While USA, EU, NATO played checkers for 28 years, Putin played chess
Kal K Korff
Author’s Note: This story appears in the February 27, 2022 issue of Daily World newspaper, India’s first international newspaper. Click here to read exciting content at www.dailyworld.in.
When the former Communist Soviet Union (USSR) collapsed in the fall of 1991, Ukraine became both independent and ominously, it was suddenly the world’s third largest nuclear power. Ukraine possessed at one time 176 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) and nearly 1,100 specially designed long range cruise missiles. While these were deadly enough, Ukraine also had 130 P-36 and 60 RT-23 missiles. These two formidable weapons comprised much of the backbone of the USSR’s nuclear arsenals. The RT-23 was also mobile. After deployment, these were always constantly in motion, keeping NATO guessing 24/7 as to their actual physical locations, making the targeting of them for any counter measures more problematical.
Both the SS-18 and RT-23 could hold as many as ten nuclear warheads per missile. Armed with a single nuke, it had the destructive power nearly 160 times greater than the first atomic bomb the USA dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II. Ukraine’s arsenal of P-36 and RT-23s contained some 1,800 nuclear warheads.
After initial resistance, Ukraine finally signed several agreements with various countries to “insure” its protection and sovereignty, including with, led and championed by the USA, which also invested billions of dollars as part of these pacts to improve Ukraine’s infrastructure and help it with overall development. These agreed upon plans, with even Russia being a signatory to some of them, was that Ukraine would first enter the EU, then later NATO. By the time Ukraine finished disarming, nearly 5,000 nuclear weapons were either removed or destroyed, with many being given back to Russia.
On 5 December 1994, the USA, UK and Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances in cooperation with Ukraine. France and China also provided additional “security guarantees.”
28 years later, fast forward to today and we now have the predictably barbarous act of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by its dictator Vladimir Putin. Ukraine, no longer with any means to defend itself because the USA and EU were just “too busy” during these 28 years to get it at least some tangible protection, now belongs once more to Russia, and may never be independent again.
To be clear, while the United States and the world must condemn Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and punish him and other guilty entities, not only is this an act of war against Ukraine, it is also an act of war against everything civilized humanity and free nations claim to stand for and claim to uphold, which is the universal right of self-determination.
Self-determination, genuine freedoms and democracy, are all concepts neither Putin nor Communist China believe in. No Communist system has ever had any of these things, nor does any dictatorship. Not coincidentally, both regimes view western democracies as weak and meek, slow to respond, too greedy for their own good and stupid enough to pay for their own self implosions. In much of this they are absolutely right. This is exactly what is happening now, as Putin flexes his power like a chess Grand Master, not giving a rip if no summits are held (boo hoo!), nor does he care if he is sanctioned.
Communist China cut a deal with Putin to make up for any losses he might suffer, and China can now do much of this and they need the manufacturing orders. Should Xi Jinping stiff Putin and fail to deliver the goods he wants straight from Beijing’s massive railroad systems, the Winnie The Pooh banning Chinese dictator for life still wins, because he ends up with a weakened Putin and a still further weakened west.
There is no honor among either Communists nor dictators, nor is there any honor where it concerns Ukraine and its professed support by the Democrats and Republicans via their written promises to defend and develop it, to insure it entered the EU and then NATO. Instead, there was never any sense of urgency. 28 years passed by, Republican Donald Trump especially during his four years in office, did nothing but insure that Ukraine was all but captured by Putin, both Xi Jinping and Putin have used the Trump presidency exploiting it as best they could considering the unexpected outbreak of COVID.
Predictably, China has also broken this 1994 pact, it has now openly aligned itself with Russia in this new war Putin has started, falsely claiming he has “legitimate security concerns.” At the UN Security Council voting it abstained, just as it did (surprise) when Putin seized Crimea criminally.
Xi Jinping’s betrayal of Ukraine, combined with the Democrat’s and the Republican’s brazenly open outright avoidance or any public mention of any past guarantees to Ukraine, is very revealing. Disgracefully and hypocritically, Republicans will now blame the Democrats for “losing” Ukraine because they are “soft on defense.” Other Republicans will say that America should “not get involved” in Ukraine, because they are not a part of NATO and we can’t be the world’s policeman.
Obviously, the claim that the USA cannot be the world’s policeman is certainly true, yet it is also irrelevant. The issue is not “being the world’s policeman,” the issue is stopping a dictator from signing a piece of paper, declaring territory in another person’s country as now being his, citing past ‘history’ which no longer applies as a lying ‘justification,’ while the self-proclaimed ‘civilized world’ beats its chest declaring that it “stands by Ukraine and the universal rights of self determination, democracy and freedom.” Yet what good are these ‘moral values’ when the reality is that nothing is done to make sure Putin is rendered incapable of seizing still more countries?
Translation: grow a pair, learn the lessons of history, then do something that truly matters as in is impose a real solution. Democrats and Republicans are infamous for scoring field goals and declaring victories when the rest of the world knows that only touchdowns will truly win. America, France, UK and the EU must either honor their written agreed on commitments to Ukraine, or admit the truth that their professed moral boosts of “exceptionalism” is not only a lie, it is a damned lie because there was never any intention to defend Ukraine nor do anything substantial that would guarantee Ukraine was not invaded by Russia. What if Ukraine had been allowed to keep enough nuclear weapons to guarantee that Russia could never invade it? We will never know, because the USA and its “concerned” allies just couldn’t be bothered to live up to the assurances they used to compel Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons.
