Very occasionally, a single anecdote can almost completely summate a moment in history. And this one did: In 2005, Zbig Brzezinski, the architect of Afghanistan as quagmire to the Soviet Union, and the author of The Grand Chessboard (which embedded the Mackinder dictum of ‘he who controls the Asian heartland controls the world’ into U.S. foreign policy), sat down in Washington with Alexander Dugin, Russian political philosopher and advocate for a ‘heartland’ cultural and geo-political renaissance.

Brzezinski had already written in his book that, absent Ukraine, Russia would never become the heartland power; but with it, Russia can and would. The meeting had been set with a photo-prop of a chessboard placed between Brzezinski and Dugin (to promote Brzezinski’s book). This arrangement with a chessboard prompted Dugin to ask whether Brzezinski considered Chess to be a game meant for two: “No, Zbig shot back: It is a game for one. Once a chess piece is moved; you turn the board around, and you move the other side’s chess pieces. There is ‘no other’ in this game”, Brzezinski insisted.

Of course, the single-handed chess game was implicit in Mackinder’s doctrine: ‘He who controls the heartland’ dictum was a message to the Anglo powers to never allow a united heartland. (This, of course, is precisely what is evolving at every moment).

And on Monday, Biden channelled Brzezinski out loud, whilst addressing the Business Roundtable in the U.S. His remarks came toward the end of his brief speech where he talked about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and America’s economic future:

“I think this presents us with some significant opportunities to make some real changes. You know, we are at an inflection point, I believe, in the world economy: [and] not just the world economy – in the world [which] occurs every three or four generations. As one of my, as the one of the top military people said to me in a secure meeting the other day, 60 million people died between 1900 and 1946; and since then we established a liberal world order and that hadn’t happened in a long while. A lot of people died, but nowhere near the chaos. And now’s the time when things are shifting. We’re going, there’s gonna be a new world order out there; and we’ve got to lead it and we’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it.”

Again there is no ‘other’ at the board. When the moves are made, the board is turned around 180º to play from the other side.

The point here is that the carefully deliberated counter-attack on this Brzezinski zeitgeist was formally launched in Beijing with the joint-declaration that neither Russia nor China accept for America to play chess alone with no others at the board. This represents the defining issue of this coming era: The opening-up of geo-politics. It is an issue for which the excluded ‘others’ are prepared to go to war (they see no choice).

A second chess-player has stepped forward and insists to play – Russia. And a third stands ready: China. Others are silently lining up to witness how the first engagement in this geo-political war fares. It seems from Biden’s comments quoted above that the U.S. intends to use sanctions, and the full unprecedented extent of U.S. treasury measures, against Brzezinski dissidents. Russia is to be made an example of that which awaits any challengers demanding a seat at the board.

But it is an approach that is fundamentally flawed. It stems from Kissinger’s celebrated dictum that ‘he who controls money controls the world’. It was wrong from the ‘get go’: It was always ‘he who controls food, energy (human as well as fossil) and money can control the world. But Kissinger just ignored the first two required conditions – and the last has imprinted itself on the Washington mental circuits.

And here is the paradox: When Brzezinski wrote his book, it was a very different era. Today, whilst Europe and the U.S. never have been more closely aligned, the ‘West’ paradoxically has also never been more alone. Opposition to Russia may have seemed at the outset a slam dunk global unifier: That world opinion would so robustly oppose Moscow’s attack, that China would pay a high political price for failing to jump onto the anti-Russia bandwagon. But that is not how it is working out.

“While the U.S. rhetoric pillories Russia for “war crimes” and the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, et al”, former Indian Ambassador Bhadrakumar notes, “the world capitals view this as a confrontation between America and Russia. Outside of the western camp, the world community refuses to impose sanctions against Russia or even to demonise that country”.

The Islamabad Declaration issued on Wednesday after the 45th meeting of the foreign ministers of the fifty-seven member Organisation of Islamic Conference refused to endorse sanctions against Russia. Not a single country in the African continent or West Asian, Central Asia, South and Southeast Asian region has imposed sanctions against Russia”.

There may well be a further factor at play here: For when these latter states hear phrases such as the ‘Ukrainians, through their heroism, have won the right to enter our “club of values”’, they scent a whiff of debilitated ‘white’ Europe clutching at the life-rafts.

The reality is that the sanctions to which Biden referred in his speech have already failed. Russia has not defaulted; the Moscow stock exchange is open; the Rouble is on the rebound; their current account is in rude good health and Russia is selling energy at windfall prices (even after discount).

In short, trade ‘will be diverted’, not destroyed (the benefit of being an exporter of goods almost fully produced locally – ie. a fortress economy).

The second oddity in Biden’s policy is that whilst Clausewitzian doctrine (to which Russia broadly adheres) argues for the dismantling of ‘the enemy’s centre of gravity, to achieve victory’, in this case presumably, the western control of the global reserve currency and payments systems. Today, however, it is Europe and the U.S. that have been dismantling it themselves: and further locking themselves into soaring inflation and contracting economic activity, in some unexplained fit of moral masochism.

As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard notes in the Telegraph, “What is clear is that western sanctions policy is the worst of all worlds. We are suffering an energy shock that is further inflating Russia’s war-fighting revenues … There is a pervasive fear of a gilets jaunes uprising across Europe, a suspicion that a fickle public will not tolerate the cost-of-living shock once the horrors of Ukraine lose their novelty on TV screens”.

Again, perhaps we can attribute this paradoxical behaviour to Kissinger’s obsession with the power of money, and his forgetfulness of other major factors.

All of this has led to a certain unease creeping into the corridors of power in some NATO capitals over the course that the Ukraine conflict is taking: NATO will not intervene; it will not implement a no-fly zone; and has pointedly ignored Zelensky’s new plea for additional military equipment. Ostensibly, this reflects the ‘selfless’ gesture by the West to avoid a nuclear war. In reality, however, the development of new weaponry can transform geopolitics in a moment (for example, Russia’s Kinzhal hypersonic smart bunker-buster). The fact is that across the board, NATO cannot prevail militarily against Russia in Ukraine.

It seems the Pentagon has – for now – won in the war with State Department and has begun the process of ‘correcting the narrative’.

Contrast these two U.S. narratives:

The State Department on Monday signalled that U.S. is discouraging Zelensky from making concessions to Russia in return for a ceasefire. The spokesman “made it very clear that he is open to a diplomatic solution that does not compromise the core principles at the heart of the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine. When asked to elaborate on his point, Price said that the war is “bigger” than Russia and Ukraine. “The key point is that there are principles that are at stake here that have universal applicability everywhere”. Price said Putin was trying to violate “core principles”.

But, the Pentagon “drop[ed] two truth bombs” in its battle with State and Congress to prevent confrontation with Russia: “Russia’s conduct in the brutal war tells a different story than the widely accepted view that Putin is intent on demolishing Ukraine and inflicting maximum civilian damage—and it reveals the Russian leader’s strategic balancing act”, reported Newsweek in an article entitled, “Putin’s Bombers Could Devastate Ukraine But He’s Holding Back. Here’s Why.”

One quotes an unnamed analyst at the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) saying, “The heart of Kyiv has barely been touched. And almost all of the long-range strikes have been aimed at military targets. A retired U.S. Air Force officer now working as an analyst for a Pentagon contractor, added: “We need to understand Russia’s actual conduct. If we merely convince ourselves that Russia is bombing indiscriminately, or [that] it is failing to inflict more harm because its personnel are not up to the task or because it is technically inept, then we are not seeing the real conflict””.

The second ‘truth bomb’ directly undermines Biden’s dramatic warning about a false flag chemical attack. Reuters reported: “The United States has not yet seen any concrete indications of an imminent Russian chemical or biological weapons attack in Ukraine but is closely monitoring streams of intelligence for them, a senior U.S. defence official said.”

Biden is positioned in the middle, saying ‘Putin’s a war criminal’, but also that there will be no NATO fight with Russia. “The only end game now,” a senior administration official said at a private event earlier this month, “is the end of Putin regime. Until then, all the time Putin stays, [Russia] will be a pariah state that will never be welcomed back into the community of nations. China has made a huge error in thinking Putin will get away with it”.

There it is – the bottom line: Allow the carnage in Ukraine to continue; sit back and watch the ‘heroic Ukrainians bleed Russia dry’; do enough to sustain the conflict (by providing some weapons), but not enough to escalate it; and play it as the heroic struggle for democracy, in order to satisfy public opinion.

