Russian invasion of Ukraine could have been avoided — but US leadership's arrogance prevented that — implications for soft power

26 February 2022

Caveat

What follows is intended only for people, who are capable of analytically objective thinking. As well as of taking a Long View toward the future.

It is intended for American patriots, who dislike incompetent US leadership's constant erosion of America's invaluable soft power.

Question

If the United States continues to fritter away the past's characteristic American helpfulness — as well as our national honor — will anything of genuine societal value be left?

Let's take an honest (not propagandized) look at Russia's invasion of Ukraine

I am going to avoid succumbing to the fashionable American trend that blames Vladimir Putin for being the Devil Incarnate.

Forcing someone (here, Putin and Russia) to employ an aggressive self-defense does not turn them into Primary Villains.

When the Ukrainian tragedy is viewed realistically . . .

. . . via the lens provided by the History's very long geopolitical record — we see that the real Bad Guys underlying this current Russia-Ukrainian brutality is our own, national interest-ignoring leadership.

To illustrate — let's start with a common-sense example

If I surround you with a bunch of my gang members — and they're all pointing guns at your head, calling you names and explaining how evil you are (every day) — is it your fault, when you take out the threat-maker that is physically closest to you — especially after that same guy tells you he is getting more and bigger guns from me — plus he's going to nuke up for good measure?

Examine the specifics of our Military Industrial Complex plot against Russia

What is happening now was exactly the American intent.

We wanted to force Russia into a war. And then blame all of its casualties on Vladimir Putin and the Federation:

The strategy has involved maneuvering Russia into having to make a choice between two scenarios, both of which have bad consequences.

The choices are these: (1) Russia does not invade Ukraine, in which case the U.S.-controlled NATO absorbs Ukraine, which means U.S. bases, missiles, tanks, and troops permanently situated on Russia’s borders;

(2) Russia invades Ukraine and takes over the reins of government, in which case U.S. officials portray Russia as a horrific aggressor that now threatens the rest of Europe, the United States, and all mankind.

The United States knew the magnitude of what it was provoking

By way of just one example of this foreknowledge — a bit of history known to everyone in American power:

In 1962, nuclear war almost erupted, after the United States irritated the Soviet Union (by trying to overthrow Fidel Castro) and the USSR foolishly retaliated by putting nuclear missiles into Cuba.

What is less widely known is that a Soviet submarine deputy commander (Vasily Arkhipov) single-handed delayed the looming catastrophe by refusing to agree to the firing the Soviet sub's nuclear torpedoes. That refusal taking place, while said submarine was under American depth charge attack.

World War III was (almost certainly) avoided based on the actions of one independently thinking and genuinely courageous human being.

A Soviet guy at that. Imagine.

Meanwhile, President Kennedy belatedly (and wisely) realized that reaching a tacit and non-violent agreement with Soviet First Secretary Khrushchev would be a good idea.

The details of the resulting US-Soviet compromise were hidden from the American and Soviet publics, for fear that their mutual accommodation of the other's perspective would make both sides look weak.

Specifically, the United States did not want the American public to know that it had acceded to Khrushchev's demand that American Jupiter missiles be removed from Turkey.

(Effective leaders recognize that nations' mob-like populations can be dangerous to their longevity.)

In sum, even the most trivial reviews of Great Power histories reveal that encroaching too far into a competing hegemon's sphere of influence — and thus, into the buffer zone protection that this sphere affords it — results in war. Even in the nuclear age.

We all know this. Even and especially, American streets' 'gang boys'.

In summary, America's neocon leadership knew precisely what it was doing, while it intentionally began lighting flames under Ukraine.

It gets worse — the Russians warned us to back off — and we did not

It has been American policy (for decades) to force the Russian Federation into geographic corner from which its only, historically predictable, response was going to be the current invasion.

Notice that present Russian aggression in Ukraine is, rather obviously — when rationally assessed in light of History's paradigm — only intended to preserve a traditional Great Power border buffer.

