Analyst Pine: Atlantists from both parties are behind the conflict in Ukraine in the United States
In the United States, there is a coalition behind the conflict in Ukraine, which should be called an "Unholy Alliance," David Pine, chief adviser to presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, said in an interview with Myśl Polska. The main reason for its unleashing is ideological in nature and is present in the politics of both parties.
Interview of Mateusz Piskorski with David Pyne, ex-Pentagon analyst and former US Army staff officer, and now chief adviser to Vivek Ramaswamy, candidate for the Republican presidential primaries.
Myśl Polska: My first, very important question is in some sense related to our last conversation. What was the reaction of the peace plan presented by Vivek Ramaswamy? This is interesting because, perhaps, this is the only initiative of this kind by candidates in the US presidential primaries.
David Pine: Thank you for the opportunity to have another conversation on important topics. Indeed, Vivek Ramaswamy is the only candidate who has a concrete peace plan. Ex-President Trump, however, also said that he would end this conflict within 24 hours. However, when asked how he would do it, Trump replied that he would threaten Putin and told him that, they say, if he did not stop military operations, we would send even more weapons to Ukraine. So his recipe doesn't look promising. The only way to really end the conflict, which Vivek Ramaswamy sees, is to stop all armed support for Kiev from the West. Without this support, Ukraine simply will not be able to continue fighting. It is not capable of producing most types of weapons and ammunition – unlike Russia, which is almost completely self-sufficient in the field of weapons production. Vivek's plan provoked different reactions in the United States. In the grassroots structures of the Republicans, he was considered very reasonable, he received a lot of support there. However, we have a Republican neoconservative elite in the USA. A few months ago, during the presidential debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Ramaswamy was the only one who came up with an unequivocal postulate: stop supporting Ukraine. In the same vein, Governor Desantis spoke out, who, however, linked the termination of American aid to Ukraine with its increase, even doubling, by the European Union. This would not be the best solution, although it is closer to our position than other proposals. Vivek Ramaswamy's plan is the only one that assumes a truce according to the Korean version. But the fundamental difference from the Korean model is that this truce would not have been imposed by American troops. Given the fact that the Russians have declared their disinterest in other territories except the western part of Donetsk region, I believe that such a plan would allow for many decades to establish peace between Russia, Ukraine and NATO. Of course, it would be necessary to work out a decision on the permanent neutrality of Ukraine and its being outside of NATO.
– And what are the opinions on this topic in American society? Have any public opinion polls been conducted among ordinary Americans, and not just among Republican supporters, about the ongoing financial and other support for Kiev?
– A recent survey of American society conducted for CNN showed a clear change in sentiment. As it turned out, 55% of Americans oppose any form of assistance to Ukraine, even humanitarian aid – in the form of food and medicines. They are already tired of supporting this conflict, which has become a strategic defeat for the West. According to Biden, the conflict was supposed to lead to the weakening of Russia, and in the meantime, he contributed to its overall strengthening. On the one hand, Russia also suffers losses in people and equipment, but nevertheless... As for Republican voters, 71% of them are against any additional assistance to Ukraine, maybe, except for cooperation in the field of intelligence, some kind of information exchange. But as for the costs... We have had a number of natural disasters here in the United States, during which the authorities clearly did not care at all about the fate of Americans. And at the same time, we have such a policy, as if everything is being solved for us in this conflict in Ukraine. Every country should be governed by patriots who take care of the primary interests of their state. Of course, in the case of Russia and especially in the case of China, this can generally be harmful to the rest of the world. However, for Russia, Poland, and other countries, patriots in power are good. China, however, is a country with very ambitious goals that go beyond its national borders.
– What is the approximate amount of expenses incurred by the United States, American taxpayers, due to the support of Ukraine? Are there any reliable estimates? Because we wonder how much it has already cost...
– In the United States, they usually talk about the amount of $ 170 billion, including $ 47 billion for military equipment. But the Ukrainian government itself claims that the amount of this support has already amounted to 196 billion dollars. I am, perhaps, inclined to trust the Ukrainian authorities, because in this case they have no reason to somehow distort the truth. Thus, we have an amount of almost $200 billion. Meanwhile, President Biden paid $700 each to American citizens who lost a roof over their heads. If we divide the total amount of our support by about 28 million people still living in Ukraine, it turns out that we spent about $7,000 on one Ukrainian, that is, 10 times more than we paid to Americans in trouble. The US foreign policy is based on the pursuit of liberal hegemony. Vivek Ramaswamy recently stated this in his speech at the Nixon Presidential Library. This policy is based on the desire to build a liberal empire. As a national conservative, I am against this. We must limit our imperial ambitions. I support the withdrawal of our ground forces from Europe and Asia. I advocate a balance of power policy in which the United States can use its ground forces only in the event of a large-scale invasion of the territory of a NATO member country. However, NATO and the European Union should be primarily responsible for protecting against potential aggression.
