Chas Freeman 乌克兰战争的诸多教训

乌克兰战争的诸多教训

The Many Lessons of the Ukraine War

https://chasfreeman.net/the-many-lessons-of-the-ukraine-war/

查斯·弗里曼 2023-09-26

弗里曼大使是 Projects International, Inc. 的主席。他是一位退休的美国国防官员、外交官和口译员，获得过无数崇高荣誉和奖项，是一位受欢迎的公众演讲家，也是五本书的作者。Ambassador Freeman chairs Projects International, Inc. He is a retired U.S. defense official, diplomat, and interpreter, the recipient of numerous high honors and awards, a popular public speaker, and the author of five books.

弗里曼的文章  https://chasfreeman.net/category/speeches/ 

乌克兰战争的诸多教训
致东湾和平公民的致辞

Chas W. Freeman, Jr. 大使（USFS，退役）
布朗大学沃森国际与公共事务研究所访问学者
巴灵顿图书馆，巴灵顿，罗德岛州，2023 年 9 月 26 日

今晚我想和大家谈谈乌克兰——它发生了什么、为什么发生、它可能如何摆脱大国竞争所带来的磨难； 以及我们可以从中学到什么。 我这样做是带着一些惶恐和对观众的警告。 我的演讲就像乌克兰冲突一样，是一篇漫长而复杂的演讲。 它与非常有说服力的宣传相矛盾。 我的讲话会冒犯任何相信官方叙述的人。 美国媒体处理乌克兰战争的方式让人想起马克·吐温的一句话：“许多评论家的研究已经给这个问题蒙上阴影，如果他们继续下去，我们很可能很快就会一无所知。” 根本不关心这件事。”

有人说，在战争中，真理是第一个伤亡的。 战争通常伴随着官方谎言的迷雾。 乌克兰战争中的迷雾从未如此浓重。 尽管数十万人在乌克兰战斗并死亡，但布鲁塞尔、基辅、伦敦、莫斯科和华盛顿的宣传机器加班加点地工作，以确保我们站在热情的一边，相信我们愿意相信的，并谴责任何 质疑我们已经内化的叙述。 不在前线的人都不知道这场战争中发生了什么。 我们所知道的只是我们的政府和其他战争支持者希望我们知道的。 他们养成了吸纳自己的宣传的坏习惯，这保证了妄想性的政策。

乌克兰战争的每一个参与方政府——基辅、莫斯科、华盛顿和其他北约国家首都——都犯有不同程度的自欺欺人和错误行为。 对所有人来说，后果都是可怕的。 对于乌克兰来说，这是灾难性的。 所有有关方面早就应该对政策进行彻底的反思。

北约从何而来、往何处去？

首先，一些必要的背景。 北约（北大西洋公约组织）的成立是为了保卫二战后美国势力范围内的欧洲国家对抗苏维埃社会主义共和国联盟（苏联）及其卫星国。 北约的责任范围是其成员国在北美和西欧的领土，但除此之外别无其他。 在冷战的四十多年中，该联盟帮助维持了欧洲的力量平衡和和平。 然而1991年，苏联解体，冷战结束。 这消除了对北约成员国领土的任何可信威胁，并提出了这个问题：如果北约仍然是某些问题的答案，那么问题是什么？

美国武装部队毫无问题地应对这一难题。 他们在维护北约方面拥有令人信服的既得利益。

北约为美国军队创造并维持了二战后的欧洲角色和存在，
这证明了美国军队结构要大得多，并且为军官[1]提供比其他情况下更理想的职位是合理的，
北约提高了美国武装部队的国际地位，同时培养了美国在多国联盟和联盟管理方面的独特能力，
它提供了欧洲服役的机会，这使得和平时期的兵役对美国士兵、水手、飞行员和海军陆战队更具吸引力。
然后，20世纪似乎也强调了美国的安全与其他北大西洋国家的安全密不可分。 欧洲帝国的存在使得欧洲列强之间的战争——拿破仑战争、第一次世界大战和第二次世界大战——很快演变成世界大战。 北约是美国在冷战时期主导和管理欧洲大西洋地区的方式。 可以说，解散北约或美国退出北约只会让欧洲人重新开始争吵，并引发另一场可能不限于欧洲的战争。

因此，北约必须继续运转。 实现这一目标的明显方法是为该组织寻找一个新的、非欧洲的角色。 有人说，北约必须“撤出该地区或停止业务”。 换句话说，该联盟必须重新调整目标，将军事力量投射到西欧和北美成员国领土之外。

1998年，北约与塞尔维亚开战，并于1999年轰炸塞尔维亚，使科索沃脱离塞尔维亚。 2001年，为应对纽约和华盛顿的“9/11”恐怖袭击，它与美国一起占领并试图安抚阿富汗。 [2] 2011年，北约派遣部队在利比亚策划政权更迭。

基辅、克里米亚政变和俄罗斯叛乱

讲乌克兰语

2014年，在美国支持的基辅反俄政变后[3]，乌克兰极端民族主义者禁止在本国官方使用俄语和其他少数民族语言，同时申明乌克兰有意成为乌克兰的一部分。 北约。 除其他后果外，乌克兰加入北约将使俄罗斯位于克里米亚城市塞瓦斯托波尔拥有 250 年历史的海军基地置于北约之下，从而受到美国的控制。 克里米亚是俄语国家，曾多次投票不加入乌克兰。 于是，俄罗斯借鉴北约暴力干预科索沃脱离塞尔维亚的先例，在克里米亚组织了公投，支持克里米亚重新并入俄罗斯联邦。 结果与之前对该问题的投票结果一致。

与此同时，为了回应乌克兰禁止在政府办公室和教育中使用俄语，该国顿巴斯地区主要讲俄语的地区试图脱离。 基辅派出军队镇压叛乱。 莫斯科的回应是支持乌克兰俄语使用者的要求，即政变前的乌克兰宪法和欧洲安全与合作组织（欧安组织）的原则保障了他们的少数群体权利。 北约支持基辅对抗莫斯科。 乌克兰人之间的内战随之升级。 这很快演变成美国、北约和俄罗斯之间在乌克兰愈演愈烈的代理人战争。

在欧安组织的斡旋下，在法国和德国的支持下，明斯克谈判促成基辅和莫斯科就一揽子措施达成协议，其中包括：

停火，
从前线撤出重型武器，
释放战俘，
乌克兰宪法改革赋予顿巴斯某些地区自治权，以及
恢复基辅对叛乱地区与俄罗斯边界的控制。
联合国安理会批准了这些条款。 它们代表莫斯科接受乌克兰的俄语省份将仍然是统一但联邦化的乌克兰的一部分，只要它们享有魁北克式的语言自治权。 但是，在美国的支持下，乌克兰拒绝执行其同意的事情。 多年后，法国和德国承认，他们在明斯克的调解努力是一个诡计，旨在为基辅武装对抗莫斯科赢得时间，而乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基（像他的前任彼得·波罗申科一样）承认，他从未计划实施 协议。

莫斯科和北约东扩

1990年，在德国统一、华沙条约解体、俄罗斯放弃中东欧政治经济势力范围的背景下，西方多次略显狡猾却郑重地承诺，不会填补由此产生的战略空白。 通过将北约扩大到其中来消除真空。 但随着 20 世纪 90 年代的深入，尽管其他一些北约成员国缺乏热情，美国仍坚持这样做。 北约的东扩逐渐消除了东欧对独立中立国家的封锁，莫斯科历届政府都认为这些国家对俄罗斯的安全至关重要。 随着前华约成员国加入北约，美国的武器、军队和基地出现在他们的领土上。 2008年，作为将美国势力范围扩大到俄罗斯边境的最后一步，华盛顿说服北约宣布有意接纳乌克兰和格鲁吉亚为成员国。

美军向东部署在罗马尼亚和波兰都部署了弹道导弹防御发射器。 从技术上讲，它们能够快速重新配置，以对莫斯科发动短程打击。 他们的部署加剧了俄罗斯对美国突然袭击的恐惧。 如果乌克兰加入北约并且美国在那里进行类似的部署，俄罗斯将只收到大约五分钟的对莫斯科发动袭击的警告。 北约在科索沃脱离塞尔维亚、美国在阿富汗和利比亚的政权更迭和绥靖行动中所发挥的作用，以及对乌克兰反俄力量的支持，让莫斯科相信它不能再将北约视为纯粹的防御性联盟。

早在 1994 年，历届俄罗斯政府就开始警告美国和北约，北约的持续扩张 — — 特别是对乌克兰和格鲁吉亚 — — 将迫使其做出强有力的反应。 华盛顿从多个来源了解到俄罗斯决心这样做，包括其驻莫斯科大使的报告。 2007年2月，俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京在慕尼黑安全会议上发言时宣称：“我认为北约的扩张显然是一种严重的挑衅……我们有权问：这种扩张是针对谁的？ 华约解体后我们的西方伙伴做出的保证又去了哪里？” 2008年2月1日，时任中央情报局局长的比尔·伯恩斯大使在一份电报中警告说：

