Posted on 02/24/2025 11:28:47 AM PST by freepersup
Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine, by Scott Horton. The Libertarian Institute. 690 pp.
Provoked is a monumental work, an essential guide to understanding how the United States and Russia came to face off in an horrific bloodletting on Russia’s border a generation after the Soviet Union abandoned communism. Scott Horton seems to have read every published English-language source bearing on the deterioration of Washington’s relationship with Moscow, and has produced an acerbic, polemical, factually dense first draft of history.
His book is long (more than 1,200 pages in the Kindle edition), and would have benefited from forceful editing. He could have pinpointed more emphatically critical tipping points. Assuming there are diplomatic historians in decades to come, those with access to classified governmental records will produce more comprehensive and nuanced accounts. Still, Provoked is a book America needs now—for its scathing portrayal of a bipartisan Washington establishment that propelled the march towards a war which has wrecked Ukraine and resulted in an estimated million military casualties on both sides.
Scott McConnell
Scott McConnell is a founding editor of The American Conservative and the author of Ex-Neocon: Dispatches From the Post-9/11 Ideological Wars. Follow him on Twitter at @ScottMcConnell9.
(Excerpt) Read more at theamericanconservative.com ...
There is lots of shared blame to go around, spread across several U S administrations, and about a dozen countries.
The header has a recorded talk/listen option, running for 24 minutes.
It is a very informative read that crystalizes the facts into a quite sound understanding of the past and present situation.
Too many actors to list. Many layered views from treetop level to 40,000 feet.
Enough background information for the reader to be able to call the shots.
I read this article earlier this morning. I realized that I was a lot less informed or interested in geopolitics in 2014, than I am now, once I digested all of the the contents. <> freepersup <>
IMHO a long time has to pass before an “honest” historical assessment can be written about any war and the Uke/Russkie war will be no exception.
Paging all patch holders, prospects, support group members, and all card-carrying freepers in good standing.
Sure, and Poland started WW2. Its not Russian imperialism, its every other country forcing Russia to invade and annex it. Okay
Putin blames Poland for WWII and says Soviet occupation “saved lives” Dec 23, 2019
Vladimir Putin has triggered a diplomatic spat with Poland by saying that it was responsible for causing the Second World War and that the Soviet occupation helped to save lives. The Polish government responded by accusing him of reviving “Stalinist propaganda”.
https://notesfrompoland.com/2019/12/23/putin-blames-poland-for-ww2-and-says-soviet-occupation-saved-lives/
RUSSIA!, RUSSIA!, RUSSIA! ?
<> <> <> IMHO a long time has to pass before an “honest” historical assessment can be written about any war and the Uke/Russkie war will be no exception. <> <> <>
Yeah, that’s what the author notes in his writings. Maybe you will read it, and opine further.
I noted that one would get the Cliffs Notes version (not a tome) of how the world arrived at the precipice of World War III.
I guess, instead of promoting the review of a book, I should have promoted the book. <> freepersup <>
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PROVOKED
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Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine Paperback – November 16, 2024
by Scott Horton (Author)
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Over and over, U.S. government officials and their mainstream media allies called Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine an “unprovoked attack.” The slogan became so overused that people began to ask the obvious question: Why do they protest so much?
In Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine, Scott Horton explains how since the end of the last Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, successive U.S. administrations pressed their advantage against the new Russian Federation to the point that it finally blew up into a full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine.
From NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, to “shock therapy” economic policy, the Balkan and Chechen wars, color-coded revolutions, new missile defense systems, assassinations, Russiagate and ultimately the brutal conflict in Ukraine, Provoked shows what really happened and why it did not have to be this way.
AMAZON
https://www.amazon.com/Provoked-Washington-Started-Catastrophe-Ukraine/dp/1733647376
Powerful, Detailed, Crucial, Dead Wrong.
GUNG HO!
One, I’m going to guess that you didn’t read the book... neither did I, and two, I’ll go out on a limb and say that you didn’t bother to read the book review either (24-minute read) that I posted in my original post. Am I right?
FWIW, I served 10 years in Uncle Sam’s rag-time band, and 40 months downrange in Afghanistan, and Iraq, so I can say with some perspective that the return on investment of the precious blood and treasure lost overseas in perpetual military operations was/is (once again) a really bad deal for most of America.
The military-industrial complex, the intelligence complex, the media complex, the NGO complex, the deep state complex, etc... not so much.
Oh, and pushing NATO to Russia’s doorstep was/is a FAFO outcome.
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Axis of evil
The phrase “axis of evil” was first used by U.S. President George W. Bush and originally referred to Iran, Ba’athist Iraq, and North Korea.
Later, China, Russia, Iran and North Korea were referred to as the “new axis of evil” by US politicians and commentators. The term “axis of evil” is a reference to the Axis powers of WWII (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Empire of Japan).[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_of_evil
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Sending this bad boy up to the top. Bumpity bump bump bump.
