風蕭蕭_Frank
以文會友
傑弗裏·薩克斯：西方關於俄羅斯和中國的危險敘述，以及和平協議草案的迫切需要：烏克蘭的偉大博弈正在失控
https://metacpc.org/en/jeffrey-sachs-2/
共同的夢想，2022 年 8 月和 9 月 | 馬克羅斯科普，2022 年 10 月 5 日
傑弗裏·薩克斯 (Jeffrey D. Sachs) 是哥倫比亞大學教授兼可持續發展中心主任，2002 年至 2016 年期間領導地球研究所。他還是聯合國可持續發展解決方案網絡主席和聯合國寬帶委員會委員 為了發展。 他曾擔任三位聯合國秘書長的顧問，目前擔任秘書長安東尼奧·古特雷斯領導下的可持續發展目標倡導者。 薩克斯最近出版了《新外交政策：超越美國例外論》（2020 年）一書。 其他書籍包括：《建設新美國經濟：智能、公平和可持續》（2017 年）和潘基文合著的《可持續發展時代》（2015 年）。
西方關於俄羅斯和中國的危險而簡單的敘述，通過操縱事實，向西方公眾推銷對中國和俄羅斯的過度恐懼。
歐洲應該反思這樣一個事實：不擴大北約和執行明斯克二號協議本來可以避免烏克蘭這場可怕的戰爭。
世界正處於核災難的邊緣，這在很大程度上是因為西方政治領導人未能直言不諱地說明全球衝突不斷升級的原因。 西方無情地認為西方是高尚的，而俄羅斯和中國是邪惡的，這種說法是頭腦簡單且極其危險的。 這是試圖操縱輿論，而不是處理非常現實和緊迫的外交。
西方的基本敘述已融入美國國家安全戰略。 美國的核心理念是，中國和俄羅斯是不共戴天的敵人，“試圖侵蝕美國的安全與繁榮”。 美國表示，這些國家“決心降低經濟的自由度和公平性，發展軍事力量，控製信息和數據以壓製其社會並擴大其影響力。”
具有諷刺意味的是，自 1980 年以來，美國至少參與了 15 場海外戰爭（阿富汗、伊拉克、利比亞、巴拿馬、塞爾維亞、敘利亞和也門等），而中國從未參與過，隻有俄羅斯參與過 位於前蘇聯之外的一個國家（敘利亞）。 美國在85個國家擁有軍事基地，中國有3個，俄羅斯有1個（敘利亞），僅次於前蘇聯。
喬·拜登總統宣揚了這一說法，宣稱我們時代最大的挑戰是與獨裁政權的競爭，這些獨裁政權“尋求提升自己的權力，出口和擴大其在世界各地的影響力，並證明其鎮壓政策和做法是正當的”。 解決當今挑戰的更有效方法。” 美國的安全戰略不是任何一位美國總統的工作，而是美國安全機構的工作，美國安全機構在很大程度上是自主的，並且在保密的情況下運作。
通過操縱事實，向西方公眾推銷對中國和俄羅斯的過度恐懼。 一代人之前，小布什向公眾灌輸這樣一種觀念，即美國最大的威脅是伊斯蘭原教旨主義，卻沒有提到正是中央情報局與沙特阿拉伯和其他國家一起在美國創建、資助和部署了聖戰分子。 阿富汗、敘利亞和其他地方參加美國的戰爭。
或者想想 1980 年蘇聯入侵阿富汗，西方媒體將其描述為無端的背信棄義行為。 多年後，我們得知蘇聯入侵之前實際上是中央情報局旨在挑釁蘇聯入侵的行動！ 同樣的錯誤信息也發生在敘利亞身上。 西方媒體充斥著對普京從2015年開始向敘利亞巴沙爾·阿薩德提供軍事援助的指責，卻沒有提及美國從2011年開始支持推翻阿薩德，中央情報局資助了一項推翻阿薩德的重大行動（Timber Sycamore） 阿薩德比俄羅斯到來早了幾年。
或者最近，當美國眾議院議長南希·佩洛西不顧中方警告，魯莽飛往台灣時，G7外長沒有批評佩洛西的挑釁行為，但G7部長們卻共同嚴厲批評中國對佩洛西此行的“過度反應”。