Instead of recognizing this obvious fact, American propaganda continues to point toward Russian evility as the only cause of Ukraine's suffering.

Indeed now, the United States' wild story stooges are busily inventing a coming Russian assault on Poland and the Baltic nations. Maybe even Germany.

A geopolitically more illiterate and more analytically deficient group of situation-worsening leaders and commentators is impossible to conjure.

Not occurring to these easily manipulated Western mutton-brains is the fact that forcing someone to employ self-defense does not automatically turn him or her into the world's worst villain.

This inability to put ourselves into other nations' cultural and national interest shoes is exactly what has caused every US defeat from Vietnam on.

As a patriot, I do not like being defeated by our own aggressively displayed stupidity.

What is especially galling to the proportionately of few us — who do possess both historical sense and an ability to think objectively — is that Putin is on record, for many years, saying and demonstrating that Russia will not (and cannot afford to) allow itself to become NATO-encircled right up to its border.

Not only did Ukrainian circumstances, by themselves — when evaluated through History's Great Powers lens — suggest that bad things were going to happen, if the West kept mindlessly pushing — the Russian president himself told us what was going to occur.

He was, no doubt, trying to avoid a repeat of the Cuban missile crisis.

As of just a few days ago, you could verify a sample of these warnings by reading Putin's (English translated) 21 February 2022 speech here:

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828

Today, the above link "cannot be reached".

Take a guess as to who is doing the censoring. Why listen to an adversary, when we might learn something useful?

In substitute for the evidently blocked Russian Government mouth, you can find extracts of some of Putin's warning comments here:

Mike Whitney, Scholz Caves on Nord Stream While Putin Throws Donbass a Lifeline, Unz Review (23 February 2022)

In spite of Putin's clarity about consequences . . .

. . . regarding violating the Federation's 'red line' — the West continued escalating its encirclement.

Kept encroaching. And kept promising to keep the Encroachment Principle alive.

Even under circumstances in which it would have cost us nothing of real geopolitical substance to reassure the Russians that we:

were not going to let Ukraine join NATO

nor would we

set Ukraine up with weapons with which to threaten the Federation's security.

A workable solution to the Ukraine crisis would have emulated the neutrality status that Finland achieved with the Soviet Union (and now Russia), during and after World War II.

In my view, the self-righteously pigheaded arrogance demonstrated by US and NATO leadership — especially when evaluated in light of History's record of the existence-threatening invasions that Russia has suffered in the past — is strategically inexplicable.

Except, when attributed to hubristic malevolence and war-based profit-seeking.

Western leadership's strong-arming conceit breathes (both) gargantuan stupidity and bone-deep maliciousness.

Realpolitik —Art of war — Sun Tzu principles

What would war strategist Sun Tzu say about today's easily avoidable Ukrainian sadness?

A competent government does not start a war — proxy or not — unless there are genuine national interests at stake.

Capable leaders study their adversaries. Whether those opponents are real, or just propaganda-created.

Able strategists pay attention to what is likely to happen, when geopolitical 'moves' (by anyone) are made.

Moral governance does not set events into motion that will (easily foreseeably) slaughter innocents — here the Ukrainians — for no rationally substantive, concrete and easily described strategic gain.

Skillful heads of state embody the core principles of their nation's heritage. Which, in our American case, involves avoiding unnecessarily bloody entanglements abroad. As well as preventing public displays of national cowardice. Such as tacitly promising the Ukrainians a defense, then starting a war that threatened them, and finally leaving those same Ukrainians to die in the absence of help.

Where Ukraine is concerned, the United States gets a zero on every one of these Sun Tzu elements.

Ukrainians are dying today because we knowingly maneuvered Russia into a position from which it could not viably escape, except by waging a war.

Implications for America's future soft power — sheer disaster

In an essay detailing Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov's accuracy in detailing pertinent agreements that the US had made with Russia and then violated — I concluded that:

No country on this planet, in recent decades, has intentionally subverted genuine diplomacy more than ours.

