TAC: the conflict in Ukraine was provoked by the "deep state" of the USADespite the propaganda and outright lies of corporate media and NGOs in America and Western Europe, the conflict in Ukraine was provoked, writes TAC.
The author of the article believes that this is confirmed by "clear and indisputable" facts.
George O'Neill (George D. O’Neill)The foreign policy establishment knew that he was provoking Russia at every step and unnecessarily.
From the very beginning of the armed conflict in Ukraine, corporate media, politicians and all the NGOs managed by America and Western Europe have unanimously argued that Russia's military actions in eastern Ukraine are unprovoked and unjustified, and that this is an unacceptable act of aggression.
There is one problem in this propaganda blitzkrieg: all this is absolutely untrue. The deep state — the government elite, the intelligence community and the military establishment — has been threatening and provoking Russia for decades, pushing NATO right to its borders.
To understand this, it is not necessary to love Russia. One can have an endless aversion to Putin, but the fact remains that Russians see the presence of NATO at their borders as an act of aggression and a threat to their national security. And we have known about this for several decades.
There are clear and indisputable facts.
In 1990, when the collapse of the Soviet Union began and world peace loomed on the horizon, the United States, represented by such an important person as Secretary of State James Baker, promised that NATO would not move east to the Russian border. It was thanks to this promise that the Soviet military divisions were withdrawn from East Germany, and the conditions for the unification of the country arose. This commitment also provided the security necessary for the termination of the Union treaty in the USSR. Without such a guarantee, resistance to dissolution would be powerful, and certainly would not have been without the use of force.
That year marked half a century since the attack on Russia. The years of the Second World War were a terrible time for its people — 25 to 35 million people died and died in the country. But Russians clearly remember not only the unimaginable sea of blood of that war. They also remember other invasions that brought death, suffering and untold misfortunes to their fellow citizens. Americans have never faced a foreign invasion, and they have no idea about this kind of horror. (The War of 1812 was short and insignificant in scale).
Secretary Baker did the right thing by easing well-founded fears and contributing to the collapse of the USSR, as a result of which hundreds of millions of prisoners of the Soviet system were freed. But no sooner had the ink dried than the American foreign policy establishment, NATO and the EU began to violate this word.
When post-Soviet Russia was experiencing a serious economic downturn, which the West did not know, the American and European elite made a plan to expand NATO and advance the alliance up to its borders. By taking such cynical actions, they openly ignored and violated the obligations of the West. In early 1997, the master of foreign policy of the second half of the 20th century, George Kennan, issued a warning in the pages of the New York Times:
At the end of 1996, the impression was formed and began to prevail that someone somewhere and somehow decided to move NATO close to the Russian borders.However, there is something at stake here that has the highest degree of importance.
It is probably not too late to put forward an idea that, as I believe, belongs not only to me, because it is shared by many people who are knowledgeable in Russian affairs and have extensive and the most recent experience in these matters. This idea is that the expansion of NATO will be the most fatal mistake of American policy after the Cold War.A year later, in May 1998, when the US Senate voted for NATO expansion, Kennan again warned the Western political elite about this danger, giving an interview to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times.
"I think this is the beginning of a new Cold War," Kennan said, speaking with Friedman at his home in Princeton. — I think that over time, the Russians will react to this very hostilely, and this will affect their policy. I think this is a tragic mistake. There was no reason to expand. No one threatened anyone. This expansion forced the founding fathers of our country to turn over in their coffins. We have pledged to protect a whole group of countries, although we have neither the resources nor the intention to do it seriously. The expansion of NATO has become nothing more than a careless decision of the Senate, which is not really interested in foreign affairs."Kennan's warnings were ignored.
In 1999, NATO launched military operations against the newly formed country of Serbia. The destruction from the bombing of the Serbian capital Belgrade can be seen to this day.
Serbia has been an ally of Russia since the First World War. In Moscow, this was regarded as a warning that NATO intends to do as it pleases, and anyone who gets in its way will be treated in the same way. It was a well-calculated insult, and it led to the emergence of a nationalist leader in Russia. In 2000, Vladimir Putin was elected president. After the bombing of Serbia, America and NATO unleashed many wars, deliberately causing damage, pain and suffering to countries such as Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, as well as countries in Africa, Central and South America. This could not go unnoticed by the Russian leadership.