西方關於烏克蘭戰爭的敘述是，這是普京為了重建俄羅斯帝國而發動的無端攻擊。 然而真正的曆史是從西方向蘇聯總統戈爾巴喬夫承諾北約不會向東擴張開始的，隨後是北約的四次擴張浪潮：1999年，吞並了三個中歐國家；1999年，吞並了三個中歐國家；1999年，吞並了三個中歐國家。 2004年，又合並了7個，包括黑海和波羅的海國家； 2008年，承諾擴大至烏克蘭和格魯吉亞； 2022年，邀請四位亞太領導人加入北約，瞄準中國。
西方媒體也沒有提及美國在 2014 年推翻烏克蘭親俄總統維克托·亞努科維奇 (Viktor Yanukovych) 事件中所扮演的角色； 明斯克第二協議的擔保國法國和德國政府未能敦促烏克蘭履行其承諾； 在特朗普和拜登執政期間，美國在戰爭爆發前向烏克蘭運送了大量武器； 也不是美國拒絕與普京就北約東擴問題與烏克蘭進行談判。
當然，北約稱這純粹是防禦性的，因此普京應該沒什麽好害怕的。 換句話說，普京不應該關注中央情報局在阿富汗和敘利亞的行動； 1999年北約對塞爾維亞的轟炸； 2011年北約推翻穆阿邁爾·卡紮菲； 北約占領阿富汗15年； 也不是拜登要求普京下台的“失態”（當然這根本不是失態）； 美國國防部長勞埃德·奧斯汀也沒有表示美國對烏克蘭發動戰爭的目的是削弱俄羅斯。
所有這一切的核心是美國試圖通過加強世界各地的軍事聯盟來遏製或擊敗中國和俄羅斯，以保持世界霸權地位。 這是一個危險的、妄想的、過時的想法。 美國人口僅占世界人口的4.2%，目前GDP僅占世界GDP的16%（以國際價格計算）。 事實上，G7 的 GDP 總和目前還低於金磚國家（巴西、俄羅斯、印度、中國和南非），而 G7 的人口僅占世界的 6%，而金磚國家的人口占世界的 41%。
隻有一個國家自稱幻想成為世界主導力量：美國。 美國早就認識到安全的真正來源：內部社會凝聚力以及與世界其他國家負責任的合作，而不是霸權的幻想。 通過這樣修改的外交政策，美國及其盟國將避免與中國和俄羅斯發生戰爭，並使世界能夠麵對無數的環境、能源、糧食和社會危機。
最重要的是，在這個極端危險的時刻，歐洲領導人應該追求歐洲安全的真正源泉：不是美國霸權，而是尊重所有歐洲國家合法安全利益的歐洲安全安排，當然包括烏克蘭，也包括俄羅斯。 繼續抵製北約向黑海的擴張。 歐洲應該反思這樣一個事實：不擴大北約和執行明斯克二號協議本來可以避免烏克蘭這場可怕的戰爭。 在現階段，外交而非軍事升級才是歐洲和全球安全的真正途徑。
今天令人擔憂的局勢很容易失控，就像世界過去多次發生的那樣，但這一次有可能發生核災難。
美國前國家安全顧問茲比格涅夫·布熱津斯基曾將烏克蘭描述為歐亞大陸的“地緣政治樞紐”，是美國和俄羅斯權力的核心。 由於俄羅斯認為當前衝突危及其重要安全利益，烏克蘭戰爭正在迅速升級為核攤牌。 美國和俄羅斯都迫切需要在災難來臨之前保持克製。
自19世紀中葉以來，西方一直與俄羅斯爭奪克裏米亞，更具體地說，是黑海的海軍力量。 在克裏米亞戰爭（1853-6）中，英國和法國占領了塞瓦斯托波爾，並暫時將俄羅斯海軍驅逐出黑海。 當前的衝突本質上是第二次克裏米亞戰爭。 這次，以美國為首的軍事聯盟試圖將北約擴大到烏克蘭和格魯吉亞，讓五個北約成員國包圍黑海。
長期以來，美國一直將西半球大國的任何侵犯視為對美國安全的直接威脅，這一點可以追溯到 1823 年的門羅主義，該主義指出：“因此，我們有責任建立坦誠和友好關係。 美國和那些[歐洲]國家宣布，我們應該考慮他們將其係統擴展到這個半球任何部分的任何企圖，這對我們的和平與安全構成危險。”
