Category: US Foreign Relations

Questions to Ask in the Russia-Ukraine War

W.J. Astore

Burnishing My Kremlin Talking Points?

I don’t get bogged down in the operational and tactical details of the Russia-Ukraine War.  I don’t know which side is winning or allegedly winning, or which side is best prepared to launch a spring offensive, or which weapons will allegedly turn the tide (likely answer: none).  In my view, both sides are losing, especially Ukraine since the war is being fought on their turf.  Each side has suffered well over 100,000 killed.  Russia has captured territory; whether they can keep it remains to be seen.

War—it sucks. But let’s keep fighting so someone can “win.” (Natali Sevriukova mourns the loss of her home in Kyiv; Sky News)

My focus is on larger questions and points. Here they are, in no special order:

1. Does Ukraine truly seek to retake Crimea from Russia?  If so, how much are the U.S. and NATO prepared to assist in this?  Assuming Ukraine can launch such an offensive, how might Russia respond?  Is the nuclear option on the table for Putin if Crimea is invaded?  Could war in Crimea escalate to World War III?

2.  If the U.S. doesn’t like China’s peace plan to end the war, where is the U.S. peace plan?  Does the U.S. even have one?

3.  If peace talks can’t proceed until Russia withdraws all its forces from Ukraine, doesn’t that mean they’ll be no peace talks without a total military victory by Ukraine? Aren’t we talking about a prolonged and even more murderous war for both sides?

4. Why is it that the West sees peace talks as weakness?  Ukraine has done better than expected in battle; can’t Ukrainians negotiate from a position of strength?

5. Diplomats like to say that no one wants war, but that simply isn’t true.  Plenty of people make lots of money from war. The longer the war lasts, the more money they’ll make.

6. The U.S. has benefited geopolitically from the weakening of Russia.  Economically too with the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines. That doesn’t delegitimize efforts to aid Ukraine in this war, but it does make you seriously question U.S. motives and intent.

7.  Observers have noted inept tactics by Russian forces; at the same time, they call for higher U.S. and NATO spending due to Russia’s dangerous military.  Doesn’t Russia’s mediocre performance suggest deliberate threat inflation here?  Couldn’t U.S. and NATO military spending be sinking instead of surging?

8.  Observers suggest Ukraine is an “aspiring” democracy.  Restrictions to free press, high rates of corruption, and similar issues suggest Ukraine’s democratic aspirations are already victims of this war. Since war is the enemy of democracy, it’s unlikely Ukraine’s “aspirations” will survive if this war continues without end.

9.  Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was illegal, immoral, and wrong.  But that doesn’t mean it was “unprovoked.”

10.  Are wars best ended by sending expensive and advanced weaponry to the battlefront?

11.  To the claim that reducing U.S. and NATO weapons shipments while promoting negotiation would “embolden” Putin and Russia: If it did and does, just resume the shipments while denouncing Putin for reneging on peace talks.

12.  Putin doesn’t want peace; he’s “worse than Hitler.”  That claim is more than misleading.  If the war is going poorly for Russia, Putin may calculate that a negotiated peace would be better for him in the long run than more killing, especially if the Ukraine boosters are correct about the formidable nature of Ukraine’s planned spring offensive.

13.   A U.S. policy decision to work for a negotiated truce and peace could conceivably lead to an end to fighting.  That truce/peace could be couched in terms of avoiding a wider war that could escalate to nuclear weapons, while still upholding Ukraine’s right to exist and to pursue its own form of government.  Of course, the devil would be in the details with respect to the terms of the truce/treaty.  Why isn’t the U.S. working to advance this?

14.   Strictly for Americans: What vital national interest does the U.S. have in providing more than $110 billion in aid, and counting, to Ukraine?  How are we supporting and defending the U.S. Constitution in Ukraine?  Ukraine is not a NATO member.  The U.S. has no formal alliance with Ukraine.  Ukrainian democracy is (at best) imperfect.  Continued support of Ukraine runs the risk of a wider, more calamitous, war.  Certainly, Americans can legitimately ask why Ukraine has received $110 billion in one year while U.S. states continue to be starved of funds for the homeless, the mentally ill, education, and other worthy social causes within the U.S. itself.

