Posted on 12/20/2021 3:34:51 AM PST by MtnClimber
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact, NATO, in a violation of the verbal agreement between Secretary of State James Baker and Russian Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, launched a massive expansion to the east.
This expansion can be seen from Moscow only as a strategy to encircle Russia and turn its neighbors into hostile countries. As long as Russia was economically and military weak, the process proceeded unabated. NATO has grown from 16 countries before the reunification of Germany, to 28 today.
George Kennan, American diplomat and author of the concepts of “Cold War” and “containment,” prophetically warned America about the danger of this policy in the New York Times on February 5, 1997:
SNIP
The current events emanate from this “most fateful” error.
Today’s Russia is in a position to put an end to it, and President Putin has drawn a red line over Ukraine.
He made it perfectly clear that he would not allow Ukraine to join NATO. To resolve the issue peacefully, he suggested to President Biden that the U.S. would offer Russia a guarantee that Ukraine would not be admitted to the NATO military alliance. But NATO’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, rejected the idea and affirmed a NATO right to bring more countries into the alliance. Unless the situation changes, Moscow will have no choice but to invade Ukraine.
There is a little risk for Moscow in doing such an invasion, either militarily, politically or economically.
Militarily, President Biden has already thrown Ukraine under the bus when he ruled out NATO military intervention.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
We could always send them more blankets.
U.S. Assistance to Ukraine Overview-—US Embassy in Ukraine Report
U.S. assistance to Ukraine since 2014 totals over $3.7 billion, plus three $1 billion sovereign loan guarantees. For FY 2020, Congress has appropriated $698 million: $448 million for State/USAI programs and $250 million for USAI, including $50 million for lethal assistance. The $448 million appropriation for State/USAI programs includes approximately $285 million in the development accounts and approximately $163 million in the security accounts.
To combat COVID, thus far the United States has provided over $26 million in assistance in new and redirected funding. This funding will prepare laboratory systems, activate case-finding and event-based surveillance, support technical experts for response and preparedness, bolster risk communication, and support water, sanitation and hygiene interventions for the most vulnerable populations in eastern Ukraine. Assistance will also counter disinformation, bolster media’s health reporting capacity, expand the government’s ability to continue operating under pandemic-related restrictions, and support Ukraine’s economic recovery.
U.S. assistance priorities:
Security: U.S. programs provide technical assistance, training, and equipment to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and security services to defend Ukraine’s territorial integrity
and enhance border and internal security.
Countering Russian Aggression: U.S. assistance works to demonstrate the positive effects of national-level reforms for Ukraine, combat the spread of disinformation, and improve Ukraine’s commercial and energy linkages with Western economies.
Anti-Corruption and Rule of Law: Programs support law enforcement and justice sector reform and governance reforms to increase accountability and effectiveness of governance.
Energy Security: Programs improve Ukraine’s energy security by diversifying supply, establishing competitive markets, accelerating legal regulatory reforms to combat corruption, and ensuring compliance with EU standards and commitments.
Economic Growth: Programs support pro-growth reforms such as an improved land market, privatization, increased competition, and transparent corporate governance. U.S. assistance also supports the growth of small- and medium-sized enterprises.
Cybersecurity: Programs help Ukraine protect itself against Russian cyber-enabled attempts to destabilize it. This includes efforts to support Ukraine’s cyber strategy and legal framework, strengthen incident response capabilities, and harden critical infrastructure.
Humanitarian Assistance: Since the conflict began in 2014, the United States has provided nearly $246 million in humanitarian assistance to date for conflict-affected populations. Assistance includes emergency shelter, provision and distribution of relief commodities, protection of children and the elderly, psychosocial support, water infrastructure repair, and livelihoods and business development support for internally displaced persons.
Election Support:Programs strengthen Ukraine’s election system; increase citizen participation; increase representativeness and responsiveness of political parties; support effective civic oversight; and promote issue-focused media coverage.
The United States is the largest contributor to OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission, a comprehensive source of information on military and humanitarian developments in areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia. The United States supports the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, an important source of information and advocacy for human rights in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
Please visit each section/agency’s page for further information.
So by saber rattling, Putin is exercising the Bush Doctrine.
“After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact” NATO should have been disbanded since its entire point of existence had just disintegrated. The Ukraine is in the Russian sphere of influence and has been for hundreds of years. It is not our affair. Imagine the Warsaw Pact becoming allied with Mexico in 80’s because the Soviets didn’t approve of our relationship with Mexico City. It is the exact same circumstance. If NATO wants to start a war with Russia let them do without US participation.
Why not let Russia join NATO?
Putin would not have tried this with Trump, conversation, discussion, rhetoric on the subject closed.
I hate to say this, but I don’t care if Russia enters Ukraine.
If they had kept their nukes none of this would be happening.
Wsj.com
Hillary Clinton and Ukraine
A letter raises questions beyond the Bidens.
