On the way to the Third World War
could have been dissolved in 1991 and with the “Charter of Paris” a peaceful
development could have taken place in Europe. (Picture www.sofatutor.at)
What can we do against an escalation?
by Robert Seidel
(14 February 2023) The war in Ukraine and its further course could not come as a surprise. Seen from a distance, it represents a logical continuation of the US strategy to maintain global dominance. Washington’s military guidelines and plans are open to public scrutiny.1 Consequences are frightening.
In retrospect, the attempts at rapprochement between Western and Eastern Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union appear as a chain of individual failed peace efforts. Is that what it really was?
The peace dividend
The offer of the last acting General Secretary of the Soviet CPSU, Michael Gorbachev, for “a common house of Europe” at the end of the 1980s was welcomed and eagerly discussed in Europe. But on the other side of the Atlantic, this offer was not taken up.
After the Warsaw Treaty Alliance2 (Warsaw Pact) disintegrated, the dissolution of the NATO defence alliance3 was consequently up for discussion, since the adversary had fallen away. But in the day-to-day political business of the US administration, this option was not foreseen. NATO remained, and it grew. The US administration ignored the so-called “peace dividend” after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Planning went in a different direction.
“Charter of Paris” as the basis for peaceful coexistence
The “Charter of Paris” could have been a basis for peaceful coexistence in Europe. The leading statesmen signed the treaty in 1990, which contained the preamble: “The courage of men and women, the strength of the will of the peoples and the power of the ideas of the Helsinki Final Act have opened a new era of democracy, peace and unity in Europe.”4
In December 1991, the new Russian President Boris Yeltsin even expressed the wish to join NATO “in the long run”, which now obviously continued to exist. His foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev thought about subordinating the alliance to the decisions of the CSCE, which at that time had just been transformed into the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).5 However, instead of pursuing the peaceful path and expanding the Helsinki idea, NATO was aligned against Russia.
1999 was the fall from grace: war in Yugoslavia
A few years later, the USA demonstrated how it envisaged a European order with its war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999. With this aggression, which was contrary to international law and which the governments of the NATO states criminally joined,6 the USA made it clear that in their opinion their own interests were above general international law.
Russia keeps making attempts
Even Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to fit peacefully into the new world order. “Vladimir Putin’s inauguration as president of Russia in 2000 is commonly seen as a break with the Yeltsin era, which was supposedly more pro-Western and democratic. However, this overlooks the fact that Putin made a thoroughly pro-European advance during his first term in office. In his speech in the German Bundestag on 25 September 2001, he called on Europe to ‘unite its own capabilities with Russia’s human, territorial and natural resources, as well as with Russia's economic, cultural and defence potentials’”.7 An invitation to cooperation.
In 2009 Putin repeatedly proposes security treaty
In February 2007, Putin condemned US unilateralism at the Munich Security Conference. “’They are trying to impose new demarcation lines and walls on us'”. In 2008, he then deployed his troops to stop the Georgian president’s offensive against South Ossetia. Indirectly, the intervention was also about stopping NATO’s expansion into the Caucasus. Putin nevertheless remained willing to talk and even proposed a European security treaty in November 2009. The offer was ignored.”8
(Image https://kontrast.at)
Colour revolutions and NATO enlargement to the East
During this decade, some of Russia’s neighbours that were not pro-Western were destabilised by colour revolutions (see map below). In parallel, NATO, which had not been dissolved, gradually moved closer to Russia’s borders (cf. map above).
The military action of the Russian army in South Ossetia (2008), Crimea (2014) and the Donbass (2022) or within the framework of the CSTO9 in Kazakhstan (January 2022) can be explained as logical reactions to avoid military encirclement.
Ukraine as a keystone against Russia
In Ukraine, the struggle for influence and power could be observed since 1991. Already during the collapse of the Soviet Union, US corporations, governmental and non-governmental organisations began to secure influence over the country’s mineral resources, agriculture and industry. Here, too, the US administration tried to bring about regime change through a colour revolution (2004, “orange revolution”). The country came under increasing pressure. After several political changes, the situation escalated in 2014 when the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown (Maidan) and replaced by a Western-oriented nationalist regime (Arseni Yatsenyuk).
Russia responded by recognising Crimea as a Russian territory and joining the Russian Federation after a referendum in Crimea. Moscow also supported the majority Russian population in the east and south of Ukraine. The Minsk Agreement (2015) negotiated between Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine was supposed to stabilise the situation and lead to minority protection for the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine.
against Russia.
Minsk Agreement misused for armament of the country
In December 2022, it became known that the Minsk Agreement, on which many hopes were pinned, was misused to buy time for a military build-up in Ukraine.10 Thus, the deployment of the OSCE in the Donbass was not meant seriously by the governments of France and Germany. The Russian government repeatedly insisted on compliance with this treaty, which is binding under international law within the framework of the UN.
