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Council On Foreign Relations: The Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s – Not Putin’s – Fault
We’ve previously reported that it’s the West’s encirclement of Russia – breaking a key promise which led to the break-up of the Soviet Union – which is behind the Ukraine crisis.
We’ve also noted:
The U.S. State Department spent more than $5 billion dollars in pushing Ukraine towards the West. The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine (Geoffrey Pyatt) and assistant Secretary of State (Victoria Nuland) were also recorded plotting the downfall of the former Ukraine government in a leaked recorder conversation. Top-level U.S. officials literally handed out cookies to the protesters who overthrew the Ukrainian government.
And the U.S. has been doing everything it can to trumpet pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian propaganda. So – without doubt – the U.S. government is heavily involved with fighting a propaganda war regarding Ukraine.
The news is starting to go mainstream …
Specifically, the Council On Foreign Relations (CFR) is a very mainstream, hawkish group.
CFR’s flagship publication – Foreign Affairs – has just published a piece blaming the Ukraine crisis on the West.
The piece by John Mearsheimer – in it’s September/October 2014 issue – accurately notes:
The United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis. The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West. At the same time, the EU’s expansion eastward and the West’s backing of the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine — beginning with the Orange Revolution in 2004 — were critical elements, too. Since the mid-1990s, Russian leaders have adamantly opposed NATO enlargement, and in recent years, they have made it clear that they would not stand by while their strategically important neighbor turned into a Western bastion. For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected and pro-Russian president — which he rightly labeled a “coup” — was the final straw. He responded by taking Crimea, a peninsula he feared would host a NATO naval base, and working to destabilize Ukraine until it abandoned its efforts to join the West. Putin’s pushback should have come as no surprise. After all, the West had been moving into Russia’s backyard and threatening its core strategic interests, a point Putin made emphatically and repeatedly. Elites in the United States and Europe have been blindsided by events only because they subscribe to a flawed view of international politics.
***
U.S. and European leaders blundered in attempting to turn Ukraine into a Western stronghold on Russia’s border. Now that the consequences have been laid bare, it would be an even greater mistake to continue this misbegotten policy.
***
The West’s final tool for peeling Kiev away from Moscow has been its efforts to spread Western values and promote democracy in Ukraine and other post-Soviet states, a plan that often entails funding pro-Western individuals and organizations. Victoria Nuland, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, estimated in December 2013 that the United States had invested more than $5 billion since 1991 to help Ukraine achieve “the future it deserves.” As part of that effort, the U.S. government has bankrolled the National Endowment for Democracy. The nonprofit foundation has funded more than 60 projects aimed at promoting civil society in Ukraine, and the NED’s president, Carl Gershman, has called that country “the biggest prize.” After Yanukovych won Ukraine’s presidential election in February 2010, the NED decided he was undermining its goals, and so it stepped up its efforts to support the opposition and strengthen the country’s democratic institutions.
When Russian leaders look at Western social engineering in Ukraine, they worry that their country might be next. And such fears are hardly groundless. In September 2013, Gershman wrote in The Washington Post, “Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents.” He added: “Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”
The West’s triple package of policies — NATO enlargement, EU expansion, and democracy promotion — added fuel to a fire waiting to ignite. The spark came in November 2013, when Yanukovych rejected a major economic deal he had been negotiating with the EU and decided to accept a $15 billion Russian counteroffer instead. That decision gave rise to antigovernment demonstrations that escalated over the following three months and that by mid-February had led to the deaths of some one hundred protesters. Western emissaries hurriedly flew to Kiev to resolve the crisis. On February 21, the government and the opposition struck a deal that allowed Yanukovych to stay in power until new elections were held. But it immediately fell apart, and Yanukovych fled to Russia the next day. The new government in Kiev was pro-Western and anti-Russian to the core, and it contained four high-ranking members who could legitimately be labeled neofascists.
Although the full extent of U.S. involvement has not yet come to light, it is clear that Washington backed the coup. Nuland and Republican Senator John McCain participated in antigovernment demonstrations, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, proclaimed after Yanukovych’s toppling that it was “a day for the history books.” As a leaked telephone recording revealed, Nuland had advocated regime change and wanted the Ukrainian politician Arseniy Yatsenyuk to become prime minister in the new government, which he did. No wonder Russians of all persuasions think the West played a role in Yanukovych’s ouster.
***
Putin’s actions should be easy to comprehend. A huge expanse of flat land that Napoleonic France, imperial Germany, and Nazi Germany all crossed to strike at Russia itself, Ukraine serves as a buffer state of enormous strategic importance to Russia. No Russian leader would tolerate a military alliance that was Moscow’s mortal enemy until recently moving into Ukraine. Nor would any Russian leader stand idly by while the West helped install a government there that was determined to integrate Ukraine into the West.
