Those who take a skeptical view of U.S. foreign policy might see the growing conflict with Russia over its positioning of troops along its border with Ukraine as being similar to the rush toward war with Iraq under Saddam Hussein, over alleged weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. Political intrigue takes many forms, and Americans should by now be very leery of taking any saber-rattling at face value.
To be sure, having 100,000 troops stationed along Russia’s border poses a threat, but even Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Russia would need a lot bigger military presence to actually launch an attack on its neighbor. Russian President Vladimir Putin, of course, denies any intention of invading Ukraine.
What Putin has focused on — and what the U.S. and NATO have refused to discuss (at least publicly) — is his fear that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will expand to his country’s doorstep. “You promised us in the 1990s that [NATO] would not move an inch to the East. You cheated us shamelessly,” Putin said at a news conference in December. Russia has repeatedly said it only wants to defend its own security interests in the face of what it views as an expansion of Western military might.
Indeed, during discussions between U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev about the reunification of East and West Germany, Baker offered a guarantee that NATO would not expand eastward if Gorbachev would take down the wall. The actual treaty, however, did not include that promise, and NATO’s founding articles declare that any European country that is able to meet the alliance’s criteria for membership can join. Over the course of the 1990s and early 2000s, NATO expanded three times, adding the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland the first time; then seven more countries, including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; and finally, in 2009, Albania and Croatia.
Putin surely would welcome an annexation of Ukraine, which shares a common language and heritage, not to mention its economic ties. Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, now in jail in his native country, has another explanation: What Putin truly fears is losing power. Navalny believes that Putin is using the conflict over Ukraine to consolidate his power. “Putin constantly needs all these extreme measures, all these wars — real ones, virtual ones, hybrid ones, or just confrontations at the edge of war, as we’re seeing now,” he told Time magazine.
On the U.S. side, that same strategy might work for a president whose approval rating is hovering in the low 40 percents. Despite the booming U.S. economy under Joe Biden’s presidency, the high inflation rate as the country recovers from the pandemic has people worried, and the media focus more on that than on the signs of a strengthening country. A little conflict with Russia could divert attention elsewhere for a while.
Of course, there also is the U.S. history of creating conflicts abroad to create “regime change” and put people in power that “we” support. The media automatically go along with the narrative, then express shock when Russia and China turn to the same tactics against us.
This is all to say we really don’t know what is going on, and before jumping aboard the “bring it on” mentality, having a bit of skepticism is still in order.
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