15.    Strictly for Americans:  In 2023, is the U.S. to send another $110 billion to Ukraine?  How about in 2024?  Until Ukraine “wins”?  What if the war lasts for five years?  Ten years?

In raising these questions and making these points, I seek to promote an approach that lessens the danger of a wider war while saving lives on both sides.  Sadly, challenging official U.S. policy often leads to accusations of spouting Kremlin talking points.  Which makes me wonder: Is democracy even more tenuous and illusory in the U.S. than it is in Ukraine and Russia?  We know Russia is a corrupt dictatorship controlled by Putin.  Are we willing to see clearly how corrupt the U.S. government is and how little say the American people have in matters of state?

Humanity wins when wars end. I’m for humanity. I sincerely hope Russians and Ukrainians stop killing each other, and I believe my country should be doing everything in its power to put a stop to this war. That doesn’t mean freezing it so that Putin can allegedly “win.” It means helping to broker a settlement amenable to both sides.

Or should I prefer yet more killing with yet greater chances of dangerous escalation?

The Second Cold War

W.J. Astore

Sequels Are Often Far Worse than the Originals

It began in August 1914, a war in Europe that was supposed to be over by Christmas of that year. But it exploded out of control, becoming the “Great War” or “The World War” or even “The War to End All Wars.” And when it finally ended on 11/11 in 1918, something like ten million troops were dead.

We know it as World War I or the First World War because we know what came after it: yet another calamitous world war, a sequel, one that was far worse than the original. And after that war finally ended in 1945, something like 75-80 million people were dead around the world, including 25 million in the Soviet Union, six million Jews in the Holocaust, and 250,000 at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Hiroshima, 1945, after a “small” atomic bomb. Nuclear attacks in a “new” Cold War will be inconceivably worse

Of course, World War II also wasn’t the end of the killing. The so-called Iron Curtain descended in Europe, leading to the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union that almost ended with Armageddon in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. That Cold War came to an end in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The U.S. celebrated its apparent victory, even calling briefly for “peace dividends” in the 1990s. It was not to be.

Thirty years after the (First) Cold War, we now hear of a “new Cold War.” We hear again that China and Russia are America’s enemies, a new “Axis of Evil,” notes Caitlin Johnstone. America is already engaged in a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Now America’s leaders are posturing over Taiwan and threatening war with China if the Chinese military makes aggressive moves against that country. (Of course, the Chinese consider Taiwan to be China, a “One China” policy the U.S. used to support.) 

It does seem as if “my” Cold War, when I served in the U.S. military, may be remembered to history as the First Cold War, and that America has already begun a Second Cold War. And, just as World War II was far worse than World War I in casualties and destruction, Cold War II could conceivably be a LOT worse than Cold War I if we choose to continue to wage it.

Sequels, as a general rule, are usually worse, sometimes far worse, than the originals. We had better stop this nonsense of a new Cold War before we relearn this in the hardest way possible.

Learning Little from the Iraq War

W.J. Astore

Military Invasions Don’t Produce Democracies

Military invasions don’t produce democracies—who knew? Whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, somehow the U.S. government worked to convince itself and the American people that democracy could be exported at rifle point. Not surprisingly, military invasions spread what they usually do: death, destruction and chaos while sowing seeds for further violence and conflict. Such is one of the many lessons of Bush/Cheney’s disastrous decision to invade Iraq 20 years ago this weekend.

When the U.S. invaded Iraq in March of 2003, I was still on active duty in the military. I was a lieutenant colonel assigned to the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, California, or DLI for short. I can tell you this: the U.S. government expected a short and utterly victorious war, since there was no direction to us to expand foreign language training in Arabic. Only after Bush’s premature “Mission Accomplished” speech and the war’s subsequent degeneration into occupation, torture, battles of frustration like Fallujah, and subsequent quagmire did DLI finally get direction and more resources to expand training in Arabic.

Mission Accomplished! But the Iraq War had only just begun.

