The Ever Widening War

Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts

British Foreign Minister Says “We must go after everything Russian.”

“We will show Putin that we are completely behind Ukraine: we will chase the money and the oil, we will stop the gas, we will stop the ships,” declared British Foreign Minister Cameron.

The UK is “hunting” companies that do business with Russia “all over the world,” Cameron said. “We will sanction companies in China, in Turkey, in Kyrgyzstan, even in Israel, that we believe are supplying dual-use material” to Russia, he added.

This is the consequence of Putin’s ill-considered “limited military operation in Ukraine.” It is extraordinary that Russian intelligence failed to inform Putin that a slow-poke war would permit the West to become involved, thereby turning it into a war between NATO and Russia.

Putin still speaks of negotiating a peace with Ukraine despite the fact that Ukraine, NATO, and Washington have made it completely clear that the only terms for peace are Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine including Crimea, payment for damages and dead Ukrainians and acceptance of NATO membership for Ukraine.

One can only wonder at the complete lack of realism as the West brings war to Russia.

Is it the Kremlin’s plan to be a sitting duck and only respond defensively after Russia is attacked, or has Putin issued a final warning? Two days ago Putin said that the selfishness and hypocrisy of the West has produced a dangerous situation “bringing the world close to the point of no return.” Putin’s words call to mind Serbian President Vucic’s statement that “the train has left the station and no one can stop it.” https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/06/13/the-train-has-left-the-station-and-no-one-can-stop-it/

Putin said that the calls of Western leaders “to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, which has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, demonstrate the extreme adventurism of Western politicians. They either do not understand the scale of the threat they themselves create, or they are simply obsessed with the belief in their own impunity and their own exclusivity. Both can turn into a tragedy.”

It is extraordinary that not only the Western world but the entire world ignores the dangerous situation described by Putin. Why hasn’t the UN imposed sanctions on Washington for provoking nuclear war? Why is it patriotic to promote war but not peace? I have been warning much longer than has Putin, and my reward has been to be called names and put on lists of Russian “agents/dupes.”

The pending war could have been avoided if the West had abided by the Minsk Agreement. The agreement kept Donbas in Ukraine by providing the two republics with some autonomy to stop Ukraine’s attacks on the Donbas population. Putin supported the agreement for 8 years despite continuing provocations. As the German Chancellor and President of France admitted, the West only pretended to support the Minsk Agreement while the West built a large Ukrainian army capable of subjugating the Donbas republics.

Before intervening in February 2022, Putin and Lavrov made a last effort to negotiate a mutual security agreement with the West, but was cold-shouldered by the West. Clearly, the West intended a conflict from the beginning.

What was the West thinking?

Why did Putin think Russia’s intervention could be limited to Donbas? Putin watched Washington overthrow the Ukrainian government, insert a puppet, demonize and attack the Russian population of Donbas, refuse all Russian proposals to avoid conflict, and force Russia into protecting the Russian areas that had been attached to Ukraine by Soviet leaders. The West certainly knew that the Kremlin could not simply sit on its hands while the Russian population was massacred.

In Putin’s defense, perhaps he is too humane to comprehend the evil that has the West in its grasp. Perhaps his central bank director and Russian neoliberal economists told him Russia could not afford a war. Perhaps Putin thought the West would come to its senses.

But the West hasn’t come to its senses. The West is intentionally driving toward a war with Russia. As President Vucic says “no one is attempting to stop the war. Nobody is speaking about peace. Peace is almost a forbidden word.”

It is an extraordinary situation. As the late Steven Cohen and I emphasized once we saw the West fomenting the conflict with Russia, the situation is more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis. At that time Washington understood the necessity of defusing tensions. Today Washington intentionally worsens tensions, and there is no concern about the consequences.

My conclusion is that the West has lost touch with reality and is bringing death and destruction upon itself.

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