By James Freeman, Sept. 30, 2019 6:15 pm ET
The Biden clan still needs to explain why a vice president’s son was enjoying a $50,000-per-month gig for which his principal qualification appears to have been his last name. But Joe Biden isn’t the only pillar of the Democratic establishment who won’t enjoy the new spotlight on American relations with Ukraine. And President Donald Trump isn’t the only one who wants a fuller accounting of that country’s role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
In a letter released on Monday morning, Republican senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin ask U.S. Attorney General William Barr if he’s trying to answer the lingering questions:
We write to follow up on Senator Grassley’s July 20, 2017 letter, which highlighted brazen efforts by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign to use the government of Ukraine for the express purpose of finding negative information on then candidate Trump in order to undermine his campaign. That letter also highlighted news reports that, during the 2016 presidential election, “Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump” and did so by “disseminat[ing] documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggest[ing] they were investigating the matter[.]”
Ukrainian officials also reportedly “helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers.”
The senators aren’t relying on reports from conservative bloggers. The quotations come from a 2017 story in Politico, hardly a pro-Trump outfit. “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire,” read the headline on the article by Kenneth P. Vogel and David Stern. “Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton,” said the subhead of the article, which was published shortly before Mr. Trump’s inauguration.
The authors reported that Ukrainian government officials “helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers” with the goal of “advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia.”
With the benefit of hindsight and the results of the Mueller investigation, it’s now clear that there was no evidence of Trump campaign collusion with Russia. What is not clear and what demands further investigation is how this baseless claim managed to consume the first two years of an American presidency.
Among the questions to resolve: the Politico story featured what appear to be contradictory statements about the level of help provided to Democrats by people who worked at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington in 2016. “Politico’s investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another’s elections,” according to the report.
The reporting certainly appears solid but one should not simply accept all the particulars of the Politico story as proven fact, just as—to take an extreme example—a reasonable person would not authorize the wiretap of an opposition political campaign based on a dispatch from Yahoo News. But the Politico piece may be helpful in figuring out exactly how the surveillance tools of America’s national security apparatus were turned against the party out of power in 2016.
***
Only nuclear powers have the borders respected, it appears.
NATO is a purely defensive organization, which does not have the will or the means to invade Russia. Former soviet bloc countries joined NATO as a defense against aggression by Russia. Arguing that past Russian enslavement of nations gives Russia the right to enslave those nations again is monstrously amoral.
Like ours?
No weapons or armies can prevent an invasion like that.
Nukes are excellent at stopping invasions by other nation's military.
Politico.com
Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire
Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends after working to boost Clinton.
By KENNETH P. VOGEL and DAVID STERN 01/11/2017 05:05 AM EST
President Petro Poroshenko’s administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the American presidential race.
Donald Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.
A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia. But they were far less concerted or centrally directed than Russia’s alleged hacking and dissemination of Democratic emails.
Russia’s effort was personally directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, involved the country’s military and foreign intelligence services, according to U.S. intelligence officials. They reportedly briefed Trump last week on the possibility that Russian operatives might have compromising information on the president-elect. And at a Senate hearing last week on the hacking, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said “I don’t think we’ve ever encountered a more aggressive or direct campaign to interfere in our election process than we’ve seen in this case.”
There’s little evidence of such a top-down effort by Ukraine. Longtime observers suggest that the rampant corruption, factionalism and economic struggles plaguing the country — not to mention its ongoing strife with Russia — would render it unable to pull off an ambitious covert interference campaign in another country’s election. And President Petro Poroshenko’s administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race.
Snip-—long read-— rest at politico.com
How do you throw a country under a bus?
Biden, Inc. can saber rattle all they want, here and in Taiwan but it can’t be backed up militarily without a shooting WW with Russia or China. Trump wielded a mighty economic sword and brought both Moscow and Beijing to heal. Biden, Inc. has unilaterally given up that capability. Like de Gaulle’s Force de Frappe gave the French a nuclear deterrent with a French finger on the button, nukes are the only true protection an at risk country can have. de Gaulle correctly feared that an American president wouldn’t commit national suicide to save Paris when the Warsaw Pact rolled through the Fulda Gap. An introduction of nukes back into Ukraine or Taipei starting a development program would ensure immediate invasion. If South Korea and Japan have any desire for long term existence, they’d best get started on their own Manhattan Projects.
The nukes were removed to prevent the corrupt kleptocracy running post-Soviet Ukraine from selling them to the highest bidder as they were doing with everything else that wasn't nailed down.
This was back when the United States and Russia were serious about non-proliferation and folks like Ronald Reagan and George Kennan were still respected.
"One "myth" in particular kicked off a furious debate in e-mail threads, chat rooms, listservs, and on Twitter: "Russia was promised that NATO would not enlarge."
"The U.S.S.R. was never offered a formal guarantee on the limits of NATO expansion post-1990," John Lough, the research associate who authored the section, wrote. "Moscow merely distorts history to help preserve an anti-Western consensus at home."
Ultimately, according to Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador who was serving at the State Department at the time, the United States, France, and Britain, along with Germany, agreed not to deploy non-German NATO forces in the former East Germany.
Gorbachev later appeared to reverse himself, saying the subject of enlargement in fact never came up in 1989 or 1990. "The topic of 'NATO expansion' was never discussed; it was not raised in those years. I am saying this with a full sense of responsibility. Not a single Eastern European country brought up the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact had ceased to exist in 1991," he told the newspaper Kommersant in October 2014.
I understand, but still... Actually there might be a worse scenario if they kept them but we’ll never know.
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