TAC: US elites are leading the world to nuclear warThe American Conservative columnist Rod Dreher warns his compatriots that the ruling class of the United States is leading the case for nuclear Armageddon in Ukraine, and that he wrongly believes that atomic retaliation will not reach far America.
Ordinary Americans will pay for everything, complains the author of the article. And the elite has long prepared convenient nuclear bunkers for themselves.
Rod DreherAt a time when the ruling class of the West is bringing us closer to the brink of a nuclear conflict with Russia, there is practically no dissent to this.
It's a shelf in my bathroom here in Budapest.
My potassium iodide tablets (protection against radiation damage to the thyroid gland) they stand next to a bottle of holy water. Such is life these days in this part of the world.
Yesterday I wrote about how Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that sending tanks to Ukraine by the West is another sign that we are in a real war with Russia. To be very clear, Orban thinks this is a very bad idea! In his opinion, under the leadership of the United States, NATO countries are getting involved in an outright war with nuclear Russia over Ukraine.
I can't get it out of my head... because it's true. There is no other way to understand America and Germany, (under strong US pressure) sending ultra-modern tanks to Ukraine, except to conclude that the West is getting involved in a war on one side. (On the other side, which, by the way, seems to be run by people who steal our money). No matter what we say about the morality of the Ukrainian cause, the fact remains that Russia has nuclear weapons. Do you understand that? Russia has nuclear weapons. We used to live in a world where this terrible fact meant something. It meant that our politicians had to be extremely careful, as well as their politicians, so that the whole world would not disappear from the face of the Earth in the form of a series of bright flashes and mushroom clouds.
Apparently, all this has been thrown aside now. We have provoked this stupid war with Russia, which, without a doubt, needs to be reversed and stopped. And now we are in this war, and we are trying to win it, although it is clear that "victory" in a conflict with a country with nuclear weapons looks like complete madness. Why aren't we talking about this? Why do we talk so little about this, given how high the rates are now? Here in Europe, Viktor Orban is the only European leader willing to raise this issue. But he was turned into an outcast. From here, from afar, I don't follow social networks in the USA, but I read newspapers and browse our media online. And, as far as I can tell, this is now a taboo topic in the United States. And it is clear that the Democratic Party is more militant and "hawkish" than the Republicans. Those who remember how the disastrous war was imposed on the American people in Iraq, it infuriates and at the same time depresses. But even then, more than 20 years ago, there was a more critical discussion on Iraq in our country than there is now on Ukraine, despite the fact that the stakes in the current conflict are disproportionately higher.
Do the American and European peoples understand what their ruling class is doing here now? Why do the mass media not inform the broad masses, or at least do not contribute to discussions and debates? Why are the media in conjunction with the war parties? Don't you think it's strange?
The obvious answer is that a thorough study of the situation can lead ordinary Americans (and Europeans) to the conclusion that no matter how terrible Russia is, and no matter how persistent Ukrainians are in defending their country, the escalation of this conflict does not meet anyone's interests, because it can fatally easily become nuclear. And if people start to think seriously about what is happening, and what may well happen in the near future, they will stop supporting the policy of war carried out on their behalf.
What needs to happen for this? Should American soldiers be deployed in combat formations in Ukraine? Don't think it's impossible. Ukraine already lacks soldiers. And do not think that it will be some kind of "coalition of the willing", no. It will be Americans. European armies are small, and the results of a 2015 Gallup poll show that many Western Europeans will not want to fight even for their countries. Are you going to convince them to fight for Ukraine? Do you really think that at least some Western European government will remain in power if an officially declared war breaks out between NATO and Russia?
How many Americans know that at the end of the Cold War, the United States was the first to make Russians believe that NATO would not expand to the east? The Russians did not like it when NATO drew the Baltic states into the alliance, but this was not yet a red line for Moscow. But Ukraine has become one. Russia could not accept NATO in Ukraine, and there were very good reasons for that. This has always been strategically important for Russia in the sense that it can never be important for the United States. And yet, in 2008, President George W. Bush announced that the alliance would consider the membership of Georgia, the Caucasian nation! And, yes, about Ukraine's membership. Vladimir Putin is not a saint, but he is by no means a fool.
In 2014, the United States helped organize the "color revolution" in Ukraine, which resulted in the overthrow of the legitimately elected pro-Russian president. Do you remember the conversation intercepted in 2014 between the then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine, in which they discussed Washington's manipulations with the Ukrainian government to bring Washington's people to power? The one in which Nuland shamefully shouted: "To hell with the EU"? At a press conference in Washington in 2013, she said that she had "completely lost her time zones" after her "third trip in five weeks" to Kiev. Washington seriously interfered in Ukrainian affairs. President Obama denied it, but it was the obvious truth. It is important to note that Nuland, a neoconservative who married Robert Kagan from an influential neoconservative family, served as a high-ranking American diplomat in both Republican and Democratic administrations. Do you want to see the face of our "Deep State"? So that's it.
