Both Russia and NATO must be humbled
By everyone admitting past mistakes maybe - just maybe - European security can be salvaged.
Ukraine War Day n
I’ve been following news and analyses about the ongoing invasion and war in Ukraine for a while now, wanting to know more before deciding to write another newsletter about this horrible conflict. Merely condemning what Russia has done is not enough, nor is celebrating the Ukrainian resistance. This is not a soccer match and you take one side or another; the “story” is nothing like a sports reporter might write.
Nor do I want to sound like a “chicken hawk,” those Neo-Cons who helped push America into an attack on Iraq in 2003, and I don’t want to sound like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, who seems to blame the West more than Russia itself for the war. (To be fair to Carlson, he does condemn the murder and mayhem wrought by Russia.)
The most interesting information I stumbled upon came from DW, the German Radio online site. In it, a journalist (clearly British, not German) interviewed at length an “independent” Russian journalist who had been critical of Putin in the past, who gave an analysis of the root causes of the war not much different than some of the rationalizations that Putin himself has used. Repeatedly, he claimed that America and Europe have not listened to Russia’s security needs, and he claimed most Russian citizens are on board with this view, irrespective of whether they love or hate Putin. And this was coming from a Putin critic! Conservatives in America, including Tucker Carlson and the iconoclast Glenn Greenwald, have made similar arguments, that Russia has a right to fear threats on its border, even if there are none at present.
Are they right? After all, we have our own Monroe Doctrine, and we blockaded Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis during the John F. Kennedy administration. Today, countries such as Australia, America and New Zealand have expressed deep concern over what is unquestionably a de facto military alliance between the Peoples Republic of China and the Solomon Islands, an alliance that will allow China to build a deep water port (read: dual purpose) in the islands.
This is not to excuse Russia’s brutality in any way, and the way Russia has fought should embarrass Western Leftists and anti-imperialists who have repeatedly accused the US of war crimes and killing civilians wherever we go. What we have done in the past – and any war crimes should be prosecuted – still is nothing compared to what Russia is doing in Ukraine, and has done in Syria and Chechnya, or what China did in Tibet in the 1950s, for that matter.
Russia has changed its story several times on why it launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine, but we – the US – have changed our story on why we’re supporting Ukraine, most recently courtesy of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s loose lips. As most of you undoubtedly know, he said our aim was not only to help defend Ukraine, but to degrade Russia’s ability to fight similar wars in the future. This will 100 percent play into Russia’s recent narrative that we’re fighting a proxy war with that country in Ukraine. (It’s also unrealistic; we have no way to stop Russia from rearming or improving its armed forces in the future). Austin’s remarks also were disgusting because he was saying that we – the US – will continue the battle against Russia over any number of dead Ukrainian bodies. Do we really have a right to think like that?
Here's a possible solution to the dilemma of how to end this war and deal seriously with European security. Russia has to withdraw from all Ukrainian territory, including what it was effectively occupying in the Donbas since 2014 (“Donbas” just refers to the Donetsk coal region), and then NATO has to agree to a full reckoning over all the countries on Russia’s borders that have been added to the alliance since the fall of the Soviet Union, not including East Germany because it was always understood that the reunification of Germany would mean the former East Germany would be part of NATO.
Former Warsaw Pact countries won’t like a re-evaluation of their position in NATO, but conceivably most if not all of them could form their own self-defense alliance as protection against Russia, including that each alliance comes to the other’s aid if attacked by Russia, but otherwise would be neutral. This would include barring NATO troops from being stationed inside this proposed new alliance. So, the border states have some protection against Russia, and no NATO troops are on Russia’s borders.
This is all a tall order, and would cause NATO to swallow a lot of pride. And Russia would effectively have to admit to its crime in ever invading Ukraine and make a humiliating retreat, but this is the only way to move forward with a true conference on European security that I can see at this point. The West cannot negotiate any change under duress, so Russia really would have to withdraw first.
Naïve? Maybe. But it’s classic negotiations – both sides must swallow their pride and make major concessions, and the reward will be to get things right, not stick with an international order that is anything but.