John B Cobb Jr. China Media Research. Volume 5, Issue 3, July 2022.
To understand what is happening now we must understand the ethnic constitution and geographic location of Ukraine. The major ethnicity is, of course, Ukrainian, but a large minority, maybe as much as a fourth of the population, speaks Russian. Like Canada, that considers both English and French as national languages, both Ukrainian and Russian were officially affirmed. As Quebec remained French; so, Crimea and the Donbass remained Russian. Geographically Ukraine looks like it takes up the southwest corner of Russia cutting deeply into its heartland and controlling its access to the Black Sea.
Also, to understand what is happening now, we must know what has happened in the past, especially the past fifty years. That is far more complex than I can pretend to know, but I select two features of the past as especially important. First, the protracted rule by the USSR over Eastern Europe ended, and second, the somewhat inconsistent foreign policy of the United States was replaced in 2001 by the consistent goal of domination of the whole world.
Empires are often hated by many of the conquered people. But in some cases, when nations become free, they relate quite positively to their former masters. The British are not widely hated. For some reason, the Soviet Empire generated a resentment among conquered people that is unusually bitter and unforgiving. Further, the anger is not diminished by the collapse of the USSR, simply redirected to Russia.
American foreign policy before 2001 had no one clear focus. It always supported American businesses and sought to increase the influence of the United States. But it also sometimes sought to support democracies and to increase the wellbeing of friends. Occasionally, it really worked for peace. The neoconservatives wanted to focus on world domination, and they were frustrated by the fact that the American people were willing to accept a multipolar world.
To end that willingness, on 9/11, 2001, they arranged for three New York skyscrapers to be destroyed and the Pentagon to be attacked. (2) By blaming this on foreign powers they gained control over foreign policy. The goal of unification of the world under one government was accepted by both political parties. Since then, there has been very little public discussion in the United States of what our foreign policy should be.
The policy was not adopted for the sake of the American people. Those who gain from it are the transnational corporations. They can get the United States to establish favorable conditions for their working everywhere. American military power will assure that no nation would dare to act against the new world order. The rhetoric of supporting democracy and development has not changed, but this support is now actually given only when it is consistent with the basic goal. The one exception is that the wellbeing of Israel has a special place.
Fear of further expansion of the USSR may have had some justification at one time. In any case it led to the agreement of most of Europe with the United States to organize militarily to prevent it. This was the mission of NATO. But with the collapse of the USSR, the need for such an organization became much more questionable. Russia hoped to become one European nation among others. Admitting Russia to such a status was discussed in the West.
However, the control of NATO by the United States was an important contributor to the success of American foreign policy. Also, the newly independent nations, filled with hatred toward the USSR, wanted to join NATO rather than abandon it. The real possibility of peace and cooperation was dismissed in favor of refocusing fear and enmity to Russia. Instead of defending the West from Russia, NATO became an offensive organization pressing farther and farther east. Earlier assurances that this would not happen were forgotten or ignored.
The result was that, far from including Russia, a growing military alliance existed only to oppose and threaten it. Russia did little to prevent its advance to its borders, but it made it clear that the geographical location of Ukraine was such that Russia would not allow it to become part of its great military enemy. For some time, Ukraine saw that it was best to maintain friendly relations with Russia, and its presidents often came from the Russian-speaking minority.
Now turn to the U.S. policy with respect to Ukraine, derived from its goal of global domination. The two major obstacles to American global control were Russia and China. China attained the status of Enemy No. 1. Russia was No. 2. I’ll begin with Russia.
The goal of the United States and Europe has been to bring Russia to its knees. To bring Russia to its knees required undermining its position as a global power. Because of so much enmity, Russia had devoted a great deal of its resources to the military and especially to nuclear weapons. A frontal attack might defeat Russia, but Russian nuclear bombs would destroy many of the great cities of Europe and even of the United States. How could Russia be brought down without using its nuclear weapons?
Russia must become subject to the United States through other means. Ukraine provided the opportunity. The CIA was assigned the job of intensifying Ukrainian anger and resentment and its desire to be part of Western Europe. It worked on this through direct propaganda and through human rights organizations in Kiev. Meanwhile our government communicated to ethnic Ukrainians that we would support their takeover of the government and would protect them against Russia. They led the Ukrainians to believe they could become part of NATO.