1961年，美國入侵古巴，古巴革命領袖菲德爾·卡斯特羅向蘇聯尋求支持。 美國對古巴是否有“權利”與它想要的任何國家結盟——美國對烏克蘭所謂的加入北約權利的主張並沒有多大興趣。 1961年美國入侵古巴的失敗導致蘇聯於1962年決定在古巴部署進攻性核武器，這又導致了正好60年前的這個月的古巴導彈危機。 這場危機將世界推向核戰爭的邊緣。
但美國對自身在美洲安全利益的重視並沒有阻止其侵犯俄羅斯在俄羅斯周邊的核心安全利益。 隨著蘇聯的衰弱，美國政策領導人開始相信美軍可以隨心所欲地行動。 1991年，國防部副部長保羅·沃爾福威茨向韋斯利·克拉克將軍解釋說，美國可以在中東部署軍事力量，“蘇聯不會阻止我們”。 美國國家安全官員決定推翻與蘇聯結盟的中東政權，並侵犯俄羅斯的安全利益。
1990年，德國和美國向蘇聯總統戈爾巴喬夫保證，蘇聯可以解散自己的軍事聯盟華約，而不必擔心北約東擴取代蘇聯。 在此基礎上，1990年德國統一得到了戈爾巴喬夫的同意。 然而，隨著蘇聯的解體，比爾·克林頓總統食言，支持北約東擴。
俄羅斯總統葉利欽強烈抗議，但無能為力。 美國與俄羅斯的外交大臣喬治·凱南宣稱，北約的擴張“是新冷戰的開始”。
在克林頓的領導下，北約於 1999 年擴展到波蘭、匈牙利和捷克共和國。五年後，在小布什總統的領導下，北約又擴展到七個國家：波羅的海國家（愛沙尼亞、拉脫維亞和立陶宛）、 黑海（保加利亞和羅馬尼亞）、巴爾幹半島（斯洛文尼亞）和斯洛伐克。 在巴拉克·奧巴馬總統的領導下，北約於 2009 年擴展到阿爾巴尼亞和克羅地亞，在唐納德·特朗普總統的領導下，北約於 2019 年擴展到黑山。
1999年，北約國家無視聯合國，攻擊俄羅斯的盟友塞爾維亞，俄羅斯對北約東擴的反對急劇加劇；2000年代，美國在伊拉克、敘利亞和利比亞發動的戰爭進一步加劇了俄羅斯對北約東擴的反對。 在2007年的慕尼黑安全會議上，普京總統宣稱北約東擴是“嚴重挑釁，降低了互信水平”。
普京繼續說道：“我們有權問：這種擴張是針對誰的？ 我們的西方夥伴在華沙條約組織解體後做出的[北約不東擴]的保證又怎麽樣了？” 今天這些聲明在哪裏？ 甚至沒有人記得他們。 但我會讓自己提醒聽眾剛才所說的內容。 我想引用北約秘書長韋爾納先生1990年5月17日在布魯塞爾的講話。他當時說：“事實上，我們準備不將北約軍隊部署在德國領土之外，這給了蘇聯一個機會。” 堅定的安全保障。 這些保證在哪裏？”
同樣是在2007年，隨著保加利亞和羅馬尼亞這兩個黑海國家加入北約，美國成立了黑海地區特遣部隊（原東特遣部隊）。 2008年，美國宣布北約將擴張至黑海核心地帶，吞並烏克蘭和格魯吉亞，威脅俄羅斯海軍進入黑海、地中海和中東，進一步加劇了美俄緊張關係。 隨著烏克蘭和格魯吉亞的加入，俄羅斯將被黑海的五個北約國家包圍：保加利亞、格魯吉亞、羅馬尼亞、土耳其和烏克蘭。
俄羅斯最初受到烏克蘭親俄總統維克托·亞努科維奇的保護，免受北約對烏克蘭的影響。2010年，亞努科維奇領導烏克蘭議會宣布烏克蘭保持中立。但在2014年，美國幫助推翻了亞努科維奇，並讓一個堅定的反俄政府上台。烏克蘭戰爭隨即爆發，俄羅斯迅速收複克裏米亞，並支持頓巴斯地區的親俄分裂分子，該地區是烏克蘭東部俄羅斯人口比例相對較高的地區。 烏克蘭議會於 2014 年晚些時候正式放棄中立。
