| Luxembourg Zelensky | MR Online

Luxembourg goes to war

Originally published: Internationalist 360° on July 13, 2024 by Christopher Black (more by Internationalist 360°) (Posted Jul 16, 2024)

Security Agreement-Context

Little Luxembourg has concluded a “security agreement” with the American puppet of Ukraine, Zelensky, who I will not refer to as president because he no longer is, and really never was. This astonishing event might call to mind the foreign policy of The Grand Duchy of Fenwick, a tiny fictional European principality made famous by its declaration of war against the United States of America, in the film, The Mouse That Roared, in the hope of being defeated in order to get American financial aid, but only succeeded in capturing the Q Bomb and bringing Washington to its knees.

But history is unlikely to be as kind to Luxembourg as it was to the Grand Duchy of Fenwick. Luxembourg will not declare war on the USA; however, welcome that would be for the rest of us because it is already one of the puppets in the theatre of the absurd staged in Washington at the NATO summit meeting this past week. It will not capture the Q Bomb of the Americans, but risks receiving other bombs from the east as Russia reacts to the threats of Luxembourg’s master to place intermediate range cruise missiles, likely armed with nuclear warheads, into Germany and other countries, Luxembourg’s neighbours just down the road.

The Details

The agreement, identical in all respects to the many other agreements signed by Zelensky with NATO countries, only the name of the country involved changing, uses a lot of space to condemn Russia and promise Ukraine its unwavering support in all spheres from the military and intelligence to the economic and cultural.

The introduction to the agreement begins with the lie of the “illegal, unjustified, unprovoked, war of aggression against Ukraine.” It gets worse from there, but fanatics don’t care about the truth or the facts, when their glazed-over eyes and cold hearts are intent on war. The fact that Russia’s actions are legal and completely justified, not only by intense provocations but by direct aggression of the U.S. and its NATO gang against Russia, means nothing to them. Nor do their claims to respect the sanctity of the UN Charter, which appears in the next article of the agreement, since the very creation and existence of NATO is a repudiation of, a negation of the UN Charter.

This lie is followed by others: that Ukraine is a democracy, that it is a sovereign, independent nation, that Ukraine is a member of a mythical “European family.” But the absurd nature of what is happening is set out in the commitment by Luxembourg to provide military assistance and training to Ukraine. It states,

Luxembourg will continue to provide military support to Ukraine across all relevant domains, including land, air, and cyber-electromagnetic domains, in close coordination and cooperation with relevant international partners and institutions.

Eight sections follow detailing the military assistance to be provided. Reading it one would think Luxembourg has a significant armed force with experience in warfare, and immense capacities of weapons, ammunition, intelligence devices, countless artillery systems, armoured divisions, entire armies of trained infantry and an air force that can send squadrons into the attack at a moment’s notice.

The Reality And Real Purpose

Luxembourg in fact has a total of 939 personnel as of 2018, the latest figures I can find, and two aircraft, one a transport plane, the other a helicopter. It has no artillery, no armoured divisions, no intelligence services, no arms industry, no navy. Its entire force is the size of a single battalion in all other armies. It does not even have the ability to train its few officers, who have to go to military schools in Belgium or France to learn their trade.

So, what then is the point of this pointless exercises, of a tiny duchy, a relic from the past, signing a security agreement with a country controlled by the United States, at war with Russia, putting itself into a state of war with Russia?

Little Luxembourg has to humiliate itself in this way because Washington desires it to advance its attempt to dominate the world. The agreement states, as they all do, that,

13. The Participants reaffirm that Ukraine is part of the European family and that its future is within the EU,

and,

14. The Participants reaffirm that Ukraine’s security is integral to Euro-Atlantic and global security.

In other words, Little Luxembourg has to obey its master’s voice and support the drive to achieve the final American dictatorship over all of Europe as well as North America. It long ago succeeded in reducing Canada to a non-entity in the world, with results the world can see.

Declarations of War

It is in reality a declaration of war against Russia. Every NATO nation is required by Washington to enter into the same bilateral agreement with Ukraine. The reason is not difficult to understand. NATO has proven ineffective against Russia. Russia has not attacked any NATO state and therefore, under the NATO treaty, NATO cannot become involved in a collective NATO action against Russia. This has not stopped NATO from attacking anyone, of course. It attacked Yugoslavia in 1999, which had not attacked any NATO state. Nevertheless, the propaganda the Americans have been using to convince their people that war with Russia is necessary and just, depends on the rhetoric of “democracy,” of “rules,” of “self-defence.”

The remedy is to put them all into action collectively by cobbling them together with a series of interconnected bi-lateral security agreements, which forces all NATO nations to take part in the war, without having to invoke Article 5 of the NATO Treaty dealing with a collective response in the face of an attack on one or more NATO states.

NATO celebrates 75 years of its illegal existence as it makes itself irrelevant. Washington has, with these series of bilateral treaties by-passed NATO. It no longer matters whether Ukraine is in NATO or not. It has become a member of a new security architecture in which it is the point of the spear being thrust in the side of Russia while everyone else holds the shaft and calls for blood.

NATO may continue to exist. The criminals have put a lot of effort into the propaganda supporting its existence. They like the meetings, the summits, the dinners, and the military exercises are useful to intimidate the world. They seek to expand it into Asia, really nothing more than the revival of the Europe-Japan Axis of the 1930s and 40s with the U.S. now in charge, the main targets again China and Russia. It will remain to threaten the people of the world. But with respect to Ukraine, the controlling power, the United States, has decided it wants more flexibility, and these bi-lateral agreements provide it. Opposition from NATO states such as Turkey, Hungary and Slovakia, to military action against Russia, is a problem that can be now ignored. The rest of NATO can go to war without them under another agreement with Ukraine. So the ground is prepared for a bigger war.

The Consequence

And what is to become of little Luxembourg in all this? I doubt the Prime Minister, Luc Frieden or the Grand Duke Henri, the billionaire ruler of the Duchy, have thought for even a second about their folly and its consequences. But what are the consequences for the rest of us? Canada also has signed one of the agreements with Zelensky, and though vast in size, it has a small population and armed forces that are irrelevant in any war with Russia. Canada cannot defend itself in the face of Russian attack, yet the Canadian government continues to kick sand in the eyes of Russia, to insult it, steal its property, engage in economic warfare against it, is a co-belligerent in the war against Russia. Washington commands. Ottawa obeys. Yet, no one says a thing. No one cares. No one stops to think or if they do, it’s only to pause for a second, then shrug it off, for more important things, like what to watch on television, the only reality they really know, unaware that their government, like that of Luxembourg, has committed them to war and no one in the government asked them about it, but why would they, the people are not in control, Washington is.

Monthly Review does not necessarily adhere to all of the views conveyed in articles republished at MR Online. Our goal is to share a variety of left perspectives that we think our readers will find interesting or useful. —Eds.