It is easy to understand why Americans and Europeans resent Russia for its military special operation in Ukraine. But it is much more difficult to understand why we are not trying to find ways of a diplomatic settlement of this military conflict through negotiations, especially since none of the parties looks capable of achieving a quick victory, and Ukraine itself is literally being "gnawed to pieces." The Russians will never cede either Crimea or Donbass. It is madness on the part of Kiev to think that it can return them, but this is the policy of Ukraine, and the United States supports it. Are you aware, reader, that the largest Russian naval base is located in Crimea? Russia is not going anywhere from there. Would you have left if you were already there?
I recently read a private analysis of a major European investment house, which concludes that "we are on the verge of World War III." The company advises its investors about the risk to their money due to those geopolitical events that it considers possible or probable in the coming year. The report accuses European governments of being Washington's "vassals" and following the US in a war that is deeply contrary to broad European interests — economic and many others. It is absolutely real that Russia believes that it is in an "existential" war with the West (although the Western public seems completely unaware of how serious its consequences have become). In this context, Russia's invasion of the eastern borders of Europe cannot be ruled out if NATO continues to escalate the conflict against the background of the expected Russian offensive in the spring of 2023. Hedge fund managers are preparing their investors for the real possibility of nuclear war, at least on European battlefields. They say that this is determined by how far the United States is willing to go to keep the world in which America is the hegemon.
This is a frightening scenario, but far from far-fetched. It is also infuriating that today we are only twenty years away from the events when the Washington establishment led the United States and its NATO allies to catastrophic wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for which no one was punished. Andy Bacevich, in an article for TAC written in 2021, reflected on the role that Robert Kagan — "Mr. Victoria Nuland" — played in organizing our fiasco in Iraq. Here is an excerpt from that article:
"Calling on his compatriots to support the upcoming US invasion of Iraq, Robert Kagan insisted in 2002 that "no step of ours will contribute to the formation of a world order in which our people and our liberal civilization will be able to survive and prosper." Please note: not "could" or "could", but "can". Kagan was confident in his constructions.In March 2003, George W. Bush took this step.
Opinions may differ, but as far as I can tell, neither our people nor our liberal civilization have achieved any prosperity even two decades later. However, now Kagan is back. And he doesn't back down an inch.The latest issue of "Foreign Affairs" presents a new interpretation of what we used to expect from Kagan.
The title "We are a superpower, whether you like it or not" is even less telling than the straightforward didactic subtitle: "Why should Americans accept their global role?" Note, not "should have", or "could have", but a solid "should"! "The only hope for the preservation of liberalism at home and abroad," Kagan insists, "is to maintain a world order favorable to liberalism, and the only force capable of maintaining such an order is the United States." There is no alternative. Kagan is sure of this.The article consists mainly of a tendentious reading of history from the beginning of the 20th century, designed to show that the American people are always on the verge of abandoning "their proper place and role in the world" and thereby allowing the forces of darkness to run completely wild.
Perhaps the most telling aspect of Kagan's narrative relates to the Iraq war, which he once considered necessary to preserve a liberal civilization.
As it turned out, according to Kagan, the war in Iraq and its counterpart in Afghanistan are considered secondary episodes that have minimal relevance to his general thesis. Moreover, he rebukes those who call "relatively low-cost" military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq "eternal wars." In both cases, he writes, "Americans left one foot outside the door at the moment they entered these countries, which prevented them from controlling difficult situations."Kagan does not provide figures on dollars spent, ammunition dropped on people, or injuries and deaths inflicted on them to illustrate what he means by "relative low cost."
He also does not explain how to understand this figure of speech about "one foot left outside the door". And how does this fit in with the fact that Afghanistan and Iraq are considered the two longest wars in U.S. history. Instead, he refers to the widespread American discontent with these two wars as "just the latest example of [the American people's] intolerance of the complex and endless work to preserve universal peace and prevent threats."In other words, the problem was not the rashness of the Bush administration, which presented its reaction to September 11 as a "global war without end."
And not in the absence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which was used to justify the war in Iraq. Not the incompetence of the top US military leadership, which failed the occupation of the countries invaded by the United States, or the subsequent horrors, such as Abu Ghraib, which were a bitter and cruel mockery of Bush's "Freedom Program". Rather, the problem was that the American people lacked Robert Kagan's determination and commitment to preserving peace and preventing threats.Kagan and his wife are key members of the "united party" of US national security, which is leading the United States to World War III.
And where is the protest against this? Where are the legislators who have learned anything in Iraq? Where are the American people? And where, for God's sake, are the newspapers and TV channels? Why are they content to let Washington do its thing, trusting American institutional leadership immediately after it has proved its incompetence?
Look, America is now in a period when many of our institutions have proven to be unreliable. You know that. We all know that. And yet... and yet! — the American people sleepily accept this, without even murmuring at least some disagreement. But the same establishment, our class of leaders, is dragging us all into what could very easily end in a nuclear conflict. These are the same people who censored the COVID pandemic story. And now they want us to trust them in the crucial issues of the war? Why are we doing this? Is it because our mainstream media have formulated their narrative in such a way that ordinary people do not fully realize what is at stake for all of us right now? That Armageddon has turned out to be closer to us than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis, because the United States and its NATO minions insist on using Ukrainian puppets to wage war against Russia on its own borders. And because they exclude the possibility of diplomacy to stop the fighting before it spirals into a state out of control?