The point is that it isn’t working out that way. Putin may surprise all in DC by exiting Ukraine when Russia’s military operation is complete. (When Putin speaks of Ukraine, by the way, he usually discounts the western part added on by Stalin as Ukrainian).

And it isn’t working out with China. Blinken said in justification of new sanctions imposed on China last week: “We are committed to defending human rights around the world and will continue to use all diplomatic and economic measures to promote accountability”.

The sanctions were imposed because China had failed to repudiate Putin. Just that. The language of accountability and (of atonement) used however, can be understood only as an expression of woke contemporary culture. It is enough to present some aspect of Chinese culture as politically incorrect (as racist, repressive, misogynist, supremacist or offensive), and immediately it becomes politically incorrect. And that means that any aspect of it can be adduced at will by the Administration as meriting sanctioning.

The problem again reverts to the West’s refusal to accept ‘others’ at the chessboard. What can China do, but shrug at such nonsense.

Biden, in his speech to the Roundtable, fore-staged – yet again – a new world order; he suggested that a Great Re-set is coming.

But maybe a ‘Re-set Reckoning’ of a different order is on the cards; one that will return many things to that which, until relatively recently, had actually worked. Politics and geo-politics are metamorphosing at every moment.

While no historical analogies are ever perfect, there are some noteworthy similarities between the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and Vladimir Putin, although not for the reasons some pundits are suggesting.

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

 – Mark Twain

Bismarck, the 19th century German statesman from a landowning Junker family, may never have appeared shirtless astride a horse, or photographed saving a television crew from a Siberian tiger, but there is more to the story between he and Vladimir Putin than first meets the eye.

Much like the Russian leader from a later epoch, Bismarck, the fervent anti-liberal who held sway over Prussia from 1871 to 1890, found it a matter of existential importance to bring his own people, the Germans, together in common ‘statehood.’ But whereas Bismarck’s empire-building initiatives led to a string of successful wars against Denmark, Austria and France, Putin’s nation-building efforts were necessarily focused on long-simmering internal problems, which had the potential, if not defused, to bring post-communist Russia to its knees.

A comparison between Bismarck and Putin was made last month by the columnist George F. Will. Unsurprisingly, however, Will, writing in the pages of The Washington Post, used his analogy to support the perennial ‘Russia the Aggressor’ narrative, suggesting that Putin would move to conquer other countries after ‘demilitarizing’ and ‘denazifying’ Ukraine.

“The Baltic nations — Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, all NATO nations — should worry,” he warned.

Such a groundless and reckless claim, aside from stoking Russophobia, flies in the face of everything that Putin has stood for during the duration of his presidency. Moreover, it ignores the fact that the Russian leader has already fought his ‘wars,’ so to speak.

While Bismarck was initially compelled to fight against foreign adversaries, Putin’s priority, in addition to taming the oligarchs who had practically taken over the Kremlin in the 1990s, was to end the war in Chechnya, which had its start in 1994 under his predecessor Boris Yeltsin. Just around the time this conflict in the North Caucasus was coming to an end, in 2008, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili made the reckless decision to launch a military offensive on the breakaway state of South Ossetia. The unprovoked attack, which occurred while Putin was serving as prime minister, resulted in the death of several Russian peacekeepers and culminated in a brief war between Russia and Georgia that ended swiftly on the side of the former. This conflict was followed seven years later with Moscow’s intervention in Syria, which began in September 2015 with an official request from Damascus to help defeat the terrorist fforces of Islamic State. Up until the launching of Moscow’s special operation in Ukraine, those wholly defensive campaigns had been the extent of Russia’s so-called ‘aggression.’

What Will fails to understand in the course of his comparison is that Bismarck, who expressed his personal revulsion to war on many occasions, was no ‘neocon’ as it were. The shrewd chancellor, after putting his enemies in check, was the driving force behind an age of peace on the European continent that lasted for two decades. In that respect, a comparison could be made between ‘the Putin Doctrine’, as it were, and the realpolitik of Bismarck.

Here is a quote by the historian Eric Hobsbawm as he describes Bismarck: “He remained undisputed world champion at the game of multilateral diplomatic chess for almost twenty years … [and] devoted himself exclusively, and successfully, to maintaining peace between the powers.”

Sound familiar? Any reader who has not been thoroughly brainwashed by the mainstream media and its kneejerk anti-Russia stance will quickly see that that description also aptly applies to Putin and his judicious approach to foreign affairs over the duration of his tenure. The prediction here is that (unbiased) future historians will be writing much the same words about the Russian leader, whose defensive actions in Ukraine, for example, will be viewed as absolutely warranted in face of the existential threats they countered. But I digress.

The WaPo columnist also conflates the ‘mindset’ of modern, democratic Russia with that of the sprawling Soviet Union and its 15 republics. Since the collapse of the communist empire in 1991, and certainly long before then, the Russian people have had no appetite for ‘empire-building’ adventures, unless, perhaps, it is employed as a boardroom strategy for some business expansion. Russia is a full-blown ‘capitalist democracy,’ abundant in natural resources, human talent and lebensraum (‘living space’), and as such has absolutely no need – regardless what the pundits would have everyone believe – for wars of expansion.

With regards to Crimea, which voted in March 2014 to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation, Will was noticeably agitated that Moscow deferred to the late U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and his self-styled concept of “self-determination” as a universal right and “an imperative principle of action” to justify its actions. Clearly, such highfalutin ideals are only acceptable when the ‘exceptional’ Americans are behind them.

“It must delight Putin to employ an American saint’s piety in an act of anti-American realpolitik,” Will seethed. “Much of Putin’s geopolitics consists of doing whatever opposes U.S. policy.”

Considering that Western policy to date has been blood-stained since around the turn of the millennia, “doing whatever opposes U.S. policy” may not be the worst choice of strategy.

Clearly, the non-stop efforts by the Western media to paint Putin as the epitome of evil do not flush with reality. Unlike the United States and NATO, which have initiated scores of unprovoked attacks on a number of hapless countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, Putin has never felt the need to travel abroad in search of “monsters to slay.” Rather, they came knocking on Russia’s door instead, one after another. Indeed, listening to the jeremiads emanating from Western officials these days, they actually seem incredulous that Russia has military bases in such close proximity to the territories of NATO states, some of which, like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Norway, now actually share a border with Russia.

In the face of this aggressive posturing on the part of the U.S. and NATO, it would be no exaggeration to say that Putin has been the real peacemaker since coming to power. For those who would argue at this point that the 30-member military bloc is merely a “defensive” organization, imagine the hysteria that would erupt should Moscow ever decide to militarize America’s borders in the Caribbean and South America. In fact, there is no need to imagine anything; we already saw that hysteria during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when the world teetered on the brink of war for endless days between the nuclear powers.

For many years, Russia, China and the rest of the world have been captive spectators, watching as the United States and its allies run roughshod around the planet, regime changing here, breaking things there. And now that Russia has finally punched back after years of issuing unmistakable warnings that fell on deaf ears, the Western hemisphere would have everyone believe that Moscow is behaving as the aggressor. The memory of the public may be short, but it’s not that short. The majority of awakened people (as opposed to ‘woke’) may despise military conflict and the horrors that it brings, but without a Russian intervention in Ukraine at this critical juncture in history the consequences down the road would be far more severe.

Not only has Vladimir Putin offset an array of external threats to his country, whose defensive capabilities were at risk of becoming redundant – anti-missile systems, for example, and bioweapon labs smack on Russia’s border would have achieved that – but he spared Europe and the world from the specter of a U.S.-provoked catastrophe, and one that might have been nuclear-tipped.

By David HENDRICKSON

Excerpted from a February 26 Newsweek article:

“By February 25, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was considering an invitation from Moscow to hold ‘neutrality’ talks in neighboring Belarus. If those talks happen, Putin will then be able to pull back troops and end the conflict – while having dealt the West a humiliating blow.

And that, military and Russia experts agree, may be the real point.“

I don’t believe that Putin is primarily motivated to tweak the West. If anything, it’s more the other way around. His primary motivation is to militarily strike before Ukrainemightbecome a strong NATO beachhead, in conjunction with better securing the position of the Donbass rebels. I make this assessment, while being uncomfortable with the action undertaken and some of the responses to it.