That led to my first and only interview as a military officer in May 2005, when a reporter for the CS Monitor asked me about the importance of language training for U.S. troops. Here was my glib reply:

“We are trying to win the peace, and it is very important for us to be able to communicate even at a basic level,” says Lt. Col. William Astore, dean of students at the DLI. “I would much rather have soldiers communicate using words rather than using a rifle butt.”

OK as far as it went, but by the middle of 2005 we had already lost the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan. For one thing, we simply had too few troops with language skills, and it took 16 months to train them to a decent level of competence in Arabic. So we resorted to those rifle butts—and worse.

Another minor controversy at the time was the loss of skilled linguists to the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. As soon as a soldier said he was gay, he was basically gone, regardless of his language proficiency. A few troops gamed the system, finishing the bulk of their language training then self-reporting they were gay. That was enough to get them discharged.

Along with that mess, I recall a friend of mine, an Army major, being sent to Iraq in 2004 and working for the CPA, the Coalition Provisional Authority. He said he and his colleagues at the CPA knew Iraq wasn’t ready for the transfer of power overseen by the hapless L. Paul Bremer, but it went ahead anyway for political reasons. 

He also told me how the military filled billets at the CPA and in the Green Zone of Baghdad. Basically, Big Army tasked unit commanders for bodies. The DLI Commandant sent one of his best officers, an experienced and skilled FAO (foreign area officer). But many other commanders took advantage of this “draft” by sending their worst officers to Iraq, the under-performers. At the same time, the Bush/Cheney administration was recruiting inexperienced civilians for Iraq and vetting them based on their views on abortion, capital punishment, and similar hot-button issues within the Republican Party. Combine less-than-competent officers with unprepared and largely clueless civilians and it’s not surprising the CPA performed poorly.

My experience with the chaos of Iraq was indirect and limited, but I well recall an urgent tasking to DLI to help with the translation of a Peter, Paul & Mary song to promote tolerance within Iraqi schools. No, I’m not kidding. Some American in Iraq decided a smart way of defusing ethnic and religious tensions in Iraq was to translate a song for kids. So we gathered some of our best Arabic instructors and quickly learned the song was more than problematic. It was about American kids making fun of other kids with braces and glasses, but any Iraqi kid with braces or glasses would be fortunate indeed. Other lines of the song mentioned gays, lesbians, and a teenage mother trying to overcome her past — not a place we wanted to go.

The song just didn’t translate, just like much of the American effort “to win the peace” and build a stable democratic Iraq didn’t translate (if you accept for the moment that that was the true mission). Too many Americans were prisoners of their own illusions in Iraq, or trying to make a fast buck, while troops at the front were simply fighting to survive a ghastly war, a war that was obviously far worse for the Iraqi people.

In the first few weeks of the Iraq invasion in 2003, the U.S. military did its job fairly well, and by that I mean the narrow mission of destroying Iraqi forces and overthrowing Saddam Hussein. After that, it was one disaster after another, one lie after another, because once Saddam was removed from power and the Iraqi military was disbanded, all hell broke loose. Civil war was the result, and, as I wrote in 2007, you can’t win someone else’s civil war. What we got in place of a “win” were the lies of Bush/Cheney and of General David Petraeus about “progress” in the Surge. But as the weasel Petraeus always said, his “gains” were fragile and reversible, and so they proved.

Of course, the Iraq War was based on alarmist lies (those WMD that weren’t there, those mushroom clouds in American skies). It was then preserved by lies until the lies could no longer be countenanced (or until they proved no longer profitable). Yet the liars were promoted (whether in the military or outside of it) and those who warned of the folly of war 20 years ago or those who tried to reveal the truth about war crimes or profiteering during the war were punished. 

Though Donald Rumsfeld lost his job as Defense Secretary, few in the hierarchy were ever called to account for their crimes and blunders, so little was learned and much was forgotten.

So, it’s on to the next war, this time with China or Russia or Iran or whomever, but not to worry, the experts that brought you Iraq and Afghanistan and all the rest will get it right. Just look at their track record and how much they’ve learned!

