RUSSIA DELENDA: COMMENTARIES ON THE RUSSO-UKRAINIAN WAR (1)

On February 24th 2022 Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, triggering a conflict that could have been absolutely avoidable. Both the media in the West and Russia have covered the war with one-sided narratives, making it difficult to understand the context of the conflict and the goals, mindsets and conceptions that have shaped the conflict we are witnessing now. My aim with these articles is to create an historical and conceptual context that, hopefully, will make possible a better judgement of the invasion. This doesn't mean that I agree with Putin's strategy, or that I find the war "justified", not at all: I stand with the victims. As previously said, this conflict was absolutely avoidable, which is precisely what makes it painful to watch: this war is outcome of bad management, poor strategic decisions and lack of political foresight (both from NATO and Russia).

picture from Die Welt

The many articles I will devote to this issue will cover several topics, although they will not cover everything due to my limited knowledge. I don't mean to have the last word upon the subject and I'm very open to the idea of criticism, which I welcome. My goal is just to point at some aspects that the media are not paying attention to. Western media has portrayed the conflict as a one sided invasion, utterly cruel and savage, that is against the sovereignty of Ukraine (all of which is, by the way, true), but the media fails to explain properly the whole history behind it, because very likely they know it would be damaging to the West (because all this is the outcome of NATO's strategy). What is really painful to see, and quite telling of how much "unwestern" have we become, is that now many people here in Europe and USA hate Russians and are boycotting russian cultural products: including russian literature. This behaviour is rather childish at best and absolutely uneuropean. Not only that, there's now a huge movement of solidarity against the ukrainian migrants that is also surprising. Public institutions both in Poland and Germany (those are the two I've experienced in my journey through Europe) are being the kindest with these war refugees. And this is great, but seems to breach the previous stance in migration policy. Europe was not so nice during the refugee crisis of 2014-2015, when many Syrians arrived in the greek coasts looking for hope, life and freedom. In fact the whole crisis triggered far-right movements all over Europe and USA that materialized in the rising of far-right-winged parties such as AfD in Germany, Vox in Spain or Rassemblement National in France. There were protests on the streets, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel was so afraid on account of this that she changed the entiry policy of accepting refugees, which ultimately caused the disaster of the many refugee camps set up in Lesbos and other issues, like the agreement with Turkey, by which the European Union was to pay huge amounts of money to the Turkish goverment led by Erdogan in order the prevent more refugees to make it to the EU. Which caused another crisis within Turkey, a country that still holds the biggest number of Syrian refugees (around 4 millions) and that has used this as laverage against the interests of the EU (sheer blackmail by any standard). But nobody seems to think about that chapter of our history now, like the whole thing never happened or was nothing but a distant memory wherefrom no lesson should be derived.

Many people has protested this in social media (I see it almost every day), and with reason. EU and USA do have double standards -- but I'm quite unhappy about how the mainstream media does not seem to be interested in bringing this thing up. Most of what makes it to the news seems to me petty gossip about who stole some russian tank (which, I recognise, it's very funny), but the whole context of the conflict and NATO's history seem to be out of the table. My plan for these articles, of which this is but the first and introductory one, is the following: that NATO has cornered Russia into an uncofortable position from which this kind of desperate decissions (like this war) are almost necessary in order to protect Russia's strategic interests, and that it has been doing so since the Cold War. This conflict, and this is my point, is but the outcome of the fall of the Soviet Union and the way NATO behaved with Russia after this event. The policy followed by USA and allies is the same as the policy of Rome after the decline of Carthage: CARTHAGO DELENDA (Carthage must be destroyed) translates as RUSSIA DELENDA (Russia must be destroyed). Just like the North African republic, Russia must be destroyed, and China must be warned not to make any moves against NATO interests. USA foreign policy has been the same regardless of whose administration was: B. Clinton, G. W. Bush, B. Obama, D. J. Trump and J. Biden have followed the same principles with little deviations (Obama and Trump both made some interesting moves though that are worth studying and that I will cover, but always within the framework of their predecessors).

I will produce evidence of the readiness of both the Soviet Union and Russian to join NATO, which would have spared us the current war. I will produce evidence of the change in foreign policy that took place in USA after the fall of the Soviet Union (quite different from the previous foreign policy, as evidenced in USA's behaviour towards Germany after WWII), and how what we now call Wolfowitz Doctrine or Chaney Doctrine shaped and still shapes NATO's policy. I will produce evidence of how Ukraine is utterly hopeless as a unified country due to the duality of its ethnic and linguistic composition, and how NATO's double standards concerning nationalism and secessionist movements damaged the peace process undertaken by the Minsk Agreements (2014 and 2015), agreements that, if adhered to, would have also spared us this bloody war.

I cannot stress enough that I DO NOT support Vladimir Putin, but I can't support NATO's policy now because the record is clear: USA means to stand in this world as the only and uncontested superpower, and this I cannot support.