the misleading U.S. assurances to Russian leader Boris Yeltsin in a 2016 WarOnTheRocks article;[6]

* Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton from the National Security Archive, whose most recent book, The Last Superpower Summits: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Bush: Conversations That Ended the Cold War (CEU Press, 2016) analyzes and publishes the declassified transcripts and related documents from all of Gorbachev’s summits with U.S. presidents, including dozens of assurances about protecting the USSR’s security interests.[7]

[Today’s posting is the first of two on the subject. The second part will cover the Yeltsin discussions with Western leaders about NATO.]

Read the documents:

Document 01
U.S. Embassy Bonn Confidential Cable to Secretary of State on the speech of the German Foreign Minister: Genscher Outlines His Vision of a New European Architecture.
Feb 1, 1990
Source

U.S. Department of State. FOIA Reading Room. Case F-2015 10829

One of the myths about the January and February 1990 discussions of German unification is that these talks occurred so early in the process, with the Warsaw Pact still very much in existence, that no one was thinking about the possibility that Central and European countries, even then members of the Warsaw Pact, could in the future become members of NATO. On the contrary, the West German foreign minister’s Tutzing formula in his speech of January 31, 1990, widely reported in the media in Europe, Washington, and Moscow, explicitly addressed the possibility of NATO expansion, as well as Central and Eastern European membership in NATO – and denied that possibility, as part of his olive garland towards Moscow. This U.S. Embassy Bonn cable reporting back to Washington details both of Hans-Dietrich Genscher’s proposals – that NATO would not expand to the east, and that the former territory of the GDR in a unified Germany would be treated differently from other NATO territory.

Document 02
Mr. Hurd to Sir C. Mallaby (Bonn). Telegraphic N. 85: Secretary of State’s Call on Herr Genscher: German Unification.
Feb 6, 1990
Source
Documents on British Policy Overseas, series III, volume VII: German Unification, 1989-1990. (Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Documents on British Policy Overseas, edited by Patrick Salmon, Keith Hamilton, and Stephen Twigge, Oxford and New York, Routledge 2010). pp. 261-264

The U.S. State Department’s subsequent view of the German unification negotiations, expressed in a 1996 cable sent to all posts, mistakenly asserts that the entire negotiation over the future of Germany limited its discussion of the future of NATO to the specific arrangements over the territory of the former GDR. Perhaps the American diplomats missed out on the early dialogue between the British and the Germans on this issue, even though both shared their views with the U.S. secretary of state. As published in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s official 2010 documentary history of the UK’s input into German unification, this memorandum of British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd’s conversation with West German Foreign Minister Genscher on February 6, 1990, contains some remarkable specificity on the issue of future NATO membership for the Central Europeans. The British memorandum specifically quotes Genscher as saying “that when he talked about not wanting to extend NATO that applied to other states beside the GDR. The Russians must have some assurance that if, for example, the Polish Government left the Warsaw Pact one day, they would not join NATO the next.” Genscher and Hurd were saying the same to their Soviet counterpart Eduard Shevardnadze, and to James Baker.[8]

Document 03
Memorandum from Paul H. Nitze to George H.W. Bush about “Forum for Germany” meeting in Berlin.
Feb 6, 1990
Source

George H. W. Bush Presidential Library

This concise note to President Bush from one of the Cold War’s architects, Paul Nitze (based at his namesake Johns Hopkins University School of International Studies), captures the debate over the future of NATO in early 1990. Nitze relates that Central and Eastern European leaders attending the “Forum for Germany” conference in Berlin were advocating the dissolution of both the superpower blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, until he (and a few western Europeans) turned around that view and instead emphasized the importance of NATO as the basis of stability and U.S. presence in Europe.

Document 04
Memorandum of Conversation between James Baker and Eduard Shevardnadze in Moscow.
Feb 9, 1990
Source

U.S. Department of State, FOIA 199504567 (National Security Archive Flashpoints Collection, Box 38)

Although heavily redacted compared to the Soviet accounts of these conversations, the official State Department version of Secretary Baker’s assurances to Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze just before the formal meeting with Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, contains a series of telling phrases. Baker proposes the Two-Plus-Four formula, with the two being the Germanies and the four the post-war occupying powers; argues against other ways to negotiate unification; and makes the case for anchoring Germany in NATO. Furthermore, Baker tells the Soviet foreign minister, “A neutral Germany would undoubtedly acquire its own independent nuclear capability. However, a Germany that is firmly anchored in a changed NATO, by that I mean a NATO that is far less of [a] military organization, much more of a political one, would have no need for independent capability. There would, of course, have to be iron-clad guarantees that NATO’s jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward. And this would have to be done in a manner that would satisfy Germany’s neighbors to the east.”

Document 05
Memorandum of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and James Baker in Moscow.
Feb 9, 1990
Source

U.S. Department of State, FOIA 199504567 (National Security Archive Flashpoints Collection, Box 38)

Even with (unjustified) redactions by U.S. classification officers, this American transcript of perhaps the most famous U.S. assurance to the Soviets on NATO expansion confirms the Soviet transcript of the same conversation. Repeating what Bush said at the Malta summit in December 1989, Baker tells Gorbachev: “The President and I have made clear that we seek no unilateral advantage in this process” of inevitable German unification. Baker goes on to say, “We understand the need for assurances to the countries in the East. If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east.” Later in the conversation, Baker poses the same position as a question, “would you prefer a united Germany outside of NATO that is independent and has no US forces or would you prefer a united Germany with ties to NATO and assurances that there would be no extension of NATO’s current jurisdiction eastward?” The declassifiers of this memcon actually redacted Gorbachev’s response that indeed such an expansion would be “unacceptable” – but Baker’s letter to Kohl the next day, published in 1998 by the Germans, gives the quote.

Document 06
Record of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and James Baker in Moscow. (Excerpts)
Feb 9, 1990
Source

Gorbachev Foundation Archive, Fond 1, Opis 1.

This Gorbachev Foundation record of the Soviet leader’s meeting with James Baker on February 9, 1990, has been public and available for researchers at the Foundation since as early as 1996, but it was not published in English until 2010 when the Masterpieces of History volume by the present authors came out from Central European University Press. The document focuses on German unification, but also includes candid discussion by Gorbachev of the economic and political problems in the Soviet Union, and Baker’s “free advice” (“sometimes the finance minister in me wakes up”) on prices, inflation, and even the policy of selling apartments to soak up the rubles cautious Soviet citizens have tucked under their mattresses.

Turning to German unification, Baker assures Gorbachev that “neither the president nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,” and that the Americans understand the importance for the USSR and Europe of guarantees that “not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” Baker argues in favor of the Two-Plus-Four talks using the same assurance: “We believe that consultations and discussions within the framework of the ‘two+four’ mechanism should guarantee that Germany’s unification will not lead to NATO’s military organization spreading to the east.” Gorbachev responds by quoting Polish President Wojciech Jaruzelski: “that the presence of American and Soviet troops in Europe is an element of stability.”

The key exchange takes place when Baker asks whether Gorbachev would prefer “a united Germany outside of NATO, absolutely independent and without American troops; or a united Germany keeping its connections with NATO, but with the guarantee that NATO’s jurisdiction or troops will not spread east of the present boundary.” Thus, in this conversation, the U.S. secretary of state three times offers assurances that if Germany were allowed to unify in NATO, preserving the U.S. presence in Europe, then NATO would not expand to the east. Interestingly, not once does he use the term GDR or East Germany or even mention the Soviet troops in East Germany. For a skilled negotiator and careful lawyer, it seems very unlikely Baker would not use specific terminology if in fact he was referring only to East Germany.

The Soviet leader responds that “[w]e will think everything over. We intend to discuss all these questions in depth at the leadership level. It goes without saying that a broadening of the NATO zone is not acceptable.” Baker affirms: “We agree with that.”

Document 07
Memorandum of conversation between Robert Gates and Vladimir Kryuchkov in Moscow.
Feb 9, 1990
Source

George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, NSC Scowcroft Files, Box 91128, Folder “Gorbachev (Dobrynin) Sensitive.”

