WSWS: The US Democratic Party has been preparing a plan for the dismemberment of Russia for many yearsAmerica has long been preparing a campaign to dismember Russia and turn it into many vassal states, WSWS writes.
Now the United States has taken advantage of the conflict in Ukraine to create the appearance of popular support for this goal.
The Biden administration and the American corporate media say that the intensification of the confrontation between the US-NATO forces and Russia is entirely a consequence of the Russian military operation in Ukraine. And it, in turn, is explained by the diabolical intentions of one person: Vladimir Putin.
Thus, they take the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine out of the historical context. And most importantly, they conceal the role of American imperialism in preparing and purposefully provoking this crisis. The military actions were used to create the appearance of popular support for the long-preparing campaign of the United States and NATO to overthrow the Putin regime, the collapse of Russia and bring it to a state of semi-colony.
The Democratic Party plays a central role in this anti-Russian campaign, which has been going on for more than a decade. This article analyzes the role of Democrats, especially after 2009, when the Obama-Biden administration came to power.
The collapse of the USSR and the Civil War in Yugoslavia
At the first stage of the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were no particular disagreements between the two leading capitalist parties of the United States about the policy towards this largest country in the world. They sought the collapse of the USSR, albeit with some caution, in order to create the best conditions for American corporations and banks, as well as strengthen US world domination by creating a "unipolar world" and achieving the "end of history".
All this time, American foreign policy towards Russia has been built within the framework of the defense policy outlined in 1992. It said: "Our first goal is to prevent the emergence, both on the territory of the former Soviet Union and in other places, of a new rival who would pose a threat of the same order as the USSR represented before. This is the main consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires us to make efforts to prevent any hostile power from dominating this region, because the resources of this region, if taken under centralized control, will be enough to form a world power."
The first significant disagreements over the policy towards Russia appeared with the beginning of the civil war in Yugoslavia in 1991. This time the Democrats took a more aggressive position. The war was provoked by Germany's recognition of the republics of the Yugoslav Federation, first Slovenia, and then Croatia. Due to the declaration of independence by these republics, the large Serbian population, previously the largest ethnic group, suddenly became a minority in the new States, the defining feature of which was ethnicity.
Wars followed. First between Slovenia and the federal authorities in Belgrade, then in Croatia, and then in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where no nationality made up the majority, and the largest group were Bosnian Muslims, followed by Serbs and Croats. The nationalist views of all the bourgeois factions created on a national basis were reactionary and untenable, since the population was mixed due to interethnic marriages, and all regions were integrated into the economy and social life of the Yugoslav state.
The United States and NATO intervened, supporting anti-Serb factions and the Croatian government, which waged a fascist war against the Serbian minority. They also sided with the Muslim-dominated Bosnian government. The culmination was the powerful bombing of Serbia in 1999, which began after the CIA-backed uprising in Kosovo, which was led by the Albanian nationalist group "Kosovo Liberation Army", engaged in drug trafficking and outright banditry.
Russia sided with the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic. The culmination of the NATO war against Serbia, during which an airstrike was carried out on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, was a confrontation between American and Russian troops at the Pristina airport, which threatened to escalate into an open military clash. It was prevented at the last moment.
Afghanistan, Iraq and the Orange Revolution
The official US foreign policy towards Russia did not change significantly until the Bush administration came to power. Using the September 11 attacks as a pretext, Bush ordered the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Then, in his first address on the situation in the country, he outlined the doctrine of preemptive war (illegal, according to the precedents set out at the Nuremberg Trials), justifying the US attack on countries that Washington considered a "potential" threat.
The first targets Bush called the "axis of evil" were Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Then Syria and Libya were included in the list. It is no coincidence that all these countries had close relations, and sometimes direct alliances with Russia.
In December 2004, the "orange revolution" took place in Ukraine, the election of the pro-Russian presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych was annulled, and the pro-European and pro-American candidate Viktor Yushchenko won the third round of elections. The US political establishment welcomed this result, calling it a triumph of democracy.
