O n March 7, 2022, two weeks after Moscow entered the civil war in Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CBS News from Moldova that the U.S. would give NATO-member Poland a “green light” to send Mig-29 fighter jets to Ukraine.
Within days the Pentagon shot down the idea. Then U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also supported the Polish planes scheme, but the Pentagon rejected it because it “could result in significant Russian reaction that might increase the prospects of a military escalation with NATO,” according to then Pentagon spokesman John Kirby.
But yesterday Blinken was applauded when he told a public policy forum at the NATO summit in Washington:
As we speak the transfer of F-16 jets is underway coming from Denmark, coming from the Netherlands and those jets will be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself against the Russian aggression.
It is not quite NATO declaring a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which was dismissed by President Joe Biden in March 2022 because “that’s called World War III, okay? Let’s get it straight here, guys. We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine.”
“President Biden’s been clear that … if you establish a no-fly zone, certainly in order to enforce that no-fly zone, you’ll have to engage Russian aircraft. And again, that would put us at war with Russia,” added Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the time.
Though not declaring a no-fly zone, these are still NATO fighter jets leaving from NATO countries to operate with Ukrainian pilots against Russian aircraft in Ukrainian airspace. More dangerously, NATO is permitting Ukraine to fly the F-16s to attack inside Russian territory.
What’s changed is that back then the White House and the Pentagon still thought the strategy of economic and information warfare plus a proxy ground war would defeat Russia in Ukraine, and ultimately bring down Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
But for more than a year now it’s been evident that the U.S.–and NATO–have lost the economic and information war, as well as the proxy fighting on the ground in Ukraine. One year into the war, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a dinner in February 2023 that he had to face facts: Ukraine would lose the war and should negotiate a settlement with Moscow.
The Wall Street Journal quoted Macron as telling Zelensky that “ even mortal enemies like France and Germany had to make peace after World War II.” Macron told Zelensky “he had been a great war leader, but that he would eventually have to shift into political statesmanship and make difficult decisions,” the newspaper reported.
[See: Western Leaders Privately Say Ukraine Can’t Win the War—CN]
The Big Lie
Hitler in Paris, 1940. (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)
U.S.-led NATO could not launch its economic, information and proxy war against Russia without cause. That cause would be Russia invading Ukraine to defend ethnic Russians in a civil war that had raged since 2014, sparked when the U.S. helped to overthrow the democratically-elected government that year.
The economic war, intended to spur Russians to overthrow their government, has failed spectacularly. The ruble did not collapse despite sanctions on the Russian central bank. Nor has the economy.
Instead an alternative economic, commercial and financial system that excludes the West has arisen with China, India and Russia in the lead, and most of Asia, Africa and Latin America taking part in what appears to be the final chapter of Western colonialism. The sanctions instead backfired on the West, especially in Europe.
The information war has failed across the world. Only the United States and Europe, which consider itself “the world,” believe their own “information.”
The proxy war is being lost on the ground, though more than $100 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine has created a bloodbath. There will either be a negotiated settlement in which Ukraine loses territory; a total Russian victory; or potentially the final war.
The U.S. pushed Russia to the brink to provoke its intervention. It began with a 30-year NATO expansion eastward with NATO exercises on Russia’s borders while calling for Ukraine to become a member, a call reiterated at the summit yesterday.
In December 2021 the West rejected Russian treaty proposals to roll back NATO troop deployments and missile installations in Eastern Europe, creating a new security architecture in Europe.
[See: Biden Confirms Why the U.S. Needed This War–Consortium News]NATO’s aim is to regain control of Russian resources and finances as the West enjoyed in the 1990s, when it asset-stripped formerly state-owned industries, enriching themselves and a new class of oligarchs while impoverishing the Russian people. Putin is now standing in their way.
Realizing it is losing, NATO has permitted Ukraine to attack Russian territory with its long-range missiles, which it had previously refused to do, and is now delivering the F-16s, which the Netherlands recklessly will allow Ukraine to fly inside Russia to strike targets there.
Accompanying these dangerous moves, putting the entire world at risk, NATO is ramping up the fantasy that Putin, like Hitler before him, is bent on conquering all of Europe, a continuation of the decades-long exaggerated Soviet threat that justified NATO’s existence to begin with.
Still desperate for direct NATO intervention, Zelensky’s hallucination at the summit was that the line of defense against Russia attacking the West lies in Ukraine. Macron has changed his tune from his dinner with Zelensky, now advocating sending French troops to the battlefield. And Biden, striving to appear lucid, made it a central theme of his address.
Faking Defense for Offense
In his speech to the summit, Biden on Tuesday couched NATO’s aggressive designs as defensive moves to counter a non-existent Russian threat to the rest of Europe. It’s similar to dressing up Israel’s genocide as “self-defence.” He said:
In Europe, Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine continues. And Putin wants nothing less–nothing less than Ukraine’s total subjugation; to end Ukraine’s democracy; to destroy Uraine’s cul-–Uraine–Ukraine’s culture; and to wipe Ukraine off the map.
And we know Putin won’t stop at Ukraine. But make no mistake, Ukraine can and will stop Putin–(applause)–especially with our full, collective support. And they have our full support.