Magical Weapons for Ukraine

W.J. Astore

Lessons from World War I

If you read the mainstream media, it would seem the answer to the Russia-Ukraine War, now about to enter its second year of mass death and widespread destruction, is weapons of various sorts. Western tanks like the German Leopard and American Abrams. Fighter jets like the F-16 produced by Lockheed Martin. If only Ukraine had more tanks, more jets, and the like, they would be able decisively to defeat the Russian military, ejecting it from Ukrainian territory, even from the Crimea, so the argument goes.

As a historian of technology and warfare, I’ve studied this belief in magical weapons. History teaches us that weapons alone usually do not determine winners and losers in war. Weapons themselves are rarely decisive, especially when the sides engaged fight symmetrically. In such cases, new weaponry often increases the carnage.

Consider the events of World War I. Various weapons were tried in an attempt to win the war decisively through military action. These weapons included poison gas (of various types), tanks, flamethrowers, and submarines, among others. None of these weapons broke the stalemate on the Western Front. Countermeasures were found. And World War I dragged on for more than four long years, producing hecatombs of dead.

Image from “All Quiet on the Western Front,” 2022, Netflix

What did work? In a word, exhaustion. In the spring of 1918, Germany launched massive, last-ditch, offensives to win the war before U.S. troops arrived in Europe in large numbers. (The U.S. had entered the war in 1917 but was still mobilizing in 1918.) The Germans came close to winning, but when their offensives grounded to a halt, they had little left in the tank to endure Allied counterattacks. Yes, the Allies had more tanks than the Germans, and were learning to use them effectively with airpower in combined arms assaults. But what truly mattered was exhaustion within the German ranks, exacerbated by the Spanish flu, hunger, and demoralization.

No magical weapon won World War I. And no magical weapon is going to provide Ukraine a decisive edge in its struggle with Russia. Certainly not a hundred or so Western tanks or a few dozen fighter jets.

Indeed, looking at some of the media coverage of the Russia-Ukraine War in the West, you might be excused from mistaking it for advertising videos at a weapons trade show. Over the last year, we’ve learned a lot about Javelin and Stinger missiles, HIMARS rocket launchers, and of course various tanks, fighter jets, and the like. But we’ve seen very little coverage of the mass carnage on both sides. It’s been said the real costs of war will never get in the history books, for who wishes to confront fully the brutality and madness of industrialized warfare?

I’m in the middle of watching the new German version of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” a film deservedly nominated for an Oscar for best picture (available on Netflix). It’s one of the better war films I’ve seen in its depiction of the horrific and dehumanizing aspects of modern industrial warfare. Something like this movie is happening currently in Ukraine, but our leaders, supported by the media, think the answer to the carnage is to send even more destructive weaponry so that more troops (and civilians) can die.

Magical weapons are not the answer. For of course there’s nothing magical about weapons of mass destruction.

America’s Foreign Policy and Cody Jarrett

W.J. Astore

Made it Ma, Top of the World!

A favorite movie of mine is “White Heat” (1949) with James Cagney playing Cody Jarrett, one-time gangster and all-time mama’s boy. In the famous ending to the movie, Cody finally makes it to the “top of the world,” in this case a refinery that explodes around him in a fireball that looks something like a nuclear mushroom cloud.

Top of the world, Ma! James Cagney at the end of “White Heat”

America’s foreign policy leaders remind me of Cody Jarrett. They want to dominate. They want to be top dog. They want to play king-of-the-hill, like so many bully-boys, and all that matters is making it to the top.

All this came to mind as I read Tom Engelhardt’s latest article at TomDispatch.com. His article reminded me that we as Americans simply don’t like dissent, no matter how well informed, no matter how well intended. In World War I, you weren’t supposed to question a war that President Woodrow Wilson had promised Americans we wouldn’t get involved in. In the 1950s, you weren’t supposed to question virulent anti-communism; you were supposed to salute smartly and demonize all communists everywhere. Today, you’re supposed to hate Putin, distrust the Chinese, and accept fully the idea that the Pentagon is wise to wage a new Cold War that may well end much like the ending of “White Heat.”

Engelhardt’s article salutes dissenters like I.F. “Izzy” Stone, people who are willing to challenge established narratives, to work against demonizing other peoples, to work toward mutual understanding and peace. Indeed, we need more Izzy Stones in America.