But the new regime quickly became mired in corruption and factional infighting between rival groups of capitalist oligarchs. Each tried to benefit from the privatization of the assets of the former Soviet Union. Ukraine was the second largest Soviet republic, had rich agricultural resources, significant industrial and social infrastructure. Therefore, there was something to loot.
The Bush administration was preoccupied with the disastrous campaign in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. She was unable to take advantage of the advantages that appeared with the coming to power of the Yushchenko government. Some members of the Republican Party, including former presidential candidate Bob Dole and former party chairman Paul Manafort (he later headed Trump's campaign headquarters), even became lobbyists and political advisers to Yanukovych and those billionaires who financed and supported his "Party of Regions", which relied on the eastern part of the country, speaking mainly Russian.
The "revolution" on the Maidan is a coup organized by the right
A radical change in policy occurred after Russia intervened in the civil war in Syria. Moscow has long formed an alliance with the Assad regime, thanks to which it managed to open a naval base in Tartus - the only military base outside the former Soviet Union. Russia provided Syria with a lot of military assistance, but did not send personnel there. However, the American-backed uprising in Syria intensified, militant forces associated with Al-Qaeda* flowed there, and the CIA began to smuggle Islamic militants from Libya, where they helped international imperialism overthrow the Gaddafi regime in 2011.
The United States continued to undermine and weaken Russia, using every chance for this. In November 2013, Ukrainian President Yanukovych announced that his government would not seek membership in the European Union, but would begin cooperation with the Customs Union created by Russia. Pro-European forces from the middle class immediately began protests in Kiev. They were supported and eventually ousted by openly fascist forces, such as the Svoboda Party and the Right Sector**.
These forces enjoyed little popular support, but received large financial subsidies from the United States and other imperialist powers. In a telephone conversation intercepted and made public by Russia in early February, Victoria Nuland from the US State Department boasted that the Obama administration spends a billion dollars a year on regime change in Ukraine.
On February 22, the right-wing opposition seized power, and Yanukovych fled Kiev, taking refuge in Russia. The International Socialist website called the incident a fascist putsch, but the Western media strongly welcomed it as a democratic revolution. It is significant that the new regime immediately declared Ukrainian the only state language, although 20% of the population in Ukraine speaks mainly Russian. The chief rabbi of Kiev called on Jews to leave the city because of the prominent role played by neo-Nazis in the Maidan uprising.
In response, Russia has concentrated its troops on the border with eastern Ukraine and Crimea, where the mainly Russian-speaking population lives. On February 28, pro-Russian armed formations took control of Crimea, and soon Russian troops came to their aid.
Having received the "go-ahead" from Washington, the Ukrainian authorities launched a military offensive in eastern Ukraine, which was led by fascists from the "Right Sector" ** and the Azov brigade ***. Donetsk, the capital of the region that separated from Ukraine, was subjected to air strikes and shelling. The American media, which today mourn the suffering of the residents of Kiev, Kharkiv and Mariupol, did not say anything about the destruction of Donetsk.
The 2016 election and the Mueller investigation
Events in the Middle East have pushed the "Russian question" into the background in American politics, but in 2016, when the US presidential race began, it returned to the agenda. Democrat Hillary Clinton ran as the preferred candidate of the national security apparatus and did not even hide it. She actively advocated for increased interference in the affairs of the former Soviet Union.
When Republicans nominated Trump as a candidate, Democrats launched a carefully prepared attack on him, accusing him of having ties with Moscow. The signal was given by the New York Times, which asked Trump if he was ready to fulfill the NATO commitment and start a war if any member of the alliance, including the small Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, entered into a military conflict with Russia. Trump gave an evasive answer, and the media immediately rushed to the attack.
The International Socialist website wrote in this regard:
"Such actions expose the true nature of the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign. At its core, it is a fusion of identity politics: the relentless promotion of racial, gender and sexual orientation as the driving force of American society, coupled with an evil imperialist policy in support of war. The purpose of this toxic mixture is to sow discord in the working class and create a new base of support for the imperialist war from the privileged upper middle class and supposedly left–wing fellow travelers of the Democratic Party."