来自莫斯科的消息称，在这个问题上，俄罗斯人是团结而严肃的。 伯恩斯对北约向乌克兰扩张的后果感到如此强烈，以至于他在电报中的主题是“Nyet Means Nyet”（“不就是不”）。

尽管如此，2008年4月，北约仍然邀请乌克兰和格鲁吉亚加入。 莫斯科抗议称，他们“加入该联盟是一个巨大的战略错误，将对泛欧洲安全造成最严重的后果”。 到了 2008 年 8 月，似乎是为了强调这一点，当胆大妄为的格鲁吉亚试图将其统治扩大到俄罗斯边境叛乱的少数民族地区时，莫斯科发动了战争以巩固他们的独立。

乌克兰的内战和代理人战争

2014 年美国策划的政变在基辅建立了反俄罗斯政权，不到一天后，华盛顿正式承认了这个新政权。 当俄罗斯吞并克里米亚并与乌克兰俄语国家爆发内战时，美国支持并武装了乌克兰极端民族主义者，他们的政策疏远了克里米亚并激怒了俄语分离主义者。 美国和北约开始斥资数十亿美元重组、重新训练和重新装备基辅武装部队。 其公开宣称的目的是让基辅能够重新征服顿巴斯并最终征服克里米亚。 乌克兰的正规军当时已经日渐衰弱。 基辅对乌克兰东部和南部地区讲俄语的人的最初袭击主要是由极端民族主义民兵发动的。 [4] 到 2015 年，俄罗斯士兵已与顿巴斯叛军并肩作战。 一场未公开的美国/北约与俄罗斯的代理人战争已经开始。

在接下来的八年里（乌克兰内战仍在继续），基辅建立了一支由北约训练的 70 万人军队（不包括 100 万后备军），并在与俄罗斯支持的分裂分子的战斗中加强了这支军队。 乌克兰正规军人数仅略少于俄罗斯当时的 83 万现役军人。 八年来，乌克兰拥有的军队数量超过了除美国和土耳其之外的任何北约成员国，数量超过了英国、法国和德国武装部队的总和。 毫不奇怪，俄罗斯将此视为威胁。

与此同时，随着与俄罗斯的紧张局势升级，美国于 2019 年初单方面退出了《中程核力量条约》，该条约禁止在欧洲部署射程达 3,420 英里的地面发射导弹。 俄罗斯谴责这是一种“破坏性”行为，会引发安全风险。 尽管其他一些北约成员国仍心存疑虑，但在美国的坚持下，北约继续定期重申将乌克兰纳入其成员国的提议，并于 2021 年 9 月 1 日再次这样做。 经过训练和武器转让，基辅判断它终于准备好镇压讲俄语的叛乱及其俄罗斯盟友了。 2021 年结束时，乌克兰加大了对顿巴斯分裂分子的压力，并部署部队定于 2022 年初对他们发动大规模攻势。

莫斯科要求谈判

大约在同一时间，即 2021 年 12 月中旬，即莫斯科首次向华盛顿发出警告 28 年后，弗拉基米尔·普京正式要求提供书面安全保证，以通过恢复乌克兰的中立性来减少北约东扩对俄罗斯的明显威胁。 美军在俄罗斯边境驻扎，并恢复对在欧洲部署中程和短程导弹的限制。 随后，俄罗斯外交部向华盛顿提交了一份包含这些条款的条约草案，该草案呼应了俄罗斯前总统鲍里斯·叶利钦在 1997 年提出的类似要求。同时，这显然既是为了强调莫斯科的严肃性，也是为了反击基辅计划对顿巴斯发动的进攻。 为了对付分裂分子，俄罗斯在与乌克兰接壤的边境集结了军队。

2022年1月26日，美国正式回应称，美国和北约都不会同意与俄罗斯就乌克兰中立或其他此类问题进行谈判。 几天后，俄罗斯外长拉夫罗夫在俄罗斯安理会会议上阐述了他对美国和北约立场的理解：

“[我们的]西方同事不准备接受我们的主要提案，主要是关于北约东扩的提案。 这一要求被拒绝，理由是欧盟所谓的门户开放政策以及每个国家选择自己的安全方式的自由。 美国和[北约]……都没有提出这一关键条款的替代方案。”

莫斯科希望进行谈判，但在谈判缺席的情况下，俄罗斯准备发动战争以消除其所反对的威胁。 华盛顿在拒绝与莫斯科谈判时就知道这一点。 美国拒绝对话是一个明确的决定，它接受战争风险，而不是寻求与俄罗斯的任何妥协或和解。 美国及其盟国情报部门 IMM

立即开始发布旨在描述俄罗斯即将采取的军事行动的信息[5]，他们称这是为了阻止这些行动。

俄罗斯入侵乌克兰

2月中旬，乌克兰军队和顿巴斯分裂主义势力之间的战斗加剧，欧安组织观察员报告称，双方违反停火的事件迅速增加，但据称大多数是由基辅发起的。 也许不诚实的是，顿巴斯分裂分子呼吁莫斯科保护他们，并下令将平民全面疏散到俄罗斯的安全避难所。 2月21日，俄罗斯总统普京承认顿巴斯两个“人民共和国”的独立，并命令俄罗斯军队保护它们免受乌克兰的袭击。

2022 年 2 月 24 日，普京在向俄罗斯全国发表的讲话中宣称，“在现代乌克兰领土不断发出的威胁下，俄罗斯无法感到安全、发展和存在”，并宣布他已下令“ 特别军事行动”“保护遭受欺凌和种族灭绝的人们。 。 。 过去八年”并“努力实现乌克兰的非军事化和去纳粹化”。 他补充说：

“事实是，过去30年来，我们一直耐心地试图与北约主要国家就欧洲平等和不可分割的安全原则达成协议。 为了回应我们的建议，我们总是面临愤世嫉俗的欺骗和谎言，或者试图施压和勒索，而北大西洋联盟则不顾我们的抗议和担忧继续扩大。 它的军事机器正在移动，正如我所说，正在逼近我们的边境。”

美国和北约在针对俄罗斯的信息战中提出的官方说法与普京总统声明的每一个要素都相矛盾，但记录证实了这一点。

美俄乌克兰代理人战争的前奏

在后苏联时代：

尽管俄罗斯的警告和抗议不断升级，北约——美国在欧洲的势力范围和军事存在——不断向俄罗斯边境扩张。
相比之下，莫斯科则不断撤退。 它已经放弃了在东欧的势力范围。 它没有做出任何努力来重建它。
莫斯科一再警告称，北约东扩和美国前沿部署可能威胁其的部队，尤其是来自乌克兰的部队，对俄罗斯来说是一个严重威胁，俄罗斯必须对此做出反应。
鉴于北约已从纯粹防御性的、以欧洲为中心的联盟转变为支持美国政权更迭和其他成员国境外军事行动的力量投送工具，莫斯科有合理的理由担心乌克兰加入北约将构成对北约的威胁。 对其安全构成积极威胁。 美国退出阻止其在欧洲（包括乌克兰）部署中程核武器的条约，凸显了这一威胁。
莫斯科一贯要求乌克兰保持中立。 中立将使乌克兰成为其与欧洲其他国家之间的缓冲和桥梁，而不是俄罗斯的一部分或俄罗斯针对欧洲其他国家投射力量的平台。
相比之下，美国试图让乌克兰成为北约成员——成为其势力范围的一部分——并成为美国针对俄罗斯部署军事力量的平台。
莫斯科在明斯克同意尊重乌克兰在顿巴斯地区的持续主权，前提是该地区讲俄语的人的权利得到保障。 但在美国和北约的支持下，乌克兰拒绝执行明斯克协议，并加倍努力征服顿巴斯。
当华盛顿拒绝听取俄罗斯在欧洲提出的相互妥协的主张，而是坚持让乌克兰加入北约时，美国政府知道这将引起俄罗斯的军事回应。 事实上，华盛顿公开预测了这一点。
在由此引发的战争初期，当第三方调解达成了俄罗斯和乌克兰之间的和平协议草案时，以英国为代表的西方坚持要求乌克兰否认该协议。
这个悲伤的事件让我想到了战争参与者的战争目标。

乌克兰的战争目标

基辅并没有动摇其目标：

打造纯粹的乌克兰民族认同，将俄罗斯和其他语言、文化和宗教权威排除在外。
征服那些因强行同化而反抗的俄语使用者。
获得美国和北约的保护并与欧盟一体化。
重新征服莫斯科从乌克兰非法吞并的俄语领土，包括顿巴斯州和克里米亚。
莫斯科在 2021 年 12 月 17 日向华盛顿提交的条约草案中明确阐述了其最高和最低目标。俄罗斯的核心利益过去和现在仍然是：