In December 2021, the Russian government finally asked the USA to give them security guarantees to prevent an obviously imminent conflict. Anyone who still remembers the political course of events in the weeks that followed knows that this opportunity was turned down by both the US administration and NATO, citing flimsy arguments.
Once again, they were just trying to buy time to get more war material and military personnel into Ukraine. Indicative of the US administration’s approach was a statement made by the newly elected US President Joe Biden to Russian President Vladimir Putin, publicly dubbing him a “murderer”.
In this situation, this statement by Biden, as a representative of the “free world” on whom a de-escalation of the conflict depended, was an absolute “no go”. The trigger for the military intervention was finally the intensive shelling of the Donbass by Ukrainian troops in February 2022.11
Military escalation according to a master plan
The further course of the Ukraine war since February 2022 reveals the long-standing strategy of the US administration. It was never about “liberating” Ukraine. The country and its population are being subjected to an increasingly intense war in which large parts of the infrastructure are also being destroyed. Consistently, efforts to achieve a ceasefire have been thwarted, such as in April 2022 by the direct intervention of the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
In March 2022, it seemed far-fetched for the Russian government to refer to Article 51 of the UN Charter (right of self-defence). Looking at the course and systematic escalation by the US administration today, one can no longer completely ignore the Russian perspective.
The makings of a world war
As the war progressed, the stakes were raised: in military terms, in media-political terms, in financial terms and in economic terms.
- Slice by slice, the people of Western Europe have been led into this war. While in March 2022 it was said that only aids such as helmets for the military would be delivered, later it was only “old” weapons, today (January 2023) we have arrived at the most modern weapon systems (including HIMARS, satellite reconnaissance, Leopard-2 and Abrams tanks). Military personnel declared as mercenaries are “supporting” operations in Ukraine. Intelligence gathering takes place via the West, Ukrainian soldiers are trained in the West, etc.
- At the German US military base in Ramstein, instructions from Washington are regularly passed on to NATO “partners”.
- Unnoticed by the population in the Western states, the information policy has been put into war mode. Uniform news, uniform reporting, stigmatisation of supposed opponents, exclusion of Russian media, central news control, etc.12
- The states of the West, most of which are bankrupt due to national debt and additional pandemic burdens, are passing on the gigantic new additional military expenditures to the next generations in the form of loans for war material. Repayment is pending ...
- Meanwhile, the West is restructuring its economy into a war economy, inevitably abandoning the principles of the market economy. Controlled economy of scarcity in the energy sector, building and restructuring of an arms and munitions industry, etc.
Certain parallels to the war economy of the Second World War in the German Reich, the Soviet Union or the USA are obvious.
Those who work in this way, and this can be read in the strategic concepts of the US Army,13 have their sights set on a global confrontation lasting several years.
Research (SIPER))
“Pivot to Asia”
Against this background, the visit of the then third most important person in the USA, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan in July 2022 also makes sense. This visit could only be interpreted as a deliberate provocation towards the People’s Republic of China.
In 2010, the strategic change of course had already been announced. Barak Obama officially initiated it with “Pivot to Asia”. It was signalled to the Western European states that they would have to expand their military capacities (2% of GDP for armament) because the USA was shifting its forces to Asia. This is what the USA has done. Incessantly, the US administration is working to build various economic-military alliances, openly or covertly, against China and Russia.
The German Navy off China’s Coast
Parallel to this, NATO’s mission has been extended to Asian territory. Thus, the German navy is also cruising in the East China Sea. The conflict between North and South Korea is kept latently high at a certain level, so that further armament of South Korea is legitimised. The massive rearmament of Japan,14 called for by the USA, is also part of the global plan to escalate militarily.
Research (SIPER))
Global escalation
The reinforcement of military bases abroad, such as Diego Garcia, is part of the intensification and preparation for a global emergency. A glance at the world map makes it clear that the USA now wants an escalation. They still dominate militarily. Great Britain is also investing in its fleet and in bases such as the Falkland Islands, in step with the USA. Now the other NATO states and members of PfP [Partnership for Peace] are following suit.
The Thucydides Trap ...
If one takes a sober look at the situation, one has to conclude that the US administration is systematically leading itself and its allies, i.e. NATO and all its sub-organisations, into a global conflict in the longer term, in which they are apparently deliberately throwing their full military and economic weight into the balance. Nuclear escalation included.
A basic idea of this military escalation is reflected in the US discussion on the so-called Thucydides Trap. Is the replacement of one great power by another (USA/China) only possible by war? It is becoming increasingly obvious that the USA and Europe have been losing influence in the world economically and politically for years. The huge US military apparatus can no longer be financed in the long run.