This strategy successfully brought about regime change in Kiev in 2014. The recently elected president, a member of the Russian-speaking minority, was driven out of Ukraine and with United States’ support was replaced by a nationalistic Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainian. The strongly anti-Russian stance of the new government expressed itself clearly in the immediate announcement that only Ukrainian was the language of Ukraine.
The overwhelmingly Russian Crimea hastily voted to become part of Russia. Although Ukraine has not recognized its separation, it has made little effort to recover it. The Donbass region asked for and received the freedom to continue using Russian for its internal affairs. But the new government of Ukraine changed its mind and attempted to enforce its control. The citizens of Donbass resisted somewhat successfully through seven years on intermittent shelling.
The U.S. goal was to force Russia to invade Ukraine, a move that American propaganda portrayed as an unprovoked first step in an attack on Western Europe. Its propaganda was so successful that even the European countries that prided themselves on neutrality have applied for NATO membership. There is, of course, no indication that Russia plans to cross any boundaries other than Ukraine’s.
Russia had to choose between invading Ukraine and allowing ethnic Russians to be made a hated and abused minority there, while NATO built bases for nuclear weapons near the Russian heartland. Russia invaded. The United States used its dominance of the global financial system to impose the worst sanctions ever on Russia, and it assured Ukraine of massive support if it resisted. The American goal was to create an economic crisis in Russia while causing it to use up its military resources fighting. It favored a long war that would “bleed” Russia militarily and economically while its financial system was collapsing.
The Western interpretation of what happened in the fighting is that Russia first struck at Kiev, hoping to conquer the city and install a new government. However, they received far stronger resistance than expected. The Ukrainians won a great victory. The Russian army retreated and turned to the Donbass where resistance to the Kiev government had been going on with some success since 2014. There it has captured an extensive area, mostly one in which Russian is the preferred language.
The Ukrainian army there has been outnumbered and less well equipped, but it has put up heroic and remarkably successful resistance. It has recaptured some of the area conquered earlier. Although NATO is not at war with Russia, it is doing all it can to strengthen Ukraine’s military capacities including providing it with the finest armaments. The dominant propaganda still portrays a strengthened Ukraine driving out demoralized troops of an economically desperate Russia.
An alternative interpretation fits the facts better. In this account, the Russian goal all along has been to support the Russian-speaking Ukrainians. No doubt if Kiev had sued for peace at the sight of Russian tanks, the Russians would have been very pleased. But conquering the city of Kiev was never the intention.
The invasion toward Kiev occurred just as the Ukrainian president planned to lead the main body of the Ukrainian army east to overwhelm the resistance in Donbass. The Russian threat to Kiev kept the Ukrainian army there. The Russians may well have hoped Ukraine would negotiate, agreeing to the autonomy promised Donbass in Minsk II and committing to political neutrality. But the alternative was to keep the Ukraine army near Kiev while destroying the infrastructure that it planned to use to move East against Donbass. When that was done the Russians moved their troops East, while leaving the Ukrainian army unable to reenforce its troops in the East.
Russia then has been able to expand its control of the East, whereas the Ukrainian forces there are not reenforced or even re-supplied. It appears to be only a matter of time before the Ukrainian army in the East surrenders or is destroyed.
The Russians have now conquered the area between Donbass and Crimea, the two areas that refused to accept the nationalistic Ukrainian government. Destroying the Ukrainian army in the East is taking longer than Russia had hoped, but it will probably succeed. The remaining Ukrainian army will not be able to dislodge the Russian army even if better armed by NATO. Russia hopes to negotiate the Ukrainian acceptance of loss of territory and commitment to neutrality.
There have occasionally been indications that it might try to take Odessa, thus ending Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea. This would strengthen Russia’s position in negotiations, allowing it to use Odessa as a bargaining chip. But such an expansion would be extremely costly.
Probably, Russia will cease expanding its area of control. It will devote primary effort to destroying the high-tech weapons with which Ukraine is being supplied and damaging the transportation system through which the new arms are moved. This will continue to damage Ukraine’s economy and lead to the death of many civilians. Eventually Ukraine will negotiate, paying a high price for playing the American game.
There are wild cards which make confident predictions impossible. The Russians have not made an issue of NATO supplying Ukraine with better battlefield weapons, But the United States is also providing it with long range weapons that could be used to shell Russia. Russia has threatened to employ nuclear weapons. Biden will be reluctant to exclude these weapons from those he is giving Ukraine. Putin will not want to back down on his threat. If the war goes nuclear, nothing else will seem to matter much.