（1）通过强制手段将乌克兰排除在美国吞没东欧其他国家的势力范围之内

乌克兰确认美国/北约与俄罗斯之间的中立，以及
（2）保护和保障乌克兰俄语使用者的基本权利。
华盛顿的目标 — — 北约已尽职尽责地将其作为自己的目标 — — 更加开放且不具体。 正如国家安全顾问杰克·沙利文 (Jake Sullivan) 在 2022 年 6 月所说的那样，

“我们有 。 。 。 没有列出我们所看到的结局。 。 ..我们一直专注于今天、明天、下周我们能做些什么，以最大程度地增强乌克兰人的力量，首先是在战场上，然后最终在谈判桌上。”

由于战争的首要原则是制定现实的目标、实现目标的战略以及终止战争的计划，这完美地描述了如何酝酿一场“永远的战争”。 正如越南、阿富汗、伊拉克、索马里、利比亚、叙利亚和也门所证明的那样，这已成为美国的既定战争方式。 没有明确的目标，没有实现这些目标的计划，也没有关于如何结束战争、以什么条件以及与谁结束战争的概念。

关于美国在这场战争中的目标最有说服力的声明是拜登总统在战争开始时提出的。 他表示，他对俄罗斯的目标是“在未来几年削弱其经济实力并削弱其军事力量”——不惜一切代价。 美国政府或北约从未宣称，保护乌克兰或乌克兰人，而不是利用他们的勇气来打倒俄罗斯，是中美洲的目标。 2022年4月，国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀重申，美国对乌克兰的援助旨在削弱和孤立俄罗斯，从而剥夺其未来发动战争的任何可信能力。 相当多的美国政客和专家都称赞乌克兰人而不是美国人为此而牺牲生命的好处。 有些人走得更远，主张将俄罗斯联邦解体作为战争目标。 如果你是俄罗斯人，你不必偏执地认为这种威胁是存在的。 俄罗斯总统普京评估美国的战争目标是在战略上羞辱俄罗斯联邦，如果可能的话，推翻并肢解其政府。 [6] 美国并未对这一评估提出异议。

和平搁置一边

2022 年 3 月中旬，土耳其政府和以色列总理纳夫塔利·贝内特在俄罗斯和乌克兰谈判代表之间进行斡旋，双方初步同意通过谈判达成临时解决方案的大纲。 该协议规定，俄罗斯将于2月23日撤回其控制顿巴斯地区部分地区和整个克里米亚的立场，作为交换，乌克兰将承诺不寻求加入北约，而是接受一些国家的安全保证。 俄罗斯总统普京和乌克兰总统泽伦斯基正在安排一次会晤，以敲定这项协议，谈判代表已草签了该协议，这意味着该协议尚待上级批准。

2022 年 3 月 28 日。泽连斯基总统公开申明，作为与俄罗斯和平协议的一部分，乌克兰已准备好保持中立并提供安全保障。 但4月9日，英国首相鲍里斯·约翰逊突然访问基辅。 据报道，在这次访问期间，他敦促泽连斯基不要会见普京，因为（1）普京是一名战犯，而且比他看上去的要弱。 他应该而且可能被压垮而不是被容纳； (2)即使乌克兰准备好结束战争，北约也没有准备好。

泽连斯基与普京的会面计划随后被取消。 普京宣称与乌克兰的谈判已陷入僵局。 泽伦斯基解释说：“莫斯科希望达成一项能够解决所有问题的条约。 然而，并非所有人都认为自己与俄罗斯坐在谈判桌上。 对他们来说，乌克兰的安全保障是一个问题，与俄罗斯联邦的协议是另一个问题。” 这标志着俄罗斯-乌克兰双边谈判的结束，也标志着除战场之外任何地方解决冲突的前景。

发生了什么以及谁赢得了什么

这场战争是由于各方的误判而产生并持续的。 北约的扩张是合法的，但可以预见的是，它具有挑衅性。 俄罗斯的反应即使是非法的，也是完全可以预见的，而且事实证明它付出了巨大的代价。 乌克兰实际上加入北约的军事一体化导致了其毁灭性的后果。

美国认为，俄罗斯因乌克兰中立而威胁发动战争是虚张声势，可以通过概述和诋毁华盛顿所理解的俄罗斯计划和意图来吓阻。 俄罗斯认为美国更愿意谈判而不是战争，并希望避免欧洲重新划分为敌对集团。 乌克兰人指望西方保护他们的国家。 当俄罗斯在战争头几个月的表现乏善可陈时，西方得出结论，乌克兰可以击败它。 这些都没有

事实证明计算是正确的。

然而，在屈从的主流媒体和社交媒体的放大下，官方宣传让大多数西方国家相信，拒绝北约扩张谈判并鼓励乌克兰与俄罗斯作战在某种程度上是“亲乌克兰的”。 对乌克兰战争努力的同情是完全可以理解的，但是，正如越南战争应该告诉我们的那样，当啦啦队取代了报道的客观性，而政府更喜欢自己的宣传而不是战场上发生的事情的真相时，民主国家就会失败。

判断政策成功或失败的唯一方法是参考政策旨在实现的目标。 那么，乌克兰战争的参与者在实现他们的目标方面表现如何？

让我们从乌克兰开始。

2014年至2022年，顿巴斯内战夺去了近15,000人的生命。 自 2022 年 2 月美国/北约-俄罗斯代理人战争开始以来，有多少人在行动中丧生尚不清楚，但肯定有数十万人。 空前激烈的信息战掩盖了伤亡数字。 西方关于死伤者的唯一信息是基辅的宣传，声称有大量俄罗斯人死亡，但对乌克兰人的伤亡情况却只字不提。 然而，众所周知，目前有 10% 的乌克兰人加入了武装部队，78% 的乌克兰人有亲友被杀或受伤。 据估计，现在有 50,000 名乌克兰人被截肢。 （相比之下，第一次世界大战期间只有 41,000 名英国人不得不接受截肢手术，而手术往往是唯一可以避免死亡的方法。参与阿富汗和伊拉克入侵的美国退伍军人不到 2,000 名接受了截肢手术。）大多数观察家认为，乌克兰军队 他们遭受的损失比他们的俄罗斯敌人要严重得多，数十万人在保卫祖国和夺回被俄罗斯占领的领土的努力中献出了生命。

战争开始时，乌克兰人口约为三千一百万。 此后，该国已经失去了至少三分之一的人民。 超过六百万人在西方避难。 还有两百万人前往俄罗斯。 另有八百万乌克兰人被赶出家园，但仍留在乌克兰。

乌克兰的基础设施、工业和城市遭到破坏，经济遭到破坏。 正如战争中常见的情况一样，腐败 — — 长期以来乌克兰政治的一个突出特点 — — 一直很猖獗。 乌克兰新生的民主已不复存在，所有反对党、不受控制的媒体和异见均被取缔。

另一方面，俄罗斯的侵略使乌克兰人（包括许多讲俄语的人）团结到了前所未有的程度。 因此，莫斯科无意中强化了乌克兰的独立身份，而俄罗斯神话和普京总统都试图否认这一身份。 乌克兰在领土上失去的东西，却因强烈反对莫斯科而获得了爱国凝聚力。

另一方面，乌克兰讲俄语的分裂分子的俄罗斯身份也得到了强化。 俄罗斯境内的乌克兰难民是要求基辅进行报复的最强硬派。 现在讲俄语的人几乎不可能接受统一的乌克兰的地位，就像《明斯克协议》中的情况一样。 而且，随着乌克兰“反攻”的失败，顿巴斯或克里米亚不太可能恢复乌克兰主权。 随着战争的继续，乌克兰很可能会失去更多领土，包括进入黑海的通道。 战场上、人心中失去的东西，是无法在谈判桌上挽回的。 乌克兰在这场战争中将遭受重创、瘫痪，领土和人口都将大大减少。

最后，乌克兰加入北约目前不存在现实前景。 正如国家安全委员会顾问沙利文所说，“每个人都需要正视事实”，允许乌克兰在此时加入北约“意味着与俄罗斯的战争”。 北约秘书长斯托尔滕贝格表示，乌克兰加入北约的前提是与俄罗斯签署和平条约。 目前还看不到这样的条约。 西方继续坚持乌克兰将在战争结束后成为北约成员国，这反常地激励俄罗斯不同意结束战争。 但最终，乌克兰将不得不与俄罗斯实现和平，几乎可以肯定主要是按照俄罗斯的条件。