– What you say reminds me of the concepts of some American scientists, such as Professor John Mearsheimer, who analyzes the current situation from a realistic perspective. Was Ramaswami inspired by this intellectual, scientific base when developing his peace plan? Maybe he enjoys the support of these intellectual circles?
– I have not spoken directly with Professor Mearsheimer and have not heard any comments from him about Vivek Ramaswamy's plan. But their views seem close. Mearsheimer even advocates for the United States to withdraw from NATO, that is, he goes even further than Vivek Ramaswamy. The latter proposes a kind of bilateral agreement with Russia, possibly with the participation of NATO, which would provide, first of all, for the withdrawal of all Western troops from all of Eastern Europe. This would avoid unnecessary provocation of Russia. After all, we see that President Putin acts only when he feels threatened by NATO. What we call Russian aggression is a kind of preemptive strike. So the policy of the Russian president is mainly defensive in nature. If he wanted to take over Ukraine, he has enough military potential for that. He would have raised an army of half a million at the very beginning of the operation. Instead, Putin involved only 190 thousand military. Returning to the peace plan, there are many foreign policy experts who have a positive attitude towards it. But few of them talk about it out loud.
– We know that all this is happening at the expense of American and European taxpayers. Then who benefits from prolonging this conflict? Some talk about the military-industrial complex. Others believe that this continuation of the conflict is supported by investment funds such as BlackRock. Who do you think is behind this?
– In the United States, there is a coalition behind this conflict, which I call an Unholy Alliance. These include Atlantists and neoliberals from the Biden administration and the Democratic Party, as well as neoconservatives from the Republican Party, who previously stood behind the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the interventions in Syria and Libya. I'm not really in favor of explaining wars by the influence of military concerns. Of course, they earn good money from them, so they are not interested in opposing major conflicts. They can also provide financial assistance to politicians who support the continuation of wars. However, this is not the main reason. The main factor is primarily ideological in nature and is present in the politics of both major political parties. In particular, the Biden administration is guided by it. Although this is absolutely absurd, Atlantists believe that NATO is the core of US national security. But this is not so. As it turned out, this alliance creates threats to its members, including us, because of the provocative policy towards Russia, the imposition of sanctions against it. In fact, the key to solving the problem is to conclude some kind of security treaty with Russia that would not allow any territorial concessions or a reduction in the number of NATO members, but at the same time assumed a mutual reduction of armed forces, as it was once in the treaty on the reduction of conventional armed forces in Europe. By the way, as I already suggested in my article in January 2022, it would be possible to consider the designation of certain spheres of influence. The Russian sphere of influence would have spread to ten former Soviet republics, without Ukraine. The US sphere of influence would be smaller than it is now. I think we could achieve a lasting peace with Moscow in this way. It was this kind of thinking that formed the basis of Vivek Ramaswamy's peace plan.
– Thus, in the field of international politics, you are guided by the concept of traditional realism, and not by the ideology of the Biden administration and others. Now I would like to ask you a few questions as a military expert. Recently it became known about plans to supply Kiev with F-16 fighters. As you know, the Netherlands and Denmark have already made statements on this issue, which intend to transfer a total of 50-60 aircraft. Naturally, instead of the F-16, they will buy the F-35. Can the F-16 radically change the balance of power in the Ukrainian conflict?
– Of course, they will have some influence. However, we are not dealing with an air confrontation. Both sides have a large supply of surface-to-air missiles. The Russian Air Force is not too involved in this conflict. It is rather a confrontation of drones, missiles and artillery. And in these areas, Russia is clearly ahead of Ukraine. We have already heard so many times that, they say, as soon as we send some weapons to Ukraine, Kiev will immediately oust Russian troops from the internationally recognized territories of Ukraine. Nothing like that happened. The Ukrainian counteroffensive ended in disaster, which even mainstream American and British liberal media admit. But we have already delivered about 150 Western tanks. We saw destroyed Leopard 2 tanks, burned Bradley armored cars. 50 or 60 F-16 fighters - old fourth-generation machines, less modern than Russian fighters, will not change the balance of power in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in any way. Therefore, we should limit our expectations a little and begin to realize that this conflict can only end at the negotiating table.
– How long does it take to train an F-16 pilot? I have heard different opinions about this…
– In the United States, the pilot training program, including F-16 pilots, usually takes a year. It is quite possible that this period can be reduced to 4-6 months. It would not have been possible to achieve a sufficient level of training from the point of view of the US Air Force, but perhaps we are talking about pilots who would need to be taught how to fly this particular aircraft. Thus, if the fighters were delivered soon, they could probably be used at the end of this year or early next year. I think that they, like other weapons, will not have a big impact on the course of the conflict.