Even if nuclear war does not materialize, there is the possibility of NATO training and arming a new Ukrainian army. The present Russian army in Ukraine would have great difficulty defending all the land it now occupies against a large, well-trained and well-equipped army. But probably NATO’s assistance will not go that far.
As important as is the fighting in Ukraine, it may be that other effects of United States policy may be even more important. The American theft of the deposits of Afghanistan, Venezuela, and Russia in American banks has destroyed the attractiveness of depositing there. The petrodollar is being challenged by the ruble. And there is little doubt that Russia and China are developing a system of global finance that will end American control of global trade.
Meanwhile, the extreme sanctions by which the United States hopes to cripple Russia have done enormous damage worldwide. But there is no indication that they can destroy Russia. Russia can supply its people with cheap food and cheap energy. Those Russians who have become dependent on Western goods will have to pay exorbitant prices or do without. But Russia is unusually well able to survive sanctions.
The weakening global position of the United States was displayed in the refusal of so many countries to support the boycott of Russia so central to the plans of its destruction Instead, Russia’s relations with China have been tightened, and China is successfully replacing the United States as the economic patron of developing countries.
The worst effects of these sanctions are on the availability of food in the poorest countries. In addition, shortages of food and fossil fuels are causing inflation widely, including the United States. There is likely to be serious industrial disruption in Europe.
More important, it seems likely that the effort of the United States to end the full independence of Russia is leading to a profound shift in the global balance of power. Russia has always been oriented toward Europe. Now for the first time its primary relations and its plans for the future are oriented to Asia. The future economics and finance of Russia will be worked out with China. The United States will lead Europe, but the rest of the world will increasingly look elsewhere. The war undertaken to promote the American goal of unipolar domination of the world is in fact assuring a dipolar or multipolar one. The American empire is rapidly collapsing.
The one area of American success has been in propaganda. The world is all too ready to think badly of the Russians. Persuading them to invade a small neighbor made Russia vulnerable to being perceived as a heartless villain. The stories of their atrocities are readily believed in much of the world. And many people believe that Putin is a demon plotting to conquer the world.
Americans have been manipulated into demonizing whatever the government wants us to hate over and over again. I do not recall any war in which we have been more extensively deceived. The United States points to a document signed by both countries that prohibits invasions of other countries. Everyone agrees this is reprehensible. But Russia points out that it is also forbidden, in developing one’s own defenses, to endanger other countries. That is what Russia felt that Ukraine, encouraged by the United States, was doing.
The Russians have of course killed civilians with bombs and shells, but they have leaned over backwards to minimize civilian casualties. Still, many people believe they have gone out of their way to inflict them. The Russians have worked hard to minimize sexual exploitation of conquered people. But Ukraine has asserted that this has been extensive. Scenes of mass killings have been created out of whole cloth. Regrettably, people’s feeling about them will continue even when it is clear that the stories are not true. This is especially the situation with Europeans and Americans, and it will be another reason for Russia to see its future as part of Asia.
The fact that many lies have been told about Russians does not mean that they have done no horrible things in Ukraine. Nor does it mean that we should accept all Russian propaganda at face value. An important example is the repeated Russian description of Ukraine as Fascist. It is not true that the current government is Fascist.
However, there is more basis for this accusation than generally recognized in the West. The story goes back to World War II. Many Ukrainians supported the German invasion of the hated USSR. Some of them joined the German forces and fought against Russia. They called themselves Nazis. To this day there is a strong Nazi party in Ukraine. It does not control the government, but it plays a role in it.
This party has its own military units. A major part of the efforts of Ukraine to enforce its rule in Donbass was carried out by these Nazis rather than by regular Ukrainian soldiers. The defense of Mariupol was largely by them. The Russian Ukrainians are particularly bitter about this group and plan to try some of them for war crimes.
Another Russian accusation against Ukraine, and in this case, the United States as well, is that illegal experiments on potential plagues, such as COVID, have been going on in Ukraine, and that Russian-speaking Ukrainians were often the subjects. Americans have been assured by their propaganda that this is typical Russian “disinformation.” But I am not so sure. The Russians claim to have found laboratories and to have proof of their accusations.
The greatest danger now is no longer in Ukraine. It is that the United States will use Taiwan to suck China into war in much the way it used Ukraine to suck Russia into one. It is frightening that Biden is trying to assure Taiwan that, in its case, the United States will involve its armed forces. What is most frightening is that the only war with China that the United States can hope to win is a nuclear one!