无论战争可能取得什么成果，对乌克兰来说都没有好处。 乌克兰相对于俄罗斯的讨价还价地位已被大大削弱。 但话说回来，基辅的命运一直是美国政策圈子里的事后诸葛亮。 相反，华盛顿寻求利用乌克兰的勇气来打击俄罗斯、重振北约并加强美国在欧洲的主导地位。 而且它根本没有花任何时间思考如何恢复和平

到欧洲。

俄罗斯呢？

它是否成功地驱逐了美国对乌克兰的影响，迫使基辅宣布中立，或者恢复了乌克兰境内讲俄语的人的权利？ 显然不是。

至少目前，乌克兰已经完全成为美国及其北约盟国的依赖。 基辅是莫斯科的长期对手。 基辅坚持加入北约的雄心。 乌克兰的俄罗斯人是当地取消文化的目标。 无论战争结果如何，相互的敌意已经抹去了俄罗斯与乌克兰基于基辅罗斯共同起源的兄弟情谊的神话。 俄罗斯不得不放弃三个世纪以来认同欧洲的努力，转而转向中国、印度、伊斯兰世界和非洲。 与严重疏远的欧盟实现和解，即使有的话，也绝非易事。 俄罗斯或许没有在战场上失败，也没有被削弱或战略孤立，但它却付出了巨大的机会成本。

随后，北约也扩大到芬兰和瑞典。 这不会改变欧洲的军事平衡。 尽管西方将俄罗斯描绘成天生的掠夺者，但莫斯科既没有意愿也没有能力攻击这两个以前与西方非常结盟、武装强大但名义上“中立”的国家。 芬兰和瑞典也无意加入对俄罗斯的无端攻击。 但他们加入北约的决定在政治上对莫斯科造成了伤害。

由于西方不愿意照顾俄罗斯的安全关切，如果莫斯科要实现其目标，除了继续战斗之外，它现在没有明显的选择。 此举将刺激欧洲决心实现此前被忽视的北约国防开支目标，并获得独立于美国的独立军事能力来对抗俄罗斯。 波兰正在重新成为俄罗斯边境强大的敌对势力。 这些趋势正在改变欧洲的军事平衡，使莫斯科长期处于不利地位。

美国呢？

仅2022年，美国就批准向乌克兰提供1130亿美元的援助。 当时俄罗斯的国防预算还不到这个数字的一半——540 亿美元。 此后大约增加了一倍。 俄罗斯国防工业得到重振。 现在，有些国家一个月生产的武器数量比以前一年生产的武器数量还要多。 俄罗斯自给自足的经济经受住了美国和欧盟长达 18 个月的全面战争。 以购买力平价计算，它刚刚超越德国，成为世界第五富有的经济体和欧洲最大的经济体。 尽管西方一再声称俄罗斯已经耗尽了弹药并在乌克兰的消耗战中失败，但事实并非如此，而西方却如此。 乌克兰的勇敢令人印象深刻，但无法与俄罗斯的火力相抗衡。

与此同时，所谓的俄罗斯对西方的威胁曾经是北约团结的有力论据，但现在已经失去了可信度。 事实证明，俄罗斯武装力量无法征服乌克兰，更不用说欧洲其他地区了。 但这场战争教会了俄罗斯如何对抗和战胜美国和其他西方国家的许多最先进的武器。

在美国和北约拒绝谈判之前，俄罗斯准备接受一个中立且联邦化的乌克兰。 在入侵乌克兰的初期，俄罗斯在与乌克兰的和平条约草案中重申了这一意愿，美国和北约阻止基辅签署该条约。 西方外交上的顽固态度未能说服莫斯科容纳乌克兰民族主义或接受乌克兰加入北约和美国在欧洲的势力范围。 相反，代理人战争似乎让莫斯科相信，它必须摧毁乌克兰，保留其非法吞并的乌克兰领土，并可能增加更多领土，从而确保乌克兰成为一个功能失调的国家，既无法加入北约，也无法履行极端民族主义、反恐怖主义的目标。 俄罗斯对二战新纳粹英雄斯捷潘·班德拉的想象。

战争导致北约表面上团结，但成员国之间却存在明显裂痕。 对俄罗斯实施的制裁对欧洲经济造成了严重损害。 如果没有俄罗斯的能源供应，一些欧洲工业将不再具有国际竞争力。 正如北约最近在维尔纽斯举行的峰会所表明的那样，成员国对于接纳乌克兰的意愿存在分歧。 北约的团结似乎不太可能在战争结束后持续下去。 这些现实有助于解释为什么美国的大多数欧洲伙伴都希望尽快结束战争。

乌克兰战争显然给欧洲后苏联时代画上了句号，但它并没有让欧洲在任何方面变得更加安全。 它没有提高美国的国际声誉或巩固美国的主导地位。 这场战争反而加速了后美国多极世界秩序的出现。 其特征之一是抗 A

俄罗斯和中国之间的美国轴心。

为了削弱俄罗斯，美国采取了前所未有的侵入性单边制裁，包括针对不涉及美国关系且在交易方管辖范围内合法的正常商业活动的二级制裁。 华盛顿一直在积极阻止与乌克兰或那里的战争无关的国家之间的贸易，因为它们不会追随美国的潮流。 因此，世界大部分地区现在都在寻求独立于美国控制的金融和供应链联系。 这包括加强国际社会努力结束美元霸权，而美元霸权是美国全球霸主的基础。 如果这些努力取得成功，美国将不再能够维持贸易和国际收支赤字，从而维持其目前的生活水平和作为地球上最强大社会的地位。

华盛顿利用政治和经济压力迫使其他国家遵守其反俄反华政策，显然适得其反。 它甚至鼓励美国的前附庸国寻找方法，避免卷入他们不支持的未来美国冲突和代理人战争，就像乌克兰那样。 为此，他们正在放弃对美国的完全依赖，并与多个经济和政治军事伙伴建立联系。 美国的胁迫外交非但没有孤立俄罗斯或中国，反而帮助莫斯科和北京加强了在非洲、亚洲和拉丁美洲的关系，从而削弱了美国的影响力，有利于他们自己。

总结一下：

简而言之，美国的政策给乌克兰带来了巨大苦难，并导致这里和欧洲的国防预算不断增加，但未能削弱或孤立俄罗斯。 更多同样的做法将无法实现美国经常声明的任何一个目标。 俄罗斯接受了如何对抗美国武器系统的教育，并开发出了有效的对抗手段。 它的军事力量得到了加强，而不是削弱。 它已经重新定位并摆脱了西方的影响，而不是孤立的。

如果战争的目的是建立更好的和平，那么这场战争并没有达到这个目的。 乌克兰正在仇俄症的祭坛上被肢解。 目前，没有人能够自信地预测当战斗停止或何时以及如何停止战斗时，乌克兰将剩下多少领土或多少乌克兰人。 基辅只是未能实现其招募目标的一小部分。 与俄罗斯作战直到最后一个乌克兰人一直是一个令人厌恶的策略。 但当北约即将耗尽乌克兰人时，他们不仅愤世嫉俗，而且还感到愤世嫉俗。 它不再是一个可行的选择。

乌克兰战争的教训

我们可以从这次灾难中学到什么？ 它对治国之道的基本原则提出了许多不受欢迎的提醒。

战争并不能决定谁是对的。 他们决定剩下谁。
避免战争的最好方法是减少或消除引起战争的忧虑和不满。
当你拒绝听取受害方要求调整你的政策的诉求时，更不用说解决它了，你就面临着遭受暴力反应的风险。

如果没有现实的目标、实现这些目标的战略以及结束战争的计划，任何人都不应参加战争。

自以为是和勇敢并不能替代军事力量、火力和耐力。最终，战争的胜负取决于战场，而不是靠一厢情愿的宣传来实现。在战场上失去的东西很少能够在谈判桌上挽回。当战争无法获胜时，通常最好寻求结束战争的条件，而不是加剧战略失败。

现在是优先考虑尽可能多地拯救乌克兰的时候了。 这场战争对它来说已经变得生死存亡。 乌克兰需要外交支持才能与俄罗斯实现和平，否则乌克兰的军事牺牲不会白费。 它正在被摧毁。 它必须被重建。 保护乌克兰的关键是赋予基辅权力并支持基辅以最好的条件结束战争，促进难民返回，并利用加入欧盟的进程推进自由主义改革并在中立的乌克兰建立廉洁政府 。

不幸的是，就目前情况而言，莫斯科和华盛顿似乎都决心坚持对乌克兰的持续破坏。 但无论战争结果如何，基辅和莫斯科最终都必须找到共存的基础。 华盛顿需要支持基辅挑战俄罗斯，让其认识到尊重乌克兰中立和领土完整的智慧和必要性。

最后，这场战争应该引发莫斯科和北约对无外交、军事化外交政策后果的清醒反思。 如果美国同意与莫斯科对话，即使美国继续拒绝莫斯科的大部分要求，俄罗斯也不会像现在这样入侵乌克兰。 如果西方没有干预

为了阻止乌克兰批准该条约，其他人在战争开始时帮助它与俄罗斯达成一致，乌克兰现在将完好无损并处于和平状态。

这场战争没有必要发生。 各方所失去的远多于所获得的。 从乌克兰境内和乌克兰发生的事情中可以学到很多东西。 这些教训我们应该认真学习、吸取教训。

[1] 将军和海军上将.