烏克蘭和俄羅斯支持的頓巴斯分裂分子已經進行了長達8年的殘酷戰爭。 當烏克蘭領導人決定不遵守要求頓巴斯自治的協議時，通過明斯克協議結束頓巴斯戰爭的嚐試失敗了。 2014年之後，美國向烏克蘭注入了大量軍備，並幫助烏克蘭軍隊重組，使其能夠與北約互操作，今年的戰鬥就證明了這一點。
如果拜登在 2021 年底同意普京關於結束北約東擴的要求，那麽俄羅斯 2022 年的入侵可能就可以避免。 戰爭很可能於 2022 年 3 月結束，屆時烏克蘭和俄羅斯政府基於烏克蘭的中立性交換了一份和平協議草案。 美國和英國在幕後敦促澤倫斯基拒絕與普京達成任何協議並繼續戰鬥。 當時，烏克蘭退出了談判。
俄羅斯將在必要時升級行動，可能發展為核武器，以避免軍事失敗和北約進一步東擴。 核威脅並不是空洞的，而是俄羅斯領導層對其安全利益受到威脅的看法的衡量標準。 可怕的是，美國還準備在古巴導彈危機中使用核武器，烏克蘭一名高級官員最近敦促美國“隻要俄羅斯一想到發動核打擊”就發動核打擊，這肯定會引發世界大戰 三． 我們再次處於核災難的邊緣。
約翰·F·肯尼迪總統在古巴導彈危機期間了解了核對抗。 他化解這場危機的方式不是靠意誌力或美國軍事力量，而是通過外交和妥協，拆除美國在土耳其的核導彈，以換取蘇聯拆除在古巴的核導彈。 次年，他尋求與蘇聯和平，簽署了《部分禁止核試驗條約》。
1963 年 6 月，肯尼迪說出了讓我們今天得以生存的基本真理：“最重要的是，在捍衛我們自己的切身利益的同時，核大國必須避免那些使對手選擇要麽羞辱性撤退，要麽發動核戰爭的對抗。 在核時代采取這種做法隻能證明我們的政策破產，或者表明我們對世界抱有集體死亡的願望。”
迫切需要回到三月下旬基於北約不擴大的俄羅斯和烏克蘭和平協議草案。 今天令人擔憂的局勢很容易失控，就像世界過去多次發生的那樣——但這一次有可能發生核災難。 世界的生存取決於各方的審慎、外交和妥協。
Jeffrey Sachs: The West's Dangerous Narrative About Russia and China, and the Urgent Need for a Draft Peace Agreement: The Great Game in Ukraine is Spinning Out of Control
https://metacpc.org/en/jeffrey-sachs-2/
Common Dreams, Aug & Sept 2022 | Makroskop, 5 Oct 2022
Jeffrey D. Sachs is a University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development. He has been advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Sachs is the author, most recently, of “A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism” (2020). Other books include: “Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable” (2017) and “The Age of Sustainable Development,” (2015) with Ban Ki-moon.
