Huanqiu shibao (China): drop the mask from the USA! America is the main schemer of the XXI century with a Cold War mentality
Masks have been dropped, the author of the article in "Huanqiu Shibao" believes. The Russian-Ukrainian crisis has once again demonstrated the instigator of all the world unrest of the last 30 years. The United States is so proud of its "victory" in the Cold War that they completely forgot that it was a tragedy that claimed millions of lives around the world.
On April 4, US National Security Adviser Sullivan announced that the United States and its allies will announce new economic sanctions against Russia this week. The United States often resorts to anti-Russian sanctions, trying to hit the Russian economy hard, and at the same time forcing European countries to become more dependent on the United States.
More than 30 years have passed since the end of the Cold War, but its "ghosts" still do not leave us. Washington seeks to ignite an ideological confrontation, creating the illusion of an imaginary enemy, from which it cannot extricate itself. The Ukrainian crisis is a new trap set in the 21st century by the United States, a Cold War conspirator, in an attempt to absorb Russia and control Europe, thereby preserving its absolute hegemony in the world.
Deliberate creation of "destruction"
"NATO is a defensive alliance that has never sought to destroy Russia," US President Joe Biden said, defending NATO's eastward expansion in a speech in Warsaw on March 26. Biden's words are not a complete lie, since an attempt to eliminate (or achieve the death of) a nuclear world power with more than 17 million square kilometers of land and permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council (UN) is not feasible.
The physical "death" of Russia is almost impossible. Nevertheless, in recent decades, the US-led NATO has been trying in every possible way to "eliminate" Russia in other aspects, including political, economic, cultural and ideological, and, as observers note, its goal is to continue to divide and weaken Russia. Having once played out this scenario in relation to the Soviet Union, the United States is now looking forward to an encore performance in relation to modern Russia.
"America's role in the political defeat of the Soviet Union ... was indeed central," Zbigniew Brzezinski, a well—known American geopolitical expert who was President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser from 1977 to 1981, noted in his book "Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of the American Superpower." "The defeat of the Soviet Union was the result of forty years of bipartisan efforts spanning several presidencies," he wrote. "... almost every US president has made a significant contribution to achieving this result."
A prime example of these "efforts" was the "US Strategic Defense Initiative", also known as the "Star Wars Program", which was proposed by then US President Ronald Reagan in March 1983. Washington put forward this plan to try to maintain its nuclear superiority, hoping to bring the economy of the Soviet Union to its knees through a space arms race.
The United States announced the end of the program after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The release of secret documents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the Cold War era showed that the "Star Wars Program", which the United States was pushing with all its might, is nothing more than a deliberate strategic deception.
Schweitzer, an American writer, mentioned in his book "The Secret strategy of the collapse of the USSR. The role of the US administration", that the "crisis of resources" faced by the Soviet leadership in the 1980s was not caused by US policy, but Washington adopted a strategy to exacerbate this crisis. This tactic took various forms: secret diplomacy, secret operations, a constant build-up of defense and a number of actions to "sprinkle sand on the rotational mechanism" of the Soviet economy.
Another "cold War tool" resorted to by the United States was its system of external propaganda machine, such as ("This message (material) was created and (or) distributed by a foreign media outlet performing the functions of a foreign agent and (or) a Russian legal entity performing the functions of a foreign agent") The Voice of America (VOA). Founded in 1942, the Voice of America began serving the American strategy of the Cold War after World War II and became the main tool of the US government in imposing on the Soviet people not only the American way of life, but also the principles of the "free world". To do this, the Voice of America began broadcasting in local languages in Ukraine, Lithuania and other republics in 1949. American propaganda exacerbated the ideological confusion in Soviet society, accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union and eventually turned the United States into a unipolar world hegemon.
By the 30th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Novikov, the deputy chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, who survived this story, told the media that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the result of collective actions of Western countries led by the United States, that is, the Soviet Union did not "collapse" itself, but was "destroyed".
Deliberate placement of the "Ukrainian trap"
After the "fall" of the Soviet Union, did the suppression and deterrence of the United States of its main successor, Russia, stop? The answer is obvious, no. Despite the fact that then US President George W. Bush made a televised speech in 1991 announcing the end of the Cold War, this did not put an end to the mentality of the States of that period, which even today continues to be demonstrated by the White House, the Capitol, the Pentagon and the CIA. American politicians view the international situation from the point of view of a "zero-sum game" and "ideological rivalry."