[2] 乌克兰尽管不是北约成员国，但仍向这次北约行动派遣了部队。

[3] 据报道，截至2014年，美国政府各机构已累计承诺提供总计50亿美元或更多的政治补贴和教育资金，以支持乌克兰政权更迭。

[4] 在美国和北约决定援助乌克兰打击俄罗斯支持的分裂分子之前，这些民兵通常被西方媒体视为新纳粹分子。 他们自称是斯捷潘·班德拉（Stepan Bandera）的追随者，后者现已被基辅视为受人尊敬的国家人物。 班德拉因其极端的乌克兰民族主义、法西斯主义、反犹太主义、仇外心理和暴力而闻名。 据称，他和他的追随者屠杀了 50,000 至 100,000 名波兰人，并与纳粹勾结谋杀了更多的犹太人。 美国/北约代理人战争爆发后，尽管他们的制服上继续展示纳粹标志和标志，并与其他国家的新纳粹组织有联系，但西方媒体不再将这些民兵定性为新纳粹分子。

[5] 俄罗斯发起的“特别军事行动”与这场信息战中提出的具体预测几乎没有什么相似之处，信息战的目的似乎是为了团结对乌克兰的支持并提高其士气，同时也是为了威慑俄罗斯。

The Many Lessons of the Ukraine War

https://chasfreeman.net/the-many-lessons-of-the-ukraine-war/

Chas Freeman 2023-09-26 

The Many Lessons of the Ukraine War
Remarks to the East Bay Citizens for Peace

Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.)
Visiting Scholar, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University
The Barrington Library, Barrington, Rhode Island, 26 September 2023

I want to speak to you tonight about Ukraine – what has happened to it and why, how it is likely to emerge from the ordeal to which great power rivalry has subjected it; and what we can learn from this.  I do so with some trepidation and a warning to this audience.  My talk, like the conflict in Ukraine, is a long and complicated one.  It contradicts propaganda that has been very convincing.  My talk will offend anyone committed to the official narrative.  The way the American media have dealt with the Ukraine war brings to mind a comment by Mark Twain: “The researches of many commentators have already thrown much darkness on this subject, and it is probable that, if they continue, we shall soon know nothing at all about it.”

It is said that, in war, truth is the first casualty.  War is typically accompanied by a fog of official lies.  No such fog has ever been as thick as in the Ukraine war.  While many hundreds of thousands of people have fought and died in Ukraine, the propaganda machines in Brussels, Kyiv, London, Moscow, and Washington have worked overtime to ensure that we take passionate sides, believe what we want to believe, and condemn anyone who questions the narrative we have internalized.  No one not on the front lines has any real idea of what has been happening in this war.  What we know is only what our governments and other supporters of the war want us to know.  And they have developed the bad habit of inhaling their own propaganda, which guarantees delusional policies.

Every government that is a party to the Ukraine War – Kyiv, Moscow, Washington, and other NATO capitals – has been guilty of various degrees of self-deception and blundering misfeasance.  The consequences for all have been dire.  For Ukraine, they have been catastrophic.  A radical rethinking of policy by all concerned is long overdue.

Whence and Whither NATO?

First, some necessary background.  NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) came into being to defend the European countries within the post-World War II American sphere of influence against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and its satellite nations.  NATO’s area of responsibility was the territory of its members in North America and Western Europe, but nowhere beyond that.  The alliance helped maintain a balance of power and keep the peace in Europe during the four-plus decades of the Cold War.  In 1991, however, the USSR dissolved, and the Cold War ended.  That eliminated any credible threat to NATO members’ territory and raised this issue: if NATO was still the answer to something, what was the question?

The U.S. armed forces had no problem responding to that conundrum.  They had compelling vested interests in the preservation of NATO.

• NATO had created and sustained a post-World War II European role and presence for the U.S. military,
• This justified a much larger U.S. force structure and many more highly desirable billets for flag officers[1] than would otherwise exist,
• NATO enhanced the international stature of the American armed forces while fostering a unique U.S. competence in multinational alliance and coalition management, and
• It offered tours of duty in Europe that made peacetime military service more attractive to U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines.

Then, too, the 20th century had appeared to underscore that U.S. security was inseparable from that of other north Atlantic countries.  The existence of European empires ensured that wars among the great powers of Europe – the Napoleonic wars, World War I and World War II – soon morphed into world wars.  NATO was how the United States dominated and managed the Euro-Atlantic region in the Cold War.  Disbanding NATO or a U.S. withdrawal from it would, arguably, just free Europeans to renew their quarreling and start yet another war that might not be confined to Europe.

So, NATO had to be kept in business.  The obvious way to accomplish that was to find a new, non-European role for the organization.  NATO, it came to be said, had to go “out of area or out of business.”  In other words, the alliance had to be repurposed to project military power beyond the territories of its Western European and North American member states.

In 1998, NATO went to war with Serbia, bombing it in 1999 to detach Kosovo from it.  In 2001, in response to the ‘9/11’ terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, it joined the U.S. in occupying and attempting to pacify Afghanistan.[2]  In 2011, NATO fielded forces to engineer regime change in Libya.

The Coup in Kyiv, Crimea, and the Rebellion of Russian Speaking Ukrainians

In 2014, after a well-prepared[3] US-sponsored anti-Russian coup in Kyiv, Ukrainian ultranationalists banned the official use of Russian and other minority languages in their country and, at the same time, affirmed Ukraine’s intention to become part of NATO.  Among other consequences, Ukrainian membership in NATO would place Russia’s 250-year-old naval base in the Crimean city of Sebastopol under NATO and hence U.S. control.  Crimea was Russian-speaking and had several times voted not to be part of Ukraine.  So, citing the precedent of NATO’S violent intervention to separate Kosovo from Serbia, Russia organized a referendum in Crimea that endorsed its reincorporation in the Russian Federation.  The results were consistent with previous votes on the issue.

Meanwhile, in response to Ukraine’s banning of the use of Russian in government offices and education, predominantly Russian-speaking areas in the country’s Donbas region attempted to secede.  Kyiv sent forces to suppress the rebellion.  Moscow responded by backing Ukrainian Russian speakers’ demands for the minority rights guaranteed to them by both the pre-coup Ukrainian constitution and the principles of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).  NATO backed Kyiv against Moscow.  An escalating civil war among Ukrainians ensued.  This soon evolved into an intensifying proxy war in Ukraine between the United States, NATO, and Russia.

Negotiations at Minsk, mediated by the OSCE with French and German support, brokered agreement between Kyiv and Moscow on a package of measures, including:

• a ceasefire,
• the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line,
• the release of prisoners of war,
• constitutional reform in Ukraine granting self-government to certain areas of Donbas, and
• the restoration of Kyiv’s control of the rebel areas’ borders with Russia.

The United Nations Security Council endorsed these terms.  They represented Moscow’s acceptance that Russian-speaking provinces in Ukraine would remain part of a united but federalized Ukraine, provided they enjoyed Québec-style linguistic autonomy.  But, with U.S. support, Ukraine refused to carry out what it had agreed to.  Years later, the French and Germans admitted that their mediation efforts at Minsk had been a ruse directed at gaining time to arm Kyiv against Moscow and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (like his predecessor in office, Petro Poroshenko) confessed that he had never planned to implement the accords.

Moscow and NATO Enlargement

In 1990, in the context of German reunification, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, and Russia’s abandonment of its politico-economic sphere of influence in Central and Eastern Europe, the West had several times somewhat slyly but solemnly promised not to fill the resulting strategic vacuum by expanding NATO into it.  But as the 1990s proceeded, despite a lack of enthusiasm on the part of some other NATO members, the United States insisted on doing just that.  NATO enlargement steadily erased the Eastern European cordon sanitaire of independent neutral states that successive governments in Moscow had considered essential to Russian security.  As former members of the Warsaw Pact entered NATO, U.S. weaponry, troops, and bases appeared on their territory.  In 2008, in a final move to extend the U.S. sphere of influence to Russia’s borders, Washington persuaded NATO to declare its intention to admit both Ukraine and Georgia as members.