This conversation is especially important because subsequent researchers have speculated that Secretary Baker may have been speaking beyond his brief in his “not one inch eastward” conversation with Gorbachev. Robert Gates, the former top CIA intelligence analyst and a specialist on the USSR, here tells his kind-of-counterpart, the head of the KGB, in his office at the Lubyanka KGB headquarters, exactly what Baker told Gorbachev that day at the Kremlin: not one inch eastward. At that point, Gates was the top deputy to the president’s national security adviser, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, so this document speaks to a coordinated approach by the U.S. government to Gorbachev. Kryuchkov, whom Gorbachev appointed to replace Viktor Chebrikov at the KGB in October 1988, comes across here as surprisingly progressive on many issues of domestic reform. He talks openly about the shortcomings and problems of perestroika, the need to abolish the leading role of the CPSU, the central government’s mistaken neglect of ethnic issues, the “atrocious” pricing system, and other domestic topics.

When the discussion moves on to foreign policy, in particular the German question, Gates asks, “What did Kryuchkov think of the Kohl/Genscher proposal under which a united Germany would be associated with NATO, but in which NATO troops would move no further east than they now were? It seems to us to be a sound proposal.” Kryuchkov does not give a direct answer but talks about how sensitive the issue of German unification is for the Soviet public and suggests that the Germans should offer the Soviet Union some guarantees. He says that although Kohl and Genscher’s ideas are interesting, “even those points in their proposals with which we agree would have to have guarantees. We learned from the Americans in arms control negotiations the importance of verification, and we would have to be sure.”

Document 08
Letter from James Baker to Helmut Kohl
Feb 10, 1990
Source
Deutsche Enheit Sonderedition und den Akten des Budeskanzleramtes 1989/90, eds. Hanns Jurgen Kusters and Daniel Hofmann (Munich: R. Odenbourg Verlag, 1998), pp. 793-794

This key document first appeared in Helmut Kohl’s scholarly edition of chancellery documents on German unification, published in 1998. Kohl at that moment was caught up in an election campaign that would end his 16-year tenure as chancellor, and wanted to remind Germans of his instrumental role in the triumph of unification.[9] The large volume (over 1,000 pages) included German texts of Kohl’s meetings with Gorbachev, Bush, Mitterrand, Thatcher and more – all published with no apparent consultation with those governments, only eight years after the events. A few of the Kohl documents, such as this one, appear in English, representing the American or British originals rather than German notes or translations. Here, Baker debriefs Kohl the day after his February 9 meeting with Gorbachev. (The chancellor is scheduled to have his own session with Gorbachev on February 10 in Moscow.) The American apprises the German on Soviet “concerns” about unification, and summarizes why a “Two Plus Four” negotiation would be the most appropriate venue for talks on the “external aspects of unification” given that the “internal aspects … were strictly a German matter.” Baker especially remarks on Gorbachev’s noncommittal response to the question about a neutral Germany versus a NATO Germany with pledges against eastward expansion, and advises Kohl that Gorbachev “may well be willing to go along with a sensible approach that gives him some cover …” Kohl reinforces this message in his own conversation later that day with the Soviet leader.

Document 09
Memorandum of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and Helmut Kohl
Feb 10, 1990
Source
Mikhail Gorbachev i germanskii vopros, edited by Alexander Galkin and Anatoly Chernyaev, (Moscow: Ves Mir, 2006)

This meeting in Moscow was the moment, by Kohl’s account, when he first heard from Gorbachev that the Soviet leader saw German unification as inevitable, that the value of future German friendship in a “common European home” outweighed Cold War rigidities, but that the Soviets would need time (and money) before they could acknowledge the new realities. Prepared by Baker’s letter and his own foreign minister’s Tutzing formula, Kohl early in the conversation assures Gorbachev, “We believe that NATO should not expand the sphere of its activity. We have to find a reasonable resolution. I correctly understand the security interests of the Soviet Union, and I realize that you, Mr. General Secretary, and the Soviet leadership will have to clearly explain what is happening to the Soviet people.” Later the two leaders tussle about NATO and the Warsaw Pact, with Gorbachev commenting, “They say what is NATO without the FRG. But we could also ask: what is the WTO without the GDR?” When Kohl disagrees, Gorbachev calls merely for “reasonable solutions that do not poison the atmosphere in our relations” and says this part of the conversation should not be made public.

Gorbachev aide Andrei Grachev later wrote that the Soviet leader early on understood that Germany was the door to European integration, and “[a]ll the attempted bargaining [by Gorbachev] about the final formula for German association with NATO was therefore much more a question of form than serious content; Gorbachev was trying to gain needed time in order to let public opinion at home adjust to the new reality, to the new type of relations that were taking shape in the Soviet Union’s relations with Germany as well as with the West in general. At the same time he was hoping to get at least partial political compensation from his Western partners for what he believed to be his major contribution to the end of the Cold War.”[10]

Document 10-1
Teimuraz Stepanov-Mamaladze notes from Conference on Open Skies, Ottawa, Canada.
Feb 12, 1990
Source

Hoover Institution Archive, Stepanov-Mamaladze Collection.

Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze was particularly unhappy with the swift pace of events on German unification, especially when a previously scheduled NATO and Warsaw Pact foreign ministers’ meeting in Ottawa, Canada, on February 10-12, 1990, that was meant to discuss the “Open Skies” treaty, turned into a wide-ranging negotiation over Germany and the installation of the Two-Plus-Four process to work out the details. Shevardnadze’s aide, Teimuraz Stepanov-Mamaladze, wrote notes of the Ottawa meetings in a series of notebooks, and also kept a less-telegraphic diary, which needs to be read along with the notebooks for the most complete account. Now deposited at the Hoover Institution, these excerpts of the Stepanov-Mamaladze notes and diary record Shevardnadze’s disapproval of the speed of the process, but most importantly reinforce the importance of the February 9 and 10 meetings in Moscow, where Western assurances about Soviet security were heard, and Gorbachev’s assent in principle to eventual German unification came as part of the deal.

Notes from the first days of the conference are very brief, but they contain one important line that shows that Baker offered the same assurance formula in Ottawa as he did in Moscow: “And if U[nited] G[ermany] stays in NATO, we should take care about nonexpansion of its jurisdiction to the East.” Shevardnadze is not ready to discuss conditions for German unification; he says that he has to consult with Moscow before any condition is approved. On February 13, according to the notes, Shevardnadze complains, “I am in a stupid situation – we are discussing the Open Skies, but my colleagues are talking about unification of Germany as if it was a fact.” The notes show that Baker was very persistent in trying to get Shevardnadze to define Soviet conditions for German unification in NATO, while Shevardnadze was still uncomfortable with the term “unification,” instead insisting on the more general term “unity.”

Document 10-2
Teimuraz Stepanov-Mamaladze diary, February 12, 1990.
Feb 12, 1990
Source

Hoover Institution Archive, Stepanov-Mamaladze Collection.

This diary entry from February 12 contains a very brief description of the February 10 Kohl and Genscher visit to Moscow, about which Stepanov-Mamaladze had not previously written (since he was not present). Sharing the view of his minister, Shevardnadze, Stepanov reflects on the hurried nature of, and insufficient considerations given to, the Moscow discussions: “Before our visit here, Kohl and Genscher paid a hasty visit to Moscow. And just as hastily – in the opinion of E.A. [Shevardnadze] – Gorbachev accepted the right of the Germans to unity and self-determination.” This diary entry is evidence, from a critical perspective, that the United States and West Germany did give Moscow concrete assurances about keeping NATO to its current size and scope. In fact, the diary further indicates that at least in Shevardnadze’s view those assurances amounted to a deal – which Gorbachev accepted, even while he stalled for time.

Document 10-3
Teimuraz Stepanov-Mamaladze diary, February 13, 1990.
Feb 13, 1990
Source

Hoover Institution Archive, Stepanov-Mamaladze Collection.

On the second day of the Ottawa conference, Stepanov-Mamaladze describes difficult negotiations about the exact wording on the joint statement on Germany and the Two-Plus-Four process. Shevardnadze and Genscher argued for two hours over the terms “unity” versus “unification” as Shevardnadze tried to slow things down on Germany and get the other ministers to concentrate on Open Skies. The day was quite intense: “During the day, active games were taking place between all of them. E.A. [Shevardnadze] met with Baker five times, twice with Genscher, talked with Fischer [GDR foreign minister], Dumas [French foreign minister], and the ministers of the ATS countries,” and finally, the text of the settlement was settled, using the word “unity.” The final statement also called the agreement on U.S. and Soviet troops in Central Europe the main achievement of the conference. But for the Soviet delegates, “ the ‘Open Sky’ [was] still closed by the storm cloud of Germany.”

