Posted on 01/04/2023 4:02:11 PM PST by MarMema
The war in Ukraine has dominated the past year. Other global crises of soaring energy and food costs are collateral damage from the conflict in Ukraine.
The conflict is not simply a localized one in the center of Europe on Russia’s doorstep involving a reactionary anti-Russian regime in Kiev. The conflict represents a historic showdown between the United States and its allies in the NATO military alliance it leads, and Russia. The showdown has been a long time coming.
It didn’t have to happen in this violent, atrocious way.
Russia had long warned the United States and its NATO partners that the expansion of the alliance towards Russia’s borders was an unacceptable strategic security threat. Moscow’s warnings went unheeded year after year.
Almost one year ago, Russia offered a last-ditch diplomatic way to avoid conflict by appealing for a comprehensive security treaty, one based on the previously accepted principle of “indivisible security”. That diplomatic initiative was dismissed out of hand by Washington and its European allies.
Moscow had repeatedly warned that it would not accept the further militarization of the NeoNazi-espousing Kiev regime. Eight years of low-intensity war against Russian-speaking people in former Southeast Ukraine had to stop. Ukraine’s militarization by NATO and its touted membership of the alliance was Russia’s red line. It was the United States and its NATO partners who chose to cross that line. In that case, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to take military-technical measures. The military defanging of the Kiev regime that began on February 24 was the result.
What has transpired is a quasi-war between NATO and Russia. Ukraine has been flooded with NATO arsenals. Attacks are being perpetrated deep inside Russia and there is reckless, foul talk by Western politicians and pundits about assassinating the Russian leadership and pushing for regime change in Moscow.
It is clear that Ukraine was an opportunity to unleash long-held imperial plans by the United States to aggress Russia. Russia’s natural wealth is a coveted prize for Washington’s ambitions of global hegemony. The war in Ukraine has delivered partial gains for Washington. Europe has been subordinated more than ever to American tutelage. The selling of gas and arms to Europe has benefited America’s flailing capitalist economy. The Russians have been kept out, the Americans in, and the Germans (the Europeans) down, as NATO founders envisaged shortly after World War Two.
Geopolitical relations between the U.S./West and the Soviet Union/Russia have long been punctuated by episodes of detente, as the late respected scholar Stephen F Cohen noted in his final book, War With Russia?
In the 1930s, there was a detente after the U.S. finally acceded to recognizing the sovereignty of the Soviet Union. That detente produced an expedient alliance in order to defeat Nazi Germany. But as soon as the Third Reich was vanquished, the United States and its British ally promptly moved to a new era of hostility known as the Cold War.
Detente resumed again during John F Kennedy’s presidency in the 1960s owing to the fear of mutually assured destruction from nuclear war. Several landmark arms-control treaties were negotiated over the ensuing decades.
However, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States quickly adopted a new imperial swagger and contempt for the Russian Federation. The arrogant notion of sole superpower and full-spectrum dominance took hold.
Despite earlier promises, the United States and its NATO vehicle for U.S. military power relentlessly encroached on Russia’s borders, more than doubling its membership over a 30-year period. War drills targeting Russia and new missile installations across Europe, the ripping up of arms-control treaties, and the deliberate recruiting of former Soviet republics were all signs of one thing: Russia was to be conquered in a way that Nazi Germany in previous decades could not achieve.
The on-off pattern of detente by the United States towards Moscow has always been a cynical game of expedience. After the Cold War supposedly ended, Washington took the systemic view that Russia was no longer a power that needed to be respected. It was a target to be subjugated.
But there was a problem. Russia refused to roll over in compliance. Moscow has asserted its strategic security interests and has refused to concede to American ambitions. Russia’s military intervention in late 2015 to defend its Syrian ally from a U.S.-led regime-change war using terrorist proxies was a bold demonstration.
There was a time when Moscow earnestly sought diplomacy to resolve the hostilities. But the realization now is that Washington’s zero-sum, winner-takes-all ambitions of global dominance are implacable and insatiable. Washington and American vainglorious media are good at narcissism and pretensions of virtue. When they talk about “rules-based global order”, they really mean total dominance under U.S. hegemony, always conceitedly presumed to be benign.
The upshot is either you are a vassal to serve American imperial interests or an enemy to be targeted with aggression and ultimately destruction.
Russia’s insistence on defending its strategic interests has exposed the ugly face of American power neath the genial mask. It isn’t just the end of a year, it is the end of a century of presumed American imperial swagger. The pretensions of self-righteous American power have been exposed. Washington’s demand to the rest of the world is for subjugation. It has always been so but in a latent form.
The nefarious nature of American power is now clearly seen in its naked brutality from the increasingly maniacal relations with Russia and China.
Russia’s line in the sand over Ukraine has exposed the violence that underpins American power. That power is unsustainable and unacceptable in a world supposedly based on the United Nations Charter. The conflict in Ukraine is a crossroads. Either a multipolar world emerges based on international law and equitable relations, as envisaged by the United Nations amid the ashes of World War Two, or the world is condemned to conflagration because of Washington’s imperialist zero-sum hegemony.
