Ukraine War. Identifying the true culprits

Everybody who are involved in strategic thinking with respect to Ukraine knew it very well that trying to rope Ukraine into NATO was crossing Russia's red line, One cannot expect to remain a mute spectator when wild designs are being worked out on its borders. 

But now people would like to hold up Russia as a villain, when actually it is not. With due respect to Ukraine as a nation and empathy and prayers for the agony people of Ukraine are undergoing, I would like to disagree Russia is villian. 

Russia was not just provocated but had cornered as a nation in such a way that the strategies being adopted in the form of Ukraine's joining NATO was bully to Russia, a bully which will become a not only a permanent headache for Russia but allowing it happen is nothing short of suicidal. 

My above claim can be easily understood if we go through the history where lot of western strategic thinkers had given their opinion on Ukraine's intention to join NATO and its possible repurcussions. A few of those statements of those strategic thinkers are given below. 

George Kennan, America's foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy. As early as 1998 he warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia".

Kissinger, in 2014. He warned that "to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country" and that the West therefore needs a policy that is aimed at "reconciliation".

He was also adamant that "Ukraine should not join NATO"

John Mearsheimer. arguably the leading geopolitical scholar in the US today - in 2015: "The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked [...] What we're doing is in fact encouraging that outcome."

Jack F. Matlock Jr. US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"

Clinton's defense secretary William Perry explained, in his memoir, that to him NATO enlargement is the cause of "the rupture in relations with Russia" and that in 1996 he was so opposed to it that "in the strength of my conviction, I considered resigning".

Stephen Cohen, a famed scholar of Russian studies, warning in 2014 that "if we move NATO forces toward Russia's borders [...] it's obviously gonna militarize the situation [and] Russia will not back off, this is existential"

CIA director Bill Burns in 2008: "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for [Russia]" and "I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests". (He was then Ambassador to Moscow in 2008 when he wrote this memo). He is now director of the CIA. ‘08 memo ‘Nyet Means Nyet: Russia's NATO Enlargement Redlines’

Russian-American journalist Vladimir Pozner, in 2018, stated that: NATO expansion in Ukraine is unacceptable to the Russian, that there has to be a compromise where "Ukraine, guaranteed, will not become a member of NATO."

Malcolm Fraser, 22nd prime minister of Australia, warned in 2014 that "the move east [by NATO is] provocative, unwise and a very clear signal to Russia". He adds that this leads to a "difficult and extraordinarily dangerous problem".

Paul Keating, former Australian PM, in 1997: expanding NATO is "an error which may rank in the end with the strategic miscalculations which prevented Germany from taking its full place in the international system [in early 20th]"

Former US defense secretary Bob Gates in his 2015 memoirs: "Moving so quickly [to expand NATO] was a mistake. [...] Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching [and] an especially monumental provocation"

Pat Buchanan, in his 1999 book A Republic, Not an Empire: "By moving NATO onto Russia's front porch, we have scheduled a twenty-first-century confrontation."

In 1997, a group of individuals including Robert McNamara, Bill Bradley & Gary Hart wrote a letter to Bill Clinton warning the "US led effort to expand NATO is a policy error of historic proportions" and would "foster instability" in Europe. Today it's fringe, traitorous position.

Pat Buchanan, in his 1999 book A Republic, Not an Empire: "By moving NATO onto Russia's front porch, we have scheduled a twenty-first-century confrontation."

Dmitriy Trenin expressed concern that Ukraine was, in the LT, the most potentially destabilizing factor in US-Russian relations, given the level of emotion & neuralgia triggered by its quest for NATO membership.

Sir Roderic Lyne, former British ambassador to Russia, warned a year ago that "[pushing] Ukraine into NATO [...] is stupid on every level." He adds "if you want to start a war with Russia, that's the best way of doing it." 

Even last year, famous economist Jeffrey Sachs, writing a column in the FT warning that "NATO enlargement is utterly misguided and risky. True friends of Ukraine, and of global peace, should be calling for a US and NATO compromise with Russia."

Fiona Hill: "We warned [George Bush] that Mr. Putin would view steps to bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO as a provocative move that would likely provoke pre-emptive Russian military action. But ultimately, our warnings weren’t heeded."

Aleksandr Dugin. in 1997, had predicted everything that Putin has done, in his book "Foundation of Geopolitics." 

After going through these statements of various strategists world wide, it would be easy to understand the importance of Ukraine to have remained away from NATO in the interest of Russia's strategic interests and security. 

With due respect for Ukraine as a nation and heartfelt empathy towards the citizens for the agony they are undergoing after the war broke, I would blame Ukraine as the first  responsible nation guilty followed by NATO and of course then Russia. 

Sudesh DJV 

Indore MP India 

8th March 2022 

7:20 am

A song from an old Hindi film from India which's lines are exactly suitable to sarcastically compare with today's Ukraine war. 

Sudesh DJV writes on contemporary subjects in the form of Articles and poems which are in the interest of the Nation in particular and for Mankind in general.