Document 11
U.S. State Department, “Two Plus Four: Advantages, Possible Concerns and Rebuttal Points.”
Feb 21, 1990
Source

State Department FOIA release, National Security Archive Flashpoints Collection, Box 38.

This memo, likely authored by top Baker aide Robert Zoellick at the State Department, contains the candid American view of the Two-Plus-Four process with its advantages of “maintain[ing] American involvement in (and even some control over) the unification debate.” The American fear was that the West Germans would make their own deal with Moscow for rapid unification, giving up some of the bottom lines for the U.S., mainly membership in NATO. Zoellick points out, for example, that Kohl had announced his 10 Points without consulting Washington and after signals from Moscow, and that the U.S. had found out about Kohl going to Moscow from the Soviets, not from Kohl. The memo pre-empts objections about including the Soviets by pointing out they were already in Germany and had to be dealt with. The Two-Plus-Four arrangement includes the Soviets but prevents them from having a veto (which a Four-Power process or a United Nations process might allow), while an effective One-Plus-Three conversation before each meeting would enable West Germany and the U.S., with the British and the French, to work out a common position. Especially telling are the underlining and handwriting by Baker in the margins, especially his exuberant phrase, “you haven’t seen a leveraged buyout until you see this one!”

Document 12-1
Memorandum of conversation between Vaclav Havel and George Bush in Washington.
Feb 20, 1990
Source

George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, Memcons and Telcons (https://bush41library.tamu.edu/)

These conversations might be called “the education of Vaclav Havel,”[10] as the former dissident-turned-president of Czechoslovakia visited Washington only two months after the Velvet Revolution swept him from prison to the Prague Castle. Havel would enjoy standing ovations during a February 21 speech to a joint session of Congress, and hold talks with Bush before and after the congressional appearance. Havel had already been cited by journalists as calling for the dissolution of the Cold War blocs, both NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and the withdrawal of troops, so Bush took the opportunity to lecture the Czech leader about the value of NATO and its essential role as the basis for the U.S. presence in Europe. Still, Havel twice mentioned in his speech to Congress his hope that “American soldiers shouldn’t have to be separated from their mothers” just because Europe couldn’t keep the peace, and appealed for a “future democratic Germany in the process of unifying itself into a new pan-European structure which could decide about its own security system.” But afterwards, talking again to Bush, the former dissident clearly had gotten the message. Havel said he might have been misunderstood, that he certainly saw the value of U.S. engagement in Europe. For his part, Bush raised the possibilities, assuming more Czechoslovak cooperation on this issue, of U.S. investment and aid.

Document 12-2
Memorandum of conversation between Vaclav Havel and George Bush in Washington.
Feb 21, 1990
Source

George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, Memcons and Telcons (https://bush41library.tamu.edu/)

This memcon after Havel’s triumphant speech to Congress contains Bush’s request to Havel to pass the message to Gorbachev that the Americans support him personally, and that “We will not conduct ourselves in the wrong way by saying ‘we win, you lose.’” Emphasizing the point, Bush says, “tell Gorbachev that … I asked you to tell Gorbachev that we will not conduct ourselves regarding Czechoslovakia or any other country in a way that would complicate the problems he has so frankly discussed with me.” The Czechoslovak leader adds his own caution to the Americans about how to proceed with the unification of Germany and address Soviet insecurities. Havel remarks to Bush, “It is a question of prestige. This is the reason why I talked about the new European security system without mentioning NATO. Because, if it grew out of NATO, it would have to be named something else, if only because of the element of prestige. If NATO takes over Germany, it will look like defeat, one superpower conquering another. But if NATO can transform itself – perhaps in conjunction with the Helsinki process – it would look like a peaceful process of change, not defeat.” Bush responded positively: “You raised a good point. Our view is that NATO would continue with a new political role and that we would build on the CSCE process. We will give thought on how we might proceed.”

Document 13
Memorandum of Conversation between Helmut Kohl and George Bush at Camp David.
Feb 24, 1990
Source

George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, Memcons and Telcons (https://bush41library.tamu.edu/)

The Bush administration’s main worry about German unification as the process accelerated in February 1990 was that the West Germans might make their own deal bilaterally with the Soviets (see Document 11) and might be willing to bargain away NATO membership. President Bush later commented that the purpose of the Camp David meeting with Kohl was to “keep Germany on the NATO reservation,” and that drove the agenda for this set of meetings. The German chancellor arrives at Camp David without Genscher because the latter does not entirely share the Bush-Kohl position on full German membership in NATO, and he recently angered both leaders by speaking publicly about the CSCE as the future European security mechanism.[12]

At the beginning of this conversation, Kohl expresses gratitude for Bush and Baker’s support during his discussions with Gorbachev in Moscow in early February, especially for Bush’s letter stating Washington’s strong commitment to German unification in NATO. Both leaders express the need for the closest cooperation between them in order to reach the desired outcome. Bush’s priority is to keep the U.S. presence, especially the nuclear umbrella, in Europe: “if U.S. nuclear forces are withdrawn from Germany, I don’t see how we can persuade any other ally on the continent to retain these weapons.” He refers sarcastically to criticisms coming from Capitol Hill: “We have weird thinking in our Congress today, ideas like this peace dividend. We can’t do that in these uncertain times.” Both leaders are concerned about the position Gorbachev might take and agree on the need to consult with him regularly. Kohl suggests that the Soviets need assistance and the final arrangement on Germany could be a “matter of cash.” Foreshadowing his reluctance to contribute financially, Bush replies, “you have deep pockets.” At one point in the conversation, Bush seems to view his Soviet counterpart not as a partner but as a defeated enemy. Referring to talk in some Soviet quarters against Germany staying in NATO, he says: “To hell with that. We prevailed and they didn’t. We cannot let the Soviets clutch victory from the jaws of defeat.”

Document 14
Memorandum of conversation between George Bush and Eduard Shevardnadze in Washington.
Apr 6, 1990
Source

George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, Memcons and Telcons (https://bush41library.tamu.edu/)

Foreign Minister Shevardnadze delivers a letter to Bush from Gorbachev, in which the Soviet president reviews the main issues before the coming summit. Economic issues are at the top of the list for the Soviet Union, specifically Most Favored Nation status and a trade agreement with the United States. Shevardnadze expresses concern about the lack of progress on these issues and the U.S. efforts to prevent the EBRD from extending loans to the USSR. He stresses that they are not asking for help, “we are only looking to be treated as partners.” Addressing the tensions in Lithuania, Bush says that he does not want to create difficulties for Gorbachev on domestic issues, but notes that he must insist on the rights of Lithuanians because their incorporation within the USSR was never recognized by the United States. On arms control, both sides point to some backtracking by the other and express a desire to finalize the START Treaty quickly. Shevardnadze mentions the upcoming CSCE summit and the Soviet expectation that it will discuss the new European security structures. Bush does not contradict this but ties it to the issues of the U.S. presence in Europe and German unification in NATO. He declares that he wants to “contribute to stability and to the creation of a Europe whole and free, or as you call it, a common European home. A[n] idea that is very close to our own.” The Soviets—wrongly—interpret this as a declaration that the U.S. administration shares Gorbachev’s idea.

Document 15
Sir R. Braithwaite (Moscow). Telegraphic N. 667: “Secretary of State’s Meeting with President Gorbachev.”
Apr 11, 1990
Source
Documents on British Policy Overseas, series III, volume VII: German Unification, 1989-1990. (Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Documents on British Policy Overseas, edited by Patrick Salmon, Keith Hamilton, and Stephen Twigge, Oxford and New York, Routledge 2010), pp. 373-375

Ambassador Braithwaite’s telegram summarizes the meeting between Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Douglas Hurd and President Gorbachev, noting Gorbachev’s “expansive mood.” Gorbachev asks the secretary to pass his appreciation for Margaret Thatcher’s letter to him after her summit with Kohl, at which, according to Gorbachev, she followed the lines of policy Gorbachev and Thatcher discussed in their recent phone call, on the basis of which the Soviet leader concluded that “the British and Soviet positions were very close indeed.” Hurd cautions Gorbachev that their positions are not 100% in agreement, but that the British “recognized the importance of doing nothing to prejudice Soviet interests and dignity.” Gorbachev, as reflected in Braithwaite’s summary, speaks about the importance of building new security structures as a way of dealing with the issue of two Germanies: “If we are talking about a common dialogue about a new Europe stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals, that was one way of dealing with the German issue.” That would require a transitional period to pick up the pace of the European process and “synchronise it with finding a solution to the problem of the two Germanies.” However, if the process was unilateral – only Germany in NATO and no regard for Soviet security interest – the Supreme Soviet would be very unlikely to approve such a solution and the Soviet Union would question the need to speed up the reduction of its conventional weapons in Europe. In his view, Germany’s joining NATO without progress on European security structures “could upset the balance of security, which would be unacceptable to the Soviet Union.”