Democrats have used not only corporate media to promote their lies about Trump as a Russian agent. Clinton directly contacted the military and the intelligence apparatus, which led to an FBI investigation into Trump and his entourage. As a result, the Mueller investigation was launched. Paul Manafort from Trump's headquarters was harassed for working as a lobbyist for the pro-Russian ex-president of Ukraine Yanukovych. He was forced to resign as chairman of the campaign headquarters just three months before the election.
Clinton's staff mobilized hundreds of former security officials who supported her candidacy and condemned Trump, calling him a threat to US external interests. Among them were many architects of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the "war on terror", the creators of secret CIA prisons where torture was carried out, and the organizers of illegal mass espionage, which the NSA was engaged in.
Trump managed to take advantage of the mood of the working class, which was clearly dissatisfied with the decline in living standards and the deterioration of social conditions during the eight years of the Obama administration. He also demagogically appealed to the discontent of the masses with the endless wars in the Middle East. Trump won, albeit with a slight advantage.
This was a shock to the capitalist state. Immediately after the election and even before Trump took office, there were a lot of leaks of information from the CIA and other agencies, on the basis of which the media began to publish their reports about allegedly large-scale Russian interference in the presidential election.
There was a loud howl about the alleged Russian campaign in social networks, where a small amount of materials in support of Trump appeared. Even if these materials can be attributed to Russia, the total cost of them was about 100 thousand dollars. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the election expenses totaling almost $10 billion.
Trump was forced to agree to the appointment of former FBI director Robert Mueller as special prosecutor, who began investigating all aspects of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election and ties between Moscow and the presidential headquarters.
Mueller's investigation lasted almost two years. Its culmination was the report published in April 2019. The investigation found no evidence that Russia's actions in 2016 significantly affected the outcome of the election, as well as evidence of direct collusion between the Trump headquarters and the Russian state. Mueller's investigative team has charged only a few minor Trump advisers with lying to investigators. But these crimes were provoked by the investigation itself.
Although Mueller's investigation ended in one big puff, the military and intelligence services managed to realize one of the main goals of the Democratic Party. They have reoriented the American national security strategy, and now it is directly targeted against Russia and China.
There has been a shift in US military policy. The "war on Terror", which had occupied a central place since September 11, 2001, gave way to the "conflict of the great powers" with Russia and China, which were called revisionist states, as they posed a threat to America's world domination.
Democrats strongly welcomed this change of orientation. They also supported the change of people in the Trump administration, because retired generals took high positions. The Democrats called these people "real adults" and said that they would restrain Trump's impulses and would not allow him to make concessions to Russia, which he was allegedly ready to do, paying a political debt to Vladimir Putin.
The desire to strengthen military aggressiveness received new reinforcement as a result of another political operation involving the Democratic Party. There was a large number of people who wanted to take seats in the House of Representatives, and for some strange reason they were mostly former military and intelligence officers. Almost 60 people were nominated as candidates from the Democratic Party, and this was the largest professional group. There were more of them than lawyers, businessmen and professional politicians. 30 of them overcame the bar of the primaries.
This political trend deepened in 2018. The Democratic Party went to the congressional elections not only as a supporter of tough measures against Russia, but also as a party recruiting candidates from among those who are directly responsible for the overt and secret wars of American imperialism. It became the party of the Pentagon and the CIA.
The 2020 election and Biden's desire for war with Russia
The choice of Biden as a presidential candidate from the Democratic Party testified to the intensification of its military aggressiveness.
