In the midst of this current “Ukrainian Crisis,” I am reminded of a very solid volume I read in 2015, during what was back then the first Ukrainian Crisis: Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (2015, Tauris), by Prof. Richard Sakwa. Sakwa, whose father was an officer in the Polish army during World War II, has authored a number of scholarly studies on Russia, its president Vladimir Putin, and Ukraine. Given his Polish ancestry, Sakwa may not seem like someone who would write scrupulously evenhanded books described by one reviewer as “detailed, balanced and sober.”
In Frontline Ukraine he summarizes his arguments this way:
The unbalanced end of the Cold War generated a cycle of conflict that is far from over. An extended period of “cold peace” settled over Russo-Western relations, although punctuated by attempts by both sides to escape the logic of renewed confrontation. This is what I call mimetic cold war, which reproduces the practices of the Cold War without accepting the underlying competitive rationale. Structurally, a competitive dynamic was introduced into European international relations…. At worst, the revanchists in the post-Communist countries of Eastern Europe, encouraged by neoconservatives in Washington and their vision of global transformation on a global scale, fed concerns about Russia’s alleged inherent predisposition towards despotism and imperialism. The Trotskyite roots of US neocon thinking are well known: the fight now was not for revolutionary socialism but for capitalist democracy–to make the world safe for the US. This became a self-fulfilling prophecy: by treating Russia as the enemy, in the end it was in danger of becoming one. NATO thus found itself in a new role, which was remarkably similar to the one it had been set up to perform in the first place—to “contain” Russia. (p. 5)
Despite some critics who suggest he is “pro-Russian,” Sakwa’s research stands up as well in 2022 as it did in 2015.
The very simple conclusion that may be drawn from what is occurring is this: our foreign policy elites–Neoconservatives and their zealous followers in both the GOP and the Democratic Party–see Russia as a major obstacle in the continuing process of imposing economic and political control over countries which have heretofore not acceded to their hegemony (i.e., Russia and Hungary). Using NATO as a strategic shell and Ukraine as its frontline player, the Neocon/globalist combine seeks to:
(1) prevent an economic disaster for the US of a functioning Nord Stream II pipeline, which would give Germany and potentially other European countries, a climb off ramp from economic domination by the US (journalist Mike Whitney has written conclusively on this topic in the Eurasia Review); and
(2) eventually impose politically a pliant government in Moscow, which has become the chief stumbling block in preventing Neocon globalist hegemony and the realization of “the Great Reset.” Russia, like Hungary, has expelled CIA-infested and Soros-sponsored NGOs which in many locations around the world have incited “color revolutions” to install favorable client governments.
(3) lastly and more concretely, the Biden administration and US foreign policy establishment (with congressional Republicans in tow) are accusing Russia of “false flag” operations, or more specifically, accusing the pro-Russian secessionists in Lugansk and Donetsk republics of violent attacks against Ukraine (on civilians, schools, all the usual claimed targets), while in fact it is elements of the Ukrainian military, with American encouragement and technical “advisors” embedded, who are responsible for the shelling and the attacks across the cease-fire line. This is one more example of disinformation strategy, projecting onto the Russians what we are actually guilty of.
Just listen to the braindead Biden essentially mouthing this propaganda line.
If warfare breaks out it will be because the US State Department and our agents have impelled the Ukrainians to launch such “false flag” actions, literally forcing the Russians to react and thus producing a conflict, into which the US and NATO can pour support and implement various measures, economic and financial and, eventually, military against Russia, while blaming the Kremlin for starting it.
Recall that early in the John F. Kennedy administration there were solemn promises that “American combat forces will not go to Vietnam.” Then came the false flag Gulf of Tonkin incident, and US forces did go in in force…and we know what happened. Back then we were actually opposing a form of Communism, not a country that stands in the way of Great Reset globalist hegemony, as Russia is doing today. So, from that perspective we did have arguably a rationale for opposition to what was happening, even if badly reasoned and poorly executed.
Let me be clear, I do not claim in these present comments that Vladimir Putin is some great conservative hero. What I am saying is not a direct defense of him in that sense…that is not my object here. The question of Putin’s beliefs, his Christian faith (or lack of it), is for another discussion. Rather, my present concern—which should be the concern of all patriotic Americans–is essentially what Russia represents in the context of global geopolitics, as it, in fact, is in opposition to the plans and devices of proponents of the universal Great Reset and the continuing success of the machinations of Western elites and the Neocons. That essentially is the crux of the matter and what is occurring in that region of Europe.
What we are witnessing is what our foreign policy elites have done for many decades…think of the bogus “Iraq WMDs” and the now-proven-false reasons for intervening in the Balkans (with the result that we engineered a Muslim Islamist state—Kosovo—right in the middle of Europe). Can we actually trust the American foreign policy establishment to tell us the truth: the same establishment that foisted off as an undebatable certainty that “Russia had sabotaged” our 2016 elections…that Trump was a “Russian stooge”…that the Russians were paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American boys in Afghanistan…that the Russians had sabotaged Vermont’s power grid…and on and on; all of which were blatantly false, total disinformation, in most cases to favor the elites and Neocons of the Deep State? With such an inglorious record, can we trust our Intelligence agencies, the CIA, and yes, the FBI?
If so, then I have an oil well in my back yard, right beside a gold mine, that I will sell you cheap (sight unseen, of course) for just a measly one million dollars.
As I write this the Bidenistas and the totally in-lock-step GOP elites (in some cases, far worse than the Left on foreign policy) are now confidently, with absolute certainty, telling us that the Russians will “invade Ukraine within a few days.” Of course, these are the same voices that informed us with appropriate seriousness that a Russian invasion would definitely take place on Wednesday, February 16–remember Biden’s solemn assurance telling us that? If our clients in Kiev, prodded enough by us can provoke enough violence, shoot enough missiles, plant enough bombs, then perhaps the Russians will indeed have to intervene…and this is exactly what our State Department elites desperately desire.
But bear in mind if this should occur who we are talking about and what the essential and fundamental issues actually are. If serious conflict does erupt the blood will be on our hands, that is, on the hands of our foreign policy establishment in Washington and its minions in both political parties and in Western Europe.
Will the American public fall for this continuing Neocon disinformation and latest advance in implementing the Great Reset? How many disasters…how many lies and how much disinformation…how many dead American boys…how many billions of taxpayer dollars…must be expended on the altar of the powerful globalist elites, the Neocon/Big Business arms dealers and the frenzied Left who despise the growing nationalism and revival of a very traditional Christianity in Russia (as well as in Hungary) which stands athwart their road to domination?
Boyd D. Cathey holds a Ph.D. in European History from the Catholic University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, where he was a Richard Weaver Fellow, and an M.A. in Intellectual History from the University of Virginia.