Document 16
Valentin Falin Memorandum to Mikhail Gorbachev (Excerpts)
Apr 18, 1990
Source
Mikhail Gorbachev i germanskii vopros, edited by Alexander Galkin and Anatoly Chernyaev, (Moscow: Ves Mir, 2006), pp. 398-408

This memorandum from the Central Committee’s most senior expert on Germany sounds like a wake-up call for Gorbachev. Falin puts it in blunt terms: while Soviet European policy has fallen into inactivity and even “depression” after the March 18 elections in East Germany, and Gorbachev himself has let Kohl speed up the process of unification, his compromises on Germany in NATO can only lead to the slipping away of his main goal for Europe – the common European home. “Summing up the past six months, one has to conclude that the ‘common European home,’ which used to be a concrete task the countries of the continent were starting to implement, is now turning into a mirage.” While the West is sweet-talking Gorbachev into accepting German unification in NATO, Falin notes (correctly) that “the Western states are already violating the consensus principle by making preliminary agreements among themselves” regarding German unification and the future of Europe that do not include a “long phase of constructive development.” He notes the West’s “intensive cultivation of not only NATO but also our Warsaw Pact allies” with the goal to isolate the USSR in the Two-Plus-Four and CSCE framework.

He further comments that reasonable voices are no longer heard: “Genscher from time to time continues to discuss accelerating the movement toward European collective security with the ‘dissolving of NATO and WTO into it.’ … But very few people … hear Genscher.” Falin proposes using the Soviet Four-power rights to achieve a formal legally binding settlement equal to a peace treaty that would guarantee Soviet security interests as “our only chance to dock German unification with the pan-European process.” He also suggests using arms control negotiations in Vienna and Geneva as leverage if the West keeps taking advantage of Soviet flexibility. The memo suggests specific provisions for the final settlement with Germany, the negotiation of which would take a long time and provide a window for building European structures. But the main idea of the memo is to warn Gorbachev not to be naive about the intentions of his American partners: “The West is outplaying us, promising to respect the interests of the USSR, but in practice, step by step, separating us from ‘traditional Europe.’”

Document 17
James A. Baker III, Memorandum for the President, “My meeting with Shevardnadze.”
May 4, 1990
Source

George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, NSC Scowcroft Files, Box 91126, Folder “Gorbachev (Dobrynin) Sensitive 1989 – June 1990 [3]”

The secretary of state had just spent nearly four hours meeting with the Soviet foreign minister in Bonn on May 4, 1990, covering a range of issues but centering on the crisis in Lithuania and the negotiations over German unification. As in the February talks and throughout the year, Baker took pains to provide assurances to the Soviets about including them in the future of Europe. Baker reports, “I also used your speech and our recognition of the need to adapt NATO, politically and militarily, and to develop CSCE to reassure Shevardnadze that the process would not yield winners and losers. Instead, it would produce a new legitimate European structure – one that would be inclusive, not exclusive.” Shevardnadze’s response indicates that “our discussion of the new European architecture was compatible with much of their thinking, though their thinking was still being developed.” Baker relates that Shevardnadze “emphasized again the psychological difficulty they have – especially the Soviet public has – of accepting a unified Germany in NATO.” Astutely, Baker predicts that Gorbachev will not “take on this kind of an emotionally charged political issue now” and likely not until after the Party Congress in July.

Document 18
Record of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and James Baker in Moscow.
May 18, 1990
Source

Gorbachev Foundation Archive, Fond 1, Opis 1.

This fascinating conversation covers a range of arms control issues in preparation for the Washington summit and includes extensive though inconclusive discussions of German unification and the tensions in the Baltics, particularly the standoff between Moscow and secessionist Lithuania. Gorbachev makes an impassioned attempt to persuade Baker that Germany should reunify outside of the main military blocs, in the context of the all-European process. Baker provides Gorbachev with nine points of assurance to prove that his position is being taken into account. Point eight is the most important for Gorbachev—that the United States is “making an effort in various forums to ultimately transform the CSCE into a permanent institution that would become an important cornerstone of a new Europe.”

This assurance notwithstanding, when Gorbachev mentions the need to build new security structures to replace the blocs, Baker lets slip a personal reaction that reveals much about the real U.S. position on the subject: “It’s nice to talk about pan-European security structures, the role of the CSCE. It is a wonderful dream, but just a dream. In the meantime, NATO exists. …” Gorbachev suggests that if the U.S. side insists on Germany in NATO, then he would “announce publicly that we want to join NATO too.” Shevardnadze goes further, offering a prophetic observation: “if united Germany becomes a member of NATO, it will blow up perestroika. Our people will not forgive us. People will say that we ended up the losers, not the winners.”

Document 19
Record of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and Francois Mitterrand (excerpts).
May 25, 1990
Source
Mikhail Gorbachev i germanskii vopros, edited by Alexander Galkin and Anatoly Chernyaev, (Moscow: Ves Mir, 2006), pp. 454-466

Gorbachev felt that of all the Europeans, the French president was his closest ally in the construction of a post-Cold War Europe, because the Soviet leader believed Mitterrand shared his concept of the common European home and the idea of dissolving both military blocs in favor of new European security structures. And Mitterrand did share that view, to an extent. In this conversation, Gorbachev is still hoping to persuade his counterpart to join him in opposing German unification in NATO. Mitterrand is quite direct, telling Gorbachev that it is too late to fight this issue and that he would not give his support, because “if I say ‘no’ to Germany’s membership in NATO, I will become isolated from my Western partners.” However, Mitterrand suggests that Gorbachev demand “appropriate guarantees” from NATO. He speaks about the danger of isolating the Soviet Union in the new Europe and the need to “create security conditions for you, as well as European security as a whole. This was one of my guiding goals, particularly when I proposed my idea of creating a European confederation. It is similar to your concept of a common European home.”

In his recommendations to Gorbachev, Mitterrand is basically repeating the lines of the Falin memo (see Document 16). He says Gorbachev should strive for a formal settlement with Germany using his Four-power rights and use the leverage of conventions arms control negotiations: “You will not abandon such a trump card as disarmament negotiations.” He implies that NATO is not the key issue now and could be drowned out in further negotiations; rather, the important thing is to ensure Soviet participation in new European security system. He repeats that he is “personally in favor of gradually dismantling the military blocs.”

Gorbachev expresses his wariness and suspicion about U.S. effort to “perpetuate NATO,” to “use NATO to create some sort of mechanism, an institution, a kind of directory for managing world affairs.” He tells Mitterrand about his concern that the U.S. is trying to attract East Europeans to NATO: “I told Baker: we are aware of your favorable attitude towards the intention expressed by a number of representatives of Eastern European countries to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and subsequently join NATO.” What about the USSR joining?

Mitterrand agrees to support Gorbachev in his efforts to encourage pan-European processes and ensure that Soviet security interests are taken into account as long as he does not have to say “no” to the Germans. He says “I always told my NATO partners: make a commitment not to move NATO’s military formations from their current territory in the FRG to East Germany.”

Document 20
Letter from Francois Mitterrand to George Bush
May 25, 1990
Source

George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, NSC Scowcroft Files, FOIA 2009-0275-S

True to his word, Mitterrand writes a letter to George Bush describing Gorbachev’s predicament on the issue of German unification in NATO, calling it genuine, not “fake or tactical.” He warns the American president against doing it as a fait accompli without Gorbachev’s consent implying that Gorbachev might retaliate on arms control (exactly what Mitterrand himself – and Falin earlier – suggested in his conversation). Mitterrand argues in favor of a formal “peace settlement in International law,” and informs Bush that in his conversation with Gorbachev he “indicated that, on the Western side, we would certainly not refuse to detail the guarantees that he would have a right to expect for his country’s security.” Mitterrand thinks that “we must try to dispel Mr. Gorbatchev’s worries,” and offers to present “ a number of proposals” about such guarantees when he and Bush meet in person.

