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杰弗里·萨克斯：西方关于俄罗斯和中国的危险叙述，以及和平协议草案的迫切需要：乌克兰的伟大博弈正在失控
杰弗里·萨克斯 https://metacpc.org/en/jeffrey-sachs-2/
共同的梦想，22 年 8 月和 9 月 | 马克罗斯科普，22 年 10 月 5 日
杰弗里·萨克斯 (Jeffrey D. Sachs) 是哥伦比亚大学教授兼可持续发展中心主任，2002 年至 2016 年期间领导地球研究所。他还是联合国可持续发展解决方案网络主席和联合国宽带委员会委员 为了发展。 他曾担任三位联合国秘书长的顾问，目前担任秘书长安东尼奥·古特雷斯领导下的可持续发展目标倡导者。 萨克斯最近出版了《新外交政策：超越美国例外论》（2020 年）一书。 其他书籍包括：《建设新美国经济：智能、公平和可持续》（2017 年）和潘基文合着的《可持续发展时代》（2015 年）。
西方关于俄罗斯和中国的危险而简单的叙述
通过操纵事实，向西方公众推销对中国和俄罗斯的过度恐惧。
欧洲应该反思这样一个事实：不扩大北约和执行明斯克二号协议本来可以避免乌克兰这场可怕的战争。
世界正处于核灾难的边缘，这在很大程度上是因为西方政治领导人未能直言不讳地说明全球冲突不断升级的原因。 西方无情地认为西方是高尚的，而俄罗斯和中国是邪恶的，这种说法是头脑简单且极其危险的。 这是试图操纵舆论，而不是处理非常现实和紧迫的外交。
西方的基本叙述已融入美国国家安全战略。 美国的核心理念是，中国和俄罗斯是不共戴天的敌人，“试图侵蚀美国的安全与繁荣”。 美国表示，这些国家“决心降低经济的自由度和公平性，发展军事力量，控制信息和数据以压制其社会并扩大其影响力。”
具有讽刺意味的是，自 1980 年以来，美国至少参与了 15 场海外战争（阿富汗、伊拉克、利比亚、巴拿马、塞尔维亚、叙利亚和也门等），而中国从未参与过，只有俄罗斯参与过 位于前苏联之外的一个国家（叙利亚）。 美国在85个国家拥有军事基地，中国有3个，俄罗斯有1个（叙利亚），仅次于前苏联。
乔·拜登总统宣扬了这一说法，宣称我们时代最大的挑战是与独裁政权的竞争，这些独裁政权“寻求提升自己的权力，出口和扩大其在世界各地的影响力，并证明其镇压政策和做法是正当的”。 解决当今挑战的更有效方法。” 美国的安全战略不是任何一位美国总统的工作，而是美国安全机构的工作，美国安全机构在很大程度上是自主的，并且在保密的情况下运作。
通过操纵事实，向西方公众推销对中国和俄罗斯的过度恐惧。 一代人之前，小布什向公众灌输这样一种观念，即美国最大的威胁是伊斯兰原教旨主义，却没有提到正是中央情报局与沙特阿拉伯和其他国家一起在美国创建、资助和部署了圣战分子。 阿富汗、叙利亚和其他地方参加美国的战争。
或者想想 1980 年苏联入侵阿富汗，西方媒体将其描述为无端的背信弃义行为。 多年后，我们得知苏联入侵之前实际上是中央情报局旨在挑衅苏联入侵的行动！ 同样的错误信息也发生在叙利亚身上。 西方媒体充斥着对普京从2015年开始向叙利亚巴沙尔·阿萨德提供军事援助的指责，却没有提及美国从2011年开始支持推翻阿萨德，中央情报局资助了一项推翻阿萨德的重大行动（Timber Sycamore） 阿萨德比俄罗斯到来早了几年。
或者最近，当美国众议院议长南希·佩洛西不顾中方警告，不顾一切飞赴台湾时，G7外长没有批评佩洛西的挑衅行为，但G7部长们却共同严厉批评中国对佩洛西此行的“过度反应”。
西方关于乌克兰战争的说法是，这是普京为了重建俄罗斯帝国而发动的无端攻击。 然而真正的历史是从西方向苏联总统戈尔巴乔夫承诺北约不会向东扩张开始的，随后是北约的四次扩张浪潮：1999年，吞并了三个中欧国家；1999年，吞并了三个中欧国家；1999年，吞并了三个中欧国家。 2004年，又合并了7个，包括黑海和波罗的海国家； 2008年，承诺扩大至乌克兰和格鲁吉亚； 2022年，邀请四位亚太领导人加入北约，瞄准中国。
也不做
西方媒体提到美国在2014年推翻乌克兰亲俄总统维克托·亚努科维奇（Viktor Yanukovych）中扮演的角色； 明斯克第二协议的担保国法国和德国政府未能敦促乌克兰履行其承诺； 在特朗普和拜登执政期间，美国在战争爆发前向乌克兰运送了大量武器； 也不是美国拒绝与普京就北约东扩问题与乌克兰进行谈判。
