Ignoring the vituperations of the west, Russian President, Vladimir Putin finally implemented his ‘military-technical’ threat against Ukraine on Thursday the 24th February. As expected, this produced a barrage of recriminations from those very countries of the US led NATO alliance, who had done their utmost to precipitate this situation, which had been simmering for the last eight years. Understandably, Ukrainian civilians have been complaining that their country has been invaded and that they are suffering in a war which is not of their making.
While this is true, they cannot feign innocence of the US’ indulgence in their country’s internal affairs and fanning of sentiment against its population of the Russian origin. Further, Russia’s security concerns, especially stemming from the prospects of the NATO’s membership of a country in its neighborhood, whose leadership is so loathful of it, are genuine; particularly, when one considers how disdainfully America and its NATO allies have treated its protestations on this issue for over the last thirty years.
What has been more worrying for the Russians is a fact that since 2014, the government of Ukraine has been run with an oversight of the Neo fascist Ukrainian clique, which is made up of the followers of the Ukrainian Fascist leader, Stepan Bandera. Bandera was a Nazi conspirator, who had helped the Germans against the Russians during the second world war. According to the recent OP-ED article in Los Angeles Times, the CIA has been training the Ukrainian Special Forces and Intelligence Officers, consisting of these extremist elements, at a secret facility in US, since 2015. This reveals how deep is the US involvement in stoking antagonism towards Russia in Ukraine.
But, the German involvement in this whole affair has not been any less significant. The veteran Indian diplomat, M.K. Bhadrakumar, in a recent article in a web magazine Strategic-Culture has mentioned that Germany actively promoted the unrest in Ukraine in late 2013. Its intelligence encouraged street protests in Kiev while its government in Berlin did the arm twisting of Viktor Yanukovich, who was Ukraine’s president at that time. Yanukovich was ultimately forced to agree to hold the mid-term elections to test the Ukrainian people’s will.
However, even before the elections could take place, Germany’s transatlantic conspirator, using its Banderite allies within Ukraine, stirred violence on Kiev’s streets. Sensing threat to his life Yanukovich had to flee the country. Thus, anti-Russian leadership was installed in Ukraine with the street power of the neo-Nazis. Since then, America has wielded enormous influence on the affairs of Ukraine; especially in respect of its relations with Russia. Germans on their part have continued to court the neo-fascist, Svoboda.
Considering this background, it should be really intriguing to see that the US – a beacon democratic freedom and the free world, and its ally Germany, which swears by the same values, should have been using this cabal to further the geostrategic aims against Russia. As explained above, in 2014 the US had engineered the notorious maidan coup with the help of these men to overthrow the elected government of Ukraine, which it felt was not playing by its rules. Indeed, its much-touted ‘rule based’ order, which ignores the UN charter, has had a long history.
In 1991, when Soviet Union fell under the weight of its own misconceived policies, US’ ardent allies declared the ‘Pax Americana’, meaning ‘peace’ on American terms. US has since straddled the world with an impunity of a hegemon. In these thirty years it has left behind a huge wreckage of its ire; some failed states, some wrecked, some choked by sanctions and some maimed by its power. All under the pretext of right to protect or to save the world from the weapons of mass destruction, but behind all these has been the pursuit of self-interest, often ignoring the interest of the others.
And, what is this self-interest? In his farewell speech in 1958, the US President, Dwight Eisenhower had warned ‘In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex’. That was long ago. The interest of the military industrial complex has since merged with the ideology of the Beltway. To it, subsidizing the health care or education of the students is a profligacy, but not the almost three quarter of a trillion, defense spending; Much which goes on encircling Russia (and now China). Indeed, nothing can stand in way of its quest for unchallenged power. The barebones of this policy were laid out in Zbigniew Brzezinski’s widely read magnus opus: The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, published in 1997.
Brzezinski formulated the strategy for sustaining US’ global hegemony in the 21st century, focusing on the land mass of Eurasia as the center of global power. It’s thrust was, ‘that no Eurasian challenger should emerge who can dominate Eurasia and challenge US’ global pre-eminence’. In this connection a recent statement by Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the Ukrainian fascist organization, Svoboda, which has been prepared for the task by US, ‘that Russia would have to be dismembered and divided into 20 nation states’, says it all.
Unfortunately, though, this has a potential to flare up into an uncontrollable conflict, embroiling the whole of Europe, if not the world. It seems, President Eisenhower’s expressed concern in his farewell address, that the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist, seems to be playing out in its fullness.
Shrikant Modak is a Sr Journalist. He has co-authored five books, the last of which was published by Sage Publishers last summer. He has held senior positions at The Economic Times, Business Today and Business India.