The eastward deployment of U.S. forces placed ballistic missile defense launchers in both Romania and Poland.  These were technically capable of rapid reconfiguration to mount short-range strikes on Moscow.  Their deployment fueled Russian fears of a decapitating U.S. surprise attack.  If Ukraine entered NATO and the U.S. made comparable deployments there, Russia would have only about five minutes’ warning of a strike on Moscow.  NATO’s role in detaching Kosovo from Serbia and in U.S. regime-change and pacification operations in Afghanistan and Libya as well as its support of anti-Russian forces in Ukraine, had convinced Moscow that it could no longer dismiss NATO as a purely defensive alliance.

As early as 1994, successive Russian governments began to warn the U.S. and NATO that continued NATO expansion – especially to Ukraine and Georgia – would compel a forceful response.  Washington was aware of Russian determination to do this from multiple sources, including reports from its ambassadors in Moscow.  In February 2007. Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, declared: “I think it is obvious that NATO expansion … represents a serious provocation …  And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact?”  On February 1, 2008, Ambassador Bill Burns, now the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), warned in a telegram from Moscow that, on this subject Russians were united and serious.  Burns felt so strongly about the consequences of NATO expansion into Ukraine that he gave his cable the subject line, “Nyet Means Nyet” [“No means no.”]

In April 2008, NATO nonetheless invited both Ukraine and Georgia to join it.  Moscow protested that their “membership in the alliance is a huge strategic mistake which would have most serious consequences for pan-European security.”  By August 2008, as if to underscore this point, when an emboldened Georgia sought to extend its rule to rebellious minority regions on the Russian border, Moscow went to war to consolidate their independence.

Civil and Proxy War in Ukraine

Less than a day after of the US-engineered coup that installed an anti-Russian regime in Kyiv in 2014, Washington formally recognized the new regime.  When Russia then annexed Crimea and civil war broke out with Ukraine’s Russian speakers, the United States sided with and armed the Ukrainian ultranationalists whose policies had alienated Crimea and provoked the Russian-speaking secessionists.  The United States and NATO began a multi-billion-dollar effort to reorganize, retrain, and re-equip Kyiv’s armed forces.  The avowed purpose was to enable Kyiv to reconquer the Donbas and eventually Crimea.  Ukraine’s regular army was then decrepit.  Kyiv’s initial attacks on Russian speakers in the Ukrainian eastern and southern regions were largely conducted by ultranationalist militias.[4]  By 2015, Russian soldiers were fighting alongside the Donbas rebels.  An undeclared US/NATO proxy war with Russia had begun.

Over the course of the next eight years – during which the Ukrainian civil war continued – Kyiv built a NATO-trained army of 700,000 – not counting one million reserves – and hardened it in battle with Russian-supported separatists.  Ukrainian regulars numbered only slightly less than Russia’s then 830,000 active-duty military personnel.  In eight years, Ukraine had acquired a larger force than any NATO member other than the United States or Türkiye, outnumbering the armed forces of Britain, France, and Germany combined. Not surprisingly, Russia saw this as a threat.

Meanwhile, as tensions with Russia escalated, in early 2019 the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty, which had barred ground-launched missiles with ranges of up to 3,420 miles from deployment in Europe.  Russia condemned this as a “destructive” act that would stoke security risks.  Despite ongoing misgivings on the part of some other NATO members, at American insistence, NATO continued periodically to reiterate its offer to incorporate Ukraine as a member, doing so once more on September 1, 2021.  By that time, after billions of dollars of U.S. training and arms transfers, Kyiv judged it was finally ready to crush its Russian speakers’ rebellion and their Russian allies.  As 2021 ended, Ukraine stepped up pressure on the Donbas separatists and deployed forces to mount a major offensive against them timed for early 2022.

Moscow Demands Negotiations

At about the same time, in mid-December 2021, twenty-eight years after Moscow’s first warning to Washington, Vladimir Putin issued a formal demand for written security guarantees to reduce the apparent threats to Russia from NATO enlargement by restoring Ukrainian neutrality, banning the stationing of U.S. forces on Russia’s borders, and reinstating limits on the deployment of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles in Europe.  The Russian foreign ministry then presented a draft treaty to Washington incorporating these terms – which echoed similar demands put forward by former Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1997.  At the same time, apparently both to underscore Moscow’s seriousness and to counter Kyiv’s planned offensive against the Donbas secessionists, Russia massed troops along its borders with Ukraine.

On January 26, 2022, the U.S. formally responded that neither it nor NATO would agree to negotiate Ukrainian neutrality or other such issues with Russia.  A few days later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov laid out his understanding of the American and NATO positions at a meeting of Russia’s Security Council as follows:

“[Our] Western colleagues are not prepared to take up our major proposals, primarily those on NATO’s eastward non-expansion. This demand was rejected with reference to the bloc’s so-called open-door policy and the freedom of each state to choose its own way of ensuring security. Neither the United States, nor [NATO] … proposed an alternative to this key provision.”

Moscow wanted negotiations but, in their absence, was prepared to go to war to remove the threats to which it objected.  Washington knew this when it rejected talks with Moscow.  The American refusal to talk was an unambiguous decision to accept the risk of war rather than explore any compromise or accommodation with Russia.  U.S. and allied intelligence services immediately began releasing information purporting to describe impending Russian military operations[5] in what they described as an attempt to deter them.

Russia Invades Ukraine

In mid-February, fighting between Ukrainian army and secessionist forces in Donbas intensified, with OSCE observers reporting a rapid rise in ceasefire violations by both sides but with most allegedly initiated by Kyiv.  Perhaps disingenuously, the Donbas secessionists appealed to Moscow to protect them and ordered a general evacuation of civilians to safe havens in Russia.  On February 21, Russian President Putin recognized the independence of the two Donbas “people’s republics” and ordered Russian forces to secure them against Ukrainian attacks.

On February 24, 2022, in an address to the Russian nation, Putin declared that “Russia cannot feel safe, develop, and exist with a constant threat emanating from the territory of modern Ukraine” and announced that he had ordered what he called a “special military operation” “to protect people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide . . . for the last eight years” and to “strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.”  He added that:

“It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is approaching our very border.”

The official narrative put forward in U.S. and NATO information warfare against Russia contradicts every element of this statement by President Putin, but the record affirms it.

The Run-up to the U.S.-Russian Proxy War in Ukraine

In the post-Soviet era:

• NATO – the U.S. sphere of influence and military presence in Europe – constantly expanded toward Russia’s borders despite escalating Russian warnings and protests.
• By contrast, Moscow was in constant retreat. It had abandoned its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.  It made no effort to reestablish it.
• Moscow repeatedly warned that NATO enlargement and U.S. forward deployment of forces that might threaten it, especially from Ukraine, were a grave threat to it to which it would feel compelled to react.
• Given NATO’s transformation from a purely defensive, Europe-focused alliance into an instrument for power projection in support of U.S. regime-change and other military operations beyond its members’ borders, Moscow had a reasonable basis for concern that Ukrainian membership in NATO would pose an active threat to its security. This threat was underscored by U.S. withdrawal from the treaty that had prevented it from stationing intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe, including in Ukraine.
• Moscow consistently demanded neutrality for Ukraine. Neutrality would make Ukraine both a buffer and bridge between itself and the rest of Europe, rather than part of Russia or a platform for Russian power projection against the rest of Europe.
• By contrast, the United States sought to make Ukraine a member of NATO – part of its sphere of influence – and a platform for the deployment of U.S. military power against Russia.
• Moscow agreed at Minsk to respect continued Ukrainian sovereignty in the Donbas region, provided the rights of Russian speakers there were guaranteed. But, with support from the U.S. and NATO, Ukraine declined to implement the Minsk agreement and redoubled its effort to subjugate the Donbas.
• When Washington refused to hear the Russian case for mutual accommodation in Europe and instead insisted on Ukrainian membership in NATO, the U.S. government knew that this would produce a Russian military response. In fact, Washington publicly predicted this.
• Early in the resulting war, when third-party mediation achieved a draft peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, the West – represented by the British – insisted that Ukraine repudiate it.

This sad incident brings me to the war aims of the participants in the war.

War Aims in Ukraine

Kyiv has not wavered from its objectives of:

• Forging a purely Ukrainian national identity from which Russian and other languages, cultures, and religious authorities are excluded.
• Subjugating the Russian speakers who rebelled in response to this attempt at their forced assimilation.
• Obtaining U.S. and NATO protection and integrating with the EU.
• Reconquering the Russian-speaking territories Moscow has illegally annexed from Ukraine, including both the Donbas oblasts and Crimea.

Moscow clearly stated its maximum and minimum objectives in the draft treaty that it presented to Washington on December 17, 2021.  Core Russian interests have been and remain:

• (1) to deny Ukraine to the American sphere of influence that has engulfed the rest of Eastern Europe by compelling Ukraine to affirm neutrality between the United States / NATO and Russia, and
• (2) to protect and ensure the basic rights of Russian speakers in Ukraine.