The selective outrage is breathtaking, given the lack of attention to the plight of the Donbass rebel inhabitants. These people have endured eight years of reckless shelling from the Kiev regime. (Among other sources, refer to David Hendrickson’s February 22 National Interest article and the content referenced in a same day Aaron Mate tweet.)

Within Russia and​ abroad, there’s the view that Zelensky periodically gets stonewalled by Kiev regime nationalist circles and perhaps the US government. The latter certainly hasn’t helped to calm things down.

Zelensky won the last Ukrainian presidency on a campaign promoting better relations with Russia, including an end to the war in Donbass. Upon assuming office, Zelensky drifted in a noticeably opposite direction from his election platform. In US mass media, Tucker Carlson has exposed what keen Russia-Ukraine observers have already known about Ukraine being democratically challenged.

In the last Ukrainian presidential election, Petro Poroshenko was Zelensky’s main opponent. Poroshenko ran on a nationalist platform. He was once friendly with ex-Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, who is now imprisoned in Georgia.

During the 2008 war in the Caucasus, Saakashvili regularly appeared on CNN, spouting neocon/neolib  out anti-Russian rhetoric. Over the past weekend, Poroshenko has pretty much done the same on that network.

In English language TV media, the CGTN America shows (particularly The Heat show) covering Russia-Ukraine, are generally superior to what France 24’s The Debate, Al Jazeera’s Inside Story and RT’s CrossTalk have put out. A respectfully diverse and knowledgeable panel makes for great viewing.

Lagging behind are the BBC, CNN, PBS, MSNBC and NPR, among numerous others. Some (not all) of the CGTN Western hired reporters and moderators periodically exhibit the inaccurate slants evident in Western mass media.

What follows is an updated message I sent to some of the people who’ve appeared on that network, as well as some others who’re involved with Western mass media and/or think tank circles. I appreciate the private replies. MA

I’ve a response to what Michael O’Hanlon, Serhiy Kudelia and Lincoln Mitchell said on CGTN.

Regarding a thought from Dr. O’Hanlon, NATO is a definite existential threat to Russia, as evidenced by the anti-Russian commentary regularly dished out by key NATO brass over the years. In comparison, someone like a now ex-German naval commander gets pushed out for offering a counter view.

NATO exhibited its bias going back to the 1990s. From that period, compare the reply to Russia’s open inquiry about joining NATO to those granted NATO membership. I’ve provided details on that blatant anti-Russian bias.

Poland presently has a nationalist anti-Russian government which some in the West consider as democratically challenged. Hypothetically, what happens when a noticeably anti-Russian NATO country picks a fight with Russia? Exclusively or otherwise, is Russia always in the wrong? There’s also the matter of how NATO militarily engaged itself on non-NATO territory in 1999.

The Neo-Nazi situation in Ukraine meshes with how the US government and Kiev regime were the only two delegations voting against a General Assembly resolution denouncing the glorification of Nazism. As I’ve noted, the official US explanation for its vote is crock.

Over the decades, the US body politic has been influenced by the activism of pro-Stepan Bandera elements in the Ukrainian American community. Dominating the Captive Nations Committee, these individuals influenced the US Congress to pass the Nazi like Captive Nations Week Resolution, portraying Russia and Russians as the benefactors of Communism at the expanse of others.

This move has greatly and understandably offended Alexander Solzhenitsyn and people in the Russian American community, who’re proud of their dual background. Do Russian lives matter? In Ukraine, monuments honoring pre-Soviet figures Alexander Suvorov and Mikhail Kutuzov get disrespected unlike what’s accorded to the memory of Bandera.

Paul Robinson perhaps best sums up this situation by saying that Ukraine isn’t a Nazi state, while having a Nazi problem. This subject has been definitely downplayed in the US.

Note how US mass media recently covered a Ukrainian granny getting a shooting lesson from a group wearing the fatigues with the logo of a Neo-Nazi militia. The coverage didn’t mention that affiliation. Such oversight is common when the black and red Banderite flag is shown in news clips.

The Neo-Nazi elements have been evident among the forces which have killed and displaced many in the rebel Donbass area over the past eight years. Relying solely on Western mass media, some might be duped into wrongly believing that substantial war related deaths and population movement suddenly began on Ukraine’s Soviet drawn boundary.

When belittling the Neo-Nazi role in Kev regime-controlled Ukraine, Dr. Mitchell notes his family’s Russian Empire Jewish roots. I sense that my family’s Russian Empire/Soviet Jewish and Russian Orthodox Christian backgrounds, have given me a broader scope, enabling me to make the following observations.

After WW II, the Banderites de-emphasized their anti-Jewish and anti-Polish activity, as they hyped an extreme anti-Russian message. In the US, this is more likely to be accepted:

• The USSR was created to benefit Russians at the expense of others.
• As opposed to – The USSR was created to benefit Jews at the expense of others.

In reality, both are inaccurate. Likewise, with The NYTs’ Juliet Macur distinguishing between “clean athletes” and “Russians” How is that different from categorizing “law abiding citizens” and “Blacks“?

Concerning sports demagoguery, the IOC is advocating for the Russian flag and anthem to be banned from sporting events, as a response to the Russian military action in Ukraine. With the exception of the disingenuous decision against Yugoslavia (then consisting of Serbia and Montenegro) at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics, when did the IOC ever ban another country for involvement in a war that led to many deaths and homeless, whether before, during or after an Olympiad?

Especially sickening, is Wayne Gretzky calling for a ban of Russia from the rescheduled World Junior Ice Hockey Championship. He never advocated banning Team USA to protest the many who died care of US military action. I don’t support such a banning. We’re talking about athletes – in this instance young ones. Russian NHL players are in a difficult position to speak out against Gretzky.

The gross arrogance, ignorance, hypocrisy and bigotry pertaining to Russians is quite evident. Make no mistake about it, many on the territory of Ukraine (in addition to some others elsewhere) are opposed to this deceit.

With the unipolar world in decline, China is in a prime position to broker a Russia-Ukraine settlement. Beijing has good ties to Moscow and Kiev, with Chinese officialdom exhibiting a more balanced approach than their US and EU counterparts.

antiwar.com

Vladimir Putin did exactly what he warned us he would do.

By Patrick J. BUCHANAN

When Russia’s Vladimir Putin demanded that the U.S. rule out Ukraine as a future member of the NATO alliance, the U.S. archly replied: NATO has an open-door policy. Any nation, including Ukraine, may apply for membership and be admitted. We’re not changing that.

In the Bucharest declaration of 2008, NATO had put Ukraine and Georgia, ever farther east in the Caucasus, on a path to membership in NATO and coverage under Article 5 of the treaty, which declares that an attack on any one member is an attack on all.

Unable to get a satisfactory answer to his demand, Putin invaded and settled the issue. Neither Ukraine nor Georgia will become members of NATO. Russia resolved that it would go to war to prevent that from happening, just as it did on Thursday.

Putin did exactly what he warned us he would do.

Whatever the character of the Russian president, now being hotly debated here in the USA, he has established his credibility. When Putin warns he will do something, he follows through.

Days into this Russia-Ukraine war, potentially the worst in Europe since 1945, two questions need to be answered: How did we get here? And where do we go from here?

How did we get to a place where Russia—believing its back is against a wall and the United States, by moving NATO ever closer to Russia’s borders, put it there—reached a point where it chose war with Ukraine rather than accept the fate and future it believed the West had in store for Mother Russia?

Consider: Between 1989 and 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev let the Berlin Wall be pulled down, Germany be reunited, and all the “captive nations” of Eastern Europe go free.

Having collapsed the Soviet empire, Gorbachev allowed the Soviet Union to dissolve itself into 15 independent nations. Communism was allowed to expire as the ruling ideology of Russia, the land where Leninism and Bolshevism first took root in 1917.

Gorbachev called off the Cold War in Europe by removing all of the causes on Moscow’s side of the historic divide.

Putin, a former KGB colonel, came to power in 1999 after the disastrous, decade-long rule of Boris Yeltsin, who ran Russia into the ground.

In that year, 1999, Putin watched as America conducted a 78-day bombing campaign on Serbia, the Balkan nation that had historically been a protectorate of Mother Russia.

That same year, three former Warsaw Pact nations—the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland—were brought into NATO.