EXCERPT:
Vladimir Putin has a weapon the “west” cannot defend against. It’s not part of his physical military armament, it’s far more powerful. Putin has the truth as a weapon.
The western group must pretend they didn’t carry out a color revolution in Ukraine. They must also pretend they didn’t install Volodymyr Zelenskyy and pretend there was no civil war happening inside Ukraine for a decade. Lastly, the western group must pretend they didn’t try to provoke Vladimir Putin with expansions of NATO and an intentional breaking of the Minsk accords. There are other pretenses that must be maintained, but these are the top ones.
SOURCE:
Pure Theatrics – Zelenskyy and G7 Leaders Simulcast Meeting While Macron Visits Trump in Oval Office
February 24, 2025 | Sundance | 118 Comments
Under "Handshake deals" it says
The Soviets allowed reunification because the Allies had promise they would not expand NATO eastward, inside Germany or beyondThis is false - even Gorbachev said that this statement is false
Gorbachev and the documents show ZERO promise not to enlarge
What the Germans, Americans, British and French did agree to in 1990 was that there would be no deployment of non-German NATO forces on the territory of the former GDR. I was a deputy director on the State Department’s Soviet desk at the time, and that was certainly the point of Secretary James Baker’s discussions with Gorbachev and his foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze. In 1990, few gave the possibility of a broader NATO enlargement to the east any serious thought.=======================================The agreement on not deploying foreign troops on the territory of the former GDR was incorporated in Article 5 of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, which was signed on September 12, 1990 by the foreign ministers of the two Germanys, the United States, Soviet Union, Britain and France. Article 5 had three provisions:
- Until Soviet forces had completed their withdrawal from the former GDR, only German territorial defense units not integrated into NATO would be deployed in that territory.
- There would be no increase in the numbers of troops or equipment of U.S., British and French forces stationed in Berlin.
- Once Soviet forces had withdrawn, German forces assigned to NATO could be deployed in the former GDR, but foreign forces and nuclear weapons systems would not be deployed there.
When one reads the full text of the Woerner speech cited by Putin, it is clear that the secretary general’s comments referred to NATO forces in eastern Germany, not a broader commitment not to enlarge the Alliance.
Former Soviet President Gorbachev’s View
We now have a very authoritative voice from Moscow confirming this understanding. Russia behind the Headlines has published an interview with Gorbachev, who was Soviet president during the discussions and treaty negotiations concerning German reunification. The interviewer asked why Gorbachev did not “insist that the promises made to you [Gorbachev]—particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East—be legally encoded?” Gorbachev replied: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”
Gorbachev continued that “The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. It has been obeyed all these years.” To be sure, the former Soviet president criticized NATO enlargement and called it a violation of the spirit of the assurances given Moscow in 1990, but he made clear there was no promise regarding broader enlargement.
Several years after German reunification, in 1997, NATO said that in the “current and foreseeable security environment” there would be no permanent stationing of substantial combat forces on the territory of new NATO members. Up until the Russian military occupation of Crimea in March, there was virtually no stationing of any NATO combat forces on the territory of new members. Since March, NATO has increased the presence of its military forces in the Baltic region and Central Europe.
Putin is not stupid, and his aides surely have access to the former Soviet records from the time and understand the history of the commitments made by Western leaders and NATO. But the West’s alleged promise not to enlarge the Alliance will undoubtedly remain a standard element of his anti-NATO spin. That is because it fits so well with the picture that the Russian leader seeks to paint of an aggrieved Russia, taken advantage of by others and increasingly isolated—not due to its own actions, but because of the machinations of a deceitful West.
Here is the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany
to summarize , it means that Soviet forces would withdraw from East Germany, and that no foreign forces would be stationed there afterwards. In other words, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, only the German military would be allowed to be stationed in the former East Germany.
NOTE -- not in the former East Germany.
Absolutely NOTHING about going to Poland, the Baltics etc.
So I find it hard to read further a book that keeps up this lie about "promise they would not expand NATO eastward, inside Germany or beyond"
"install Zelensky"??? You do realize that :
Zelenskyy actually stood on a platform of normalizing relations with the Kremlin and since he is a native Russian speaker it seemed that he would have a better chance than Poroshenko - to the voters.
On what basis do you think this was "installing Zelenskyy"???
"pretend there was no civil war happening inside Ukraine for a decade" --> considering that Crimea was annexed by Russia and the DPR/LPR had Russian nationals in its militia, this wasn't a civil war as much as a subtle takeover.
"provoke Putin with expansions of NATO"
What are you on about? in 2008 Ukraine and Georgia requested to join NATO and were REJECTED by Germany and France "for fear of provoking Putin"
So Putin ought to have been pleased, right?
Nope - he took that opportunity and invaded Georgia 6 WEEKS later - if Georgia and Ukraine had been allowed to join NATO in 2008, then there would have been no war today.