These are dangerous times. We’re supposed to go along with wars, with demonizing enemies, with high military spending. Bully-boy rhetoric and tactics are touted as the American way.  Our politics is retrograde, our attitude toward the world almost childish, again in a king-of-the-hill way. (America must be king, of course.)

So I fear we may well end up like Cagney at the end of “White Heat.”  Our gangster-leaders will shout: “Made it Ma, top of the world!” as the nuclear warheads explode around us.

Why I’m Pro-Russia

W.J. Astore

It was bound to happen

Comrades, it has finally happened: I’ve been accused of being pro-Russia.

I was accused because I advocate for diplomacy and a negotiated settlement to the Russia-Ukraine War. Generally, I’m pro-peace and anti-war, but that’s a bad thing to be in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Apparently, the only way to be pro-Ukraine is to advocate for and work toward a complete Ukrainian military victory over Russian forces, meaning that all Russian forces must be expelled from Ukraine, no matter the cost. That also means that Ukraine should get every weapon system they request from the U.S. and NATO, no matter the cost and no matter how many people are killed with these weapons. Putin is evil, Russians are bad, and the only thing “they” understand is maximum violence.

Of course it’s my favorite Bond film!

Comrades, I figure I should embrace my pro-Russia identity and really explain it. So here are the top ten reasons “From Russia With Love” is my byword:

  1. I want Ukraine to win the war and Russia to lose, and I accept that Putin’s invasion a year ago was both illegal and immoral. That makes me pro-Russia.
  2. While I want Ukraine to win, I don’t believe the best way to “win” is a long war fought on Ukrainian territory at immense cost to all involved. That makes me pro-Russia.
  3. I believe negotiations are possible between Russia and Ukraine and that an immediate cease fire will save countless Russian and Ukrainian lives. That makes me pro-Russia.
  4. I don’t believe Western military aid to Ukraine is disinterested or driven by a love of democracy. That makes me pro-Russia.
  5. I worry that a lengthy war as well as a more intense one could lead to dangerous escalation, perhaps even to nuclear war, a risk illustrated by the “doomsday clock” moving ever closer to midnight. That makes me pro-Russia.
  6. I worry that a war that ends with Putin being overthrown could lead to a destabilized Russia in which nuclear surety is compromised. That makes me pro-Russia.
  7. I believe that history began before Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and that NATO expansion to Russia’s borders was unnecessary and unwise. That makes me pro-Russia.
  8. I note the enormous profits being made by U.S. fossil fuel companies, especially from LNG (natural gas) shipments, partly due to the destruction of Nord Stream 2, as well as the profiteering by arms merchants and a soaring Pentagon budget, and I question U.S. motivations in this war. That makes me pro-Russia.
  9. I note the mind numbing casualties already produced by this war (roughly 100,000 troops killed or wounded on each side), the millions of refugees, the untold billions in destruction inflicted on Ukraine, and I seek a way to say “no” to more killing, “no” to more war. That makes me pro-Russia.
  10. I call on all sides to show maturity, to seek another way beyond yet more violence and killing, a way that respects the security interests of all involved, a way that fosters peace and reconciliation. That makes me pro-Russia.

Comrades, there you have it. I think you’ll agree I am pro-Russia, an acolyte of Putin, a willing puppet or useful idiot of Russian imperialism. The clincher is that I haven’t added a tiny Ukrainian flag to my Facebook profile photo or to my Twitter feed, so, really, what more proof do you need?

Thinking About Nuclear War

W.J. Astore

This week, I was truly honored to talk with Robert Scheer about a subject that should be on our minds: nuclear war. I remember reading Scheer’s book, “With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush, and Nuclear War” when I was in college in the early 1980s. Back then, at least some of the “experts” surrounding Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush believed a nuclear war was “winnable” against the Soviet Union. Those were the days of the nuclear freeze movement and of deep concern about the possibility of a cataclysmic nuclear war. (Of course, any nuclear war would be cataclysmic.)

Today, few people seem that concerned about nuclear war even as the Doomsday Clock creeps ever closer to midnight. Why is this? Scheer and I talk about this as well as other subjects related to nuclear weapons and the military-industrial complex.