Washington’s objectives – which NATO has dutifully adopted as its own – have been much more open-ended and unspecific.  As National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan put it in June 2022,

“We have . . .  refrained from laying out what we see as an endgame. . .. We have been focused on what we can do today, tomorrow, next week to strengthen the Ukrainians’ hand to the maximum extent possible, first on the battlefield and then ultimately at the negotiating table.”

Inasmuch as the first principle of warfare is to establish realistic objectives, a strategy to achieve them, and a plan for war termination, this is a perfect description of how to brew up a “forever war.”  As Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria, and Yemen attest, this has become the established American way of war.  No clear objectives, no plan to achieve them, and no concept of how to end the war, on what terms, and with whom.

The most cogent statement of U.S. objectives in this war was offered by President Biden as it began.  He said his goal with Russia was to “sap its economic strength and weaken its military for years to come” – whatever it takes.  At no point has the United States government or NATO declared that the protection of Ukraine or Ukrainians, as opposed to exploiting their bravery to take down Russia, is the central American objective.  In April 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reiterated that U.S. aid to Ukraine was intended to weaken and isolate Russia and thereby deprive it of any credible capacity to make war in future.  Quite a few American politicians and pundits have extolled the benefits to having Ukrainians rather than Americans sacrifice their lives for this purpose.  Some have gone farther and advocated the breakup of the Russian Federation as a war aim.  If you are Russian, you don’t have to be paranoid to see such threats as existential.  Russian President Putin assesses U.S. war aims as directed at humbling the Russian Federation strategically and, if possible, overthrowing its government, and dismembering it.[6]  The United States has not disputed this assessment.

Peace Set Aside

In mid-March 2022, the government of Turkey and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett mediated between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, who tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement.  The agreement provided that Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.  A meeting between Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky was in the process of being arranged to finalize this agreement, which the negotiators had initialed ad referendum – meaning subject to the approval of their superiors.

On March 28, 2022. President Zelensky publicly affirmed that Ukraine was ready for neutrality combined with security guarantees as part of a peace agreement with Russia.  But on April 9 British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a surprise visit to Kyiv.  During this visit, he reportedly urged Zelensky not to meet Putin because (1) Putin was a war criminal and weaker than he seemed.  He should and could be crushed rather than accommodated; and (2) even if Ukraine was ready to end the war, NATO was not.

Zelensky’s proposed meeting with Putin was then called off.  Putin declared that talks with Ukraine had come to a dead end.  Zelensky explained that “Moscow would like to have one treaty that would resolve all the issues. However, not everyone sees themselves at the table with Russia. For them, security guarantees for Ukraine is one issue, and the agreement with the Russian Federation is another issue.”  This marked the end of bilateral Russian-Ukrainian negotiations and thus of any prospect of a resolution of the conflict anywhere but on the battlefield.

What Happened and Who’s Winning What

This war was born in and has been continued due to miscalculations by all sides.  NATO expansion was legal but predictably provocative.  Russia’s response was entirely predictable, if illegal, and has proven very costly to it.  Ukraine’s de facto military integration into NATO has resulted in its devastation.

The United States calculated that Russian threats to go to war over Ukrainian neutrality were bluffs that might be deterred by outlining and denigrating Russian plans and intentions as Washington understood them.  Russia assumed that the United States would prefer negotiations to war and would wish to avoid the redivision of Europe into hostile blocs.  Ukrainians counted on the West protecting their country.  When Russian performance in the first months of the war proved lackluster, the West concluded that Ukraine could defeat it.  None of these calculations has proved correct.

Nevertheless, official propaganda, amplified by subservient mainstream and social media, has convinced most in the West that rejecting negotiations on NATO expansion and encouraging Ukraine to fight Russia is somehow “pro-Ukrainian.”  Sympathy for the Ukrainian war effort is entirely understandable, but, as the Vietnam War should have taught us, democracies lose when cheerleading replaces objectivity in reporting and governments prefer their own propaganda to the truth of what is happening on the battleground.

The only way you can judge the success or failure of policies is by reference to the objectives they were designed to achieve.  So, how are the participants in the Ukraine War doing in terms of achieving their objectives?

Let’s start with Ukraine.

From 2014 to 2022, the civil war in Donbas took nearly 15,000 lives.  How many have been killed in action since the US/NATO-Russian proxy war began in February 2022 is unknown but is certainly in the several hundreds of thousands.  Casualty numbers have been concealed by unprecedentedly intense information warfare.  The only information in the West about the dead and wounded has been propaganda from Kyiv claiming vast numbers of Russian dead while revealing nothing at all about Ukrainian casualties.  It is known, however, that ten percent of Ukrainians are now involved with the armed forces and 78 percent have relatives or friends who have been killed or wounded.  An estimated 50,000 Ukrainians are now amputees.  (By comparison, only 41,000 Britons had to have amputations in World War I, when the procedure was often the only one available to prevent death.  Fewer than 2,000 U.S. veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions had amputations.)  Most observers believe that Ukrainian forces have taken much heavier losses than their Russian enemies and that hundreds of thousands of them have given their lives in their country’s defense and efforts to retake territory occupied by the Russians.

When the war began, Ukraine had a population of about thirty-one million.  The country has since lost at least one-third of its people.  Over six million have taken refuge in the West.  Two million more have left for Russia. Another eight million Ukrainians have been driven from their homes but remain in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s infrastructure, industries, and cities have been devastated and its economy destroyed.  As is usual in wars, corruption – long a prominent feature of Ukrainian politics – has been rampant.  Ukraine’s nascent democracy is no more, with all opposition parties, uncontrolled media outlets, and dissent outlawed.

On the other hand, Russian aggression has united Ukrainians, including many who are Russian speaking, to an extent never seen before.  Moscow has thereby inadvertently reinforced the separate Ukrainian identity that both Russian mythology and President Putin have sought to deny.  What Ukraine has lost in territory it has gained in patriotic cohesion based on passionate opposition to Moscow.

The flip side of this is that Ukraine’s Russian-speaking separatists have also had their Russian identity reinforced.  Ukrainian refugees in Russia are the hardest of hardliners demanding retribution from Kyiv.  There is now little to no possibility of Russian speakers accepting a status in a united Ukraine, as would have been the case under the Minsk Accords.  And, with the failure of Ukraine’s “counteroffensive,” it is very unlikely that Donbas or Crimea will ever return to Ukrainian sovereignty.   As the war continues, Ukraine may well lose still more territory, including its access to the Black Sea.  What has been lost on the battlefield and in the hearts of the people cannot be regained at the negotiating table.  Ukraine will emerge from this war maimed, crippled, and much reduced in both territory and population.

Finally, there is now no realistic prospect of Ukrainian membership in NATO.  As NSC Advisor Sullivan has said, “everyone needs to look squarely at the fact” that allowing Ukraine to join NATO at this point “means war with Russia.”  NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has stated that the prerequisite for Ukrainian membership in NATO is a peace treaty between it and Russia.  No such treaty is anywhere in sight.  In continuing to insist that Ukraine will become a NATO member once the war is concluded, the West has perversely incentivized Russia not to agree to end the war.  But, in the end, Ukraine will have to make its peace with Russia, almost certainly largely on Russian terms.

Whatever else the war may be achieving, it has not been good for Ukraine.  Ukraine’s bargaining position vis-à-vis Russia has been greatly weakened.  But then, Kyiv’s fate has always been an afterthought in U.S. policy circles.  Washington has instead sought to exploit Ukrainian courage to thrash Russia, reinvigorate NATO, and reinforce U.S. primacy in Europe.  And it has not spent any time at all thinking about how to restore peace to Europe.

How about Russia?

Has it succeeded in expelling American influence from Ukraine, forced Kyiv to declare neutrality, or reinstating the rights of Russian speakers in Ukraine?  Clearly not.

For now, at least, Ukraine has become a complete dependency of the United States and its NATO allies.  Kyiv is an embittered, long-term antagonist of Moscow.  Kyiv clings to its ambition to join NATO.  Russians in Ukraine are the targets of the local version of cancel culture.  Whatever the outcome of the war, mutual animosity has erased the Russian myth of Russian-Ukrainian brotherhood based on a common origin in Kievan Rus.  Russia has had to abandon three centuries of efforts to identify with Europe and instead pivot to China, India, the Islamic world, and Africa.  Reconciliation with a seriously alienated European Union will not come easily, if at all.  Russia may not have lost on the battlefield or been weakened or strategically isolated, but it has incurred huge opportunity costs.

Then, too, NATO has expanded to include Finland and Sweden.  This does not change the military balance in Europe.  Western portrayal of Russia as inherently predatory notwithstanding, Moscow has had neither the desire nor the capability to attack either of these two formerly very Western-aligned and formidably armed but nominally “neutral” states.  Nor does either Finland or Sweden have any intention of joining an unprovoked attack on Russia.  But their decision to join NATO is politically wounding for Moscow.