The question was fairly asked: Against whom were these countries to be protected by U.S. arms and the NATO alliance?

The question seemed to be answered fully in 2004, when Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, and Bulgaria were admitted into NATO, a grouping that included three former republics of the USSR itself, as well as three more former Warsaw Pact nations.

Then, in 2008, came the Bucharest declaration that put Georgia and Ukraine, both bordering Russia, on a path to NATO membership.

Georgia, that same year, attacked its seceded province of South Ossetia, where Russian troops were acting as peacekeepers, killing some.

This triggered a Putin counterattack through the Roki Tunnel in North Ossetia that liberated South Ossetia and moved all the way to Gori in Georgia, the birthplace of Stalin. George W. Bush, who had pledged “to end tyranny in our world,” did nothing. After briefly occupying part of Georgia, the Russians departed but stayed as protectors of the South Ossetians.

The U.S. establishment has declared this to have been a Russian war of aggression, but an E.U. investigation blamed Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for starting the war.

In 2014, a democratically elected pro-Russian president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown in Kyiv and replaced by a pro-Western regime. Rather than lose Sevastopol, Russia’s historic naval base in Crimea, Putin seized the peninsula and declared it Russian territory.

Teddy Roosevelt stole Panama with similar remorse.

Which brings us to today. Whatever we may think of Putin, he is no Stalin. He has not murdered millions or created a gulag archipelago. Nor is he “irrational,” as some pundits rail. He does not want a war with us, which would be worse than ruinous to us both.

Putin is a Russian nationalist, patriot, traditionalist, and a cold and ruthless realist, looking to preserve Russia as the great and respected power it once was and he believes it can be again.

But it cannot be that if NATO expansion does not stop or if its sister state of Ukraine becomes part of a military alliance whose proudest boast is that it won the Cold War against the nation Putin has served all his life.

President Joe Biden promises almost hourly that “We are not going to war in Ukraine.” Why, then, would he not readily rule out NATO membership for Ukraine, which, were it to become a member, would require us to do something Biden himself says we Americans, for our own survival, should never do: go to war with Russia?

theamericanconservative.com

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a TV address Thursday morning that the goal of Russia’s military operation was not to take control of Ukraine, but to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” the country.  Moments after he spoke, explosions were heard in several Ukrainian cities.

The Russian Defense Ministry said these were “precision” attacks against Ukrainian military installations and that civilians were not being targeted.  It said Ukraine’s air force on the ground and its air defenses had been destroyed.

The Ukrainian government, which declared a state of emergency and broke off diplomatic relations with Russia, said an invasion was underway and that Russia had landed forces at the port city of Odessa, on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, as well as entering from Belarus in the north.  It said it had killed 50 Russian troops and shot down six Russian fighter jets, which Russia denied.

Putin said one of the operation’s aims was to arrest certain people in Ukraine, likely the neo-Nazis who burned dozens of unarmed people alive in a building in Odessa in 2014. In his speech Monday, Putin said  Moscow knows who they are.  Russia said it aims to destroy neo-Nazi brigades, such as Right Sector and the Azov Battalion.

Putin said the aim was not to occupy Ukraine, but he gave no indication when Russia might leave. It could be over quickly if Russia’s objectives are met. But war has its own logic and often lays waste to military plans.

The BBC reported that according to Ukrainian authorities 50 civilians have been killed so far. President Joe Biden is certain how this will turn out.

“President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering,” Biden said Wednesday night. “Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way. The world will hold Russia accountable.”

Diminishing Russia

 Biden speaks on Ukraine at White House last Friday. (Ruptly screenshot.)

Biden is to make a televised address on Thursday after he coordinates a response to Russia’s military action in Ukraine with the G7 and NATO. Biden said he will announce a new package of economic sanctions against Russia, in addition to those imposed on Monday, but reiterated that U.S. and NATO forces would not become involved.  According to TASS, Russia’s news agency, the EU said it intends to weaken “Russia’s economic base and the country’s capacity to modernize.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson even hinted at British military involvement. “Our mission is clear,” he said. “Diplomatically, politically, economically and eventually militarily this hideous and barbaric venture of Vladimir Putin must end in failure.”

In a White House readout after the last phone call between Biden and Putin this month, Biden said Russia would be “diminished” if it invades, a longstanding U.S. goal.

In addition to the sanctions, Russia has faced widespread condemnation from most of the world, expressed at United Nations meetings this week, including an emergency session of the Security Council on Wednesday night.  Several nations spoke in melodramatic tones about the military operation changing global security. Many of those nations supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

On Monday, Putin said he would send Russian “peacekeepers” into Lugansk and Donetsk, which he recognized as states independent from Ukraine.  The West denounced it as an invasion, triggering the first round of sanctions against Russia.  Putin said the Russian troops were sent in to protect ethnic Russians, many of whom have now fled for safety over the border to Russia.

Combat in Donbass

Fierce fighting was reported Thursday along the line of separation between Ukrainian forces and militias from Donetsk and Lugansk. It is not clear to what extent Russian forces are taking part in the Donbass battle and if the aim is to capture all of the two breakaway provinces.

Both had voted for independence from Ukraine in 2014 after a coup overthrew the elected president Viktor Yanukovych.  The new Ukrainian government then launched a war against the provinces to crush their bid for independence, a war that is still going on eight years later at the cost of 14,000 lives.

Neo-Nazi groups, such as Right Sector and the Azov Battalion, who revere the World War II Ukrainian fascist leader Stepan Bandera, took part in the coup as well as in the ongoing war against Lugansk and Donetsk.

A Matter of ‘Life or Death’ 

The Russian military action follows demands made in December by Russia to the U.S. and NATO in the form of treaty proposals that would require Ukraine and Georgia not to join NATO; U.S. missiles in Poland and Romania to be removed; and NATO deployments to Eastern Europe reversed.  The U.S. and NATO rejected the proposals and instead sent more NATO forces to Eastern Europe and have been heavily arming Ukraine.

In his address on Thursday morning, Putin said the military operation he was launching was a “question of life or death” for Russia, referring to NATO’s expansion east since the late 1990s. He said:

“For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of containing Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends. For our country, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact. It is not only a very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state and to its sovereignty. It is the red line which we have spoken about on numerous occasions. They have crossed it.”

Detailed Explanation of Causes and Aims of Operation

Silets Sokalskyi Lvivska battlefield monument in Ukraine of Soviets soldiers against Nazi invaders. (Viacheslav Galievskyi/Wikimedia Commons)

In his 3,350-word speech, Putin laid out in full detail the reasons he decided to take military action and what he hopes it will achieve. The speech is a devastating critique of U.S. policy toward Russia over the past 30 years, which no doubt will fall on deaf ears in Washington.

Western media is so far ignoring the speech or superficially dismissing it. But it has to be carefully studied if anyone is interested in understanding why Russia launched this military operation. Just calling Putin “Hitler,” as Nancy Pelosi did Wednesday night, won’t do.

Hitler in fact features in Putin’s address. For instance, addressing the Ukrainian military, Putin said:

“Your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common Motherland to allow today’s neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine. You swore the oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people and not to the junta, the people’s adversary which is plundering Ukraine and humiliating the Ukrainian people.”

He linked the Nazis’ invasion of Russia to NATO’s threat today, saying this time there would be no appeasement:

“Of course, this situation begs a question: what next, what are we to expect? If history is any guide, we know that in 1940 and early 1941 the Soviet Union went to great lengths to prevent war or at least delay its outbreak. To this end, the USSR sought not to provoke the potential aggressor until the very end by refraining or postponing the most urgent and obvious preparations it had to make to defend itself from an imminent attack. When it finally acted, it was too late.

As a result, the country was not prepared to counter the invasion by Nazi Germany, which attacked our Motherland on June 22, 1941, without declaring war. The country stopped the enemy and went on to defeat it, but this came at a tremendous cost. The attempt to appease the aggressor ahead of the Great Patriotic War proved to be a mistake which came at a high cost for our people. In the first months after the hostilities broke out, we lost vast territories of strategic importance, as well as millions of lives. We will not make this mistake the second time. We have no right to do so.”

Putin said the existential threat from NATO’s expansion was the main reason for military action:

“Our biggest concerns and worries, [are] the fundamental threats which irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia consistently, rudely and unceremoniously from year to year. I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.

It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is approaching our very border.

