Ukraine: a NATO division of labour (a)

In a preamble to yesterday’s post on the world’s first livestreamed genocide – Gaza: lies and ‘spiritual’ cant – I promised a return, later in the week, to the ultimately related matter of:

… America’s proxy war on Russia in Ukraine, in which it seeks to “freeze” the conflict at Europe’s expense – i.e. have the latter’s deeply unpopular comprador leaders cut welfare even further to ramp up “defence” spending in guns not butter style, and so free Washington to focus for the time being on ‘containing’ the China threat to US rule of the planet …

To which I appended this footnote:

I say “for the time being” because no one should be fooled into believing that Trump, who followed Obama in the provoking of Russia which Biden dutifully escalated – and more importantly a US ruling class to which all three answer – have given up on regime change in Moscow. Rather, with diminished resources on the one hand, China growing stronger by the day on the other, the idea is a division of labour whereby Europe picks up the tab not for defeating Russia – can’t be done – but for bogging her down in a ‘frozen’ conflict which, if all goes to plan, can be reheated provided China can be caged this side of WW3. We saw the dress rehearsal in Syria after Russian warplanes stymied regime change in 2015/16. That dirty war was also frozen, and US proxy “rebels” known as ISIS stood down in Idlib pending the ‘breakout’ last December. Conflict ‘freezings’ are for Washington no more than tactical and temporary.

For a quick summary of why no rational and honest person acquainted with the facts could do other than conclude that Russia was indeed provoked, with decades of malice aforethought on the part of the West, see my March 16 post, A Ukraine timeline. Meanwhile it’s time to deliver on the first part of my promise.

I’d normally desist from posting, midweek, a sixty-nine minute podcast. I try to save those for weekend viewing but here make an exception because its essence is laid out in the first fifteen minutes. It’s pretty much the argument I just set out above. The rest is detail: important detail, to be sure, and for one like me fascinating. But detail nonetheless.

In sum:

• Washington is losing its proxy war in the Ukraine.
• That doesn’t really matter other than  to those still in the killing fields, and the loved ones who want them home … to a country whose pre-2022 borders Kiev could have kept had it not been told by UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, approved if not actually instructed by Washington, to walk away from peace talks in Istanbul … to European manufacturers going under or relocating in the US as soaring energy costs render them uncompetitive …

That Team Biden was behind the egregious act of economic terrorism and ecocide in the Baltic, September 2022, is beyond serious doubt. By such means and by economically suicidal sanctions, Europe’s leaders sacrificed the interests of the peoples they nominally represent to further those of US elites.

… and to ordinary Europeans denied cheap gas for their homes, and hit by inflation even as public services cut to the bone in the name of ‘austerity’ are further cut in the name of ‘defence’. This war, like all of Washington’s forever wars, need not be won when (a) the US military industrial complex, its capture of government vastly greater than the Israel Lobby’s, laughs all the way to the bank regardless; (b) Russia may be weakened, or at least tied down in a quagmire, with not a single American coming home in a body bag.

• But while things have not gone entirely to plan, Russia having emerged stronger as a direct consequence of military and economic aggression by the West, Uncle Sam has a tried and tested fallback: offload more of the forever costs onto Europe … continue using “soft power”, up to and including those “colour revolutions” cheered on by useful idiots progressives in the West, to undermine nations friendly to Russia and/or China … and when thwarted in one square of the geopolitical chessboard, ‘freeze’ the conflict, move to another square, and aim to return tomorrow in greater strength. What happened in Syria gives us the playbook in microcosm. ¹

So there you have the argument of Brian Berletic, also made by other commentators I’ll feature in due C and, more importantly, by meticulously detailed factuality. As ever, Brian’s is an “in-their-own-words” approach. He uses Western and Ukrainian sources, crucially the remarkably candid papers produced by Pentagon and Washington funded think-tanks, to substantiate his arguments.

One last point. I said, and meant it, that the gist can be gleaned from the first fifteen minutes. But if you possibly can, do continue at least another two minutes. Between 15:02 and 17:12, and apropos European leaders betraying their countries’ interests to further Washington’s, we see something grotesque, cringeworthy and illuminating in equal measure. Don’t miss it. ²

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1. Re “those ‘colour revolutions’ cheered on by useful idiots progressives in the West”, I’m in no position to throw stones. I was one myself for way too long. It took the dirty war on Syria, and the attendant lies of all sections of our systemically corrupt media, to wake me up.
2. When Radhika Desai was asked by the host of a discussion last September why Europe’s leaders act manifestly against the interests of their citizens, she replied:

   The entire Left in most Western countries – by ‘Left’ I mean the Social Democratic Left, the Green Parties and perhaps most of the entire political establishment – is now led by individuals who have been through the US ideological factories … the think tanks, the annual meetings etc. You know, the Leaders of Tomorrow type programs for which these people go to the USA on junkets, and become part of a network of leaders with a similar understanding of what is to be done, both domestically and internationally. People like Starmer, Macron, Von der Leyen and Baerbock … they belong to these circles. So in answer to the question – why are European governments acting so manifestly contrary to the interest of their economies, their people etc? – the only reason I can find is that at the present moment the United States is in this sweet spot where the people it has groomed have taken power in major European capitals.

   This not only goes wider than Europe – witness how Canberra sabotages relations with Australia’s key trading partner, China – but includes imperialist and imperialised nations like the Philippines, a former US colony turned neo-colony whose comprador regime also betrays its people. It’s a point frequently made by Brian, many of whose podcasts focus on the need for nations to reclaim and protect their information spaces from trojans in the form of spurious NGOs and faux opposition movements.