Document 21
Record of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush. White House, Washington D.C.
May 31, 1990
Source

Gorbachev Foundation Archive, Moscow, Fond 1, opis 1.[13]

In this famous “two anchor” discussion, the U.S. and Soviet delegations deliberate over the process of German unification and especially the issue of a united Germany joining NATO. Bush tries to persuade his counterpart to reconsider his fears of Germany based on the past, and to encourage him to trust the new democratic Germany. The U.S. president says, “Believe me, we are not pushing Germany towards unification, and it is not us who determines the pace of this process. And of course, we have no intention, even in our thoughts, to harm the Soviet Union in any fashion. That is why we are speaking in favor of German unification in NATO without ignoring the wider context of the CSCE, taking the traditional economic ties between the two German states into consideration. Such a model, in our view, corresponds to the Soviet interests as well.” Baker repeats the nine assurances made previously by the administration, including that the United States now agrees to support the pan-European process and transformation of NATO in order to remove the Soviet perception of threat. Gorbachev’s preferred position is Germany with one foot in both NATO and the Warsaw Pact—the “two anchors”—creating a kind of associated membership. Baker intervenes, saying that “the simultaneous obligations of one and the same country toward the WTO and NATO smack of schizophrenia.” After the U.S. president frames the issue in the context of the Helsinki agreement, Gorbachev proposes that the German people have the right to choose their alliance—which he in essence already affirmed to Kohl during their meeting in February 1990. Here, Gorbachev significantly exceeds his brief, and incurs the ire of other members of his delegation, especially the official with the German portfolio, Valentin Falin, and Marshal Sergey Akhromeyev. Gorbachev issues a key warning about the future: “if the Soviet people get an impression that we are disregarded in the German question, then all the positive processes in Europe, including the negotiations in Vienna [over conventional forces], would be in serious danger. This is not just bluffing. It is simply that the people will force us to stop and to look around.” It is a remarkable admission about domestic political pressures from the last Soviet leader.

Document 22
Letter from Mr. Powell (N. 10) to Mr. Wall: Thatcher-Gorbachev memorandum of conversation.
Jun 8, 1990
Source
Documents on British Policy Overseas, series III, volume VII: German Unification, 1989-1990. (Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Documents on British Policy Overseas, edited by Patrick Salmon, Keith Hamilton, and Stephen Twigge, Oxford and New York, Routledge 2010), pp 411-417

Margaret Thatcher visits Gorbachev right after he returns home from his summit with George Bush. Among many issues in the conversation, the center of gravity is on German unification and NATO, on which, Powell notes, Gorbachev’s “views were still evolving.” Rather than agreeing on German unification in NATO, Gorbachev talks about the need for NATO and the Warsaw pact to move closer together, from confrontation to cooperation to build a new Europe: “We must mould European structures so that they helped us find the common European home. Neither side must be afraid of unorthodox solutions.”

While Thatcher speaks against Gorbachev’s ideas short of full NATO membership for Germany and emphasizes the importance of a U.S. military presence in Europe, she also sees that “CSCE could provide the umbrella for all this, as well as being the forum which brought the Soviet Union fully into discussion about the future of Europe.” Gorbachev says he wants to “be completely frank with the Prime Minister” that if the processes were to become one-sided, “there could be a very difficult situation [and the] Soviet Union would feel its security in jeopardy.” Thatcher responds firmly that it was in nobody’s interest to put Soviet security in jeopardy: “we must find ways to give the Soviet Union confidence that its security would be assured.”

Document 23
Record of Conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and Helmut Kohl, Moscow (Excerpts).
Jul 15, 1990
Source
Mikhail Gorbachev i germanskii vopros, edited by Alexander Galkin and Anatoly Chernyaev, (Moscow: Ves Mir, 2006), pp. 495-504

This key conversation between Chancellor Kohl and President Gorbachev sets the final parameters for German unification. Kohl talks repeatedly about the new era of relations between a united Germany and the Soviet Union, and how this relationship would contribute to European stability and security. Gorbachev demands assurances on non-expansion of NATO: “we must talk about the nonproliferation of NATO military structures to the territory of the GDR, and maintaining Soviet troops there for a certain transition period.” The Soviet leader notes earlier in the conversation that NATO has already began transforming itself. For him, the pledge of NATO non-expansion to the territory of the GDR in spirit means that NATO would not take advantage of the Soviet willingness to compromise on Germany. He also demands that the status of Soviet troops in the GDR for the transition period be “regulated. It should not hang in the air, it needs a legal basis.” He hands Kohl Soviet considerations for a full-fledged Soviet-German treaty that would include such guarantees. He also wants assistance with relocating the troops and building housing for them. Kohl promises to do so as long as this assistance is not construed as “a program of German assistance to the Soviet Army.”

Talking about the future of Europe, Kohl alludes to NATO transformation: “We know what awaits NATO in the future, and I think you are now in the know as well.” Kohl also emphasizes that President Bush is aware and supportive of Soviet-German agreements and will play a key role in the building of the new Europe. Chernyaev sums up this meeting in his diary for July 15, 1990: “Today – Kohl. They are meeting at the Schechtel mansion on Alexei Tolstoy Street. Gorbachev confirms his agreement to unified Germany’s entry into NATO. Kohl is decisive and assertive. He leads a clean but tough game. And it is not the bait (loans) but the fact that it is pointless to resist here, it would go against the current of events, it would be contrary to the very realities that M.S. likes to refer to so much.”[14]

Document 24
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush
Jul 17, 1990
Source

George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, Memcons and Telcons ((https://bush41library.tamu.edu/)

President Bush reaches out to Gorbachev immediately after the Kohl-Gorbachev meetings in Moscow and the Caucasus retreat of Arkhyz, which settled German unification, leaving only the financial arrangements for resolution in September. Gorbachev had not only made the deal with Kohl, but he had also survived and triumphed at the 28th Congress of the CPSU in early July, the last in the history of the Soviet Party. Gorbachev describes this time as “perhaps the most difficult and important period in my political life.” The Congress subjected the party leader to scathing criticism from both conservative Communists and the democratic opposition. He managed to defend his program and win reelection as general secretary, but he had very little to show from his engagement with the West, especially after ceding so much ground on German unification.

While Gorbachev fought for his political life as Soviet leader, the Houston summit of the G-7 had debated ways to help perestroika, but because of U.S. opposition to credits or direct economic aid prior to the enactment of serious free-market reforms, no concrete assistance package was approved; the group went no further than to authorize “studies” by the IMF and World Bank. Gorbachev counters that given enough resources the USSR “could move to a market economy,” otherwise, the country “will have to rely more on state-regulated measures.” In this phone call, Bush expands on Kohl’s security assurances and reinforces the message from the London Declaration: “So what we tried to do was to take account of your concerns expressed to me and others, and we did it in the following ways: by our joint declaration on non-aggression; in our invitation to you to come to NATO; in our agreement to open NATO to regular diplomatic contact with your government and those of the Eastern European countries; and our offer on assurances on the future size of the armed forces of a united Germany – an issue I know you discussed with Helmut Kohl. We also fundamentally changed our military approach on conventional and nuclear forces. We conveyed the idea of an expanded, stronger CSCE with new institutions in which the USSR can share and be part of the new Europe.”

Document 25
September 12 Two-Plus-Four Ministerial in Moscow: Detailed account [includes text of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany and Agreed Minute to the Treaty on the special military status of the GDR after unification]
Nov 2, 1990
Source

George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, NSC Condoleezza Rice Files, 1989-1990 Subject Files, Folder “Memcons and Telcons – USSR [1]”

Staffers in the European Bureau of the State Department wrote this document, practically a memcon, and addressed it to senior officials such as Robert Zoellick and Condoleezza Rice, based on notes taken by U.S. participants at the final ministerial session on German unification on September 12, 1990. The document features statements by all six ministers in the Two-Plus-Four process – Shevardnadze (the host), Baker, Hurd, Dumas, Genscher, and De Maiziere of the GDR – (much of which would be repeated in their press conferences after the event), along with the agreed text of the final treaty on German unification. The treaty codified what Bush had earlier offered to Gorbachev – “special military status” for the former GDR territory. At the last minute, British and American concerns that the language would restrict emergency NATO troop movements there forced the inclusion of a “minute” that left it up to the newly unified and sovereign Germany what the meaning of the word “deployed” should be. Kohl had committed to Gorbachev that only German NATO troops would be allowed on that territory after the Soviets left, and Germany stuck to that commitment, even though the “minute” was meant to allow other NATO troops to traverse or exercise there at least temporarily. Subsequently, Gorbachev aides such as Pavel Palazhshenko would point to the treaty language to argue that NATO expansion violated the “spirit” of this Final Settlement treaty.