Foundational Failure: Cold War
A foundational failure means that anything based on, dependent on or as a result of it, will also likely end up in failure, the only question is how big will said failure be? In the case of Ukraine, Russia (now Putin) versus the West, this failure that has now resulted in the predictable invasion and seizure of Ukraine by Putin, was wholly predictable. It was predictable because of a simple universal principle which is best described as: do nothing and you lose.
When World War II ended in 1945, the United States of America was the world’s only nuclear power. After dropping two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 to end this global conflict, the Cold War against Russia had already begun. Months earlier, after Hitler’s suicide in his Berlin bunker, Nazi Germany was divided between Russia, the USA and its allies Britain and France. What was once Germany would become West and East Germany, with East Germany now being wholly controlled by Russia.
Since the USA was the world’s only nuclear power when World War II ended, it is beyond dispute that had America wanted to, it could have literally conquered the entire world. Yet despite this very real capability of being able to destroy any nation with impunity and not having to worry about a nuclear attack being launched back against it, unlike almost every superpower in history, the United States chose not to be the world’s policeman nor dictator.
In 1945, with a single atomic bomb, America could have ended Stalin and his Communism. It could have ended Mao and his Communism. Instead, the USA decided not to conquer the world, but to defend much of the free world from Communism. From this the NATO alliance was born. This deliberate failure to leverage being the world’s only nuclear armed nation for the greater good and safety of humanity, continues to be an ever greater price we continue to pay by threatening humankind’s very existence. Had Communism been stopped after World War II, there would be no Putin invading nations today trying to resurrect the Communist USSR with him as its dictator.
While the founding of NATO was the right, moral thing to do, giving central and eastern Europe over to Stalin and forcing millions of people who were liberated from the Nazis to then next live under the tyranny of Stalin, was indescribable moral abandonment, but yet this is exactly what happened. What was the point of World War II if such inhumane acts against our fellow human beings are supposed to be stopped, but then after liberating people, they are handed back over to genocidal dictators? This 28 years of failure to resolve the Ukraine problem is both Europe and the USA’s fault.
UNSC Debacle, India Shocker
Not surprisingly, the UN Security Council held their confab over Ukraine. Predictably, Russia vetoed the resolution condemning its own actions for invading Ukraine. Once again, the UNSC is not only broken, it is irrelevant in so much of today’s international world affairs. Whom exactly is responsible for this long existing dysfunctional UNSC? The blunt answer are its own members. Their dysfunctions and avoidance are by choice, none of the UNSC’s problems ever created themselves.
As everyone knows, those who refuse to heed the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its failures. This is how reality works. What was the point of even fighting the Cold War if a rogue Russia slicing up countries like Ukraine today is the eventual result? One of the most popular terror tactics past European dictators have used as an excuse to invade countries, is to claim that its citizens are being ‘terrorized’ or that ‘genocide’ is being committed against its people. Before World War II officially started, Hitler seized the Sudetenlands in Czechoslovakia which had large German speaking populations so that he could “incorporate them back into the Reich.”
Never one to miss stealing a trick from Hitler’s genocidal playbook when it best suited him, then falsely proclaiming that it was an ‘original idea,’ Stalin did the same thing to Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, etc. In Finland, Stalin invaded. At first, he lost bigly. This was because Finnish soldiers had mastered the ability to fire machine guns while skiing. They decimated Stalin’s soldiers. In retaliation, Stalin used overwhelming force. Knowing that Finland’s population was much smaller and that proportionately it could not afford to lose the same number of soldiers, a “settlement” was reached and Finland gave up land to Stalin.
Yet exactly like Hitler and Stalin, Putin will not stop until he has no choice but to. What will this take? The simple answer is a universal collective resolve that says what it means, and means what it says. Biden is targeting Russia’s leadership. He emphasized he is not targeting Russian consumers. This is a huge mistake. The reasons are obvious unless you’re a Democrat or Republican: the sooner most Russians understand that keeping Putin in power is a certain one way ticket to destruction, the sooner they will be rid of this regime which is not legitimately elected.
The human race is now at the crossroads of its existence as a species. Either the future of humanity exists in the form of Totalitarian Capitalistic Dictatorships marketed as “Communism” as epitomized by China and Russia and oligarchs ruling entire countries; or the future exists in real democracy, real freedoms and self-determination where people directly elect their leaders and representatives. One widely used excuse is that when you have large populations, democracy does not work. Nonsense. While larger countries are always bigger problems, India is all the evidence one needs to prove that both democracy and even voter ID work! This is only true when one bothers, which is the same challenge each one of us faces daily. When enough people become too self-absorbed and just can’t be bothered, we do so at our collective peril. What is necessary, is always wise.
Yet India, the world’s largest democracy, voted to abstain where it concerned condemning Russia at the UNSC vote. At the same time, Prime Minister Modi does not condone what Putin has done. Nowhere is India saying “Good job, Vlad!”
Now that Putin is forcing a concept called universal human morality to a head, as epitomized by his invasion of Ukraine empowered in no small part by the inexcusable laziness of the USA and EU; either the world rises up to stop this and further similar acts of war by other nations going forward (China seizing Taiwan); or we must accept that invading countries like Putin does, is the right way to conduct diplomacy.
History will always be better and bigger than any single person, we must never forget this, there are no exceptions. Even when your name is Vladimir Putin.
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