US still flirting with nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine

WALT ZLOTOW

MAY 24, 2024

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For the past 27 months, America’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine has put the world at risk of nuclear war. The Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, was provoked by America and totally unnecessary.

It occurred 17 years after America first floated NATO membership to Ukraine. Sensible diplomats, political scientists and historians repeatedly argued Ukraine NATO membership, which could place nuclear weapons on Russia's doorstep, was a red line certain to provoke a Russian military response. Proposed NATO membership for Ukraine was in furtherance of America's decades long proxy war to both weaken Russia and keep them out of the European political economy. 

Ten years ago, the US expanded that proxy war by inspiring and supporting the coup that ousted Russian friendly Ukraine president Yanukovych. The resulting civil war killed thousands of Russian speaking Ukrainians in Donbas setting the tripwire for Russian invasion. The tripwire was President Biden refusing to negotiate Russia’s security concerns in November, 2021. When Ukraine troops, armed with US weapons, massed to finish off the Russian leaning Donbas, Russia attacked.

Those diplomats, political scientists and historians were sadly proved right.  But President Biden’s unhinged belief in US exceptionalism and moral superiority caused him to blunder into one of the worst foreign policy mistakes in US history. Ukraine is now a failed state, with a shattered economy, 600,000 dead soldiers and an equal number fled to neighboring countries to avoid the Russian soldier chopper.

Worse than destroying Ukraine, Biden has been flirting for all 27 months with igniting nuclear war with Russia by weaponizing Ukraine to continue fighting till the last Ukrainian soldier is dead. While Biden said on Day 1 he would not intervene with US troops because that could start nuclear war, he’s done just about everything else to keep nuclear war percolating.

He’s providing long range missiles that can reach deep into Russia, another red line that Russia warns will trigger retaliation. Biden initially prohibited such action by Ukraine, but allowed his Secretary of State Antony Blinken to proclaim their long rang use “is up to Ukraine.” Congressional hawks have joined in with a letter to Biden demanding he unleash the Ukrainians to fire at will into Russia, the consequences be damned. This is precisely what Ukraine President Zelensky has been demanding for the entire war. Zelensky also wants to the US and NATO allies to personally shoot down incoming Russian missiles, another red line of NATO intervention likely to cause retaliation.

It will only take one miscalculation, one mistake, one rogue military leader ala Gen. Jack D. Ripper to trigger the Big One.  As Bob Dylan famously sang in ‘Masters of War’, Biden and Blinken “Play with our world like it’s your little toy.” Biden and Blinken also come to mind from that same song 61 years ago:

“Like Judas of old You lie and deceive A world war can be won You want me to believe”

The American proxy war with Russia in Ukraine could be ended PDQ thru win-win negotiations. Biden and Blinken’s ‘We win, you lose’ mindset gets us closer to nuclear midnight with every tick of the clock. That, and not the demonized Chinese version, is the TicTok we need to fear.