The US Imperium's word is not worth boiled-away piss in a strong wind.

If a nation never keeps its word, maybe then, tanks and missiles comprise the most efficient response to its miserable ass?

Russia's leadership has decided so.

This NATO-manufactured, strategic fiasco now leaves China an opening . . .

. . . in its competition with us for world leadership.

China's (PRC-sponsored) Global Times published an insightfully scorching editorial yesterday.

It captures the scope of the United States' disastrously evaporated soft power:

People have seen that after the US pushed Ukraine into the fire, it stood aside, pretending to care about the country and saying "I support you, keep fighting!"

It is fair to say the evolution of the situation in Ukraine until today is a geopolitical tragedy.

From the very beginning, it's a bitter result of the US' strategic selfishness and shortsightedness.

As early as 1998 when the US Senate approved NATO's eastward expansion plan, the late senior US diplomat George Kennan had foreseen today's tragedy. He said then, "This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves."

However, the arrogant American elites always think they can profit from crises.

For years, the US has incited conflicts, manipulated the situations from offshore and reaped benefits.

It is accustomed to be the one who adds the fuel to the fire without paying any cost.

What it wants is to realize its instant interests. The US shows no consideration for the suffering of the locals pushed into the forefront.

When there is a real crisis, the so-called commitments it initially made will only become empty diplomatic rhetoric. Those politicians don't care about the suffering of local people at all . . . .

This reminds people of when it abandoned the former Afghan regime last year, the US also said on multiple occasions it would provide "humanitarian" assistance to Afghanistan.

But shockingly, the reality is that the so-called US "humanitarian" assistance hasn't been provided to the Afghan people, but the US carved up the $7 billion in frozen funds that Afghanistan's central bank had deposited in New York.

[A]fter satisfying its own strategic interests, the US only left the locals "an avalanche of hunger and poverty," leading to the severe malnutrition of millions of children in Afghanistan.

If a country only cares about its own interests, fuels the flames everywhere and constantly exports chaos to others, no matter how powerful it is, it is inevitable its credibility will go bankrupt and its hegemony will come to an end.

One does not have to agree with the Chinese perspective, to see that China's conclusions will carry clout. Simply by virtue of the easily demonstrated history that underlies them.

America's atrociously badly conducted foreign policy repeatedly gives . . .

. . . our adversaries room to better sell their competing views.

How is that in the US interest?

Is being classified as an untrustworthy Adam Henry really what US necons think gives us strength?

Notice that the Chinese editorial emphasizes American shortsightedness.

Seeing and acting in favor of the Long View is an area where China, especially in recent decades, is exceptionally capable.

In contrast, we Americans are weaker at forward-looking than a stream of drizzly frog stool.

This probably explains why the United States' very long string of neoconservative leaders have killed millions of foreign folks — as well as thousands and thousands of our own troops — and still toppled us onto our strategically empty-skulled head, every time.

So, tell me — which nation do you think is more likely to emerge on top in the future?

Which one of us will future foreign leaders more willingly engage with?

What other nations respect dishonor, flayed trust and overt cowardice?

I can't think of a one. Can you?

The moral? — Short sighted, conniving American leaders are the real villains in this Ukrainian tragedy

Ignoring this truth will not make it disappear.

Lying about the United States' primary Machiavellian responsibility for Ukraine's pain will only subject future generations of innocents to the American Military Industrial Complex's murder-for-profit plan.

Strategically speaking, American soft power used to be our principal strength. Now it is virtually gone.

Who thought that was a good idea?

Answer — the same long line of morons, who literally forced Russian and China into the equivalent of a self-defensive alliance against us.

As vehement (!) American patriots — for the sake of our country, its historic principles, its honor and our own (nobody left behind) selves — let us pluck our national head out of its currently neocon-malevolent hind end.

PeteFree.com

Russian invasion of Ukraine could have been avoided — but US leadership's arrogance prevented that — implications for soft power