The West's Dangerously Simple-Minded Narrative About Russia and China
The overwrought fear of China and Russia is sold to a Western public through manipulation of the facts.
Europe should reflect on the fact that the non-enlargement of NATO and the implementation of the Minsk II agreements would have averted this awful war in Ukraine.
The world is on the edge of nuclear catastrophe in no small part because of the failure of Western political leaders to be forthright about the causes of the escalating global conflicts. The relentless Western narrative that the West is noble while Russia and China are evil is simple-minded and extraordinarily dangerous. It is an attempt to manipulate public opinion, not to deal with very real and pressing diplomacy.
The essential narrative of the West is built into US national security strategy. The core US idea is that China and Russia are implacable foes that are “attempting to erode American security and prosperity.” These countries are, according to the US, “determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence.”
The irony is that since 1980 the US has been in at least 15 overseas wars of choice (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Panama, Serbia, Syria, and Yemen just to name a few), while China has been in none, and Russia only in one (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union. The US has military bases in 85 countries, China in 3, and Russia in 1 (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union.
President Joe Biden has promoted this narrative, declaring that the greatest challenge of our time is the competition with the autocracies, which “seek to advance their own power, export and expand their influence around the world, and justify their repressive policies and practices as a more efficient way to address today’s challenges.” US security strategy is not the work of any single US president but of the US security establishment, which is largely autonomous, and operates behind a wall of secrecy.
The overwrought fear of China and Russia is sold to a Western public through manipulation of the facts. A generation earlier George W. Bush, Jr. sold the public on the idea that America’s greatest threat was Islamic fundamentalism, without mentioning that it was the CIA, with Saudi Arabia and other countries, that had created, funded, and deployed the jihadists in Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere to fight America’s wars.
Or consider the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1980, which was painted in the Western media as an act of unprovoked perfidy. Years later, we learned that the Soviet invasion was actually preceded by a CIA operation designed to provoke the Soviet invasion! The same misinformation occurred vis-à-vis Syria. The Western press is filled with recriminations against Putin’s military assistance to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad beginning in 2015, without mentioning that the US supported the overthrow of al-Assad beginning in 2011, with the CIA funding a major operation (Timber Sycamore) to overthrow Assad years before Russia arrived.
Or more recently, when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recklessly flew to Taiwan despite China’s warnings, no G7 foreign minister criticized Pelosi’s provocation, yet the G7 ministers together harshly criticized China’s “overreaction” to Pelosi’s trip.
The Western narrative about the Ukraine war is that it is an unprovoked attack by Putin in the quest to recreate the Russian empire. Yet the real history starts with the Western promise to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not enlarge to the East, followed by four waves of NATO aggrandizement: in 1999, incorporating three Central European countries; in 2004, incorporating 7 more, including in the Black Sea and Baltic States; in 2008, committing to enlarge to Ukraine and Georgia; and in 2022, inviting four Asia-Pacific leaders to NATO to take aim at China.
Nor do the Western media mention the US role in the 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych; the failure of the Governments of France and Germany, guarantors of the Minsk II agreement, to press Ukraine to carry out its commitments; the vast US armaments sent to Ukraine during the Trump and Biden Administrations in the lead-up to war; nor the refusal of the US to negotiate with Putin over NATO enlargement to Ukraine.