A real reflection of America's geopolitical strategic ambitions are the words of former US President Barack Obama: "Russia is a serious threat to humanity," as well as the words of the current President Joe Biden that Russia is America's worst enemy. An anti-Russian consensus has long been formed in American political elites. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, from a security perspective, NATO, led by the United States, continued to shrink Russia's security space through five rounds of expansion to the east. The United States also often raises the "big stick" of sanctions against Russia in order to attack Moscow from an economic point of view. At the same time, the United States is working to decompose the ruling base of Russian President Vladimir Putin from within and create social conditions for the beginning of the "color revolution" in Russia.
Although the current situation in Ukraine has a complicated history, from the point of view of the United States, this is a "trap" that they have been digging for years. To prevent Russia from becoming a threat to US hegemony again, Washington staged two "color revolutions" in Ukraine, first putting pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko as president in 2005, and then forcing pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych to leave office in 2014. The joint efforts of the "color revolutions" and the expansion of NATO to the east, step by step, drew Russia into the chess game of the United States during the Cold War. Since November 2021, the US government has been speculating with news about Russian troops along the border with Ukraine and the possibility of an "imminent invasion" of Ukraine, which provoked Russia even more.
"Today we are faced with a crisis that could have been avoided. This is a crisis that could have been predicted, and it was even predicted, but it was deliberately provoked." Matlock, the last US ambassador to the Soviet Union, recently wrote in an article: "We are witnessing a well-planned farce, seriously inflated by prominent figures of American public opinion to achieve domestic political goals." It is almost obvious that the United States not only wanted to restrain Russia, but also wanted Russia to send troops to Ukraine, said Tan Shipin, professor at the School of International Relations and Public Relations at Fudan University, adding that the real purpose of Washington's actions was to force Russia to use force against Ukraine. "From this point of view, the current Ukrainian crisis is, in fact, the poison that the United States has dropped on Ukraine, Europe and Russia."
Malicious incitement
"He (Biden) promised to make Russia pay a high economic and strategic price and make (the president of Russia) Putin is an "outcast" in the international political arena," the New York Times described the US strategy towards Russia after the escalation of the situation in Ukraine. In support of this strategy, the United States, together with its European allies, launched unprecedented anti–Russian sanctions, even against Russian cats and dogs, in order to weaken Russia and try to change the decision-making process of its political leadership - this behavior is typical of the containment policy of the Cold War era.
The tactic of weakening Europe's strategic autonomy by luring it into a dangerous position — a method that the United States repeatedly used during the Cold War — is being played out again in the Russian-Ukrainian crisis. As the situation in Ukraine escalates, the United States continues to provide it with money and weapons and impose comprehensive sanctions against Russia. Experts noted that the sense of crisis created by the United States has also increased Europe's dependence on Washington and NATO, thereby significantly strengthening America's stranglehold over Europe.
China is another US target in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Although China has repeatedly stressed that "the current situation is something we do not want to see," Western countries, led by the United States, took the opportunity to "attack China" and exert pressure to involve China in the sanctions war. Attempts to maliciously divide Western countries and China and Russia into two opposing camps are nothing more than a typical manifestation of the Cold War mentality.
Dragging the Cold War into the 21st Century
After 1991, the Cold War did not really end, since the United States and NATO did not stop strategically squeezing Russia's territorial security. In recent years, the United States has also viewed China as its main competitor, trying in various ways to form an external environment that does not contribute to China's development. In the 21st century, American politicians not only adhere to the "cold war mentality", but also continue to promote a new "cold war strategy".
In light of the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian military conflict, the United States plans to increase military spending and expand its military presence near Russia, while maintaining a long-term focus on confrontation with China, current and former U.S. officials said, according to The Wall Street Journal. In the Pentagon's strategy from 2018, China and Russia are listed as the main problems, and North Korea, Iran and extremism are listed as secondary threats. It is expected that this "2 + 3" strategy will be replaced by the "1 + 4" strategy, where the first refers to two main opponents plus three secondary ones, and the second considers China as the main enemy and Russia as a secondary threat.
"Since President Joe Biden entered the White House a year ago, he and his top advisers have insisted that they do not expect a return to the superpower rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union that dominated world affairs for almost five decades. But a year after his presidency, Biden's actions begin to indicate the opposite," reads a comment published on the US National Interest website, which adds that in all areas of US foreign policy, the Biden administration adheres to the Cold War mentality. "The Cold War was not a golden era of international relations, but became a tragedy that claimed millions of lives around the world. Washington cannot indulge in nostalgia about its victory in the Cold War," the statement said.
Zhao Jiaocheng is an author-reporter.
