Glenn Diesen: NATO’s Delusion That it Can Continue to Send More Powerful Weapons to Ukraine Without Russian Retaliation is Dangerous
By Glenn Diesen, Twitter/X, 4/24/24
Glenn Diesen is a Norwegian academic and political scientist. He is a professor at the School of Business of the University of South-Eastern Norway.
The idea that NATO can continue to send ever-more powerful and long-range weapons to Ukraine without any retaliation from Russia is premised on the dangerous self-delusion that NATO is not a participant in the conflict.
But if we accept that this is also a NATO War, then it is obvious that Russia will eventually feel compelled to retaliate against NATO to restore deterrence, which could trigger a nuclear war.
Consider the following:
– Immediately after President Yanukovich had been toppled with the support of the US, the first thing the new US-backed Ukrainian intelligence chief did was to call CIA & MI6 for a partnership against Russia – and secret CIA bases were established along the Russian border (this partnership was established before Russia responded by taking back Crimea). (NY Times)
– This occurred as the US asserted ever-greater control over the Ukrainian government and its policies: The leaked Nuland call revealed that Washington dictated who would be part of the post-coup government and who had to stay out. American citizens also took several top positions in the new government (such as the finance minister post). Ukraine’s General Prosecutor Shokin argued the US was running Ukraine as a colony as new appointments had to be approved by Washington. Biden even fired Shokin when he investigated the Ukrainian energy company Burisma where Biden had placed his son Hunter
– Over the next decade, the US and its allies built a powerful Ukrainian army while sabotaging the Minsk agreement and later (after the Russian invasion) also sabotaged the Istanbul negotiations. Weapon systems poured in, Ukrainian ports were modernised to fit American warships, and Ukraine was becoming a de facto NATO member. Top Ukrainian officials like Arestovich argued openly they were preparing for a war with Russia. A top adviser to former president Nicolas Sarkozy, warned that the US-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership of November 2021 “convinced Russia that it must attack or be attacked” (NY Times)
– Since the Russian invasion, the mantra from NATO has since been that weapons are the path to peace while refusing to engage in negotiations or diplomacy for more than 2 years. Our media keeps ignoring the horrific Ukrainian losses and instead chant that Ukraine is winning to maintain public support for the war. NATO has supplied the weapons, intelligence, and participated in in the war planning. A source in the Ukrainian general staff even argued that NATO pressured Ukraine to carry out disastrous counter-offensives.
– More powerful and long-range weapons are now sent and Blinken argues that Ukraine can use them to strike inside Russian territory. Leaked calls from German officers reveal that long-range missiles are to be used to destroy the Crimean bridge and that either Germans or Americans can assist in operating them
– Putin is saying that the US objective was “to spark a war in Europe, and to eliminate competitors by using a proxy force… They plan to finish us once and for all”
– The US should ask itself: How would Washington respond if Russia was engaged in a similar proxy war against the US on its borders in Mexico? The conviction in our own virtue, that we are merely “helping Ukraine”, blinds us to the fact that we are taking giant steps toward nuclear war.