Russia, China, and a growing number of nations are calling for a multipolar world of parity in relations based on international law. The United States stands exposed more than ever as the would-be supremacist power harboring delusional notions of exceptional prerogatives. The U.S. under its prevailing political conditions is incapable and unwilling to abide by a multipolar world. Such a world of peaceful relations is fundamentally anathema to Washington. Hence its warmongering record is out on its own compared with any other nation in history.
Russia’s stand in Ukraine has exposed the world’s warmonger. And that defiant stand is marking the end of presumed U.S. hegemony.
“In short, we must recognize that there is not an American solution to every world problem.” JFK.
“The United States does not want to dominate but still remain a leader.”
Don’t worry, we’ll have our 15% after Ukraine shakes out, and of that 15%, about 2/3’s of them (Europe and Japan) will have no choice but to continue to take orders from us.
As for the other 85%, they’ve already left and it’s only a matter of time before we figure it out, no different than the British Empire being destroyed once WW2 ended. Took the Brits a while, but they get it now.
Already on my list of BS words and phrases.
“… The winds of change are blowing.”
****************************************
Yes and, sadly, many of our fellow Americans, mesmerized by chants of ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ and constant pounding of the War Drums, are too enthralled by Ukraine to notice.
“Yes and, sadly, many of our fellow Americans, mesmerized by chants of ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ and constant pounding of the War Drums, are too enthralled by Ukraine to notice”
Yep, it’s sad. We were bound to lose our pedestal just due to what the Democrats turned into domestically (and many Republicans, too), but at least I thought we had enough time for me to live out my life, but even that was too much to ask from the Warmongers in DC, I guess.
LOL
russia invaded Ukraine!
try to tell yourself the truth
“The United States does not want to dominate but still remain a leader.”
************
The fact that we have about 750 US foreign military bases around the world indicates a desire to dominate. That’s an awful lot of power projection and a huge expense for a benevolent nation that just wants to “lead”.
The world’s a dangerous place, true, but 750 bases? It makes us appear hegemonic. Don’t underestimate the powerful influence of the military industrial complex. Eisenhower warned us about it.
Let us take this yoke off, no more tax dollars— goodbye, see you later.
Jo Dee Messina - Bye Bye
https://youtu.be/iVoKkdVNSvo
“There was a time when Moscow earnestly sought diplomacy to resolve the hostilities. But the realization now is that Washington’s zero-sum, winner-takes-all ambitions of global dominance are implacable and insatiable. Washington and American vainglorious media are good at narcissism and pretensions of virtue. When they talk about “rules-based global order”, they really mean total dominance under U.S. hegemony, always conceitedly presumed to be benign. “
That’s truth right there.
OMG, AMERICA IS DOOMED! WE MUST SURRENDER TO PUTIN ASAP!!!
I hope you get paid for posting this defeatist , anti-American dreck.
Neocons have a religion that demands the blood and sacrifice of the American people to the point of slavery and impoverishment.
Neil cons of the lowest form of life on earth.
Neocons would burn the world down because of Russia, Russia, Russia. The Ukraine War is just a sad extension of the Russian collusion hoax and coup against President Trump.
Neocon Zeepers can FOAD.
“Compared to the Neocons it’s not a tough call for many countries. For starters, those Russia and China don’t fly the gay flag and demand women’s rights, or else...”
Stop and think for a moment about what you just said. The standard definition of a “neocon,” according to various sources on the web is someone who emphasizes capitalism and an interventionist foreign policy. That describes Russia and China quite aptly: There is no question they both pursue interventionist foreign policies, and they both extensively use capitalism to advance their agendas, even though one of them (China) embraces the label of communism, and the other is for all intents and purposes fascistic.
Your use of the term “neocon” has become meaningless.
“Your use of the term “neocon” has become meaningless.”
As long as the Neocons run the State Department, I’ll call them out. Maybe, if the world is lucky, Trump can get a second term and finally rid the government of that cancer.
More America hate from the Russia First crowd.
America never wanted to dominate anyone
————-
Really? Iraq, Afghanistan, are just two recent failed attempts.
“As long as the Neocons run the State Department, I’ll call them out. Maybe, if the world is lucky, Trump can get a second term and finally rid the government of that cancer.”
I have news for you: Interventionists have ALWAYS dominated EVERY country’s foreign policy missions. It’s their raison d’etre.
It’s called the Russian Derangement Syndrome, manufactured by the Democrats, bought into, hook , line and sinker by many Americans.
“I have news for you: Interventionists have ALWAYS dominated EVERY country’s foreign policy missions. It’s their raison d’etre.”
Well, Trump was trying to put an end to that, and given the record of the Neocons (Yugoslavia, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and many others), one would have to be pretty sick in the head to support a continuation of those policies.
“I have news for you: Interventionists have ALWAYS dominated EVERY country’s foreign policy “
Just to add a bit. During the Cold War, every time we intervened it was to ADVANCE US interests.
Since then, what have we gained from sticking our noses into Bosnia, Serbia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan, and staying 20 years in Iraq - NOTHING, just HUGE DEBT and being hated by much of the Third World.
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