Document 26
U.S. Department of State, European Bureau: Revised NATO Strategy Paper for Discussion at Sub-Ungroup Meeting
Oct 22, 1990
Source

George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, NSC Heather Wilson Files, Box CF00293, Folder “NATO – Strategy (5)”

The Bush administration had created the “Ungroup” in 1989 to work around a series of personality conflicts at the assistant secretary level that had stalled the usual interagency process of policy development on arms control and strategic weapons. Members of the Ungroup, chaired by Arnold Kanter of the NSC, had the confidence of their bosses but not necessarily the concomitant formal title or official rank.[15] The Ungroup overlapped with a similarly ad hoc European Security Strategy Group, and this became the venue, soon after German unification was completed, for the discussion inside the Bush administration about the new NATO role in Europe and especially on NATO relations with countries of Eastern Europe. East European countries, still formally in the Warsaw Pact, but led by non-Communist governments, were interested in becoming full members of international community, looking to join the future European Union and potentially NATO.

This document, prepared for a discussion of NATO’s future by a Sub-Ungroup consisting of representatives of the NSC, State Department, Joint Chiefs and other agencies, posits that “[a] potential Soviet threat remains and constitutes one basic justification for the continuance of NATO.” At the same time, in the discussion of potential East European membership in NATO, the review suggests that “In the current environment, it is not in the best interest of NATO or of the U.S. that these states be granted full NATO membership and its security guarantees.” The United States does not “wish to organize an anti-Soviet coalition whose frontier is the Soviet border” – not least because of the negative impact this might have on reforms in the USSR. NATO liaison offices would do for the present time, the group concluded, but the relationship will develop in the future. In the absence of the Cold War confrontation, NATO “out of area” functions will have to be redefined.

Document 27
James F. Dobbins, State Department European Bureau, Memorandum to National Security Council: NATO Strategy Review Paper for October 29 Discussion.
Oct 25, 1990
Source

George H. W. Bush Presidential Library: NSC Philip Zelikow Files, Box CF01468, Folder “File 148 NATO Strategy Review No. 1 [3]”[16]

This concise memorandum comes from the State Department’s European Bureau as a cover note for briefing papers for a scheduled October 29, 1990 meeting on the issues of NATO expansion and European defense cooperation with NATO. Most important is the document’s summary of the internal debate within the Bush administration, primarily between the Defense Department (specifically the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney) and the State Department. On the issue of NATO expansion, OSD “wishes to leave the door ajar” while State “prefers simply to note that discussion of expanding membership is not on the agenda….” The Bush administration effectively adopts State’s view in its public statements, yet the Defense view would prevail in the next administration.

Document 28
Ambassador Rodric Braithwaite diary, 05 March 1991
Mar 5, 1991
Source

Rodric Braithwaite personal diary (used by permission from the author)

British Ambassador Rodric Braithwaite was present for a number of the assurances given to Soviet leaders in 1990 and 1991 about NATO expansion. Here, Braithwaite in his diary describes a meeting between British Prime Minister John Major and Soviet military officials, led by Minister of Defense Marshal Dmitry Yazov. The meeting took place during Major’s visit to Moscow and right after his one-on-one with President Gorbachev. During the meeting with Major, Gorbachev had raised his concerns about the new NATO dynamics: “Against the background of favorable processes in Europe, I suddenly start receiving information that certain circles intend to go on further strengthening NATO as the main security instrument in Europe. Previously they talked about changing the nature of NATO, about transformation of the existing military-political blocs into pan-European structures and security mechanisms. And now suddenly again [they are talking about] a special peace-keeping role of NATO. They are talking again about NATO as the cornerstone. This does not sound complementary to the common European home that we have started to build.” Major responded: “I believe that your thoughts about the role of NATO in the current situation are the result of misunderstanding. We are not talking about strengthening of NATO. We are talking about the coordination of efforts that is already happening in Europe between NATO and the West European Union, which, as it is envisioned, would allow all members of the European Community to contribute to enhance [our] security.”[17] In the meeting with the military officials that followed, Marshal Yazov expressed his concerns about East European leaders’ interest in NATO membership. In the diary, Braithwaite writes: “Major assures him that nothing of the sort will happen.” Years later, quoting from the record of conversation in the British archives, Braithwaite recounts that Major replied to Yazov that he “did not himself foresee circumstances now or in the future where East European countries would become members of NATO.” Ambassador Braithwaite also quotes Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd as telling Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh on March 26, 1991, “there are no plans in NATO to include the countries of Eastern and Central Europe in NATO in one form or another.”[18]

Document 29
Paul Wolfowitz Memoranda of Conversation with Vaclav Havel and Lubos Dobrovsky in Prague.
Apr 27, 1991
Source

U.S. Department of Defense, FOIA release 2016, National Security Archive FOIA 20120941DOD109

These memcons from April 1991 provide the bookends for the “education of Vaclav Havel” on NATO (see Documents 12-1 and 12-2 above). U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz included these memcons in his report to the NSC and the State Department about his attendance at a conference in Prague on “The Future of European Security,” on April 24-27, 1991. During the conference Wolfowitz had separate meetings with Havel and Minister of Defense Dobrovsky. In the conversation with Havel, Wolfowitz thanks him for his statements about the importance of NATO and US troops in Europe. Havel informs him that Soviet Ambassador Kvitsinsky was in Prague negotiating a bilateral agreement, and the Soviets wanted the agreement to include a provision that Czechoslovakia would not join alliances hostile to the USSR. Wolfowitz advises both Havel and Dobrovsky not to enter into such agreements and to remind the Soviets about the provisions of the Helsinki Final Act that postulate freedom to join alliances of their choice. Havel states that for Czechoslovakia in the next 10 years that means NATO and the European Union.

In conversation with Dobrovsky, Wolfowitz remarks that “the very existence of NATO was in doubt a year ago,” but with U.S. leadership, and NATO allied (as well as united German) support, its importance for Europe is now understood, and the statements of East European leaders were important in this respect. Dobrovsky candidly describes the change in the Czechoslovak leadership’s position, “which had revised its views radically. At the beginning, President Havel had urged the dissolution of both the Warsaw Pact and NATO,” but then concluded that NATO should be maintained. “Off the record,” says Dobrovsky, “the CSFR was attracted to NATO because it ensured the U.S. presence in Europe.”

Document 30
Memorandum to Boris Yeltsin from Russian Supreme Soviet delegation to NATO HQs
Jul 1, 1991
Source

State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), Fond 10026, Opis 1

This document is important for describing the clear message in 1991 from the highest levels of NATO – Secretary General Manfred Woerner – that NATO expansion was not happening. The audience was a Russian Supreme Soviet delegation, which in this memo was reporting back to Boris Yeltsin (who in June had been elected president of the Russian republic, largest in the Soviet Union), but no doubt Gorbachev and his aides were hearing the same assurance at that time. The emerging Russian security establishment was already worried about the possibility of NATO expansion, so in June 1991 this delegation visited Brussels to meet NATO’s leadership, hear their views about the future of NATO, and share Russian concerns. Woerner had given a well-regarded speech in Brussels in May 1990 in which he argued: “The principal task of the next decade will be to build a new European security structure, to include the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations. The Soviet Union will have an important role to play in the construction of such a system. If you consider the current predicament of the Soviet Union, which has practically no allies left, then you can understand its justified wish not to be forced out of Europe.”

