UNITED STATES AND RUSSIA, WHO IS LEARNING FROM WHOM

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Has Russian President Vladimir Putin borrowed a page from America’s interventionist policy? 

Why is it ok for the U.S. to intervene to protect its interests but not Russia? Unfortunately, the U.S. media has not told the true story of how this war came about. 

BY: Nathaniel Ballantyne

TrueNewsblog – This war was avoidable, and many foreign policy experts had been wondering what took Russia so long to act? If you only listen to the western media, they have you would believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin is unstable and crazy. It is the other way around; it is the West mainly America, who is unstable and crazy. 

After the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the eventual split of the USSR, the agreement was that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would not expand eastward. Both the West and Russia understood the risk of inviting former Soviet Republics into NATO.

NATO was founded after the Second World War as a collective defense organization to prevent USSR aggression. Technically NATO was no longer needed post-1989 world. But the Americans had other plans. For nearly three decades, they had been encouraging former Soviet republics to join NATO with the hope of encircling Russia with offensive weapons changing the balance of power in Eastern Europe.

Over the years, several Eastern bloc countries have joined NATO. From the onset, Russian president Mickael Gorbachev made it clear to James Baker III, the former U.S. Secretary of State, that any NATO expansion Eastward would be seen as an existential threat to the Russian Federation. American presidents since Georges W. Bush continued the policy of NATO expansion. The policy had been implemented against the advice of many experts who concluded that such expansion would result in war in Europe and could potentially cause World War III.  

The Russians have always made it clear that Ukraine, which shares a long border with Russia, is the red line. So when Ukraine sought NATO membership, Russia protested with good reason. Once Ukraine is covered under the NATO defense mechanism, NATO would then be able to have military exercises with Ukraine, placing weapons such as ballistic missiles and others just like they did in Poland, except that Ukraine is right in Russia’s backyard- an unacceptable security risk for a superpower. A risk that America would never accept if the tables were turned. 

For decades the Russians have complained about their security concerns each time a former Soviet republic joined NATO. In 1999 the Clinton White House pushed for Poland, Hungary and Czechia to join NATO, the Russians complained but the West chose to disregard Russia’s concerns.

Russia’s security concerns are valid, and no serious expert in foreign policy who understands geopolitics would discount or deny that Russia has serious reasons for concern. 

In the United States, we have the Monroe doctrine, the guiding principle of America’s foreign policy since the first world war. That doctrine clearly says that the United States as a world power reserves the right to intervene militarily to defend its sphere of influence.  

Since 1920, the U.S. had intervened militarily over a dozen times in the affairs of other sovereign countries in South America, the Caribbean, and Africa, toppling regimes that they believed represented a challenge to its security interest. 

In 1962, the world barely escaped a third world war during the Cuban missiles crisis. Although Russian president Nikita Khrushchev decided to place long-range ballistic missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from the State of Florida, the Kennedy administration determined that was an unacceptable security risk and invoked the Monroe doctrine. In exchange for removing U.S. ballistic missiles from Turkey, Khrushchev agreed to withdraw his missiles from Cuba. 

Since then, it has been understood that each power will respect each other’s sphere of influence in order to keep world peace. 

In the history of the world, there has never been a government more arrogant than the American government. The U.S. government and its supporters operate under the notion that they can do whatever they want, and others should just accept it because they know better. 

Putin has proved that is not the case. Whether you believe Putin is a dictator is not the point. The United States would have militarily attacked any country in its sphere of influence that agreed to host Russian nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles.

Putin is being very responsible by intervening in Ukraine to disarm a neighboring country which he believes present a serious existential threat. The U.S. invaded Iraq under false pretenses to disarm a regime that supposedly had nuclear weapons. Most of the world applauded that intervention except the women and children of Iraq who bared the brunt of this terrible nightmare. 

The best way to lead is by example. We in the West created the precedent. We told the world that a world power could intervene anywhere in the world when it feels its security or interests are under threat. 

In the history of the world, the U.S. has never intervened anywhere to protect freedom or the lives of innocent people. Such interventions have always been for the protection of business interests.  

Putin has used the pretext that he intervened in Ukraine to prevent genocide in the Dunbask region of Ukraine. But, of course, no thinking person would believe that just that, no real thinking person thought the U.S. invaded Iraq to rid it of weapons of mass destruction or to free the Iraqis. 

The Russians have learned from the United States. This war in Ukraine will end like any other military intervention by a superpower, destroying many innocent people. Putin will topple Zelensky’s government and replace it with his own just like America had done in many places worldwide. If we are careful, we may avert a nuclear war. If we are not, the world will come to an end as we know it.

Ukraine has been part of Russia and will most likely continue to be part of Russia. The West simply cannot afford to escalate this war that could lead to cataclysmic results. 

Next time America decides to invade a sovereign country, let’s think twice about what kind of message we are sending to strongmen like Putin with thousands of nuclear warheads pointing West.