当然，北约称这纯粹是防御性的，因此普京应该没什么好害怕的。 换句话说，普京不应该关注中央情报局在阿富汗和叙利亚的行动； 1999年北约对塞尔维亚的轰炸； 2011年北约推翻穆阿迈尔·卡扎菲； 北约占领阿富汗15年； 也不是拜登要求普京下台的“失态”（当然这根本不是失态）； 美国国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀也没有表示美国对乌克兰发动战争的目的是削弱俄罗斯。
所有这一切的核心是美国试图通过加强世界各地的军事联盟来遏制或击败中国和俄罗斯，以保持世界霸权地位。 这是一个危险的、妄想的、过时的想法。 美国人口仅占世界人口的4.2%，目前GDP仅占世界GDP的16%（以国际价格计算）。 事实上，G7 的 GDP 总和目前还低于金砖国家（巴西、俄罗斯、印度、中国和南非），而 G7 的人口仅占世界的 6%，而金砖国家的人口占世界的 41%。
只有一个国家自称幻想成为世界主导力量：美国。 美国早就认识到安全的真正来源：内部社会凝聚力以及与世界其他国家负责任的合作，而不是霸权的幻想。 通过这样修改的外交政策，美国及其盟国将避免与中国和俄罗斯发生战争，并使世界能够面对无数的环境、能源、粮食和社会危机。
最重要的是，在这个极端危险的时刻，欧洲领导人应该追求欧洲安全的真正源泉：不是美国霸权，而是尊重所有欧洲国家合法安全利益的欧洲安全安排，当然包括乌克兰，也包括俄罗斯。 继续抵制北约向黑海的扩张。 欧洲应该反思这样一个事实：不扩大北约和执行明斯克二号协议本来可以避免乌克兰这场可怕的战争。 在现阶段，外交而非军事升级才是欧洲和全球安全的真正途径。
迫切需要乌克兰-俄罗斯和平协议草案：乌克兰的大博弈正在失控
今天令人担忧的局势很容易失控，就像世界过去多次发生的那样，但这一次有可能发生核灾难。
美国前国家安全顾问兹比格涅夫·布热津斯基曾将乌克兰描述为欧亚大陆的“地缘政治枢纽”，是美国和俄罗斯权力的核心。 由于俄罗斯认为当前冲突危及其重要安全利益，乌克兰战争正在迅速升级为核摊牌。 美国和俄罗斯都迫切需要在灾难来临之前保持克制。
自19世纪中叶以来，西方一直与俄罗斯争夺克里米亚，更具体地说，是黑海的海军力量。 在克里米亚战争（1853-6）中，英国和法国占领了塞瓦斯托波尔，并暂时将俄罗斯海军驱逐出黑海。 当前的冲突本质上是第二次克里米亚战争。 这次，以美国为首的军事联盟试图将北约扩大到乌克兰和格鲁吉亚，让五个北约成员国包围黑海。
长期以来，美国一直将西半球大国的任何侵犯视为对美国安全的直接威胁，这一点可以追溯到 1823 年的门罗主义，该主义指出：“因此，我们有责任以坦诚和友好关系为基础， 美国和那些[欧洲]国家宣布，我们应该考虑他们将其系统扩展到这个半球任何部分的任何企图，这对我们的和平与安全构成危险。”
1961年，美国入侵古巴，古巴革命领袖菲德尔·卡斯特罗向苏联寻求支持。 美国对古巴是否有“权利”与它想要的任何国家结盟——美国对乌克兰所谓的加入北约权利的主张并没有多大兴趣。 1961年美国入侵古巴的失败导致苏联于1962年决定在古巴部署进攻性核武器，这又导致了正好60年前的这个月的古巴导弹危机。 这场危机将世界推向核战争的边缘。
但美国对自身在美洲安全利益的重视并没有阻止其侵犯俄罗斯在俄罗斯周边的核心安全利益。 随着苏联的衰弱，美国政策领导人开始相信美国军事力量
ary 可以随心所欲地运作。 1991年，国防部副部长保罗·沃尔福威茨向韦斯利·克拉克将军解释说，美国可以在中东部署军事力量，“苏联不会阻止我们”。 美国国家安全官员决定推翻与苏联结盟的中东政权，并侵犯俄罗斯的安全利益。
1990年，德国和美国向苏联总统戈尔巴乔夫保证，苏联可以解散自己的军事联盟华约，而不必担心北约东扩取代苏联。 在此基础上，1990年德国统一得到了戈尔巴乔夫的同意。 然而，随着苏联的解体，比尔·克林顿总统食言，支持北约东扩。
俄罗斯总统叶利钦强烈抗议，但无能为力。 美国与俄罗斯的外交大臣乔治·凯南宣称，北约的扩张“是新冷战的开始”。
在克林顿的领导下，北约于 1999 年扩展到波兰、匈牙利和捷克共和国。五年后，在小布什总统的领导下，北约又扩展到七个国家：波罗的海国家（爱沙尼亚、拉脱维亚和立陶宛）、 黑海（保加利亚和罗马尼亚）、巴尔干半岛（斯洛文尼亚）和斯洛伐克。 在巴拉克·奥巴马总统的领导下，北约于 2009 年扩展到阿尔巴尼亚和克罗地亚，在唐纳德·特朗普总统的领导下，北约于 2019 年扩展到黑山。