Why is this happening? Where did this insolent manner of talking down from the height of their exceptionalism, infallibility and all-permissiveness come from? What is the explanation for this contemptuous and disdainful attitude to our interests and absolutely legitimate demands?”

Putin called the Americans “con-artists” for lying about NATO expansion. He referred to:

“promises not to expand NATO eastwards even by an inch. To reiterate: they have deceived us, or, to put it simply, they have played us. Sure, one often hears that politics is a dirty business. It could be, but it shouldn’t be as dirty as it is now, not to such an extent. This type of con-artist behaviour is contrary not only to the principles of international relations but also and above all to the generally accepted norms of morality and ethics.”

Putin said Russia had long wanted to cooperate with the West. “Those who aspire to global dominance have publicly designated Russia as their enemy. They did so with impunity. Make no mistake, they had no reason to act this way,” he said.

Cold War Triumphalism & Its Consequences

U.S. soldier conducts search of family’s home in Iraq, 2006. (Navy Journalist 1st Class Jeremy L. Wood)

Putin said the collapse of the Soviet Union had led to a redivision of the world and a change to international law and norms.  New rules were needed but instead of achieving this “professionally, smoothly, patiently, and with due regard and respect for the interests of all states … we saw a state of euphoria created by the feeling of absolute superiority, a kind of modern absolutism coupled with the low cultural standards and arrogance of those who formulated and pushed through decisions that suited only themselves.”

Putin then said this “absolutism,” with the Soviet Union no longer as a barrier, led to unchecked U.S. aggression, starting with NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and U.S. involvement in Syria. Russia has been taking note of the destruction Washington has wrought, even as it seems whitewashed from American minds.

“First a bloody military operation was waged against Belgrade, without the UN Security Council’s sanction but with combat aircraft and missiles used in the heart of Europe. The bombing of peaceful cities and vital infrastructure went on for several weeks. I have to recall these facts, because some Western colleagues prefer to forget them, and when we mentioned the event, they prefer to avoid speaking about international law.

Then came the turn of Iraq, Libya and Syria. The illegal use of military power against Libya and the distortion of all the UN Security Council decisions on Libya ruined the state, created a huge seat of international terrorism, and pushed the country towards a humanitarian catastrophe, into the vortex of a civil war, which has continued there for years. The tragedy, which was created for hundreds of thousands and even millions of people not only in Libya but in the whole region, has led to a large-scale exodus from the Middle East and North Africa to Europe.

A similar fate was also prepared for Syria. The combat operations conducted by the Western coalition in that country without the Syrian government’s approval or UN Security Council’s sanction can only be defined as aggression and intervention.

But the example that stands apart from the above events is, of course, the invasion of Iraq without any legal grounds. They used the pretext of allegedly reliable information available in the United States about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. To prove that allegation, the US Secretary of State held up a vial with white power, publicly, for the whole world to see, assuring the international community that it was a chemical warfare agent created in Iraq.

It later turned out that all of that was a fake and a sham, and that Iraq did not have any chemical weapons. Incredible and shocking but true. We witnessed lies made at the highest state level and voiced from the high UN rostrum. As a result we see a tremendous loss in human life, damage, destruction, and a colossal upsurge of terrorism.

Overall, it appears that nearly everywhere, in many regions of the world where the United States brought its law and order, this created bloody, non-healing wounds and the curse of international terrorism and extremism.”

Putin said over the past days “NATO leadership has been blunt in its statements that they need to accelerate and step up efforts to bring the alliance’s infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders. In other words, they have been toughening their position. We cannot stay idle and passively observe these developments. This would be an absolutely irresponsible thing to do for us.”

Ukraine, he said, had essentially become a de-facto NATO member posing the greatest threat to Russia.

“Any further expansion of the North Atlantic alliance’s infrastructure or the ongoing efforts to gain a military foothold of the Ukrainian territory are unacceptable for us. Of course, the question is not about NATO itself. It merely serves as a tool of US foreign policy. The problem is that in territories adjacent to Russia, which I have to note is our historical land, a hostile “anti-Russia” is taking shape. Fully controlled from the outside, it is doing everything to attract NATO armed forces and obtain cutting-edge weapons.”

A Parting Shot at European Vassals

Putin also blasted America’s European allies for not having the strength of principle or the moral fiber to stand up to Washington. He said:

“The United States is still a great country and a system-forming power. All its satellites not only humbly and obediently say yes to and parrot it at the slightest pretext but also imitate its behaviour and enthusiastically accept the rules it is offering them. Therefore, one can say with good reason and confidence that the whole so-called Western bloc formed by the United States in its own image and likeness is, in its entirety, the very same ’empire of lies.’”

consortiumnews.com

History will register that the birth of the baby twins – Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics – only a few hours before 2/22/22, was simultaneous to the birth of the real, 21^st century multipolar world.

As my columns have stressed for a few years now, Vladimir Putin has been carefully nurturing his inner Sun Tzu. And now it’s all in the open: “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

The thunderbolt was months in the process of being meticulously polished. To paraphrase Lenin, who “created Ukraine” (copyright Putin), we did live many decades in only these past few days. It all started with the detailed demands of security guarantees sent to the Americans, which Moscow knew would be rejected. Then there was the Russia-China joint statement at the start of the Winter Olympics – which codifies not only the strategic partnership but also the key tenets of the multipolar world.

The culmination was a stunning, nearly one hour-long address to the nation by Putin shortly after the Russian Security Council live session deliberating on the request for independence by the DPR and the LPR (here is a condensed version.)

A few hours later, at an emergency UN Security Council meeting, Russian Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzya precisely outlined why the recognition of the baby twins does not bury the Minsk agreements.

The baby twins actually declared their independence in May 2014. In 2015 they signed the Minsk agreements as one of the interested parties. Theoretically they could even be back within Ukraine if Kiev would ever decide to respect the agreements, which will never happen because the U.S. has vetoed it since 2015. Moreover, the people of Donbass do not want to be subjected to a regime harboring neo-Nazis.

As Nebenzya outlined, “I would like to remind you that at the time of the conclusion of the Minsk agreements, the LPR and DPR had already declared independence. The fact that Russia today recognized it does not change the composition of the parties to the Minsk agreements, since Russia is not one (…) Another thing is that the Minsk agreements have long been openly sabotaged by Ukraine under the auspices of our Western colleagues. Now we see that many colleagues want to sign that the Minsk agreements are dead. But this is not the case (…) We are still open to diplomacy, but we do not intend to allow a new bloody massacre in the Donbass.”

And here’s the clincher, directly addressing imperial support for the killing of ethnic Russians in Donbass: “The main task of our decision [on recognizing independence] was to preserve and protect these lives. This is more important than all your threats.”

There you go: Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a concept invented by the Americans to launch wars, used by Russia for preventing one.

That certified nullity, German chancellor Scholz, deriding Putin’s characterization of a genocide in Donbass as “laughable”, was a decisive factor in the birth of the baby wins. Putin, in his address to the nation, especially took time to detail the Odessa massacre: “We cannot but shudder when we remember about the situation in Odessa, when people were burned alive (…) And those criminals who did this, they are not punished (…) But we know their names, and we will do everything to punish them (…) and to bring them to justice.”

What about China?

Geopolitically, in Eurasian terms, two huge questions stand out: the role of the CSTO and the response from China.

If we look at the Article 19, Chapter VI of the CSTO charter, we learn that, “any state sharing the goals and principles of the Organization and being ready to undertake the obligations containing in this Charter and other international treaties and resolutions effective within the framework of the Organization may become a member of the Organization.”

That would open the door for the baby twins, as soon as they have finalized all the bureaucratic endeavors pertaining to new, independent nations, to request CSTO membership. Incidentally, CSTO secretary-general Pashinian has already gone to Moscow to discuss it.

China is a way more complex proposition. One of the key tenets of Beijing’s foreign policy is the fight against separatism – embedded in the foundation of the SCO. So Beijing cannot possibly recognize the baby twins, or what would amount to Novorossiya – yes, Putin did pronounce the magic word – before Kiev itself does or, a serious possibility, completely disintegrates.

The Foreign Ministry so far has been extremely cautious. Wang Yi has reiterated “China’s long-standing position that the legitimate security concerns of all countries must be respected, and the purposes & principles of the UN Charter must be upheld.”

