“Senator Cruz, like you I am and I think the administration is very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.” – Victoria Nuland
Victoria Nuland testifying at Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing January 26, 2023 (Image: C-Span/Black Agenda Report)
Victoria Nuland is Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. The mouthful of a title doesn’t begin to describe what she actually does on behalf of the U.S. Perhaps Under Secretary for Destabilizing the World would be more accurate. Nuland is one of those persons who is always in the revolving door of foreign policy, destined to return when an election puts her clique back in office. She may be best known for passing out cookies to the mobs in Kiev’s Maidan Square when they overthrew the elected Ukrainian president in 2014. It was clear that the Obama administration had a hand in the coup, but Nuland disabused anyone of doubt when she gabbed on an unsecured phone and discussed who the next president of Ukraine ought to be. In declaring Ukraine’s new reality as a de facto U.S. colony she famously or rather infamously said,
Fu*k the EU!
Of course she is back with the Biden administration and is the leader of the proxy war against Russia that is taking place in Ukraine. Her most recent infamous remark about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline which would have carried natural gas to Germany, should be seen as an admission of guilt. The September 26, 2022 explosion remains mysterious but only because U.S. vassals like Sweden have not made their investigation findings public. Nuland also said of Nord Stream in January 2022, “We will work with Germany to ensure it does not move forward.” The U.S. is the prime suspect yet again.
Nuland’s bravado is yet another sign of the mess that the Biden administration made for itself in instigating the conflict with Russia. Nothing has gone according to its plans. Biden said that sanctions would, “Turn the ruble to rubble.” Russia has survived relatively unscathed and the only people suffering from U.S. interference are the EU nations who are supposed to be allies but who are in fact underlings who will never step out of line, even in favor of their own interests.
After nearly a year of conflict, European nations have literally given their all militarily, with very little left in the way of materiel to provide to Ukraine. They have given up cheap Russian natural gas and now purchase U.S. liquified natural gas, which costs more and creates more environmental damage. Now even the Rand Corporation, which is funded by the military industrial complex and fossil fuel companies, and pushed for war with Russia in 2019 , is waving red flags about the overreach. In an article entitled Avoiding a Long War , Rand concludes, “In short, the consequences of a long war—ranging from persistent elevated escalation risks to economic damage—far outweigh the possible benefits.” Rand is no peacemaker, believing that challenging China should be the focus and not the Ukraine stalemate. Warnings from a friendly party show that the best laid plans for hegemonic regime change have gone wrong once again.
The U.S. has pumped more than $113 billion into Ukraine, that is to say into the hands of the defense contractors who run Washington. Russian forces continue to advance, and the Ukrainian people who everyone claims to want to help are suffering, as middle aged men are dragooned from their homes , trained for a few weeks, and then sent to the front lines where they face death from well armed Russian forces.
Now tanks are on everyone’s lips, from Leopards in Germany to Abrams in the U.S. Tanks require manpower, highly trained manpower who need months to learn how to use this complicated equipment. Ukraine has neither enough men nor time necessary to make tanks useful to them in battle. Of course, Russia also has tanks and soldiers who already know how to use them. The latest alleged game changer won’t amount to much in the way of assistance for the beatified Ukrainians.
Victoria Nuland and her boss Antony Blinken and his boss Joe Biden are caught in a bind of their own making. They really believed they could wreck Russia’s economy, or get Vladimir Putin out of office, or break that country up into smaller parts ripe for the picking. But fantasy foreign policy is just that. The only thing that makes sense is to talk to the target nation directly. Yet if the past is any indication of future behavior they will probably do something reckless instead.
The Nord Stream explosion points to the danger that the U.S. poses to the whole world. The sabotage was an act of desperation as they sought to make sure that their lap dogs didn’t get any big ideas about acting independently, and so they escalated. In the process they create more dangers to Europe and to the whole world as they amateurishly play a game of chicken with another nuclear power.
Ukraine is losing, dependent upon an unending supply of money from Washington, and suffering after many casualties. President Zelensky will do what Washington tells him and the Biden administration is the wildcard. If they would blow up Nord Stream they would do something else equally foolish and they have plenty of company.
Having had Ukraine blow up in their faces they have turned their attention to China. An Air Force general wrote a memo predicting war by 2025, and exhorted his subordinates to “fire a clip into a 7-meter target with the full understanding that unrepentant lethality matters most. Aim for the head.” Members of congress are still provoking China with visits to Taiwan. The goal is the same as the failed policy in Ukraine. Provoke some sort of incident and then sanction China, or come up with a rationale to sanction China without an incident. The Biden administration turns the old saying on its head.
If at first you don’t succeed, fail, fail again.
Of course the people lose. They have lost $113 billion while their needs go unmet. But a state that is devoted to creating a proxy war with a nuclear power has no interest in helping its people anyway. Humanity is a hindrance to their grand schemes. They see the welfare state as something to be subverted.
The NATO Secretary General said without any irony, “Weapons are in fact the way to peace.” Of course, only peace is the way to peace. Wars can end with negotiation, but peace is antithetical to their grand plans. Ukraine is not working out the way they hoped. But any change in course is not on their agenda.
They see forever wars as success, or baiting Russia and China as success, regardless of the outcome of their actions. They don’t see the world the way sane people do. They have made the Ukraine conflict an existential crisis, and then decide they have no choice but to engage in dangerous actions. The world is a zero-sum game to them. If Russia and China are independent actors, they believe they lose. The idea of peaceful coexistence is anathema to Nuland, Biden, and Blinken. Blown up pipelines are seen as proof of victory to people who thought they could make dangerous and irrational obsessions come true.