Who Determines U.S. Foreign Policy?

W.J. Astore

The Golden Rule Applies

Who determines U.S. foreign policy?  The question seems simple enough.  According to my go-to source, the AI chatbot ChatGPT,

U.S. foreign policy is made by the President, with the assistance and advice of the National Security Council and the State Department, and with the approval of Congress. The President has the power to negotiate treaties and executive agreements, and to appoint ambassadors, while Congress has the power to approve or reject treaties and executive agreements, and to confirm ambassadors. The National Security Council and the State Department are responsible for providing the President with advice and information on foreign policy issues.

That’s how many people see it.  Except it doesn’t work that way.  More than anything, America is an oligarchy rooted in capitalism and driven by greed and profit.  Foreign policy, therefore, is most often driven by powerful corporate interests, especially those tied to the military, hence President Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex.  When looking at foreign policy, one must always factor in the interests of Wall Street and its small army of lobbyists and especially powerful corporate interests in fossil fuels and similar trillion-dollar industries.

Again, when looking at U.S. foreign policy, its decisions and commitments, one should first ask, Cui bono?  Who benefits the most from the decisions made?  Second, one should keep in mind the golden rule, as in they who have the gold make the rules.  Presidents, Secretaries of State, ambassadors, and the like come and go, but the moneyed interests remain.  And with “dark money” now endemic in politics, it’s difficult to parse exactly who is giving what to whom.

I don’t mean this as a great revelation.  In the 1950s C. Wright Mills wrote of the “power elite,” which I cited in an article on greed-war.  This is what Mills had to say:

the high military, the corporation executives, the political directorate have tended to come together to form the power elite of America … a triangle of power [that is] the key to any understanding of the higher circles in America today.

C. Wright Mills knew the score

That power elite largely drives and determines U.S. foreign policy today.  Recall as well that the Pentagon budget today (almost $860 billion) is 14 times greater than the State Department (roughly $60 billion).  Basically, State is a tiny branch of the Pentagon.  I wonder who calls the shots?

We’d like to think we the people have some say over foreign policy.  Don’t we elect our members of Congress?  Don’t we elect our president?  But when both parties are thoroughly corporatized, when both respond to lobbyists and special interests while ignoring the rest of us, the truth is we essentially have no choice and no influence.

That truth can be hard to believe because we like to think we have some agency.  But we have none.  Even so, the power elite will pretend that our opinions matter, even as they resolutely ignore them.  Consider the most important foreign policy decision any nation can make: whether war is to be declared and our troops are to be sent off to fight and die.  We haven’t made that decision as a nation since December of 1941.  Every war America has fought since World War II has been undeclared.  That should tell us something about who’s in control.  Hint: It’s not us.

The rich and powerful will tell you and sell you what “truth” to believe in.  So, we’re told and sold the idea that Joe Biden is making vitally important decisions in the White House, even as Joe nowadays has trouble reading from a teleprompter.  We’re told and sold the idea that Congress represents our interests when it most definitely doesn’t (as the Princeton Study proved).  We’re told and sold the idea that America cares about fostering democracy in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine, but a bit of digging reveals the real forces and interests at play, such as oil, pipelines, strategic metals, market dominance, and the like.

Look, I’ve taken standard college courses on U.S. foreign policy.  I learned a lot from them.  But even in college I didn’t learn much about the colossal power of America’s military-industrial complex; the enormous influence of mega-corporations; the way in which foreign policy is shaped by economic profit and the pursuit of resources, some of which is captured in that old saw that “What’s good for General Motors is good for America.”

Well, GM may have waned in influence, but other industries and financial interests have taken its place. Again, if America’s foreign policy decisions confuse you, clarity should come when you ask yourself, who benefits (not you, of course), and when you remember the golden rule, as in they who have the gold make the rules.

Let the Weapons Flow and the Body Count Grow

W.J. Astore

Say “no” to killing, “no” to war

Two articles I read yesterday are typical of polarized, indeed antithetical, views on the Russia-Ukraine War.

