by Paul Craig Roberts

The Soviet Union collapsed when Soviet President Gorbachev was placed under house arrest by hardline elements in the Politburo who were alarmed by the rapidity with which Gorbachev was establishing friendly and open relations with the West.

For the hardline American neoconservatives, the Soviet Collapse removed the constraint on American unilateralism. The neoconservatives quickly seized the initiative and with the Wolfowitz Doctrine declared US hegemony and stated that the principal goal of US foreign policy was to prevent the rise of any power that could serve as a constraint on Washington’s hegemony. This policy resulted in the hopes of Reagan and Gorbachev and the trust Gorbachev had placed in Washington being frustrated. Washington’s pledge not to move NATO one inch to the East was disavowed, and more hostile steps followed.

By 2007 it was clear to Russia’s President Putin that the promise of a multi-polar world was being over-ridden by a policy of Washington’s hegemony. At the Munich Security Conference, Putin threw down the gauntlet and said that Russia did not accept Washington’s rules based uni-polar world. At that moment the US/NATO went to war against Russia.

The first attack on Russia was a year later in 2008 when Washington sent a US supplied and trained Georgian army into disputed South Ossetia, resulting in the deaths of Russian peace-keepers and many civilians. Putin, caught off guard, returned from the Beijing Olympics, and the Russian army quickly defeated the US trained Georgian forces. Putin is often accused of intending to rebuild the Soviet Empire, but he had in his hands Georgia, historically a part of the Soviet Union and previously of Russia. Instead of reincorporating Georgia back into Russia, he turned them loose to be again subjected to Washington’s plots against Russia.

Having failed in Georgia, Washington turned its attention to Ukraine, another former province of the Soviet Union and previously of Russia for centuries. As Victoria Nuland boasted at a televised conference, Washington spent $5 billion organizing NGOs, students, and purchasing Ukrainian politicians in support of a coup to overthrow the democratically elected Ukrainian government and install a neo-nazi regime hostile to Russia.

For unknown reasons except perhaps surprise–Putin was at the Sochi Olympics–Putin did nothing to prevent Washington’s coup. For eight years Putin relied on the Minsk Agreement, which the West used to deceive him, while Washington built up a Ukrainian army capable of overthrowing the Donbas republics that broke away and resisted Ukraine’s persecution and murder of the Russian population.

When Putin and Lavrov’s efforts during December 2021 and February 2022 to achieve a mutual defense agreement with the US and NATO were cold-shouldered by Washington, NATO, and the EU, Putin had no choice but to intervene in order to protect the Donbas, a former Russian province attached to Ukraine by Soviet leaders, from massacre, as the Israelis are doing in Gaza and the West Bank.

The West disingenuously called Putin’s “limited military operation” confined to Donbas an “invasion of Ukraine.” It was no such thing. The fact that it was not an invasion and conquest of Ukraine was Putin’s mistake.

It is the limited nature of Putin’s intervention that is the cause of the possible explosion of the conflict into a nuclear war.

Putin, being a mid-20th century American liberal, had trusted diplomatic relations and good will between nations and did not understand that the West was at war with Russia. He and his Foreign Minister kept stressing their “American partners” and belief in negotiations, while the West organized its attacks on Russia.

These attacks now include attacks deep into Russia far removed from the battle front. Russia has suffered many attacks from low-flying drones that evade air defense systems. As I write, Nato Secretary Stoltenberg and the UK prime minister are urging the Biden regime to give approval to US/NATO firing long range missiles into Russia. Putin has said that this is the final red line that will force him to acknowledge that Russia is at war with the West.

NATO General Secretary Stoltenberg says the West does not need to pay attention to Putin’s threat, because “There have been many red lines declared by Putin before, and he has not escalated.”

We have reached the point that I said we would each. Putin by his failure to act in response to aggression now has his back to the wall. He has three choices: He can surrender. He can end the Ukraine conflict with force, which puts the West on notice that the West is at risk if the conflict continues, or he can continue to ignore reality, thereby leaving the initiative in the West’s hands where it has been throughout the conflict.

We are faced with Putin’s mettle. Is he a warrior or an out-of-date American liberal?

I agree that this question is unfair. Putin is the only statesman the world has at this crucial time when the world’s continued existence is in question. Putin has accepted insult after insult, provocation on top of provocation in order to avoid a war that means death for humanity.

No one gives Putin credit for this.

Stoltenberg, a nonentity, mocks Putin. Biden, a nonentity, insults him. Zelensky, a nonentity, vows to defeat him.

We can see Satan’s hold on the West when the only leader determined to preserve human existence is demonized.


Despite his honorable characteristics, Putin is failing because he cannot recognize the extreme evil that confronts him and the country he represents.

As England’s ambassador Craig Murray has reported, the Western world is criminalizing free speech. Washington’s investigations of Scott Ritter, Dimitri Simes, and others indicate that those who talk with Russians are being criminalized for aiding and abetting Russian disinformation, which is being equated with espionage. How can the dangerous situation be resolved when talk is prevented?

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Everything You Need to Know about the Conflict in Ukraine
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/09/22/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-conflict-in-ukraine/