RUSSIA DELENDA: COMMENTARIES ON THE RUSSO-UKRAINIAN WAR (3)
After the decline of the former Soviet Union, USA became the last superpower standing. The old Truman Doctrine (which we examined in the previous article) became obsolete: there was no Soviet Union to contain anymore. A new shift in USA foreign policy took place under the H. W. Bush administration, although its final form was definitely shaped under Cheney's administration (I mean... Bush's). We are talking about the Wolfowitz Doctrine (Paul Wolfowitz was Under Secretary of Defense Policy under H. W. Bush), also known as Bush Doctrine. The core of this doctrine was prevention: USA was to prevent any other country from becoming a superpower. USA would thus remain the uncontested, unchallenged and ultime power in the world, and would invest any means necessary to keep this status. This meant that countries such as Russia would have to be "checked", and NATO expansion was partially the result of that willingness to control and to prevent Russia from ever re-emerging.
Before engaging in the Wolfowitz doctrine, I will explain the concept of "inititive", a concept that both chess players and strategists know very well. When we make a move, let's say in chess, I either develop my pieces defensively or aggressively. When I move with the sole aim of preventing my enemy from moving and developing his/ her pieces freely, I'm using the initiative. Because by moving aggressively, the opponent cannot develop properly and must now defend his/her possition. This concept is key to understand the Wolfowitz Doctrine. Because the goal became to keep the opponents busy trying to arrange a defense rather than to actually develop freely. By cornering Russia alone and surrounding the contry with NATO allies and military bases, USA is forcing Russia to adopt a possition that, maybe it wouldn't have adopted had it the freedom. But contrary to chess, which is a most entertaining and engaging board game, in real life people die, and in real life is not mandatory to checkmate everybody. Making enemies is not the only option of diplomacy.
In the Defense Planning Guidance for the years 1994-99, this idea played a huge role. The document was leaked to the New York Times in march 1992 (you may read the article here https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/us-strategy-plan-calls-for-insuring-no-rivals-develop.html) and its core principles are easy to detect: "Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power". The role of natural resources is key: nobody in the world was to be allowed to posses enough resources as to become a superpower. The document reads: "The U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests. In non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. We must maintain the mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role." (I added the cursive)
About the Middle East, the document contained the following: "In the Middle East and Southwest Asia, our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region's oil. We also seek to deter further aggression in the region, foster regional stability, protect U.S. nationals and property, and safeguard our access to international air and seaways. As demonstrated by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, it remains fundamentally important to prevent a hegemon or alignment of powers from dominating the region. This pertains especially to the Arabian peninsula. Therefore, we must continue to play a role through enhanced deterrence and improved cooperative security." Notice that the document was produced during the G. H. Bush administration, but Clinton kept the same path despite his being a democrat. NATO expanded dramatically under his leadership, cornering Russia (I talked about this in my previous article), and he also intervened in the Middle East, sanctioning Iran and calling for regime change in Iraq, bombing the country in 1998 in operation Deser Fox. Notice that it was Clinton, not W. Bush, the first president of USA to claim that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction. Notice also that Iraq had used chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war in the 80's, as well as against its kurdish population (but nobody seemed to complain at the time about the cruelty of the regime, as R. Fisk notes in The Great War for Civilization, chap. 5, mainly because Saddam's regime was fighting Iran, a sworn enemy of the West). It was only after the invasion of Kuwait that the West condemned Saddam's tight grip on power. As I already stated in the first article of the series (following the minds of intellectuals such as Vladimir Pozner and Noam Chomsky as well) there's no difference between democrats and republicans when it comes to foreign policy --and many other things.
Putin's words in the Munich Security Conference in February 2007 (check the speech in this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ58Yv6kP44&ab_channel=RussianPerspective) were very critizied, but Putin's fears were justified: NATO expansion and the many conflicts in which USA and allies were involved (such as The Gulf War, NATO intervention in the Balkans, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan...) proved Putin's point. The very words of the Wolfowitz Doctrine themselves proved Putin's point. After 2007 the previous interest in joining NATO that Putin had displayed vanished. Putin instead arragned his own agenda. The intervention in Abkhazia and Ossetia in 2008, Russia's intervention in both Syria and Lybia, and the annexion of Crimea in 2014 and finally the current conflict in Ukraine are the result of this shift in Putin's vision. First open-minded about joining NATO, and once rejected, assuming a position that mirrors that of the Wolfowitz Doctrine. The Ukraine invasion is as wanton and whimsical as Clinton's Operation Desert Fox or Bush's Invasion of Iraq. Putin is doing nothing but mirroring NATO in his own capacity. And again I'm forced to ask why. Why NATO had the behave that way after winning the Cold War? Why spit on the face of an already defeated enemy? Why corner a country that posed no threat and was actually willing to become a friend and an ally?
I'm not saying that Putin's reaction was the right course to take, I'm just saying what any chessplayer will tell you: the only way to counteract the enemy's iniciative is to take it yourself. USA and allies have done nothing but shown no regard whatsoever for accountability for their actions. Bombing where it was profitable or strategic for them, invading where they pleased. And I'm happy to see that Saddam was toppled down, and I was happy to see afghan women being educated in Afghanistan before Joe Biden rushed his withdrawal. But those were not the real goals, were they?
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