Of course, NATO says that is purely defensive, so that Putin should have nothing to fear. In other words, Putin should take no notice of the CIA operations in Afghanistan and Syria; the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999; the NATO overthrow of Moammar Qaddafi in 2011; the NATO occupation of Afghanistan for 15 years; nor Biden’s “gaffe” calling for Putin’s ouster (which of course was no gaffe at all); nor US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stating that the US war aim in Ukraine is the weakening of Russia.
At the core of all of this is the US attempt to remain the world’s hegemonic power, by augmenting military alliances around the world to contain or defeat China and Russia. It’s a dangerous, delusional, and outmoded idea. The US has a mere 4.2% of the world population, and now a mere 16% of world GDP (measured at international prices). In fact, the combined GDP of the G7 is now less than that of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), while the G7 population is just 6 percent of the world compared with 41 percent in the BRICS.
There is only one country whose self-declared fantasy is to be the world’s dominant power: the US. It’s past time that the US recognized the true sources of security: internal social cohesion and responsible cooperation with the rest of the world, rather than the illusion of hegemony. With such a revised foreign policy, the US and its allies would avoid war with China and Russia, and enable the world to face its myriad environment, energy, food and social crises.
Above all, at this time of extreme danger, European leaders should pursue the true source of European security: not US hegemony, but European security arrangements that respect the legitimate security interests of all European nations, certainly including Ukraine, but also including Russia, which continues to resist NATO enlargements into the Black Sea. Europe should reflect on the fact that the non-enlargement of NATO and the implementation of the Minsk II agreements would have averted this awful war in Ukraine. At this stage, diplomacy, not military escalation, is the true path to European and global security.
The Urgent Need for a Draft Ukraine-Russia Peace Agreement: The Great Game in Ukraine is Spinning Out of Control
Today’s fraught situation can easily spin out of control, as the world has done on so many past occasions—yet this time with the possibility of nuclear catastrophe.
Former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski famously described Ukraine as a “geopolitical pivot” of Eurasia, central to both US and Russian power. Since Russia views its vital security interests to be at stake in the current conflict, the war in Ukraine is rapidly escalating to a nuclear showdown. It’s urgent for both the US and Russia to exercise restraint before disaster hits.
Since the middle of the 19th Century, the West has competed with Russia over Crimea and more specifically, naval power in the Black Sea. In the Crimean War (1853-6), Britain and France captured Sevastopol and temporarily banished Russia’s navy from the Black Sea. The current conflict is, in essence, the Second Crimean War. This time, a US-led military alliance seeks to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia, so that five NATO members would encircle the Black Sea.
The US has long regarded any encroachment by great powers in the Western Hemisphere as a direct threat to US security, dating back to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which states: “We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those [European] powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.”
In 1961, the US invaded Cuba when Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro looked to the Soviet Union for support. The US was not much interested in Cuba’s “right” to align with whichever country it wanted – the claim the US asserts regarding Ukraine’s supposed right to join NATO. The failed US invasion in 1961 led to the Soviet Union’s decision to place offensive nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962, which in turn led to the Cuban Missile Crisis exactly 60 years ago this month. That crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
Yet America’s regard for its own security interests in the Americas has not stopped it from encroaching on Russia’s core security interests in Russia’s neighborhood. As the Soviet Union weakened, US policy leaders came to believe that the US military could operate as it pleases. In 1991, Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz explained to General Wesley Clark that the US can deploy its military force in the Middle East “and the Soviet Union won’t stop us.” America’s national security officials decided to overthrow Middle East regimes allied to the Soviet Union, and to encroach on Russia’s security interests.
In 1990, Germany and the US gave assurances to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that the Soviet Union could disband its own military alliance, the Warsaw Pact, without fear that NATO would enlarge eastward to replace the Soviet Union. It won Gorbachev’s assent to German reunification in 1990 on this basis. Yet with the Soviet Union’s demise, President Bill Clinton reneged by supporting the eastward expansion of NATO.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin protested vociferously but could do nothing to stop it. America’s dean of statecraft with Russia, George Kennan, declared that NATO expansion “is the beginning of a new cold war.”