At the British Guardian, Simon Tisdall says this is Europe’s moment to step up and support Ukraine in a righteous war against Putin. He concludes, with passion:

Zelenskiy is right. Risk-averse Nato has been too slow and too cautious from the start. To outpace tyranny, Europe must fight – and fight to win. Our common future depends on it.

Putin, the tyrant, must be stopped in Ukraine, or Poland and Germany could be next. Fighting to win means that Ukraine must be given not only hundreds of Leopard 2 tanks but also combat jets. The combination of tanks, jets, and related ancillary equipment will enable Ukraine to drive Russian forces out of the country in a quasi-Blitzkrieg operation. Victory to the West!

Why not talks instead of tanks?

At Antiwar.com, Edward Curtin predicts Russia will win this war even as he suggests it’s mainly the West’s fault for inciting it via NATO expansion and U.S. involvement in the 2014 coup in Ukraine:

we are being subjected to a vast tapestry of lies told by the corporate media for their bosses, as the US continues its doomed efforts to control the world. It is not Russia that is desperate now, but propagandists such as the writers of this strident and stupid editorial [by the New York Times]. It is not the Russian people who need to wake up, as they claim, but the American people and those who still cling to the myth that The New York Times Corporation is an organ of truth. It is the Ministry of Truth with its newspeak, doublespeak, and its efforts to change the past.

Which is it? Is this a war that the U.S. and NATO must win, along with Ukraine, to stop an evil and expansionist dictator, or is this a war that the U.S. and NATO provoked, and surely will lose, given Russia’s military superiority empowered in part by the justice of its cause?

To me, the disturbing part of such polarized, us versus them, views is that they really guarantee only one thing: more fighting and more death. Let the weapons flow and the body count grow: that is the result of these debates.

War, as almost any military historian will tell you, is inherently unpredictable. I have no idea who’s going to “win” this war. I do know the Ukrainians are losing. I say this only because the war is being fought on their soil, and the longer it lasts, the more Ukraine will suffer.

That doesn’t mean I want Ukraine to surrender, nor do I want it to lose. But I don’t think it will win with more Western tanks and planes. Just about any escalation by the West can be matched by Russia. I see further stalemate, not Blitzkrieg-like victories, and stalemate means more and more suffering.

It’s said the pen can prove mightier than the sword. Why not try talking in place of tanks? Put those mighty pens to work by signing an armistice or even an enduring peace treaty. Ukraine and Russia are neighbors; unless they want perpetual war, they must find a way to live together.

More weaponry to Ukraine is unlikely to produce decisive victory, but it is likely to produce far more death and destruction in that country. It’s high time both sides said “no” to killing, “no” to yet more war.

German Panzers in Ukraine

W.J. Astore

What could possibly go wrong?

The U.S. and Germany are currently discussing sending German Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. This is in addition to British Challenger 2 tanks. These weapons are needed so that Ukraine can take the offensive and evict Russian forces from Ukrainian territory, according to Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential administration.

Who knew that Cold War-era German Panzers would possibly meet their Soviet counterparts in a clash of armor featuring Ukraine against Russia? I don’t think anyone predicted that scenario forty years ago.

In fact, as a teenager in the 1970s, I played war games such as “MechWar ‘77,” which envisioned a massive Soviet armored thrust into West Germany countered by NATO armored forces consisting primarily of German and U.S. tanks. You know, the good old days.

In “MechWar ‘23,” it’s now possible that German- and British-made tanks, crewed by Ukrainians, will face their Soviet/Russian counterparts in heated combat. The Germans, considering the legacy of Panzers in Russian and Ukrainian territory in World War II, are understandably reluctant to send tanks to Ukraine to kill Russians. The historical echoes here are more than faintly disturbing.

As the U.S. and NATO keep sending heavier and more powerful offensive weaponry to Ukraine, the dangers of escalation continue to creep upwards. So too do the ambitions of those involved. What started in the West as an allegedly limited effort to help Ukraine defend its soil against Russian attacks is rapidly becoming a full-fledged war to roll back Russian forces not only in Ukraine but also in the Crimea.

Again, what could possibly go wrong in MechWar ‘23?