Even before Russian bombs were falling on Ukraine, the Alliance acted. Or-–I ordered the U.S. reinforcements at NATO’s eastern flank–more troops, more aircraft, more capabilities. And now the United States has more than 100,000 troops on the continent of Europe.
NATO moved swiftly as well, not only reinforcing the four existing battle groups of the east but also adding four more in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, essentially doubling NATO’s strength on the eastern flank.”
Left to right: U.S. President Joe Biden with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at NATO summit. (NATO)
Biden ridiculed Putin recently, saying he couldn’t even take the Ukrainian province of Kharkiv and now we are supposed to believe Putin has the absurd desire and capability to take Paris and beyond.
Somebody Tell Washington the WWII Era Is Over
Until the U.S. and its Western allies accept that the World War II era is ended they will continue to lead the world towards a Third World War.
At the end of the second one, the U.S. was the only major combatant undamaged at home and left with military bases flung around the world. The U.S. stood astride a devastated globe. It was faced with a choice: make good on its rhetoric of international social progress, or fortify those bases into the nodes of a global military and economic empire. Over the decades since, the U.S. has sought to control world resources by installing the governments they need, through electoral interference, coups or invasions.
World War II was the last just American war. That is why Washington brings it up every time the U.S. is gearing for a fight. It whitewashes its true intent–which is not to spread democracy.
Before the 1989 war on Panama, Gen. Manuel Noriega was called Hitler; before the 1999 attack on Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic was compared to Hitler; as was Saddam Hussein before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As tensions rose with Russia during her presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton called Putin Hitler, leaving the impression she too was itching for war.
World War II imagery and rhetoric has been so crucial to American imperial leaders since 1945 that they can’t let go. They have little else to sell themselves with.
[See: Misusing the Sacrifices of WW II—Consortium News]They have also ritually inflated the role the U.S. played in defeating Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union’s outsized contribution to destroying the Nazis has been airbrushed out of history and U.S. allies are relegated to a supporting cast, fitting for the vassals they’ve since 1945 become.
But that era is ending. The U.S. can no longer use the Second World War to justify its aggression and demonize its enemies. Until the U.S. acknowledges it is no longer the preeminent power of the world and instead becomes a responsible international player, it will risk nuclear devastation to preserve its hubris.
NATO’s Dangerous Declaration
Left to right: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg greeting French President Emmanuel Macron (NATO)
The joint communique of the 32 NATO members reads:
We stand in unity and solidarity in the face of a brutal war of aggression on the European continent and at a critical time for our security. We reaffirm the enduring transatlantic bond between our nations. NATO remains the unique, essential, and indispensable transatlantic forum to consult, coordinate, and act on all matters related to our individual and collective security. NATO is a defensive Alliance. […]
The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) stated ambitions and coercive policies continue to challenge our interests, security and values. The deepening strategic partnership between Russia and the PRC and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut and reshape the rules-based international order, are a cause for profound concern. We are confronted by hybrid, cyber, space, and other threats and malicious activities from state and non-state actors.
Russia’s boldest red line is Ukraine joining NATO. As former C.I.A. analyst Ray McGovern wrote last week in a piece for Consortium News, Ukrainian negotiators understood this when they reached the outlines of a settlement of the war in April 2022, just weeks after it started. It was scuttled by the U.S. to keep the war going. Despite this, the NATO communicate vows to make Ukraine a member.
That is like challenging Moscow to a nuclear duel.
We fully support Ukraine’s right to choose its own security arrangements and decide its own future, free from outside interference. Ukraine’s future is in NATO. Ukraine has become increasingly interoperable and politically integrated with the Alliance. We welcome the concrete progress Ukraine has made since the Vilnius Summit on its required democratic, economic, and security reforms.
As Ukraine continues this vital work, we will continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership. We reaffirm that we will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met. The Summit decisions by NATO and the NATO-Ukraine Council, combined with Allies’ ongoing work, constitute a bridge to Ukraine’s membership in NATO.
The Mad Path to Annihilation
All this adds up to a collective madness. After innumerable wars since history began, the world is being led to perhaps its final confrontation.
At the core is NATO’s apparent belief that Putin is bluffing about using nuclear weapons to defend Russia’s sovereignty. It is simply a bluff that cannot be tested.
The only solution is the two treaties Russia offered in December 2021 and a neutral Ukraine as it was under President Viktor Yanukovych, whom the U.S. helped overthrow in 2014 in part because of it.
NATO leaders haven’t demonstrated a willingness to give up any of their collective or individual power, which is devolving rapidly into collective and individual madness.
They don’t want to lose their role in Biden “running the world.”
Even if realists in Washington prevailed over the neocons in arguing that Ukraine can’t win this war, NATO leaders proclaim they can’t afford to lose it. Not because Putin will be at the Eiffel Tower by Christmas, but because so many political careers in the West would be ruined.
From Keir Starmer to Olaf Scholz, to Giorgia Meloni, Emmanuel Macron and Joe Biden, a defeat in Ukraine would signify that they gambled their personal ambition–as well as their nations’ treasure and the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men–and lost it all.
Instead of settling, they’re willing to drag us into the existential crisis that could end it all.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
Russia says it reserves the right to hit the airfield from which the planes take off, even if it’s in a NATO country, which risks escalation to direct conflict.
So what changed since March 2022 to allow the U.S. and NATO to risk, in the previous words of Biden,