Now in mid-1991, Woerner responds to the Russians by stating that he personally and the NATO Council are both against expansion—“13 out of 16 NATO members share this point of view”—and that he will speak against Poland’s and Romania’s membership in NATO to those countries’ leaders as he has already done with leaders of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Woerner emphasizes that “We should not allow […] the isolation of the USSR from the European community.” The Russian delegation warned that any strengthening or expanding of NATO could “seriously slow down democratic transformations” in Russia, and called on their NATO interlocutors to gradually decrease the military functions of the alliance. This memo on the Woerner conversation was written by three prominent reformers and close allies of Yeltsin—Sergey Stepashin (chairman of the Duma’s Security Committee and future deputy minister of Security and prime minister), Gen. Konstantin Kobets (future chief military inspector of Russia after he was the highest-ranking Soviet military officer to support Yeltsin during the August 1991 coup) and Gen. Dmitry Volkogonov (Yeltsin’s adviser on defense and security issues, future head of the U.S.-Russian Joint Commission on POW-MIA and prominent military historian).

Photo: Michail Gorbachev discussing German unification with Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Helmut Kohl in Russia, July 15, 1990. Photo: Bundesbildstelle / Presseund Informationsamt der Bundesregierung.

Notes

[1] See Robert Gates, University of Virginia, Miller Center Oral History, George H.W. Bush Presidency, July 24, 2000, p. 101)

[2] See Chapter 6, “The Malta Summit 1989,” in Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton, The Last Superpower Summits (CEU Press, 2016), pp. 481-569. The comment about the Wall is on p. 538.

[3] For background, context, and consequences of the Tutzing speech, see Frank Elbe, “The Diplomatic Path to Germany Unity,” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute 46 (Spring 2010), pp. 33-46. Elbe was Genscher’s chief of staff at the time.

[4] See Mark Kramer, “The Myth of a No-NATO-Enlargement Pledge to Russia,” The Washington Quarterly, April 2009, pp. 39-61.

[5] See Joshua R. Itkowitz Shifrinson, “Deal or No Deal? The End of the Cold War and the U.S. Offer to Limit NATO Expansion,” International Security, Spring 2016, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 7-44.

[6] See James Goldgeier, Not Whether But When: The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO (Brookings Institution Press, 1999); and James Goldgeier, “Promises Made, Promises Broken? What Yeltsin was told about NATO in 1993 and why it matters,” War On The Rocks, July 12, 2016.

[7] See also Svetlana Savranskaya, Thomas Blanton, and Vladislav Zubok, “Masterpieces of History”: The Peaceful End of the Cold War in Europe, 1989 (CEU Press, 2010), for extended discussion and documents on the early 1990 German unification negotiations.

[8] Genscher told Baker on February 2, 1990, that under his plan, “NATO would not extend its territorial coverage to the area of the GDR nor anywhere else in Eastern Europe.” Secretary of State to US Embassy Bonn, “Baker-Genscher Meeting February 2,” George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, NSC Kanter Files, Box CF00775, Folder “Germany-March 1990.” Cited by Joshua R. Itkowitz Shifrinson, “Deal or No Deal? The End of the Cold War and the U.S. Offer to Limit NATO Expansion,” International Security, Spring 2016, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 7-44.

[9] The previous version of this text said that Kohl was “caught up in a campaign finance corruption scandal that would end his political career”; however, that scandal did not erupt until 1999, after the September 1998 elections swept Kohl out of office. The authors are grateful to Prof. Dr. H.H. Jansen for the correction and his careful reading of the posting.

[10] See Andrei Grachev, Gorbachev’s Gamble (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2008), pp. 157-158.

[11] For an insightful account of Bush’s highly effective educational efforts with East European leaders including Havel – as well as allies – see Jeffrey A. Engel, When the World Seemed New: George H.W. Bush and the End of the Cold War (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), pp. 353-359.

[12] See George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Knopf, 1998), pp. 236, 243, 250.

[13] Published in English for the first time in Savranskaya and Blanton, The Last Superpower Summits (2016), pp. 664-676.

[14] Anatoly Chernyaev Diary, 1990, translated by Anna Melyakova and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya, pp. 41-42.

[15] See Michael Nelson and Barbara A. Perry, 41: Inside the Presidency of George H.W. Bush (Cornell University Press, 2014), pp. 94-95.

[16] The authors thank Josh Shifrinson for providing his copy of this document.

[17] See Memorandum of Conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and John Major published in Mikhail Gorbachev, Sobranie Sochinenii, v. 24 (Moscow: Ves Mir, 2014), p. 346

[18] See Rodric Braithwaite, “NATO enlargement: Assurances and misunderstandings,” European Council on Foreign Relations, Commentary, 7 July 2016.

Published at nsarchive.gwu.edu
Source: http://www.defenddemocracy.press/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard/

In keeping with the tradition maintained over all previous years, the Belgrade Forum for the World of Equals is marking March 24, remembering this day back in 1999 when the NATO Alliance’s illegal and criminal aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (the FRY) began, thus paying tribute to the fallen defenders of the motherland and the killed civilians.

This aggression was the first war on European soil waged since the end of World War II. As the bombs and cruise missiles thrown by the most powerful military machinery in the history of civilization were busy destroying a small European country, they also destroyed the European and global security system based on the UN Charter, the OSCE Final Act and the Paris Charter. To this day, Europe and the world still suffer the severe consequences of that destruction. In the process, NATO allied with the so-called KLA, a separatist-terrorist formation, as its infantry wing, thus boosting separatism and terrorism.

On March 23, 2022, at 11:00 a.m., representatives of the Belgrade Forum, together with its partner Club of Generals and Admirals of Serbia and other patriotic-oriented organisations, will lay a wreath at the Monument to Serbian children killed during the aggression in the Tašmajdan Park. During the ceremony, Dragutin Brčin, Director of the Belgrade Forum, will address the audience on behalf of the Forum. Next, around the noon, representatives of the Belgrade Forum and the Club of Generals and Admirals of Serbia, together with other patriotic organizations, will pay tribute to all victims of NATO aggression at the monument “Eternal Fire”, in Novi Beograd. On the occasion, General Luka Kastratović, ret., President of the Executive Board of the Club of Generals and Admirals of Serbia, will address the audience.

The Belgrade Forum invites all patriotic organisations and individuals that cherish the memory of the fallen members of the Serbian military and security forces and all those killed in the aggression, to join these events and thus pay their respect for the fallen defenders and civilians. At present, we are witnessing calls for observance of international law and blaming other countries for violating it, cynically made by the USA, the UK, Germany and NATO as a whole, that is, the exactly same countries and bodies that had themselves illegally attacked the FRY without a UN Security Council decision, the same ones who intentionally used missiles filled with depleted uranium and other banned weapons to deliberately and indiscriminately bomb our country’s infrastructure and the civilian targets, killed children, women, hospital patients and civilians, and who openly conducted smear campaigns against the Serbian people in global media.

The marking of the beginning of the 1999 NATO aggression against our country is another opportunity to recall all their crimes and atrocities and to remind our public, especially the youth, of the horrors and damage the aggression caused, as well as of the consequences of which many are yet to be remedied. The precedent of aggression executed without the UN Security Council approval was reused in the subsequent aggressions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria. NATO’s aggression against the FRY in 1999 was a stepping stone in bringing to life the strategy of military expansion to the East, closer to the Russian borders, which is the root cause of the Ukrainian crisis.

During 79 days of unrelenting attacks on the FRY, from March 24 to June 10, 1999, the mass- scale assaults of NATO aviation sending missile systems and other weapons from air, waterways and land, with collaboration comprising the terrorists Albanian KLA, the regular army of the Republic of Albania, the mercenaries recruited and financed by Western states, and the instructors and special operation units of the leading Western states, has indiscriminately killed members of the Yugoslav Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies of the Republic of Serbia, as well as civilians including children, and destroyed cultural monuments, churches and monasteries, devastated military, economic, strategic and traffic infrastructure, business facilities, civilian facilities and institutions, schools, kindergartens, hospitals, and even the public broadcaster – the Radio Television of Serbia, killing 16 of the RTS employees. Over the course of this aggression, NATO carried out 2,300 airstrikes on 995 facilities throughout the coutnry, and its 1,150 fighter planes launched some 420,000 projectiles with the total mass of 22,000 tons, including depleted uranium weapons.

About 4,000 casualties were estimated, of whom some 3,000 civilians and 1,031 members of the army and the police. 89 children were killed. In total, more than 12,000 people were wounded, of whom about 6,000 civilians including 2,700 children, and 5,173 soldiers and police officers. 25 persons are still listed as missing.