Further on down the road, presumably after some serious exchanges between Wang Yi and Lavrov, China can always find myriad ways to unofficially help the baby twins – including advancing BRI-related connectivity and sustainable development projects.

As for Kiev disintegration, that’s directly linked to Moscow demanding the immediate stop of the mini-blitzkrieg against Donbass, otherwise they will bear full responsibility. Yes, regime stalwarts will be hunted and punished – complete with a possible War Crimes Tribunal. No wonder all sorts of oligarchic/political rats, big and small, are scurrying away, to Lviv, Poland and the UK.

The Munich effect

The intervention of all 12 members at the Security Council session, combined with Putin’s address to the nation was the stuff of gripping geopolitical drama. Putin’s body language and the look in his eyes testified to the immense gravity of the moment – and it all came to the forefront when he embarked in a concise history lesson spanning a century.

Barely containing his anger at the countless ways Russia has been vilified by the West, and taking no prisoners when referring to communism, what mostly stood out was the clear-cut rendition of the insurmountable antagonism between the Anglo-American islands and the civilizational Heartland – or the clash between maritime powers and land powers. That Eurasia classic was the bulk of his exposition: the recognition of the baby twins took less than three minutes.

The Munich Security Conference, this past weekend, had made it all so explicit. Munich, as terrifying as it was in terms of a congregation of headless chickens posing as eagles, at least confirmed everything is in the open.

The enemy is Russia. NATO infinite expansion – to outer space – is against Russia. And then we had a parade of add-on threats: no disarmament in Eastern Europe, cutting off the Russian economy from the EU, end of Nord Stream 2, Ukraine in NATO, world order built on “universal liberal values”.

Munich spelled out No Compromise Whatsoever – which was exactly what Putin, Lavrov, Patrushev and co. expected, the warmongering rhetoric burying any meaningful discussion of migration, inflation, cyber wars, the European energy crisis and, of course, the only thing that matters for the MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex, as defined by Ray McGovern): let’s milk this Eurotrash lot for untold billions in new contracts, let’s isolate Russia, let’s destroy Nord Stream 2 to sell them our ultra expensive LNG, let’s keep them on a leash – forever.

So actually it’s not even war against Russia: the $30 trillion-indebted Empire with a woke military attached simply could not afford it. Not to mention the certified freak out in case they receive a phone call from Mr. Khinzal and Mr. Zircon : cue to the spectacular Russian display of “military and technical” superiority, hypersonic and otherwise – staged, irony of ironies, in synch with the circus in Munich.

What we have here is so lame: just a lowlife offer-you-can’t-refuse racket to be inflicted on the EU.

The Indivisible Security dance

The rabid Munich “No Compromise” show; the imperially-ordered Ukro crypto-blitzkrieg against Donbass; and the role of the U.S. Lack of Intelligence Community – an Andrei Martyanov-coined howler – altogether sealed the deal for the Security Council deliberations and Putin’s decision.

Considering the ideological stupidity of the current Brussels gang – Stoltenberg, von der Leyen, Borrell –, incapable of understanding even basic economics, the fact remains that the EU without Russian energy is doomed. Martyanov stresses the algorithm: Russia can afford the break up with Europe. Europe cannot. The U.S. just wants to collect. And we’re not even talking about the dire, incoming ramifications of the systemic crisis across NATOstan.

Even as Moscow plays a very long, calculated game, as it stands that does not necessarily mean that Russia will be “winning” the baby twins while “losing” Europe. Russia’s strategic swing repeatedly baffles the Atlanticist combo. The U.S. lack of intelligence community was predicting a Russian “aggression” every other day – and still is. Instead they got the baby twins as the latest independent republics of the Global South.

Even before Munich, the Ukro crypto-blitzkrieg, and the recognition of the baby twins, Moscow had again warned it may respond with “military and technical measures” to ensure its own security after the U.S. and NATO blatantly ignored key points from its proposal for a long-term European security architecture, and instead “cherry-picked” issues from a package deal.

Moscow will not let the Americans run away from the by now notorious 10-page Russian response. Putin, addressing the Stavka, had already warned “we are in a situation (…) where we are forced to resolve it.” Which bring us to what John Helmer niftly qualified as Russia’s black box defense. The beauty is no one knows what’s inside the black box.

Enter, once again, the “military-technical measures” that will be “reciprocal” (Putin) to what U.S. and NATOstan are already deploying against Russia. They won’t necessarily be implemented in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, in the airspace above Donbass, even in cyberspace. It could be anywhere – from the Syrian theater to Latin America.

Surprise! That’s what strategic ambivalence, ambiguity, or – let’s get down to the rhythm – swing is all about. You don’t believe in the principle of indivisible security? Fine. Now we dictate the security rhythm. You’re not gonna stop deploying nuclear weapons outside your territory? Fine. Here’s some reciprocity. You’re not gonna accept legally binding guarantees of our security? Fine. Meet our “military-technical” measures.

Now dance, suckers.

By Joe LAURIA

President Joe Biden said Friday he’s convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided to invade Ukraine in the coming days and that Russia would fail to create a new  system in Europe that takes its security into account.

“As of this moment I’m convinced he has made the decision” to invade, Biden told a reporter in response to a question at a White House press briefing. Asked how he knows this, Biden said, “We have a significant intelligence capability.”

Biden also flatly asserted that the capital, Kiev, would be attacked:

“Russian troops currently have Ukraine surrounded.  We have reason to believe Russian forces are planning and intend to attack Ukraine in the coming week, in the coming days. We believe they will target the capital Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million innocent people.”

If such a horrific scenario were true, wouldn’t Washington have sent its military to defend its ally? That the U.S. hasn’t, undercuts the credibility of U.S. intelligence.

“We also will not send troops in to fight in Ukraine, but we will continue to support the Ukrainian people,” he said, apparently as they are being slaughtered in their beds by Russian bombs — the only conclusion that can be drawn.

For Biden, supporting the Ukrainian people translates into $650 million spent by the U.S. in the past year to “bolster Ukraine’s defenses,” and U.S. arms manufacturers’ profits. Even with all this hardware, the Ukrainian military is no match for Russia’s, as the U.S. would be.

“The United States and its allies and partners will support the Ukrainian people,” Biden said. “We will hold Russia accountable for its actions. … The entire free world is united” against Russia and sanctions will be imposed once this invasion happens.

If you were Ukrainian, living in Kiev, how would you feel if the president of the United States just said he’s convinced your city will be bombed by a major military power in days and all he’ll do for you is punish your attackers by hitting their finances? Or maybe you are like some Ukrainians, including your president, who thinks this invasion is a figment of Biden’s imagination (and who has left the country just before his nation is supposed to be attacked!)

NATO at the Crux

You might also conclude that this isn’t about you at all, but about the U.S. and NATO not allowing Russia to say enough to NATO’s threatening expansion towards its borders. Instead of sending U.S. troops to defend you, the U.S. sent more troops to Eastern Europe, nowhere near the expected theater of war.

At the White House, Biden said, “The United States and its allies are prepared to defend every inch of NATO territory from any threat to our collective security,” though the U.S. is not claiming that any NATO nation faces attack.

Russian troop deployments near Ukraine happened regularly, but this time the U.S. cried “Invasion!” Why?

Because this time the Russian troop movement coincided with Moscow presenting draft treaty proposals to the U.S. and NATO drawing a deep redline after decades of objecting to the Western military alliance moving ever closer to Russia, a country that was invaded by and defeated the largest European powers of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

The U.S. reacted to these bold proposals by changing the subject. It went on offense, accusing Russia every day of planning to invade Ukraine.

Russia’s draft proposals would see:

• NATO roll back forward troop deployments from former Warsaw Pact states, now NATO members;

• NATO would not admit Ukraine and Georgia as members and

• The U.S. would remove long-range missiles in Romania and Poland and not deploy new ones in Ukraine.

The direct response to the first proposal was the opposite of what was demanded: more NATO troops were sent to the former Warsaw Pact states, instead of sending U.S. troops to defend Ukraine. Ukraine does not need to be a NATO member to request U.S. forces. Ukraine has never made this request because it doesn’t believe an invasion is imminent.

Perhaps the most significant thing Biden said on Friday is that Putin “believes he has the ability to change the dynamics in Europe in a way that he cannot.” Translation: the U.S. will never sign those treaties to roll back NATO deployments, remove long-range missiles in Eastern Europe and keep Georgia & Ukraine out of the alliance.