Since the West shows no willingness to accommodate Russian security concerns, if Moscow is to achieve its goals, it now has no apparent alternative to battling on.  As it does so, it is stimulating European determination to meet previously ignored NATO targets for defense spending and to acquire self-reliant military capabilities directed at countering Russia independently of those of the United States.  Poland is reemerging as a powerful hostile force on Russia’s borders.  These trends are changing the European military balance to Moscow’s long-term disadvantage.

What about the United States?

In 2022 alone the United States approved $113 billion in aid to Ukraine.  The Russian defense budget then was then less than half of that — $54 billion.  It has since roughly doubled.  Russian defense industries have been revitalized.  Some now produce more weaponry in a month than they previously did in a year.  Russia’s autarkic economy has weathered 18 months of all-out war against it from both the U.S. and the EU.  It just overtook Germany to become the fifth wealthiest economy in the world and the largest in Europe in terms of purchasing power parity.  Despite repeated Western claims that Russia was running out of ammunition and losing the war of attrition in Ukraine, it has not, while the West has.  Ukrainian bravery, which has been hugely impressive, has been no match for Russian firepower.

Meanwhile, the alleged Russian threat to the West, once a powerful argument for NATO unity, has lost credibility.  Russia’s armed forces have proven unable to conquer Ukraine, still less the rest of Europe.  But the war has taught Russia how to counter and overcome much of the most advanced weaponry of the United States and other Western countries.

Before the United States and NATO rejected negotiations, Russia was prepared to accept a neutral and federalized Ukraine.  In the opening phase of its invasion of Ukraine, Russia reaffirmed this willingness in a draft peace treaty with Ukraine which the United States and NATO blocked Kyiv from signing.  Western diplomatic intransigence has failed to persuade Moscow to accommodate Ukrainian nationalism or accept Ukraine’s inclusion in NATO and the American sphere of influence in Europe.  The proxy war seems instead to have convinced Moscow that it must gut Ukraine, keep the Ukrainian territories it has illegally annexed, and likely add more, thus ensuring that Ukraine is a dysfunctional state unable either to join NATO or to fulfill the ultranationalist, anti-Russian vision of its World War II neo-Nazi hero, Stepan Bandera.

The war has led to the superficial unity of NATO but there are obvious fissures among members.  The sanctions imposed on Russia have done heavy damage to European economies.  Without Russian energy supplies, some European industries are no longer internationally competitive.  As NATO’s recent summit at Vilnius showed, member countries differ on the desirability of admitting Ukraine.  NATO unity seems unlikely to outlast the war.  These realities help explain why most of America’s European partners want to end the war as soon as possible.

The Ukraine War has clearly put paid to the post-Soviet era in Europe, but it has not made Europe in any respect more secure.  It has not enhanced America’s international reputation or consolidated U.S. primacy.  The war has instead accelerated the emergence of a post-American multi-polar world order.  One feature of this is an anti-American axis between Russia and China.

To weaken Russia, the United States has resorted to unprecedentedly intrusive unilateral sanctions, including secondary sanctions targeting normal arms-length commercial activity that does not involve a U.S. nexus and is legal in the jurisdictions of the transacting parties.  Washington has been actively blocking trade between countries that have nothing to do with Ukraine or the war there because they won’t jump on the U.S. bandwagon.  As a result, much of the world is now engaged in pursuit of financial and supply-chain linkages that are independent of U.S. control.  This includes intensified international efforts to end dollar hegemony, which is the basis for U.S. global primacy.  Should these efforts succeed, the United States will no longer be able to run the trade and balance of payments deficits that sustain its current standard of living and status as the most powerful society on the planet.

Washington’s use of political and economic pressure to compel other countries to conform to its anti-Russian and anti-Chinese policies has clearly backfired.  It has encouraged even former U.S. client states to search for ways to avoid entanglement in future American conflicts and proxy wars they do not support, like that in Ukraine.  To this end, they are abandoning exclusive reliance on the United States and forging ties to multiple economic and politico-military partners.  Far from isolating Russia or China, America’s coercive diplomacy has helped both Moscow and Beijing to enhance relationships in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that reduce U.S. influence in favor of their own.

To summarize:

In short, U.S. policy has resulted in great suffering in Ukraine and escalating defense budgets here and in Europe but has failed to weaken or isolate Russia.  More of the same will not accomplish either of these oft-stated American objectives.  Russia has been educated in how to combat American weapons systems and has developed effective counters to them.  It has been militarily strengthened, not weakened.  It has been reoriented and freed from Western influence, not isolated.

If the purpose of war is to establish a better peace, this war is not doing that.  Ukraine is being eviscerated on the altar of Russophobia.  At this point, no one can confidently predict how much of Ukraine or how many Ukrainians will be left when the fighting stops or when and how to stop it.  Kyiv just failed to meet more than a fraction  of its recruitment goals.  Combating Russia to the last Ukrainian was always an odious strategy.  But when NATO is about to run out of Ukrainians, it is not just cynical; it is no longer a viable option.

Lessons to be Learned from the Ukraine War

What can we learn from this debacle?  It has provided many unwelcome reminders of the basic principles of statecraft.

• Wars do not decide who is right. They determine who is left.
• The best way to avoid war is to reduce or eliminate the apprehensions and grievances that cause it.
• When you refuse to hear, let alone address an aggrieved party’s case for adjustments in your policies toward it, you risk a violent reaction from it.
• No one should enter a war without realistic objectives, a strategy to achieve them, and a plan for war termination.
• Self-righteousness and bravery are no substitutes for military mass, firepower, and stamina.
• In the end, wars are won and lost on the battlefield, not with propaganda inspired by and directed at reinforcing wishful thinking.
• What has been lost on the battlefield can seldom, if ever, be recovered at the negotiating table.
• When wars cannot be won, it is usually better to seek terms by which to end them than to reinforce strategic failure.

It is time to prioritize saving as much as possible of Ukraine.  This war has become existential for it.  Ukraine needs diplomatic backing to craft a peace with Russia if its military sacrifices are not to have been in vain.  It is being destroyed.  It must be rebuilt. The key to preserving Ukraine is to empower and back Kyiv to end the war on the best terms it can obtain, to facilitate the return of its refugees, and to use the EU accession process to advance liberal reforms and institute clean government in a neutral Ukraine.

Unfortunately, as things stand, both Moscow and Washington seem determined to persist in Ukraine’s ongoing destruction.  But whatever the outcome of the war, Kyiv and Moscow will eventually have to find a basis for coexistence.  Washington needs to support Kyiv in challenging Russia to recognize both the wisdom and the necessity of respect for Ukrainian neutrality and territorial integrity.

Finally, this war should provoke some sober rethinking here, in Moscow, and by NATO of the consequences of diplomacy-free, militarized foreign policy.  Had the United States agreed to talk with Moscow, even if it had continued to reject much of what Moscow demanded, Russia would not have invaded Ukraine as it did.  Had the West not intervened to prevent Ukraine from ratifying the treaty others helped it agree with Russia at the outset of the war, Ukraine would now be intact and at peace.

This war did not need to take place.  Every party to it has lost far more than it has gained.  There’s a lot to be learned from what has happened in and to Ukraine.  We should study and learn these lessons and take them to heart.

[1] Generals and admirals.

[2] Ukraine contributed troops to this NATO operation despite not being a member of the alliance.

[3] Reportedly, by 2014, various agencies of the U.S. government had committed a cumulative total of $5 billion or more to political subsidies and education in support of regime change in Ukraine.

[4] Prior to the U.S. and NATO decision to aid Ukraine against its Russian-backed separatists, these militias were commonly identified as neo-Nazi in the Western media.  They professed to be followers of Stepan Bandera – who has now been adopted as a revered national figure by Kyiv.  Bandera was famous for his extreme Ukrainian nationalism, fascism, antisemitism, xenophobia, and violence.  He and his followers were allegedly responsible for massacring 50,000 – 100,000 Poles and for collaborating with the Nazis in the murder of an even larger number of Jews.  After the US/NATO proxy war broke out, despite their continuing display of Nazi regalia and symbols on their uniforms and their ties to neo-Nazi groups in other countries, Western media ceased to characterize these militias as neo-Nazis.

[5] The “special military operation’ mounted by Russia bore little resemblance to the specific predictions put forward in this information warfare, which appears have been designed as much to rally support for Ukraine and boost its morale as to deter Russia.

[6] See, e.g., https://jamestown.org/event/watch-the-video-preparing-for-the-dissolution-of-the-russian-federation/

Ambassador Freeman chairs Projects International, Inc. He is a retired U.S. defense official, diplomat, and interpreter, the recipient of numerous high honors and awards, a popular public speaker, and the author of five books.