Under Clinton’s watch, NATO expanded to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in 1999. Five years later, under President George W. Bush, Jr. NATO expanded to seven more countries: the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), the Black Sea (Bulgaria and Romania), the Balkans (Slovenia), and Slovakia. Under President Barack Obama, NATO expanded to Albania and Croatia in 2009, and under President Donald Trump, to Montenegro in 2019.
Russia’s opposition to NATO enlargement intensified sharply in 1999 when NATO countries disregarded the UN and attacked Russia’s ally Serbia, and stiffened further in the 2000’s with the US wars of choice in Iraq, Syria, and Libya. At the Munich Security conference in 2007, President Putin declared that NATO enlargement represents a “serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.”
Putin continued: “And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances [of no NATO enlargement] our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact?” Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: “the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee. Where are these guarantees?”
Also in 2007, with the NATO admission of two Black Sea countries, Bulgaria and Romania, the US established the Black Sea Area Task Group (originally the Task Force East). Then in 2008, the US raised the US-Russia tensions still further by declaring that NATO would expand to the very heart of the Black Sea, by incorporating Ukraine and Georgia, threatening Russia’s naval access to the Black Sea, Mediterranean, and Middle East. With Ukraine’s and Georgia’s entry, Russia would be surrounded by five NATO countries in the Black Sea: Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine.
Russia was initially protected from NATO enlargement to Ukraine by Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, who led the Ukrainian parliament to declare Ukraine’s neutrality in 2010. Yet in 2014, the US helped to overthrow Yanukovych and bring to power a staunchly anti-Russian government. The Ukraine War broke out at that point, with Russia quickly reclaiming Crimea and supporting pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas, the region of Eastern Ukraine with a relatively high proportion of Russian population. Ukraine’s parliament formally abandoned neutrality later in 2014.
Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas have been fighting a brutal war for 8 years. Attempts to end the war in the Donbas through the Minsk Agreements failed when Ukraine’s leaders decided not to honor the agreements, which called for autonomy for the Donbas. After 2014, the US poured in massive armaments to Ukraine and helped to restructure Ukraine’s military to be interoperable with NATO, as evidenced in this year’s fighting.
The Russian invasion in 2022 would likely have been averted had Biden agreed with Putin’s demand at the end of 2021 to end NATO’s eastward enlargement. The war would likely have been ended in March 2022, when the governments of Ukraine and Russia exchanged a draft peace agreement based on Ukrainian neutrality. Behind the scenes, the US and UK pushed Zelensky to reject any agreement with Putin and to fight on. At that point, Ukraine walked away from the negotiations.
Russia will escalate as necessary, possibly to nuclear weapons, to avoid military defeat and NATO’s further eastward enlargement. The nuclear threat is not empty, but a measure of the Russian leadership’s perception of its security interests at stake. Terrifyingly, the US was also prepared to use nuclear weapons in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and a senior Ukrainian official recently urged the US to launch nuclear strikes “as soon as Russia even thinks of carrying out nuclear strikes,” surely a recipe for World War III. We are again on the brink of nuclear catastrophe.
President John F. Kennedy learned about nuclear confrontation during the Cuban missile crisis. He defused that crisis not by force of will or US military might, but by diplomacy and compromise, removing US nuclear missiles in Turkey in exchange for the Soviet Union removing its nuclear missiles in Cuba. The following year, he pursued peace with the Soviet Union, signing the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
In June 1963, Kennedy uttered the essential truth that can keep us alive today: “Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy–or of a collective death-wish for the world.”
It is urgent to return to the draft peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine of late March, based on the non-enlargement of NATO. Today’s fraught situation can easily spin out of control, as the world has done on so many past occasions – yet this time with the possibility of nuclear catastrophe. The world’s very survival depends on prudence, diplomacy, and compromise by all sides.