1999年，北约国家无视联合国，攻击俄罗斯的盟友塞尔维亚，俄罗斯对北约东扩的反对急剧加剧；2000年代，美国在伊拉克、叙利亚和利比亚发动的战争进一步加剧了俄罗斯对北约东扩的反对。 在2007年的慕尼黑安全会议上，普京总统宣称北约东扩是“严重挑衅，降低了互信水平”。
普京继续说道：“我们有权问：这种扩张是针对谁的？ 我们的西方伙伴在华沙条约组织解体后做出的[北约不东扩]的保证又怎么样了？” 今天这些声明在哪里？ 甚至没有人记得他们。 但我会让自己提醒听众刚才所说的内容。 我想引用北约秘书长韦尔纳先生1990年5月17日在布鲁塞尔的讲话。他当时说：“事实上，我们准备不将北约军队部署在德国领土之外，这给了苏联一个机会。” 坚定的安全保障。 这些保证在哪里？”
同样是在2007年，随着保加利亚和罗马尼亚这两个黑海国家加入北约，美国成立了黑海地区特遣部队（原东特遣部队）。 2008年，美国宣布北约将扩张至黑海核心地带，吞并乌克兰和格鲁吉亚，威胁俄罗斯海军进入黑海、地中海和中东，进一步加剧了美俄紧张关系。 随着乌克兰和格鲁吉亚的加入，俄罗斯将被黑海的五个北约国家包围：保加利亚、格鲁吉亚、罗马尼亚、土耳其和乌克兰。
俄罗斯最初受到乌克兰亲俄总统维克托·亚努科维奇的保护，免受北约对乌克兰的影响。2010年，亚努科维奇领导乌克兰议会宣布乌克兰保持中立。但在2014年，美国帮助推翻了亚努科维奇，并让一个坚定的反俄政府上台。 。 乌克兰战争随即爆发，俄罗斯迅速收复克里米亚，并支持顿巴斯地区的亲俄分裂分子，该地区是乌克兰东部俄罗斯人口比例相对较高的地区。 乌克兰议会于 2014 年晚些时候正式放弃中立。
乌克兰和俄罗斯支持的顿巴斯分裂分子已经进行了长达8年的残酷战争。 当乌克兰领导人决定不遵守要求顿巴斯自治的协议时，通过明斯克协议结束顿巴斯战争的尝试失败了。 2014年之后，美国向乌克兰注入了大量军备，并帮助乌克兰军队重组，使其能够与北约互操作，今年的战斗就证明了这一点。
如果拜登在 2021 年底同意普京关于结束北约东扩的要求，那么俄罗斯 2022 年的入侵可能就可以避免。 战争很可能于 2022 年 3 月结束，届时乌克兰和俄罗斯政府基于乌克兰的中立性交换了一份和平协议草案。 美国和英国在幕后敦促泽伦斯基拒绝与普京达成任何协议并继续战斗。 当时，乌克兰退出了谈判。
俄罗斯将在必要时升级行动，可能发展为核武器，以避免军事失败和北约进一步东扩。 核威胁并不是空洞的，而是俄罗斯领导层对其安全利益受到威胁的看法的衡量标准。 可怕的是，美国还准备在古巴导弹危机中使用核武器，乌克兰一名高级官员最近敦促美国
“只要俄罗斯一想到发动核打击”，美国就会发动核打击，这无疑是引发第三次世界大战的良方。 我们再次处于核灾难的边缘。
约翰·F·肯尼迪总统在古巴导弹危机期间了解了核对抗。 他化解这场危机的方式不是依靠意志力或美国军事力量，而是通过外交和妥协，拆除美国在土耳其的核导弹，以换取苏联拆除在古巴的核导弹。 次年，他寻求与苏联和平，签署了《部分禁止核试验条约》。
1963 年 6 月，肯尼迪说出了让我们今天得以生存的基本真理：“最重要的是，在捍卫我们自己的切身利益的同时，核大国必须避免那些让对手选择要么羞辱性撤退，要么发动核战争的对抗。 在核时代采取这种做法只能证明我们的政策破产，或者表明我们对世界抱有集体死亡的愿望。”
迫切需要回到三月下旬基于北约不扩大的俄罗斯和乌克兰和平协议草案。 今天令人担忧的局势很容易失控，就像世界过去多次发生的那样——但这一次有可能发生核灾难。 世界的生存取决于各方的审慎、外交和妥协。
Grayzone 采访 Jeffrey Sachs，22 年 10 月 9 日
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
Jeffrey D. Sachs https://metacpc.org/en/jeffrey-sachs-2/
Common Dreams, Aug & Sept '22 | Makroskop, 5 Oct '22
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.
