Russia and the Ukraine.

It is sad that we not only do not understand our enemies, but also that we cannot, because we are so self-righteous and indoctrinated. Russia has been wronged badly and deliberately and we do not even understand what is wrong. Putin is a dangerous and at times wicked leader, but that does not mean he cannot be right.

The Russian Complaint.

Putin/Russia repeatedly say their concern is that Ukraine should not join NATO thus forming an aggressive boundary to Russia. We could, with a little thought set out below, understand that concern and actually see that the new NATO is deliberately creating this aggressive boundary. We could even end this silly confrontation.

When the USSR/Russia agreed to the unification of Germany around 1990 Gorbachev was promised by the United States and the West that there should be no aggressive forces east of the former West German border. It was clear why. History matters deeply, especially when it is this history.

The Perfidious West.

In WW1 German troops ripped through Russia, Russia lost the War, suffered horror and was only rescued by the final defeat. Except then Churchill as Minister for War fought his own vendetta against Communism, trying in his words to “murder the baby (Communism) in the cradle.” It was a long War and no-one could be trusted. Stalin saw Hitler coming and prepared for War again. It came in the great onslaught in the East when the USSR carried WW2 and beat Hitler. The USSR won WW2 especially at Leningrad and Stalingrad. As Churchill well knew the USSR saved Britain from invasion and carried most of the War while we deliberately slowly opened a second front. After all, if the Nazis and the USSR were fighting one another, why should we crash in on the act? By carrying the backbone of the War, with western logistics help, the USSR lost 25 million people. The US and UK lost half a million each. They thus suffered perhaps fifty times more than we did, and we never even think of thanking them for Winning The War. Indeed, in mass film, political, cultural propaganda, we insist that We (the US or UK) Won the War. That untruth the Russians know to be a lie. We blank the truth.

The understanding that emerged in the USSR under Stalin was that twice in World Wars Russia was invaded from the West with a total destructive invasion. It must never happen again, and consequently the USSR needed a buffer between them and German and Western aggression.

Worse than that, at the end of the War Churchill (and the US hawks) were gung ho for attacking the USSR, our ally, pushing around papers proposing it. The USSR had fought this heroic War against Hitler and were also an exhausted, devastated country. Stalin learned of the proposed attacks through his spies and saw the West was not to be trusted an inch. Later there were plans to nuke Moscow and the USSR.

We blithely ignore the fact that at the end of the War in the United States after Roosevelt’s death, when some ex-Nazi sympathizers were close to power in the US – the Dulles brothers and Forrestal – they together with Churchill and Truman in the “Iron Curtain” speech of the 5^th March, 1946 declared strong military confrontation against Soviet Communism. Stalin was devasted. It was a mere six months after the end of the War – the USSR had lost 25 million, and as many injured, it had been a faithful ally fighting Japan in the East. It had just faced a cruel Russian winter with urban and factory destruction, shortages, famine and housing crises across most of its territory to defeat the Nazis. The snow had hardly melted. Yet Churchill persuaded the US President to resume his (Churchill’s) military confrontation with the desperate USSR to open the Cold War. Churchill, ousted by the British electorate, could resume his control of history. A Red Scare and the McCarthyite era made Communism into the new enemy. The USSR, who had been at the centre of winning the War, were treated like rubbish, ignored by Marshall Aid, while Germany received much help.

Our Cold War.

The Cold War lasted nearly half a century. Historians are clear it was led by the United States and allowed the expansion of the US military usually on the basis of lies about USSR military strength and a domino scare theory of Communism which was untrue in Korea, Vietnam and elsewhere. We hide the fact that the precursor to the Cuba crisis was the US lining up missiles on the USSR border, an issue which Kennedy insisted remained undeclared, or that the US regularly opposed disarmament moves. The Cold War show was mainly run by the US (and UK) military until the USSR collapsed under its own militarisation. The biggest propaganda bombardment in history was used to insist that the USSR (and China) were always wrong.

When the USSR collapsed, the world breathed a sigh of relief that the Cold War was over, with its vast costs, danger of nuclear war and worlds-wide polarisation. Gorbachev and Yeltsin offered an entirely friendly relationship with the West. They agreed to the reunification of Germany, which, given the history, was a massive concession, provided eastern Europe was not militarised, and the reunification took place. Germany, especially under Merkel’s leadership, has been no problem to Russia. But NATO has.

NATO’s push to recreate the Cold War.

In 1990 NATO, whose raison d’etre had been military opposition to the USSR, was out of a job. It had only a friend to fight. The so-called ideological confrontation between “Freedom” and “Communism” was over, because Russia was Capitalist now. It should have been wound up. We have to understand what a vast structure NATO was of command centres, logistics centres, communication, weapons systems and enough of these people decided to recreate themselves. Its budgets and organisations were cut but the highly paid staff there were not going to do themselves out of business, so they set out to recreate the Cold War. It took about twenty years. They recruited into NATO Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia and actively sought to include Turkey as well. Now anyone, however thick, who looks at a map will see that if a big “defence” organisation incorporates all of these territories surrounding Russia in a large ring, it is aiming at Russia.

There was, and is, one exception. Ukraine is still a buffer state, and now NATO aided by the US and UK Governments insists that “of course” the Ukraine should join NATO. This will allow advanced Western weaponry to be placed once again on Russia borders in case anything happens. It is, we hear, a right in a free democracy. It is of course, aside Turkey, the full encirclement military strategy of NATO which guarantees the confrontation on which they depend. And gradually it has been successful. Putin, reared in the Cold War, has become more remilitarised, autocratic and plays their game. He has his problems, but given the long perfidious military history of the West and its history of starting wars, his fears are genuine, as rockets on your borders emphasize. The failure to observe the 1990 understanding, spearheaded by NATO, has recreated a Cold War and Russia is worried about Ukraine and NATO. Boris, to keep the show on the road, sends a massive annoying flotilla of warships round the Black Sea.

The Stupid Superpowers.

Thus, this whole confrontation is an artifice to keep NATO people in their jobs, support the arms industries of the West and Russia, and keep people scared into military subservience. It is on any assessment a stupid way to conduct international relationships. Wise people, who saw through what is happening, could cleanse the world of this evil. Or it can grow to threaten the planet again. It’s our choice. As Jesus pithily said, “Those who take the sword will perish by the sword.” We should deeply heed his words.