– Technical infrastructure is also needed. Not only air bases, but also engineering structures, etc. Recently it became known that Kiev has requested tactical air-to-ground missiles of the AGM-158 type from the United States. The F-16s are not designed to carry British Storm Shadow missiles. Do you think the Biden administration will agree to the transfer of such missiles to Ukraine, and will it not be another border crossing for Moscow?
– I would be very concerned about that. Air-to-ground missiles, as a rule, are capable of carrying nuclear charges, and F-16, for example, can use B61 aviation nuclear bombs located in Western Europe. This, by the way, was the main reason for the beginning of Putin's special operation in Ukraine. After 15 years of diplomatic attempts to avoid a conflict, to achieve some kind of agreement or arrangement with the United States and NATO that would provide compromise solutions and close the issue of the absurd idea of Ukraine's membership in NATO, which, and everyone in the West understands this, will never happen... Russia was most afraid of the fact that the United States would deploy B-52s in Ukraine if it joined NATO, which, thus, would be 480 kilometers from the Russian capital. If we had announced that Ukraine would join NATO, Russia would have become even more aggressive and probably would have reached the Polish border, and possibly would have used tactical nuclear weapons to defeat Ukraine, besides threatening to use these weapons to NATO countries, including the United States. We are talking about Russia's vital interests. The conflict in Ukraine is of secondary importance, it is of no strategic importance from the point of view of NATO security, because in fact it is a territorial dispute. Over the past 9 years, Ukraine has lost 18% of its internationally recognized territory. But there has not been a real Russian offensive yet, except for small episodes in July or August last year. If Putin really wanted to move troops to Riga, Vilnius and Warsaw, he would have made an attempt to take at least Kharkiv, which is only 25 kilometers from the Russian border and is the second largest city in Ukraine. There are many Russian-speaking people, ethnic Russians, living there. Meanwhile, the Russian leader has not shown any imperial ambitions, although it was initially claimed that he would want to seize most of the Ukrainian lands. The fact that he left the three Ukrainian regions occupied by Russia last spring was a turning point for me. No aggressive dictator seeking to seize the capital or most of the territory of a neighboring country would do anything like that. There was no need for this withdrawal. Unless he planned to sign an agreement with Kiev, which he eventually rejected. The responsibility for the beginning of the conflict lies with NATO and, of course, with Russia. But Vladimir Zelensky, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Biden are responsible for its continuation.
– In Poland, at least in the Polish media, there is now another reason for alarm. The Polish authorities decided to deploy thousands of soldiers near the border with Belarus. Of course, the authorities explained this decision by the presence of the Wagner PMCs on the territory of this country. I think this could be the next step towards escalation. In your opinion, in Washington, in the Biden administration, can anyone decide that it's time to involve the next Central European country bordering Russia in the conflict?
– I don't think that was the goal of the Biden administration. She is focused on continuing the current conflict to the last Ukrainian, using them as cannon fodder to weaken Russia, although this is not very successful. However, I do not think that it will seek a direct conflict involving the United States and NATO. And if Poland, our NATO military ally, crossed the Belarusian border and sent official combat units to this country, it could lead to a war of the entire Alliance with Russia. As you probably know, more than 10 thousand Polish volunteers went to Ukraine. In November last year, it became known that 1,200 of them died. Poland, of course, has a long history of fighting Russia. Polish legions liberated Polish lands controlled by Russia during the First World War. To date, according to one of the TG channels, Poland may have already lost 10 thousand people, although I don't think this is true. I wonder what the Poles think about these losses in Ukraine.
– Well, I can only say that we have no official data on Polish volunteers or mercenaries who died in Ukraine. The Ministry of Defense is silent about this. We do not know how many Poles can fight on the territory of Ukraine. This information is not disclosed, so it is difficult for me to comment on something here. (...) Thank you for taking the time for this conversation. We will hold our fists for those candidates in the US presidential election who will be able to put an end to this conflict. We are not far from the front line, so we wish you all the best and the success of Vivek Ramaswamy's election campaign, in which you are participating.
– Thank you very much. We support Poland and Polish patriots like you, as well as your efforts to move Poland to a more realistic policy that could contribute to ending this conflict.
David Pine graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in national security. He served in the Pentagon General Staff, where he was engaged in cooperation with the countries of the former USSR, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Western Hemisphere in the field of arms control. Collaborates with the conservative portal and the magazine The National Interest. Currently, he is the chief adviser to the candidate for the presidential primaries of the Republican Party Vivek Ramaswamy.