Washington may not like Moscow’s position, but it should understand the logic behind it. This is Geopolitics 101: great powers are always sensitive to potential threats near their home territory. After all, the United States does not tolerate distant great powers deploying military forces anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, much less on its borders. Imagine the outrage in Washington if China built an impressive military alliance and tried to include Canada and Mexico in it. Logic aside, Russian leaders have told their Western counterparts on many occasions that they consider NATO expansion into Georgia and Ukraine unacceptable, along with any effort to turn those countries against Russia — a message that the 2008 Russian-Georgian war also made crystal clear.
***
In [a] 1998 interview, [the top American expert on Russia, George] Kennan predicted that NATO expansion would provoke a crisis, after which the proponents of expansion would “say that we always told you that is how the Russians are.” As if on cue, most Western officials have portrayed Putin as the real culprit in the Ukraine predicament.
Mearsheimer gives a way out of this mess:
There is a solution to the crisis in Ukraine, however — although it would require the West to think about the country in a fundamentally new way. The United States and its allies should abandon their plan to westernize Ukraine and instead aim to make it a neutral buffer between NATO and Russia, akin to Austria’s position during the Cold War. Western leaders should acknowledge that Ukraine matters so much to Putin that they cannot support an anti-Russian regime there. This would not mean that a future Ukrainian government would have to be pro-Russian or anti-NATO. On the contrary, the goal should be a sovereign Ukraine that falls in neither the Russian nor the Western camp.
***
The United States and its European allies now face a choice on Ukraine. They can continue their current policy, which will exacerbate hostilities with Russia and devastate Ukraine in the process — a scenario in which everyone would come out a loser. Or they can switch gears and work to create a prosperous but neutral Ukraine, one that does not threaten Russia and allows the West to repair its relations with Moscow. With that approach, all sides would win.
Will saner heads prevail, and back away from the abyss before it’s too late?
And see this.
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That's why my head is ready to explode. I have got to go for a walk. We were told we were all kooks and conspiracists and terrorist supporters for believing what we knew as fact. MSM and the administration has clearly lied and the CFR is calling them out on it?
UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE... my head is spinning
Please tell me it's not April the 1st...
They need a fall guy, guess what Obama signed up for...
First Black President, but he's going to be the one that "caused" the collapse.
Ain't much changed in 50 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbR6vHXD1j0
This is awfully rich coming from the CFR.
George...
Please help me.
Several handfuls of benzodiazepines and a good cry might help me to understand this ....
I am now soooooo lost.
Aside from the PTB turning on His Majesty the BoiKing Puppet, forces outside the US have taken control of the Matrix..... CFR is an Official Organ of the PTB.... Oh my oh my.....
The CFR has many policy proposals written by many policy wonks.
Dr. Evil just picks the one that he likes best.
And then bombs the shit out of ...whoever.
I think they figured out already that this whole Ukraine business is a loser. Maybe if they tip-toe out the back door, nobody will ask about MH-17 anymore, and start looking for US fingerprints.
Looks like Israel, like Qatar, has to go thru Gazprom to get to the EU.
No, this makes perfect sense. The U.S. suddenly realizes the Eastern ''rebels'' will force a stalemate at best, and at worst, will win outright.
So Obie and the neocons need a mouthpiece advocating a face-saving settlement lest we hit another Iraq/Afghanistan quagmire that will cost billions more for no gain while the average American soldier wonders what the fuck he's been fighting for.
Vlad is turning the tables and showing our idiots how to play the game for keeps.
We stepped in the shit again and found no rose garden. Getting out sooner rather than later is the best option. Now for the trial ballons, and who better than the CFR to float one?
Or - the Russians sanctions are hurting Europe - and they are worried Germany will bolt and form an alliance with the BRICS. This is sounding like a face-saving retreat. Common sense likely has nothing to do with it - the costs probably just appear bigger than the benefits at the moment.
CFR saying this means lets get the tarps off of the lifeboats. Next step, looters leave crumbling fortress America.
Seems that the Rothschilds are playing both sides ... again
... according to this guy :
The BRICS Bank: Next Stop On The Road To World Currency
http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/the-brics-bank-next-stop-...
The article ( & video) says that Putin is also "inside" the CB Matrix: America will be taken down by the PTB ... having served it's purpose.
Looks also like the CFR has just shown us who is the Boss (PTB) .. and it's neither Putin nor Obama.
At the same time, the CFR has basically said that the Brezinksi's "Grand Chess Board" is out-of-date ... old century poltiics.
FWIW
Old news.
The struggle is about the CONTROL of a SDR/SDRM regime and the valuation of
its components. I think we will end up with an SDR system but not on the wests terms.
The MIC is not negotiable for either side, the RoW wants it castrated as part of any SDR deal.
I don't see the US/UK agreeing to that.Without that nobody will trust a new regime to not cheat
at the end of a gun barrel.
Some intractable problems there, that will be resolved the way they always have been.