Since the precise list of civilian casualties has not been established yet, the Belgrade Forum reiterates its appeal to the state authorities to finally see to this sad task being completed. In their attacks on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, NATO forces employed approximately a thousand aircrafts (fighters, fighter-bombers, bombers, spy planes, etc.); the largest share in the air attacks had the forces of the USA, UK and Germany, albeit with significant roles in the aggression also played by other members.

The air assaults destroyed and damaged 25,000 residential buildings, disabled 470 km of roads and 595 km of railways. They also inflicted damage to 14 airports, 19 hospitals, 20 health centers, 18 kindergartens, 69 schools, 176 cultural monuments, and 44 bridges, while leaving additional 38 totally destroyed. Among the latter, of special significance are the destruction of two oil refineries (in Pančevo and Novi Sad), the demolition of the Avala Broadcasting Tower, the building of the Serbian Radio and Television, the Petrochemistry Complex in Pančevo, the bombing of bridges in Novi Sad, the Zastava automobile factory in Kragujevac, the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, and many other civilian targets. Estimates are that some 38% of targeted facilities were of a civilian purpose.. The war damage was estimated to about USD 100 billion.

During the bombing of the territory of the Republic of Serbia, ammunition banned under the Geneva Convention was routinely used, with in total 15 tons of uranium dumped on Serbia. As a direct consequence of missiles filled with depleted uranium, in 2015 Serbia was announced to be the top-ranking country in Europe in terms of mortality from malignant tumors. In addition, about 1,000 cluster bombs were dropped on 219 locations on an area of 23,000 km2, killing a large number of civilians. As a result of that, from the end of the aggression until 2006, 6 people perished from detonated cluster bombs throughout the territory of Serbia and Montenegro, while additional 12 were wounded.

In all likelihood, all those who fell victims to the delayed effects of missiles with depleted uranium, unexploded cluster bombs and other lethal means, will hardly ever be exactly accounted for. The Belgrade Forum invites the competent state authorities to ensure the continuation of the work of special bodies tasked with determining the consequences of the use of depleted uranium weapons and other means and methods employed during the NATO aggression.

The aggression ended on June 10, 1999, upon the signing of the Military-Technical Agreement in Kumanovo and the subsequent adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which established the truce and temporarily transferred the administering of Kosovo and Metohija to the United Nations. Pursuant to this Agreement, the FRY Army, the Police and the administration of the FRY and the Republic of Serbia, withdrew on an interim basis to the territory of Central Serbia. Along the withdrawal of the army and police, about 250,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija fled to central parts of Serbia. This made Serbia the country hosting the largest number of refugees and internally displaced persons in Europe, after this and other wars that marked the violent and forcible breakup of Yugoslavia.

It is cynical to the extreme to take to accusing other countries of crimes that the leading NATO states have continuously committed themselves. It would serve them well if, at least as late as today, as they stand accusing others, they halt for a moment and remember their own misdeeds, repent and remedy all the injustices they have done to our country as well as to others, most notably, to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and others. . Never forget. See you on March 24, 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else.

Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are—but this is just wrong.

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

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

Ukraine and Georgia’s NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability in the region.  Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests.

Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war.  In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.

A de facto NATO ally

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

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

Over the past few years, military contingents of NATO countries have been almost constantly present on Ukrainian territory under the pretext of exercises. The Ukrainian troop control system has already been integrated into NATO. This means that NATO headquarters can issue direct commands to the Ukrainian armed forces, even to their separate units and squads….

Kiev has long proclaimed a strategic course on joining NATO. Indeed, each country is entitled to pick its own security system and enter into military alliances. There would be no problem with that, if it were not for one “but.” International documents expressly stipulate the principle of equal and indivisible security, which includes obligations not to strengthen one’s own security at the expense of the security of other states….

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

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

The Maidan Coup of 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ukrainian missile crisis

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

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

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

It is extremely alarming that elements of the US global defense system are being deployed near Russia. The Mk 41 launchers, which are located in Romania and are to be deployed in Poland, are adapted for launching the Tomahawk strike missiles. If this infrastructure continues to move forward, and if US and NATO missile systems are deployed in Ukraine, their flight time to Moscow will be only 7–10 minutes, or even five minutes for hypersonic systems. This is a huge challenge for us, for our security.

The United States does not possess hypersonic weapons yet, but we know when they will have it…. They will supply hypersonic weapons to Ukraine and then use them as cover…to arm extremists from a neighbouring state and incite them against certain regions of the Russian Federation, such as Crimea, when they think circumstances are favorable.

Do they really think we do not see these threats? Or do they think that we will just stand idly watching threats to Russia emerge? This is the problem: We simply have no room to retreat.

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

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

Refusal to de-escalate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘The strategic case for risking war’

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

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

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

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

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

‘Something even worse than war’

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: fair.org

NATO expansion, the Ukrainian crisis and sanctions against Russia will most likely accelerate the strategic connection between Russia and China, and also accelerate the placement of China to the first place in the world economy. Sanctions are a particularly severe blow to export-oriented economies (EU, Germany, Japan, South Korea).

The strengthening of the synergy of the New Silk Road and The Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC) and the accelerated reduction of the West's participation in world trade and GDP are to be expected.

The Bretton Woods system will face new systemic challenges as the strengthening and creation of new international institutions accelerates. A further reduction of the global role of the dollar is almost certain. This will, among other things, significantly limit the spillover of Western inflation, enormous arms costs and productivity decline to the East and developing countries. The loss of privileges of the former economic and financial system, the deficit of energy and strategic minerals will most likely further encourage egoism within Western integrations and thus their dispersal (EU).

All in all, the constitution of a new multipolar world order has gained momentum.

Zivadin Jovanovic

Statement of the Belgrade Forum for the World of Equals

The root causes and the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis arise from, and rest on, the U.S.- led NATO’s strategy of military expansion to the East and threatening security of Russia, whom the West has defined as the enemy in its doctrines.

The first victims of NATO’s strategy of eastward expansion were Serbian people and Serbia.
Their sanctions, demonization and isolation applied during the 1990s against Serbia and the Serbs are presently re-applied against Russia and the Russian people.

The centers of power which have, back in the day, prevented the implementation of the Peace Plan in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and presently demand revision of the Dayton Accords and UNSC Resolution 1244, are now preventing the implementation of the Minsk Peace Agreement in Ukraine, rejecting negotiations on equal security, and firmly pushing for further expansion and ultimately for military encirclement of Russia.

Serbia and Russia, the Serbian and Russian people are centuries-old friends, allies and strategic partners.
Russia provides invaluable support to Serbia in her preserving own sovereignty and territorial integrity and also in efforts for peacefully resolving the issues related to Kosovo and Metohija, all in line with international law, UN Security Council Resolution 1244, and the Serbian Constitution.

As a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council, Russia protected Serbia from groundless accusations for alleged genocide, coming from the West. It goes without saying that Serbia must not accuse, or impose any measures and sanctions against such a friend and partner as Russia is, in relenting to pressures coming from those same subjects who bear the greatest responsibility for the gravest violations of the UN Charter and international law in general, for the criminal aggression of NATO in 1999, and for illegal secession of Priština. The harder, more turbulent and volatile the times are, the greater the moral obligation to respect trusted friends and allies is.

Public speculation on whether Russia might be excluded from the United Nations is not well judged. Pursuant to the UN Charter, any initiative would have beforehand to secure consent of the permanent members of the Security Council. Any such attempt in that body would certainly be vetoed Russia, if not China as well. In other words, the UN Security Council would not be able to refer a valid proposal to the General Assembly. Russia has become a permanent member of the UN Security Council by virtue of the act establishing the world organization, as the country that had contributed the most, and had laid the greatest human sacrifice to the altar of the Allies’ victory in World War II and, accordingly, this is the status she cannot be deprived of.

Any contrary course of actions would only make the UN share the fate of
the League of Nations.
Needless to say, all are aware of what would that pave the way for.

Public speculations on the destiny of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 that go so far as to mention a possibility of the People’s Republic of China withdrawing its support for this universally binding legal document, in succumbing to a hypothetical pressure from the West, does not benefit anyone, least of all Serbia. For Serbia, UN SC Resolution 1244 is and should remain an irreplaceable generally binding legal document of enduring importance, until its consistent and full implementation.

Information service of the
Belgrade Forum for the World of Equals