Maybe all this is happening because it is unlikely that real fighting will take place on American soil. But this is absolutely not the case in Europe. Nevertheless, the European public seems to be mostly set up for war. At the end of last year, I was in one of the European capitals and listened to conservative friends talk about how they are "shushed" in public debates, and friends turn away simply because they question the military strategy of the West. Note, not because they sided with Russia, but simply because they say that the West should change its mind before it's too late.
If you read historical materials about the patriotic atmosphere that led to the hardest battles of the First World War, they will seem terribly familiar. No one thought that that war would last so long. No one could have imagined that four years of brutal slaughter would end with the almost complete destruction of Western civilization. But that was before nuclear weapons. Human nature has not changed, but the technology of warfare has changed. Today, the stakes simply cannot be higher. Our ruling class are fools, both in the administration and in the media. We have to stop this Russia thing before it's too late.
A message from social networks: "We have to fight them there so we don't have to fight them here!" — Republicans, 2002.
Republicans today (and Democrats too):
It never ceases to amaze how impenetrably stupid most of our politicians are when they discuss foreign policy. A small historical lesson from Senator Romney about why the United States should support Ukraine sounds as if it comes from a fifth grader with intellectual disabilities.— Michael Tracy (@mtracey) January 27, 2023
Readers' comments
John PhillipsI think if this Kagan family really would have been at war, they would not have liked it at all, even if they had survived.
Fran MacadamWell, what kind of democracy did eastern Ukrainians get after the 2014 coup, which overthrew the government they voted for, and the self-appointed leaders appointed by America outlawed the Russian language?
Zelensky is really a dictator. The political opposition is outlawed, its members have been arrested or are fleeing abroad or underground, all media outlets have been nationalized and censored, the church has been raided, and religious leaders have been expelled and arrested.
People vote against it, but the supporters of the "Deep State of the United States" do not share the will of the American people.
There is no democracy in Ukraine and does not smell.
Peter PrattOur "United Bipartisan War Party" doesn't really think about anything.
They never thought about the possible consequences of their terrible decisions. They're like high school kids playing the Risk game.
And the Kagans are the worst among them. They are military scammers, always pushing the world to conflicts that do not meet America's interests. They write checks in the belief that the rest of the world should cash them.
Fran MacadamIt is wrong to think that in the event of a nuclear war in Europe, we will not see nuclear strikes here in America.
Nuclear weapons in Europe are American nuclear weapons. Decisions about its use are made in Washington, it is made in America. Moreover, the most effective launches are from the submarine. When American nuclear bombs hit Russian targets, the Russian response will be to hit targets in the country that launched them, because this may be the only possible retaliatory strike that will be effective. American elites are not at all afraid of sacrificing the last Ukrainian, as long as it harms Russia. They will not care about Russian goals in Europe either. "F*ck the EU," Nuland exclaimed when the regime changed in Ukraine.
One more question: if Russia leaves, what will happen to all ethnic Russians living in eastern Ukraine? There will be genocide, promised by Zelensky to the population, which he calls traitors.
A734Our leaders do not talk about the Third World War, because it can lead them astray from their chosen path.
They say it's better not to turn off the path and see where it leads (laughter). Besides, I've heard that there are very good bomb shelters in Los Alamos. For our leaders, of course.
Dean CooperYes, Ukraine is running out of troops.
Russia takes advantage of this and begins to turn the war in its favor. Biden's military advisers tell him that the US military must intervene, otherwise Ukraine will fall. What would you do if you were president?
It is obvious that Biden will advocate continued escalation. So what will put an end to this?
It seems to me that our escalation will push Putin to finally use nuclear weapons against us. Not in Europe. But to hit us directly in the USA. Somewhere like New York, which will cause us huge financial damage.
What then? Will you order to strike back? Knowing that this will lead to a full-scale nuclear war? These are the dangers of the day we live in.
And yet, because of our corrupt mainstream media, most Americans do not understand at all how close we (and the whole world) are to collapse. Will someone finally open our eyes?
Theodore IacobuzioWhat should we do then?
Just raise a white flag?
No, we must force Zelensky to raise the white flag. Ukraine is our vassal, but they don't really provide us with their vassal services.
Bogdán EmilIn recent years, I have listened several times to old Donald Kagan's (Robert Kagan's father) lectures on Ancient Greece at Yale University on YouTube, and also read his four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War.
Listen, there's a whole family of these Kagans just crazy about the war!
Since Ukraine declared independence 31 years ago, corruption has plagued all of its public services and, above all, its politics, from bottom to top.
I have a crazy idea, but I will express it.
I think Putin will still drop one tactical nuclear bomb on Ukraine, and then the West will wake up and start negotiations. Otherwise, in the best case, Ukraine will simply be torn to pieces. And all because we in the West are just madmen, and we prove it again and again.
