Whilst I am very much in for "inclusive diplomacy" since 2022 I have become very doubtful this will have real consequences. For the coming, er, decades? Untill Europe is exhausted.
Since December 2021 and the infamously fruitless exchange of memos on strategic weapons nothing between RU and the US has changed:
RU demanded what she had been demanding since the Bush Jr. administration.
And Washington as since practice had given her the finger.
I have no idea how any party like China e.g. can provide realistic safeguards so that NATO wouldn´t use ceasefire/peace to rearm Ukraine. And how Russia would EVER again trust NATO a single "inch".
This is as archaic and "Schmitt-ean"-ugly as it can get. (Or rather Georg Jellinek´s "The Normative Power of the Factual" for that matter.)
If US elites care not the slightest for Ukrainians why on earth should they be honest in any negotiation with RU of all nations?
Open debate on the Council on Foreign Relation, introductiory remark by Ambassador Paula Dobriansky, April 12th 2024:
"(...) let me go to one of the core arguments that I think is important here (...) that is that the aid that we provide is less than 4% of our defense budget. We don’t do the fighting, we just give the aid. The fact is that that’s not a high price for containing Russia. We get a double objective there. Of the $68 billion of military and other assistance that we have given to Ukraine, did you know that 90% supports the American workers? That’s phenomenal.(...)"
Phenomenal. Indeed.
How many dead at the point in time 300.000, 500.000?
But "it´s the economy, stupid".
What can you tell such people? Fuck off?
She says "containing Russia" -
well, look into Paul Nitze and his insane NSC-68 outline of US geopolitical axioms and you will find that NOTHING has changed since 1950.
In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting stage, the Defense Department asserts that America's political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to insure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territory of the former Soviet Union.
(...)".
And may be you remember this piece by Nicolai Petro.
He had this tiny reference, highly telling I found considering how polite and cautious the gentleman usually is:
"(...)All this hints at the existence of a long term U.S. foreign policy strategy that outside observers can only guess at. I would not be at all surprised if, thirty years from now, future historians learned of the existence of a new NSC-68—America’s 1950 blueprint for conducting the Cold War—cooked up within the Biden administration in anticipation of just such a confrontation. After all, the contents of NSC-68 itself, although rumored about for years, were only revealed in 1975. (...)"
Thank you for your time.
Hope time will prove me wrong.
Btw excellent blog.
p.s. Richard Falk and Hans von Sponeck just published their take on reforming the UN with Stanford University Press, in case it escaped you with all the other "shit" that is goign on.
Some pessimism if you allow:
Whilst I am very much in for "inclusive diplomacy" since 2022 I have become very doubtful this will have real consequences. For the coming, er, decades? Untill Europe is exhausted.
Since December 2021 and the infamously fruitless exchange of memos on strategic weapons nothing between RU and the US has changed:
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2022-03/news/russia-us-nato-security-proposals
RU demanded what she had been demanding since the Bush Jr. administration.
And Washington as since practice had given her the finger.
I have no idea how any party like China e.g. can provide realistic safeguards so that NATO wouldn´t use ceasefire/peace to rearm Ukraine. And how Russia would EVER again trust NATO a single "inch".
This is as archaic and "Schmitt-ean"-ugly as it can get. (Or rather Georg Jellinek´s "The Normative Power of the Factual" for that matter.)
If US elites care not the slightest for Ukrainians why on earth should they be honest in any negotiation with RU of all nations?
Open debate on the Council on Foreign Relation, introductiory remark by Ambassador Paula Dobriansky, April 12th 2024:
"(...) let me go to one of the core arguments that I think is important here (...) that is that the aid that we provide is less than 4% of our defense budget. We don’t do the fighting, we just give the aid. The fact is that that’s not a high price for containing Russia. We get a double objective there. Of the $68 billion of military and other assistance that we have given to Ukraine, did you know that 90% supports the American workers? That’s phenomenal.(...)"
Phenomenal. Indeed.
How many dead at the point in time 300.000, 500.000?
But "it´s the economy, stupid".
What can you tell such people? Fuck off?
She says "containing Russia" -
well, look into Paul Nitze and his insane NSC-68 outline of US geopolitical axioms and you will find that NOTHING has changed since 1950.
original text on one-page
https://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/gna/Quellensammlung/10/10_nsc68_1950.htm
decent summary:
https://www.encyclopedia.com/defense/energy-government-and-defense-magazines/nsc-68
In 1992 NYT had this pretty report about the then newly devised Pentagon plan for world domination - this time issued by a SoD named Dick Cheney:
"U.S. STRATEGY PLAN CALLS FOR INSURING NO RIVALS DEVELOP"
https://archive.is/CyLfQ
Just very first paragraph says it all:
"(...)
In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting stage, the Defense Department asserts that America's political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to insure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territory of the former Soviet Union.
(...)".
And may be you remember this piece by Nicolai Petro.
After 12 months of war:
https://usrussiaaccord.org/nicolai-n-petro-cold-war-realism-lessons-for-ukraine/#more-6601
He had this tiny reference, highly telling I found considering how polite and cautious the gentleman usually is:
"(...)All this hints at the existence of a long term U.S. foreign policy strategy that outside observers can only guess at. I would not be at all surprised if, thirty years from now, future historians learned of the existence of a new NSC-68—America’s 1950 blueprint for conducting the Cold War—cooked up within the Biden administration in anticipation of just such a confrontation. After all, the contents of NSC-68 itself, although rumored about for years, were only revealed in 1975. (...)"
Thank you for your time.
Hope time will prove me wrong.
Btw excellent blog.
p.s. Richard Falk and Hans von Sponeck just published their take on reforming the UN with Stanford University Press, in case it escaped you with all the other "shit" that is goign on.
https://www.sup.org/books/law/liberating-united-nations