“Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur. The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.” -Petronius (1st-century A.D.)
So it is here in these United States. Our politicians have been deceiving us gullible masses about the Russo-Ukrainian War for the benefit of our military-industrial complex, about which President Eisenhower warned us, were we to listen.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” -President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1961)
And does persist. Have these United States declared war against Russia? No. In fact, Russia remains the only major country against which our nation never formally has been at war. Yet, we act in a belligerent manner against Russia in its defending itself against our Albright Doctrine of 1994 designed to encircle Russia with hostile enemies.
Look at history although President Trump on his way to Anchorage stated that he has no interest in history. What would Santayana tell him?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” -George Santayana (1863-1952)
Mr. Trump’s disinterest in history, notwithstanding, let’s look at history. In 1991 after the implosion of the erstwhile Soviet Union, Russia could have become a democratic republic friendly to the West. True to its nature of almost complete incompetence, our State Department rejected in a hostile manner Russian overtures for assistance of the kind that we offered Poland. That rejection could continue fueling the military-industrial complex by continuing to characterize a defeated Russia as a military enemy. Consequence?
Ultimately, Russia became governed by a former agent of the KGB, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, who grieved over the loss of his beloved USSR as a catastrophe. Given the hostility of the West, the newly formed Russian Federation drifted into the arms of a welcoming Communist China. The American-inspired overthrow of the Moscow-oriented Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, was the final military insult that President Putin would not tolerate. The Russian chief would not allow a Western-oriented Ukraine to join an unwieldy NATO to complete the encirclement of his country. By force, in 2014 he returned Crimea to Russia. Yes, returned. As Taiwan never was a part of China, Crimea once was a part of Russia.
Forget not that Crimea was ceded in 1954 to Ukraine by Soviet Chairman Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, an act considered by many Russians to have been treason. In fact, all Ukraine intermittently was part of Russia, and even today it is known as “Little Russia”.
Believe not the propaganda of the “experts” in our Media, who routinely ignore history. Instead, they echo the bleating of the military-industrial complex. The politicians who, like members of the Media, are the handmaidens of the military-industrial complex? Some of the most misguided politicians in Congress like Senator Lindsey Graham even are willing to entertain the possibility of nuclear war with Russia to keep the complex fueled.
Meanwhile, the question of agreement by Ukraine to the terms already agreeable to Messrs. Putin and Trump adds to the uncertainty. The terms require ceding to Moscow territory not even occupied by Russian forces. The Ukrainian constitution requires a referendum to cede territory. A substantial majority of Ukrainians reject the ceding of one inch of territory. Such a referendum will fail. The Ukrainian view is to let Americans and others risk nuclear war, so that Ukrainians can maintain their momentary nation in the name of a phony democracy. Ukraine is a nation that we help make a tyrannical kleptocracy not the mythical democracy that our warmongering propagandists would have us believe. A Neo-Nazi state, as President Putin has declared? Probably not although the Jewish Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy, did ally himself with a group of Neo-Nazis, the Azov Battalion.
With regard to Ukraine, Mr. Trump may have painted himself into a corner with his threats of secondary sanctions against China for buying Russian oil. In meeting with President Zelenskyy post-Putin, what had Mr. Trump to gain? Saving face. As noted, politically and legally President Zelenskyy cannot agree to cede any territory, at all. Given that uncertain context, all that Mr. Trump now can do is withdraw, blaming Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians for their intransigence. The alternative? War with China over Ukraine. Unthinkable! Is it? With politicians, especially wildly narcissistic politicians who make the mistake of buying their own act, one never knows.
So, amid the fog of uncertainty why Mr. Putin’s rush to have requested a meeting with President Trump and his willingness even to meet on American soil, the public outcome of which was a Russian diplomatic victory amid more uncertainty? Forget not, context controls behavior. In negotiation, territory describes context.
What of President Putin’s allowing his Foreign Minister, Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov, to wear a sweatshirt sporting “CCCP” (Russian abbreviation of “USSR”) while exiting the Russian airliner? In turn, what of President Trump’s arranging a flyover of a B-2 accompanied by F-22’s? In the midst of all the backslapping, both sides reeked of hostility.
Outside the inner circles of power, no one knows the answer to the question about the meeting, least of all the self-styled experts pontificating from positions of arrogant ignorance. Even so, less pompous observers can speculate from the facts observed.
Curiously, one name that the “experts” hardly mention is . . . China! What is the Chinese role in this dangerous game of macho foreign affairs? Did Chairman Xi warn President Putin that, if Mr. Trump levied his threatened secondary sanctions on China, China would respond to that punishment with punishment of its own by blockading Taiwan? Biobehavioral Science tells us that negative control creates a context for escape and retaliation. Such is the stuff paving the road to nuclear war.
President Trump has triumphed in becoming the peacemaker in a number of conflicts, the most important of which is the military engagement between Hindu-India and Mohammedan-Pakistan. In dealing with the alliance between China and Russia, however, he is dealing with a greater challenge. Hopefully, his recent successes have not blinded him to the immensity of that challenge. Forget not the “think-tank” in Australia that has predicted, in the event of a non-nuclear conflict between America and China, the entire American surface-fleet in the Western Pacific would be sunk within the first hour. Would it? Do you really want to find out?