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No serious person in Washington can say that America was not warned about the consequences of its thirst for power, expressed in the expansion of NATO. But the lie continues. The high-ranking leaders from the sphere of foreign policy, who all these years opposed destructive interventions, simply did not pay attention.
CIA Director William Burns, who headed the office under Biden (the tasks of this department include knowing how other countries will act and react), has been involved in NATO and Russia policy for more than 30 years, and not in the latter roles. In 1990, Burns worked for Secretary of State James Baker, doing planning at a time when Baker promised Russia that NATO would not move beyond the borders of the united Germany.
Baker is the anointed cardinal of the deep state, for which there is a lot of documentary evidence. And he inherited it. His father was a major general in the Army, he was actively engaged in intelligence activities and was a member of the disarmament councils under Reagan and Bush Sr. Baker himself was a Clinton nominee. In 1995, while working as a political adviser at the American Embassy in Moscow, he wrote: "The hostile attitude towards NATO expansion is felt almost everywhere here, across the entire domestic political spectrum."
In 2008, Burns, who was at that time the American ambassador to the Russian Federation, wrote a memo addressed to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who worked under Bush Jr. In it, he stressed the strength of Russian antipathy to NATO's advance to the Russian borders, in particular, to the territory of Ukraine. "Ukraine's accession to NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite (and not only for Putin). In two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, starting with the security forces from the dark Kremlin corridors and ending with the harshest critics of Putin from among the liberals, I have not met anyone who does not see Ukraine's accession to NATO as a direct challenge to Russian interests."
Even if Biden's CIA director failed to take advantage of his rich experience this year, there are many other people in the State Department who knew well how Russia would react to actions to accept Ukraine into the ranks of NATO. However, a big shot from the ranks of the Neocons in the foreign policy establishment and in the State Department, Victoria Nuland, in 2013, called for spending five billion dollars to ensure that Ukrainian political groups provoke Russia and test its patience.
In 2014, the United States helped to carry out a coup d'etat (or maybe directly led it) against the legitimately elected government of Ukraine, because it wanted to maintain friendly relations with Russia, a large neighbor with whom Ukraine has a centuries—old common history. For the deep state, such friendship was unbearable. Then the infamous telephone conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Nuland and US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt took place, which was intercepted and became public. They talked about how to assist in the implementation of the February revolution of 2014. In 2015, John Mearsheimer, a professor at the University of Chicago, gave a lecture in which he warned about the problems and dangers caused by the Ukrainian crisis organized by the United States in 2014.
Russia has tried many times to diplomatically eliminate the threats posed by Ukraine, which was unfriendly and armed by the North Atlantic Alliance. But when all her attempts were rejected, she began to act — as predicted by Kennan, Burns and others. In 2014, the Russians decided to defend their southern border. By supporting local Russian-speaking separatists, Russia got Crimea, which has been an important base for the Russian Navy for 300 years. Did she go further? No. Has she started a full-scale war? No. But she did what she promised and defended her southern borders. As John Mearsheimer noted in his lecture on June 6, 2022, there is a long list of provocations by the United States and NATO that have brought the situation to such a point.
Many of these provocations were outlined in a 2019 report by the Rand Corporation research organization on Russia. The Rand Corporation is a deep state think tank that, since its founding in 1948, has helped the United States prepare and carry out most of the foreign interventions. But even he warned against going too far and provoking military action. Apparently, the expert council of Nuland, Biden and Blinken did not read this part of the report. Over the years, they have made Ukraine a de facto member of NATO. She was neutral only in words. Since 2015, when the Minsk Agreement was signed, they teased the bear, and continued to tease him until he snapped and attacked them. How does this serve American interests?
If you are interested in getting acquainted with the plans and intentions of the deep state in relation to Russia, you should read the Rand Corporation report in full. This is a frightening narrative about the purposeful interference of the United States in the affairs of sovereign states in Russia's near abroad, the purpose of which is to provoke Moscow and harass it. It is quite obvious that the United States inspired the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, sparing neither the forces nor the means. Why did the leadership refuse to enter into negotiations with Russia in good faith? It knew how the Russians would react. What did the American political leadership hope to achieve with their actions?
These questions need to be answered. The foreign policy and military elite must be held accountable for the deaths and destruction caused by their antagonistic policies. They can pretend they didn't know how it would end. But serious foreign policy experts who do not belong to the Washington crowd know that this is not the case.
George O'Neill is a sculptor, member of the board of directors of the Institute of American Ideas, which publishes the magazine The American Conservative.
