Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in 1989, the United States has been baiting the Russian bear.

Now, under its appalling despot, Putin, the bear is biting back and the cost is being borne by thousands of Russians and Ukrainians.

 

NATO

The 1949 North Atlantic Treaty is the legal basis of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)

It was signed by 12 states as a security accord between countries on, or near, the Atlantic, with the possibility in mind of an attack by the Soviet Union. An attack on one member would draw a response from all. It has, of course always been dominated by its one military super-power member, the USA. Successive UK governments have allowed themselves to be dominated by the USA.

The present Labour Party leadership is pursuing a policy of declaring NATO sacrosanct. Any criticism of it constitutes treason. But NATO is largely responsible for the present tragic situation in Ukraine. I repeat, NATO is just as responsible as Putin for the war in Ukraine.

I hold no brief for Putin. He is a murderous despot, at the head of an appalling autocracy, but for decades, successive UK governments have courted the kleptocrats who support him and his anti-democratic regime. In the last 5 minutes the UK has accepted that the City of London is the money-launderer of the world. London has handled the proceeds of the Russian kleptocrats’ egregious criminal activity. The London skyline is dominated by the glass and steel monstrosities of the world’s crooked billionaires.

In 1966, France withdrew from NATO due to its reluctance to have its armed forces, including nuclear weapons, under NATO’s collective control. France fully rejoined in 2009.

The original definition of NATO’s role has been stretched beyond its elastic limit at the behest of the USA. The mutual protection of the 12 Atlantic nations has somehow encompassed involvement in the wars in former Yugoslavia and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and through Saudi Arabia as a proxy, the war in Yemen.

 

NATO has become a military alliance available to be dragged into whatever dispute the USA is inclined to engage in.

At the time of German reunification, in 1990, assurances were given to Yeltsin and Gorbachov that there would be no eastward expansion of NATO beyond the eastern border of Germany.

These assurances were voiced, in a variety of contexts, by US  President Clinton, British Prime Minister, John Major, German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl and other western statesmen.

Of late we have heard it denied that any such undertakings were  made, but the record is clear.

At first, when there were approaches from Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, in 1991, to join NATO, they were rebuffed. John Major said at the time, “Nothing of the sort will happen”.

Clinton then intervened and the rot set in. The NATO members are now the USA, UK, Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark, the Baltic states, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Iceland, Portugal, Norway, Turkey, Romania and Greece.

Are the NATO states so naïve as to think that this encirclement of Russia can proceed without repercussions?

When, in 1962, the Soviet Union planned to install missiles in Cuba, the USA and its allies brought the world close to nuclear war. The crisis was resolved only when it was agreed there would be no missile bases in Cuba if the NATO missile bases were removed from Turkey.

It is easy to predict how the USA would react if the countries of Central and  south America were to form a military pact for mutual protection from their  imperialist neighbour to the north, which has interfered so frequently in their affairs.

Since 2014 there have been breakaway territories in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. Also in 2014, Russia took back Crimea, a region of Ukraine with a sizeable population of Russians and Tatars. It was the emergence of a distinctly pro-western government in Kiev which brought the bear-baiting to a head and initiated the path to the present crisis.

Putin cares nothing about squandering Russian lives on his geopolitical adventures and cares even less about Ukrainian losses. As Putin has complete control of Russian media, his public will know little about what is happening in Ukraine. It is therefore particularly impressive that so many thousands of Russians have been prepared to face police brutality and imprisonment protesting about the attack on Ukraine and the war crimes being committed there.

Putin talks about protecting the lives of Russians who live in Ukraine and de-Nazifying the country.

There are, indeed, fascist organisations in Ukraine, an inheritance from WW2.

Stalin’s enforced collectivisation of agriculture in 1932-3 and his repression of the so-called kulaks, led to widespread famine, the Holodomor, the death of an estimated 4 million Ukrainians.

When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, many Ukrainians flocked to the invaders in preference to their Soviet tormenters. The passage of time has not expunged this legacy.

Is a resolution possible?

Let NATO take responsibility for its part in creating the present crisis. The UK government should ignore US President Biden, who has a fearful eye on the far right of the Republican Party and Trump and the retreating prospect of a second Presidential term. He thinks flexing his muscles over Ukraine will win support from a gullible public. Similarly, Boris Johnson looks upon Ukraine as his Falklands-like salvation in his present domestic strife
NATO  and the EU should declare there is no prospect, for the foreseeable future of Ukraine being admitted into membership of either organisation.  Ukraine should be persuaded to declare itself a non-alligned state, like Sweden and Switzerland. Crimea should be recognised by NATO states as part of Russia. The Donbass break-aways should be recognised as independent of Ukraine.

NATO should swallow its pride and act in the true interest of the people of Ukraine.