There was no "provocation" - rather countries KNEW that Putin would invade if they didn't join NATO - and he proved them correct in 2008 (Georgia) and 2014 (Ukraine) and 2022 (Ukraine again)
[Excerpt:]
1. There are two Minsk Agreements, not just one. The first “Minsk Protocol” was signed on September 5, 2014. It mainly consists of a commitment to a ceasefire along the existing line of contact, which Russia never respected. By February 2015, fighting had intensified to a level that led to renewed calls for a ceasefire, and ultimately led to the second Minsk Agreement, signed on February 12, 2015. Even after this agreement, Russian-led forces kept fighting and took the town of Debaltseve six days later. The two agreements are cumulative, building on each other, rather than the second replacing the first. This is important in understanding the importance, reflected in the first agreement, of an immediate ceasefire and full monitoring by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), including on the Ukraine-Russia border, as fundamental to the subsequent package of agreements.
2. Russia is a Party to the Minsk Agreements. The original Minsk signatories are Russia, Ukraine, and the OSCE. Russia is a protagonist in the war in Ukraine and is fully obliged to follow the deal’s terms. Despite that, however, Russia untruthfully claims not to be a party and only a facilitator — and that the real agreements are between Ukraine and the so-called “separatists,” who call themselves the Luhansk and Donetsk Peoples’ Republics (LPR and DPR), but are in fact Russian supplied and directed.
3. The LPR and DPR are not recognized as legitimate entities under the Minsk Agreements. The signatures of the leaders of the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk Peoples’ Republics were added after they had already been signed by Ukraine, Russia, and the OSCE. They were not among the original signatories, and indeed Ukraine would not have signed had their signatures been part of the deal. There is nothing in the content or format of the Agreement that legitimizes these entities and they should not be treated as negotiating partners in any sense. Russia alone controls the forces occupying parts of eastern Ukraine.
4. Russia is in violation of the Minsk Agreements. The deals require a ceasefire, withdrawal of foreign military forces, disbanding of illegal armed groups, and returning control of the Ukrainian side of the international border with Russia to Ukraine, all of this under OSCE supervision. Russia has done none of this. It has regular military officers as well as intelligence operatives and unmarked “little green men” woven into the military forces in Eastern Ukraine. The LPR and DPR forces are by any definition “illegal armed groups,” that have not been disbanded. The ceasefire has barely been respected by the Russian side for more than a few days at a time.
5. Russian-led forces prevent the OSCE from accomplishing its mission in Donbas as spelled out in the Minsk Agreements. It is an unstated irony in Vienna — understood by every single diplomatic mission and member of the international staff — that Russia approves the mandate of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine when it votes in Vienna, but then blocks implementation of that same mission on the ground in Ukraine. Because Russia is a member of the OSCE, and the SMM wants to preserve what little access it has to the occupied territories, the mission is guarded in what it says about ceasefire violations and restrictions on its freedom of movement. Privately, however, they acknowledge that some 80% of such violations and restrictions come from the Russian-controlled side of the border, and those that occur on the Ukrainian side are largely for safety reasons (e.g., avoiding mined approaches to bridges.)
6. Ukraine has implemented as much of Minsk as can reasonably be done while Russia still occupies its territory. The agreements require political measures on Ukraine’s side, including a special status for the region, an amnesty for those who committed crimes as part of the conflict, local elections, and some form of decentralization under the Ukrainian constitution. But the form of these measures is not specified, and Ukraine has already passed legislation addressing every point. It has passed – and extended with renewals – legislation on special status and amnesty, and already has legislation on the books governing local elections. It has passed constitutional amendments. The Minsk Agreements do not require Ukraine to grant autonomy to Donbas, or to become a federalized state. It is Russia’s unique interpretation that the measures passed by Ukraine are somehow insufficient, even though the agreements do not specify what details should be included, and Ukraine has already complied with what is actually specified to the degree it can.
What is lacking in Ukraine’s passage of these political measures is not the legislation per se, but implementation — which Russia itself prevents by continuing to occupy the territory. For example, international legal norms would never recognize the results of elections held under conditions of occupation, yet that is exactly what Russia seeks by demanding local elections before it relinquishes control. Moreover, the elections would not be for positions in the illegitimate LPR and DPR “governments” established under Russian occupation, but for the legitimate city councils, mayors, and oblast administrations that exist under Ukrainian law. Who would vote in such elections? Ukrainian law says all displaced citizens should vote. But would Russian occupation authorities allow this? These are matters for resolution under international supervision – not for Russia to dictate terms.
And going back to the book which seems to have more than a few inaccuracies
Staying on the “expansion of NATO promises” - the author forgets that this was
1. made about no troops in East Germany
2. made to the USSR - which ceased to exist in 1991
On December 1, 90% of Ukrainians voted for independence, including with totals above 80% in favor in the predominantly ethnic-Russian eastern and southern regions of Kharkiv, the Donbas and OdesaHe did leave out Crimea though - which voted about 52% for independence
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