... and American exceptionalism
The drama of this internal American discussion only becomes clear when one considers American exceptionalism, the idea of being chosen as a nation by God to lead humanity. This quasi-religious dimension legitimises wars and risks the death of millions of people, if not humanity. The idea of peaceful coexistence seems to find no place there. It is a question of time before the “disenchantment” of these delusions becomes apparent. But unfortunately, the military situation is coming to a head in parallel.
Exit from the delusion
The fiction of a small power elite, supported by economic and political free riders and “war profiteers”, to emerge as winners from a world war is so unreal and unworldly that hardly anyone would follow it in the long run. The US elites would not be able to escape the consequences of nuclear overkill even in Patagonia.
In the past decades, the world has changed. Alliances like the BRICS countries or the SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organisation] remind us that many states have emancipated themselves from the USA and are going their own ways. Megaprojects such as the New Silk Road/Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) show that large-scale economic projects are possible from which all participants can benefit and even the poorest can achieve modest prosperity. The irrationality of current US geopolitics is becoming increasingly tangible worldwide.
Everywhere, including in the military-political institutions, normal thinking people are working. Experienced military experts, including some former top military officers, have been warning for some time about the unpredictable consequences of the current situation in Ukraine.15 There is no way around ending the war today. The sooner, the better.
War is not an anthropological determinant, certainly not this premeditated, planned war. Plans can be changed, negotiations can be sought at any time, and an exit is always possible. There are no losers in an exit from warfare but only winners.
(Translation “Swiss Standpoint”)
1 Long-term strategy papers “TRADOC 525-5” (1994) and 525-3-1 (“Win in a Complex World 2020-2040”) (2014), also the predecessor papers. Current: “National Security Strategy”, 12 October 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/8-November-Combined-PDF-for-Upload.pdf
2 The Warsaw Pact, a term commonly used in the West, in official parlance the Warsaw Treaty or Warsaw Treaty Organisation, was a military assistance pact of the so-called Eastern Bloc under the leadership of the Soviet Union that existed from 1955 to 1991.
3 The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was formed in 1949 in the course of the USA’s containment policy against the Soviet Union. It was a defence alliance of European and North American member states.
4 “We, the Heads of State or Government of the States participating in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, have assembled in Paris at a time of profound change and historic expectations. The era of confrontation and division of Europe has ended. We declare that henceforth our, relations will be founded on respect and co-operation. Europe is liberating itself from the legacy of the past. The courage of men and women, the strength of the will of the peoples and the power of the ideas of the Helsinki Final Act have opened a new era of democracy, peace and unity in Europe.” (Preamble of the Charter of Paris for a New Europe, Paris 1990).
5 Hélène Richard. When Moscow dreamed of Europe. Cf. https://monde-diplomatique.de/artikel/!5533608, 13 September 2018
6 Gerhard Schröder on the Kosovo war, NDR 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydLINQBOF1U
7 Hélène Richard. When Moscow dreamed of Europe. Cf. https://monde-diplomatique.de/artikel/!5533608, 13 September 2018
8 Ibid.
9 Collective Security Treaty Organisation, CSTO is a military alliance established in 2002 and led by Russia.
10 Ulrich Heyden. Merkel myth burst: ‘Peace Chancellor’ admits Minsk agreement was just a trick. https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=91458, 12 December 2022
11 OSCE data on shelling Donbass. February 2022, also Effenberger Wolfgang: https://apolut.net/schleichend-in-die-gewollte-katastrophe-von-wolfgang-effenberger, 1 December 2022
12 Thomas Scherr. Media on course for war. https://swiss-standpoint.ch/news-detailansicht-de-international/medien-auf-kriegskurs.html, 13 March 2022
Robert Seidel. Censorship is back. https://swiss-standpoint.ch/news-detailansicht-de-gesellchaft/die-zensur-ist-wieder-da.html, 10 May 2021
13 See “National Security Strategy”, 12 October 2022. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/8-November-Combined-PDF-for-Upload.pdf
14 Sara Flounders. Japan arms up under pressure from Washington. https://swiss-standpoint.ch/news-detailansicht-de-international/japan-ruestet-unter-dem-druck-washingtons-auf.html, 25 January 2023.
cf. also german foreign policy. The militarisation of the first island chain. https://www.german-foreign-policy.com/news/detail/9152, 3 February 2023
15 e.g. currently in Germany: Harald Kujat, Ein Sieg der Ukraine ist ausgeschlossen. Weltwoche No. 4/23, 26 January 2023 or
“Leopard tanks: Erich Vad warns against ‘political armament’.” In: https://www.br.de/nachrichten/deutschland-welt/leopard-panzer-erich-vad-warnt-vor-politischer-scharfmacherei,TTfWags, 22 January 2023 or
Scenarios for Leopard deployment – Retired German brigadier general shows limits. In: Sicht vom Hochblauen. https://sicht-vom-hochblauen.de/szenarien-fuer-den-leopard-einsatz-deutscher-brigadegeneral-a-d-zeigt-grenzen-auf, 3 February 2023