The key word in a White House readout last week after a Putin-Biden phone call was “diminish,” as in Russia will be “diminished” if it invades Ukraine through both sanctions and world condemnation. Diminishing Russia is Washington’s aim. Neither will happen without the invasion.

The Donbass Offensive

Biden also shot down the notion that Ukrainian government forces are planning an offensive against Donbass.

The leaders of two largely ethnic Russian breakaway provinces in eastern Ukraine on the border with Russia earlier Friday asked their civilian populations to flee to Russia because of an impending offensive from government forces in Kiev, which could draw regular Russian units in to protect civilians, giving the Americans the invasion they’ve been ranting about.

Monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), who are on the ground,  reported 222 ceasefire violations and 135 explosions in Donetsk on Thursday and 648 ceasefire violations and 519 explosions in Lugansk.

Biden acknowledged that there has been a “major uptick” in ceasefire violations. But he blamed them all on “Russian-backed fighters attempting to provoke Ukraine in the Donbass.”  Biden said there’s “more and more disinformation being pushed out to the Russian public, including Russian-backed separatists, claiming that Ukraine is planning to launch a massive offensive attack in the Donbass.”

“Well look,” Biden went on, “There is simply no evidence of these assertions and it defies basic logic to believe the Ukrainians would chose this moment, with well over 150,000 troops arrayed on its borders to escalate a year-long (sic) conflict.”  Biden said this was “consistent with the Russian playbook that has been used before, to set up a false justification to act against Ukraine.”

Of course if a U.S.-backed offensive has begun in order to draw Russia in, Biden would cover it up by saying talk of an offensive was just Russian disinformation. Biden praised the “great restraint” of Ukrainian forces at the contact line. “They have refused to allow Russia to bait them into war,” he said.

But who is baiting whom?

consortiumnews.com

The Dem combo remote-controlling the senile President of the United States by earpiece/teleprompter was never accused of being the brightest bulbs in the room – any room.

That explains why one of their own, Nancy Pelosi, on ABC News, gave the whole Russian “invasion” game away two – or three – days, depending on their math, before the “canceled” non-event.

First she said, “If we were not threatening the sanctions and the rest, it would guarantee that Putin would invade.” And then the clincher:

“If Russia doesn’t invade, it’s not that he never intended to. It’s just that the sanctions worked.”

Here, fully unveiled, is the whole Dem “strategy”: a dubiously effective foreign policy “victory” which will melt away months ahead of the inevitable debacle at the US midterms.

Maria Zakharova, that female Slav counterpart of Hermes, the Messenger of the Gods in Ancient Greece, got closer to the truth while framing the psyops: “February 15, 2022 will go down in history as the day Western war propaganda failed. Humiliated and destroyed without a single shot fired.”

Add to it Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, unplugged, on “information terrorism”: “We have to learn from the tricks [our Western colleagues] pull.”

Putin, once again, applied Sun Tzu to win without a battle: “win” as in attending the objectives set for this round.

But it gets dicier. The Duma, by 78%, voted to ask the President to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics as “separate, sovereign and independent” states.

The final decision rests with Putin, who has already hinted what happens next. Even as he qualified “what is happening now in Donbass” as “a genocide” – taking into context the previous eight years – he pointed out how “we must do everything to solve the problems of Donbass, but first of all, based on (…) the implementation of the Minsk agreements.”

What this means is that Putin will give Kiev yet another – final? – chance to implement Minsk: the agreement – enshrined as UN law – that the Americans have been de facto sabotaging since 2015.

Russia’s Security Council won’t be fooled, characterizing how “the West is conducting a carefully planned information operation against Russia based on the concept of ‘hybrid war’.” The Security Council also reaffirms that “European countries will be responsible for very likely provocations against the DPR and LPR from Kiev.” This is Patrushev speaking, not a deer-caught-in-the-headlights Jake Sullivan.

Neo-nazis on parade

German Chancellor Scholz’s visit to Moscow was not exactly a Porsche negotiating Nurburgring. One never gets away spewing out platitudes in front of Putin. Scholz: “For our generation, war in Europe is unimaginable”. Putin: “One has already been unleashed by NATO against Belgrade.”

After weeks of non-stop American hysteria cum war fever, it might be tempting to consider that Macron and Scholz could be on the same page with Putin, demanding that Kiev sit on the same table with Donetsk and Luhansk and work on the necessary constitutional amendments to grant them autonomy. That would be the only path towards a possible solution. Yet there’s no guarantee it will be taken, because of the immovable American veto.

Valentina Matvienko, the speaker of the Russian Federation Council, once again has stressed the only possible way Russia would “intervene”: in the “event of an invasion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the DPR and LPR, Russia’s response will be proportionate to the scale of aggression.”

Even Scholz, timidly, has somehow agreed that like NATO in Yugoslavia, Russia in this case would have the right to invoke Responsibility to Protect (R2P) to save millions of Russian passport holders from the oligarchic Banderastan/neo-nazi shock troops of what Andrei Martyanov memorably described as country 404.

These include the Azov Batallion – which recruits neo-nazis from all across Europe – sporting Wolfsangel arm patches straight from the SS, and is now incorporated in Ukraine’s National Guard. The vast, CIA/MI6 “revitalized” stay-behind networks. And of course the in-progress $10 billion Eric Prince (Blackwater/Academi) scheme of setting up a private mercenary army via a partnership between the Lancaster 6 company and CIA-controlled Ukraine intel.

The two crucial developments

The serial American fake news/pysops/fog of war offensive did manage to obscure the two really crucial developments of the heady past few days.

1. The de facto invasion of Russian territorial waters by a US Virginia-class sub, described as a “completely unreasonable and incomprehensible activity” by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
2. Mr. Kinzhal’s recent flight to Kaliningrad onboard a Mach 3-capable MIG-31K “Foxhound”. In case NATOstan clowns continue to entertain funny ideas, they could place a call to Mr. Khinzal. He’ll answer the call with hypersonic speed. Literally.

Before the scheduled Russian non-invasion “invasion” was canceled, Martyanov had deliciously outlined how the “strategic ambivalence of Russia is terrifying for the US now because the US doesn’t know what will follow after the false flag, granted this false flag succeeds to dupe European poodles into utter submission.”

Yes, it ain’t over till the fat transgender sings. A false flag, or flags, remain on the radar – considering the tons of weapons showered on 404; over 150,000 troops massed right in front of the line of contact, equipped with absolutely lethal 120mm Grad rockets with warheads that when exploded, release thousands of sharp metal fragments; and the thousands of mercenaries trained by Polish, Brit and Blackwater/Academi instructors.

What really happened in the Kuril islands, between Hokkaido and Kamchatka, diplomatically described by Shoigu, eventually landed on Russian media. The first explanation was that a Russian vessel might have launched warning torpedoes against the American sub.

What happened was that the Virginia-class was detected by a Russian SSK or SSN, there was a sweep, and then the Marshal Shaposhnikov frigate used a sonar to intimate the uninvited guest to beat it. That was rather polite. In any other circumstances the Virginia-class would have been sunk.

Of course this should be interpreted for what it is: one more graphic illustration that the “indispensable nation” has lost its maritime invulnerability. Certainly to Russia. And sooner rather than later, also to China.

And that is a direct consequence of the dire state of the US defense industry, Martyanov’s key area of study, and exemplified by the latest report by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA).

The full report is here. Take a look, for instance, at this table charting the emphasis on research in emerging technologies.

Key areas such as space, hypersonics and cyber are down. In parallel, there’s an “increase” in three interconnected areas: AI, fully networked C3 and microelectronics. This would suggest the same old American obsession, since Rumsfeld, with deploying in a “smart battlefield”.

The key takeaway may be the increase in biotechnology. Because that would point to a desperate Empire – already outclassed by Russia and soon neutralized by China – resorting to biowarfare. It’s no wonder the landmark February 4 Russia-China joint statement pointedly refers to the danger of US bioweapon labs.

To the dustbin, Batman!

Moscow has not deviated for a moment from its Sun Tzu approach – while detailing all demands and all red lines many times over. Washington and Brussels have been warned in no uncertain terms that if they entice their goons/mercenaries to attack Donbass, 404 will be smashed to smithereens. And that is only the easily dismissible part of the package: all NATOstan security systems will also go.