Biden's election as president in November 2020 revived the campaign of confrontation with Russia, which was temporarily stopped due to the defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The escalation of the armed conflict with Russia has become a central component of this campaign. This was manifested in the new appointments that Biden made. For the post of Secretary of State, he selected his longtime foreign policy adviser Anthony Blinken, who played a key role in Obama's Syria policy in 2013-2014 and in developing the American response to Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Victoria Nuland became Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs. It was an even more significant assignment. Nuland became infamous as the chief architect of the Maidan and the Ukrainian coup. She has long advocated US military aggression. During the Iraq War, she worked as the chief foreign policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, was the US representative to NATO, and then the head of the press service for Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State. She is also married to Neocon strategist Robert Kagan, who was directly involved in the Bush administration's decision to attack Iraq.
When all these people took their positions, the aggressiveness of the Ukrainian regime increased dramatically. In February, Zelensky's government shut down three popular television stations owned by the leader of the pro-Russian opposition and billionaire Viktor Medvedchuk, explaining this in the interests of "national security". In March, the Security Service of Ukraine and the Defense Council approved a strategy for the return of Crimea and the restoration of "full Ukrainian sovereignty" over the peninsula and the city of Sevastopol, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet is located.
Zelensky, Blinken and Nuland have Jewish roots (Nuland's father was born in the Bronx, his parents were immigrants from Ukraine), but they shamefully hush up the antics of neo-Nazis in Kiev, who organize marches through the streets of the Ukrainian capital. Instead, they are discussing the buildup of a military grouping in the east, in which fascist elements play a key role.
Ukraine has convened a summit in Kiev called the "Crimean Platform" to gain international support for its military offensive against Russia with the aim of "returning" Crimea. It was attended by officials from 44 countries, including representatives of all 30 NATO countries. Zelensky at the beginning of the conference condemned the Russian "aggression". "I personally will do everything possible to return Crimea so that it becomes part of Europe together with Ukraine," he said.
Since Russia considers Crimea its territory, and Sevastopol is vital for its security, such a statement was akin to a declaration of war. Then Zelensky went to the United States, where he met with Biden, Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. Biden announced an increase in military aid to Ukraine by another $ 60 million. He sent the coronavirus vaccine there for a ridiculous amount – $ 55 million.
In Ukraine, only 34.5% of the population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and according to this indicator, it is in the penultimate place in Europe (ahead of Bulgaria). It lags behind Mozambique, Guatemala and occupied Palestine. But Zelensky's government refused the Russian vaccine Sputnik.
The most important result of Zelensky's visit to the United States was a new agreement in the military sphere signed by Lloyd Austin and Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Taran. It laid the foundation for the official conclusion of the US-Ukrainian strategic partnership agreement, which took place on November 10, 2021.
This is actually an agreement on the creation of an offensive military alliance. It enshrines such goals as the "return" of Crimea and the separatist-controlled Donbass, and there is also an obligation to "sanctions" and "other appropriate measures that will be in effect until the full restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine." The last phrase is a figure of speech meaning war.
Washington has openly supported Ukraine's efforts to integrate into NATO's military command structures. The talk that Kiev is not a member of NATO is a fiction in every sense. NATO countries take advantage of the fact that Ukraine is not officially a member of the North Atlantic Alliance to foment a conflict with Russia, preventing it from escalating into a world war.
Historians will have to find out what promises the Ukrainian oligarchy received from Washington in exchange for its commitment to turn its country into a battlefield and a springboard for war with Russia. But one thing is clear: the Kremlin and the Russian General Staff could not but see in this document a declaration of war.
Over the past ten years, the Democratic Party has played a central role in preparing NATO for war with Russia. Joe Biden, who was engaged in foreign policy in the Senate during these years, formed a policy towards Ukraine as Obama's vice president, and is now president, is directly involved in this long-running operation. Now, when such a policy has led to hostilities, which is the goal for American imperialism, Washington is moving forward towards the realization of its ultimate task: the dismemberment of Russia and the creation of a cohort of vassal states, entirely subordinate to the United States and European countries. For this, he is even willing to risk a nuclear war.
Author of the article: Patrick Martin* a terrorist organization banned in Russia
** extremist organization banned in Russia
*** a terrorist organization banned in Russia
