May 03, 2014

Washington Intends Russia’s Demise — Paul Craig Roberts

Washington Intends Russia's Demise — Paul Craig Roberts

Posted By pcr3 On May 2, 2014 @ 9:46 am In Articles & Columns | Comments Disabled

Washington Intends Russia's Demise

Paul Craig Roberts

Washington has no intention of allowing the crisis in Ukraine to be resolved. Having failed to seize the country and evict Russia from its Black Sea naval base, Washington sees new opportunities in the crisis.

One is to restart the Cold War by forcing the Russian government to occupy the Russian-speaking areas of present day Ukraine where protesters are objecting to the stooge anti-Russian government installed in Kiev by the American coup. These areas of Ukraine are former constituent parts of Russia herself. They were attached to Ukraine by Soviet leaders in the 20th century when both Ukraine and Russia were part of the same country, the USSR.

Essentially, the protesters have established independent governments in the cities. The
police and military units sent to suppress the protesters, called "terrorists" in the American fashion, for the most part have until now defected to the protesters.

With Obama's incompetent White House and State Department having botched Washington's takeover of Ukraine, Washington has been at work shifting the blame to Russia. According to Washington and its presstitute media, the protests are orchestrated by the Russian government and have no sincere basis. If Russia sends in military units to protect the Russian citizens in the former Russian territories, the act will be used by Washington to confirm Washington's propaganda of a Russian invasion (as in the case of Georgia), and Russia will be further demonized.

The Russian government is in a predicament. Moscow does not want financial responsibility for these territories but cannot stand aside and permit Russians to be put down by force. The Russian government has attempted to keep Ukraine intact, relying on the forthcoming elections in Ukraine to bring to office more realistic leaders than the stooges installed by Washington.

However, Washington does not want an election that might replace its stooges and return to cooperating with Russia to resolve the situation. There is a good chance that Washington will tell its stooges in Kiev to declare that the crisis brought to Ukraine by Russia prevents an election. Washington's NATO puppet states would back up this claim.

It is almost certain that despite the Russian government's hopes, the Russian government is faced with the continuation of both the crisis and the Washington puppet government in Ukraine.

On May 1 Washington's former ambassador to Russia, now NATO's "second-in-command" but the person who, being American, calls the shots, has declared Russia to no longer be a partner but an enemy. The American, Alexander Vershbow, told journalists that NATO has given up on "drawing Moscow closer" and soon will deploy a large number of combat forces in Eastern Europe. Vershbow called this aggressive policy deployment of "defensive assets to the region."

In other words, here we have again the lie that the Russian government is going to forget all about its difficulties in Ukraine and launch attacks on Poland, the Baltic States, Romania., Moldova, and on the central Asian states of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The dissembler Vershbow wants to modernize the militaries of these American puppet states and "seize the opportunity to create the reality on the ground by accepting membership of aspirant countries into NATO."

What Vershbow has told the Russian government is that you just keep on relying on Western good will and reasonableness while we set up sufficient military forces to prevent Russia from coming to the aid of its oppressed citizens in Ukraine. Our demonization of Russia is working. It has made you hesitant to act during the short period when you could preempt us and seize your former territories. By waiting you give us time to mass forces on your borders from the Baltic Sea to Central Asia. That will distract you and keep you from the Ukraine. The oppression we will inflict on your Russians in Ukraine will discredit you, and the NGOs we finance in the Russian Federation will appeal to nationalist sentiments and overthrow your government for failing to come to the aid of Russians and failing to protect Russia's strategic interests.

Washington is licking its chops, seeing an opportunity to gain Russia as a puppet state.

Will Putin sit there with his hopes awaiting the West's good will to work out a solution while Washington attempts to engineer his fall?

The time is approaching when Russia will either have to act to terminate the crisis or accept an ongoing crisis and distraction in its backyard. Kiev has launched military airstrikes on protesters in Slavyansk. On May 2 Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Kiev's resort to violence had destroyed the hope for the Geneva agreement on de-escalating the crisis. Yet, the Russian government spokesman again expressed the hope of the Russian government that European governments and Washington will put a stop to the military strikes and pressure the Kiev government to accommodate the protesters in a way that keeps Ukraine together and restores friendly relations with Russia.

This is a false hope. It assumes that the Wolfowitz doctrine is just words, but it is not. The Wolfowitz doctrine is the basis of US policy toward Russia (and China). The doctrine regards any power sufficiently strong to remain independent of Washington's influence to be "hostile." The doctrine states:

"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power."

The Wolfowitz doctrine justifies Washington's dominance of all regions. It is consistent with the neoconservative ideology of the US as the "indispensable" and "exceptional" country entitled to world hegemony.

Russia and China are in the way of US world hegemony. Unless the Wolfowitz doctrine is abandoned, nuclear war is the likely outcome.


Article printed from PaulCraigRoberts.org: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org

URL to article: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/02/washington-intends-russias-demise-paul-craig-roberts/

 

 

 

 

The Ukrainian Civil War has started

The Ukrainian Civil War has started.

The massacre in Odessa and other acts of violence in the east of Ukraine on the behest of the western backed junta in Kiev crossed the Rubicon. Now it is a proxy conflict with zero easy answers. By the end of this calendar year (maybe as easy as August) Ukraine may cease to be a sovereign state in any meaningful sense.

The illegitimate use of force by the illegitimate regime in Kiev (aka "Nuland's Plan") has no political solutions and is counting on its western allies to come to its aid. It is probably safe to say Washington is preparing some kind of lethal aid package as I write this. There are numerous and reliable reports western mercenaries and contractors are already on the ground.

To thwart Kiev's "militia assault" on the east and south I suspect Russia will (through proxies) supply what is ever necessary to protect civilian populations. Keep in mind events being played out in Ukraine is a domestic political issue for Russia. The Kremlin simply can't walk away. In the meantime, the east and south Ukraine have read the writing on the wall: the Kiev junta is more than willing to spill blood. I cannot see how the east and south will ever trust Kiev again.

Additional thoughts:

Ukraine's oligarchs are the only "winners" in all of this. Their economic and financial fiefdoms could very easily turn into unrecognized statelets.

Note that the "Washington Consensus" going epileptic over all this, while the rest of world remains large quiet about Ukraine.

The planned presidential election is a farce. It will be impossible to conduct a poll under current and worsening conditions.

The economy is in free fall. The inked IMF deal will be very difficult, if not impossible, to implement. Time is against the Kiev junta – and it is painfully aware of this.

More western sanction against Russia – there is only one sensitive sector and it's banking. (Depending on how banking sanctions are adopted, it impossible we could see Russian money in the west flee back to Russia – interesting boomerang!)

The global security order that come into place at the end of the Cold War is in tatters. Moscow is now the officially the enemy (again). However, in this environment Russia has options. This is an important moment of the "Global South.)

Peter Lavelle