Russia is waiting – like an army of Taoist monks. After the canceled “invasion”, it can even afford to enjoy some comic relief. The “technical and military” responses are ready – and once again: it’s their strategic ambiguity that is driving the Americans crazy. They are coming to realize they must negotiate indivisibility of security and missiles in Eastern Europe because no one in the Ukrainized Empire knows what Putin, Shoigu and Gerasimov could do next.

And then, there are the headless chickens. In the aftermath of the “invasion” not showing up as scheduled, G-7 Foreign Ministers will have an “emergency” meeting later his week in Germany to scratch their collective heads on why the invasion did not show up as scheduled.

As it stands, in the calm before the next storm, let’s sit back, relax and remember February 16, 2022: the day when the latest, concerted, full spectrum fake news psyops ended up hurling NATOstan’s “credibility” to a one-way trip to the dustbin of History.

ISTANBUL – Emmanuel Macron is no Talleyrand. Self-promoted as “Jupiterian”, he may have finally got down to earth for a proper realpolitik insight while ruminating one of the former French Minister of Foreign Affairs key bon mots: “A diplomat who says ‘yes’ means ‘maybe’, a diplomat who says ‘maybe’ means ‘no’, and a diplomat who says ‘no’ is no diplomat.”

Mr. Macron went to Moscow to see Mr. Putin with a simple 4-stage plan in mind. 1. Clinch a wide-ranging deal with Putin on Ukraine, thus stopping  “Russian aggression”. 2. Bask in the glow as the West’s Peacemaker. 3. Raise the EU’s tawdry profile, as he’s the current president of the EU Council. 4. Collect all the spoils then bag the April presidential election in France.

Considering he all but begged for an audience in a flurry of phone calls, Macron was received by Putin with no special honors. Comic relief was provided by French mainstream media hysterics, “military strategists” included, evoking the “French castle” sketch in Monty Python’s Holy Grail while reaffirming every stereotype available about  “cowardly frogs”. Their “analysis”: Putin is “isolated” and wants “the military option”. Their top intel source: Bezos-owned CIA rag The Washington Post.

Still, it was fascinating to watch – oh, that loooooong table in the Kremlin: the only EU leader who took the trouble to actually listen to Putin was the one who, months ago, pronounced NATO as “brain-dead”. So the ghosts of Charles de Gaulle and Talleyrand did seem to have engaged in a lively chat, framed by raw economics, finally imprinting on the “Jupiterian” that the imperial obsession on preventing Europe by all means from profiting from wider trade with Eurasia is a losing game.

After a strenuous six hours of discussions Putin, predictably, monopolized the eminently quotable department, starting with one

that will be reverberating all across the Global South for a long time: “Citizens of Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia have seen how peaceful is NATO.”

There’s more. The already iconic  Do you want a war between Russia and NATO? – followed by the ominous  “there will be no winners”. Or take this one, on Maidan: “Since February 2014, Russia has considered a coup d’état to be the source of power in Ukraine. This is a bad sandbox, we don’t like this kind of game.”

On the Minsk agreements, the message was blunt: “The President of Ukraine has said that he does not like any of the clauses of the Minsk agreements. Like it, or not – be patient, my beauty. They must be fulfilled.”

The “real issue behind the present crisis”

Macron for his part stressed, “new mechanisms are needed to ensure stability in Europe, but not by revising existing agreements, perhaps new security solutions would be innovative.” So nothing that Moscow had not stressed before. He added, “France and Russia have agreed to work together on security guarantees.” The operative term is “France”. Not the non-agreement capable United States government.

Anglo-American spin insisted that Putin had agreed not to launch new “military initiatives” – while keeping mum on what Macron promised in return. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not confirm any agreement. He only said that the Kremlin will engage with Macron’s dialogue proposals, “provided that the United States also agrees with them.” And for that, as everyone knows, there’s no guarantee.

The Kremlin has been stressing for months that Russia has no interest whatsoever in invading de facto black hole Ukraine. And Russian troops will return to their bases after exercises are over. None of this has anything to do with “concessions” by Putin.

And then came the bombshell: French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire – the inspiration for one of the main characters in Michel Houellebecq’s cracking new book, Anéantir – said that the launch of Nord Stream 2 “is one of the main components of de-escalating tensions on the Russian-Ukrainian border.” Gallic flair formulated out loud what no German had the balls to say.

In Kiev, after his stint in Moscow, it looks like Macron properly told Zelensky which way the wind blows now. Zelensky hastily confirmed Ukraine is ready to implement the Minsk agreements; it never was, for seven long years. He also said he expects to hold a summit in the Normandy format – Kiev, the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, Germany and France – “in the near future”. A meeting of Normandy format political advisers will happen in Berlin on Thursday.

Way back in August 2020, I was already pointing to which way we were heading in the master chessboard. A few sharp minds in the Beltway, emailing their networks, did notice in my column how “the goal of Russian and Chinese policy is to recruit Germany into a triple alliance locking together the Eurasian land mass a la Mackinder into the greatest geopolitical alliance in history, switching world power in favor of these three great powers against Anglo-Saxon sea power.”

Now, a very high-level Deep State intel source, retired, comes down to the nitty gritty, pointing out how “the secret negotiations between Russia and the US center around missiles going into Eastern Europe, as the US frantically drives for completing its development of hypersonic missiles.”

The main point is that if the US places such hypersonic missiles in Romania and Poland, as planned, the time for them to reach Moscow would be 1/10 the time of a Tomahawk. It’s even worse for Russia if they are placed in the Baltics. The source notes, “the US plan is to neutralize the more advanced defensive missile systems that seal Russia’s airspace. This is why the US has offered to allow Russia to inspect these missile sites in the future, to prove that there are no hypersonic nuclear missiles. Yet that’s not a solution, as the Raytheon missile launchers can handle both offensive and defensive missiles, so it’s possible to sneak in the offensive missiles at night. Thus everything requires continuous observation.”

The bottom line is stark: “This is the real issue behind the present crisis. The only solution is no missile sites allowed in Eastern Europe.” That happens to be an essential part of Russia’s demands for security guarantees.

Sailing to Byzantium

Alastair Crooke has demonstrated how “the West slowly is discovering that that it has no pressure point versus Russia (its economy being relatively sanctions-proof), and its military is no match for that of Russia’s.”

In parallel, Michael Hudson has conclusively shown how “the threat to US dominance is that China, Russia and Mackinder’s Eurasian World Island heartland are offering better trade and investment opportunities than are available from the United States with its increasingly desperate demand for sacrifices from its NATO and other allies.”

Quite a few of us, independent analysts from both the Global North and South, have been stressing non-stop for years that the pop Gotterdammerung in progress hinges on the end of American geopolitical control over Eurasia. Occupied Germany and Japan enforcing the strategic submission of Eurasia from the west down to the east; the ever-expanding NATO; the ever de-multiplied Empire of Bases, all the lineaments of the 75-year-plus free lunch are collapsing.

The new groove is set to the tune of the New Silk Roads, or BRI; Russia’s unmatched hypersonic power – and now the non-negotiable demands for security guarantees; the advent of RCEP – the largest free trade deal on the planet uniting East Asia; the Empire all but expelled from Central Asia after the Afghan humiliation; and sooner rather than later its expulsion from the first island chain in the Western Pacific, complete with a starring role for the Chinese DF-21D “carrier killer” missiles.

The Ray McGovern-coined MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex) was not capable to muster the collective IQ to even begin to understand the terms of the Russia-China joint statement issued on an already historic February 4, 2022. Some in Europe actually did – arguably located in the Elysée Palace.

This enlightened unpacking focuses on the interconnection of some key formulations, such as “relations between Russia and China superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era” and “friendship which shows no limits”: the strategic partnership, for all its challenges ahead, is way more complex than a mere “treaty” or “agreement”. Without deeper understanding of Chinese and Russian civilizations, and their way of thinking, Westerners simply are not equipped to get it.

In the end, if we manage to escape so much Western doom and gloom, we might end up navigating a warped remix of Yeats’ Sailing to Byzantium. We may always dream of the best and the brightest in Europe finally sailing away from the iron grip of tawdry imperial Exceptionalistan:

“Once out of nature I shall never take / My bodily form from any natural thing, / But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make / Of hammered gold and gold enameling / To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; / Or set upon a golden bough to sing /To lords and ladies of Byzantium / Of what is past, or passing, or to come.”