WAR,
Same as it ever was.
News aspect?
"George...
Please help me.
Several handfuls of benzodiazepines and a good cry might help me to understandthis..."
Merely the "calm before the storm"...
This is what an 1,000 year old attempting a very poorly improvised "head fake" looks like after he's lost billions in the overthrow project, that murders and loots a government and it's resources that were never his in the first place -like so many others he's been involved in.
But this one rest assured is very, very, very different than the ones he is use to, which is why 'Georgy Porgy' is doing this little act to buy time and make some more deals before he loses even more of his and the CFR's precious money!!!
From the CFR???? This is a shock.
But this guy will probably get the boot soon.
“When Russian leaders look at Western social engineering in Ukraine, they worry that their country might be next. And such fears are hardly groundless.
Yeah, especially considering that Jacob Schiff, J P Morgan, and Wall Street seeded Leon Trotsky with tens of millions to do the same thing and resulted in the establishment of the Soviet Union.
How many here know that Trotsky was given a US Passport and lived in New York for three years just before the Communist Revolution?
< Putin the master chess player.
< Putin the poor innocent victim of the vicious cookie distributing USSA.
Both these memes cannot be true. Unless you write for Zerohedge.
I don't those are the only two choices, unless you're referring to memes alone. I dont buy either one.
I'd up-arrow "Putin, a guy known to be ruthless as Russians go, "master chess player," is put in a bad spot by the "vicious cookie distributing USSA." So far, Putin has gotten burned over Libya and Cyprus. He played a card pretty nicely in Syria; gracefully leaving Obama a way out. And so far he hasn't made a mis-step in Ukraine. He hasn't actually lifted a finger, which is the best thing to do when your adversary won't quit screwing up. No man-crush here, though. Knowing what you know of Putin's bio, how could you want to live anywhere near him?
Of course they can - even a master chess player gives up a few men...
"Of course they can - even a master chess player gives up a few men..."
A Master chess player will give up ALL his men if it means checkmating the opponent.
Do not underestimate the expendibility of even the mighty Queen in pursuit of the final goal.
Would it surprise anyone -even Obama- to discover that the most versatile and powerful piece on the board is likely forfeit in the closing few moves of a pivotal match?
Let us not forget that even a chess game can be won through deceit and cheating:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anvRFJFUnRE
'rubinstein's immortal game': http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1119679
I wish they's make up their mind. Vlad the Impaler or Vlad the Impaled.
News just in:
George Soros asking for "Robin Williams exit" after $5 billion investment in the military backed escapade which has led to thousands of Ukrainian deaths and the demise of it's economy which will take Russia's leadership to rebuild has lost him too much money and time given his advancing age!...
I think his latest 42 year old bride is helping him with "the last best auto-erotic asphyxiation" he will have along with his last will and testament before the living corpse does us all a favor by killing himself!
The author might want to keep a close eye on the brakes in his car,,,
John Mearsheimer wrote it for publication to the "public", but I bet if you asked him who provided the words verbal or otherwise it got the nod from the highest echelons of the CFR org for release.
I think the rivets on Titanic are coming undone after it hit the "iceberg" and is taking on water "rapidly"!... Damage control promoted this one and nothing else!...
John certainly has nothing to worry about given the heads at the top that authorized that info to be released.
If anyone is going to have a date with foul play it is the guys at the top that took the initiative to make this public because their other "interests" are being adversely affected by the poor choices they took in Ukraine last February!
There are those who only want the best for America.....but are terribly misguided. There are those who would use these terribly misguided individuals to bring evil upon us. Both types of these people exist on all sides of every issue, and the more passionate they are the more likely they are to be misguided. Reason and rationality are our very best tool, and of all the resources we waste, our rational mind is the worst example.
you may well be right but mearsheimer (and walt) were considerably ahead of the received wisdom when they critiqued the israeli lobby some eight years ago: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby.
we certainly haven't heard much about the downed airliner recently. no news is probably bad news for the anglo-american-israeli zionist agenda.
funny how nuland and all the other zionists are so concerned about democracy here, there, and everywhere but palestine. there the only inalienable rights appear to be getting trampled by the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Nuland and Kerry are Jews. They put Jews into the interim government (and a Christian Zionist). The election was from a field of Jews and a Jew was elected. The regional governors who are fighting in the east are Jews appointed by the Jew interim government.
The CFR was created and funded by Jews. Putin is a Jew.
https://img.4plebs.org/boards/pol/image/1393/51/1393512268645.jpg
So what is the Jewish play here? I think they are trying to start a war to killl white people on both sides. Coupled with ISIS, that should usher in the Jew World Order.
“Putin is a Jew”
Not everybody in power is a Jew
(athough it seems like they are).
http://hollowverse.com/vladimir-putin/
"Not everybody in power is a Jew"
True, they prefer to use gentile fronts when possible.