Summary: Every geopolitical crisis provides us with information about our nation and our world. They provide peeks into the machinery hidden behind the government’s secrecy and journalists’ narratives. The Crimean crisis, a small area inside Russia’s sphere of influence, hyped by our hawks into a world-shaking incident, provides a rich lode for mining insights. Helping us, doing the heavy lifting, is one of our top defense analysts, Chuck Spinney. See the last section for links to other useful articles about this.
.
“Ukraine: Manna From Heaven for the Green Line and Beyond Crowd“
Franklin “Chuck” Spinney
From his website, The Blaster
26 March 214
Posted with his generous permission
.
Most Americans know very little about the immediate origins of the crisis in the Ukraine and their government’s involvement in it. They know even less about its deeper roots, that reach back into Russian view of American duplicity in breaking its verbal promises not to expand NATO and the European Union eastward (useful summaries can be found here and here).
These promises were interpreted quite reasonably by the Russians as a quid pro quo for Mikhail Gorbachev’s agreement to
- the unification of Germany,
- the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, and
- the withdrawal of Soviet forces from eastern Europe.
Gorbachev’s dream of a common European Home was always fanciful, but today, Ukraine proves it is in tatters.
If one is to believe the reportage in the mainstream media, the duly elected but decidedly corrupt government of the Ukraine was overthrown by a spontaneous revolt of the freedom-seeking Ukrainian people. But it is also clear from leaked recordings of phone conversations and the bloviations of U.S. “pro-defense” legislators that members of the U.S. government were at least tangentially involved, as were Ukrainian neo-fascists.
There is much more, however.
.
This article by investigative reporter Steve Weissman of Reader Supported News is Part 1 in a series of reports detailing the nature of that involvement in the current crisis. It should be read carefully, because Weissman reveals a mind-boggling maze of tentacles reaching deeply into the Ukrainian regime change gambit.
Even if you dispute some of Weissman’s conclusions, the overwhelming assembly of facts proves a significant level western involvement is in play. There is one highly convenient coincidence he only alludes to, however: The American people are war weary, and the pivot to the China threat has no real traction. The domestic politics of fear unleashed by 9-11 are running out of steam. The possibility of a new cold war with our old nuclear armed adversary is just the ticket needed to rectify the situation by bringing back the politics good wholesome fear that evolved so productively for the American pro-defense nomenclatura during the 40 years of permanent mobilization for Cold War.
A dose of this kind of fear would be especially propitious for the Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex (MICC) at this juncture. Today, the MICC is haunted by the ‘cost-plus’ specter of a budgetary/force structure/readiness meltdown of its own making. It must find some way of coping with out-of-control operating costs (read reduce current combat readiness and force structure again) to save the sacred cows in the procurement and R&D budgets, like the F-35, the new long range bomber, etc. — even if the budget were not cut back!
But the threat of a budget sequester that, ironically, would reduce the defense budget to a ‘high’ Cold War level is now so serious that Mr. Obama found it necessary to send sequester-dodging 5-year defense budget plan to Congress. The scam as can be seen in this chart, reproduced from page 13 of the Pentagon Comptroller’s FY 15 budget briefing {March 2014}. The red star is the unfunded wish list in FY 15 (a list guaranteed to unleash a horde of porkers in Congress) and the green dotted line is the topline of the 5 year plan.
Bear in mind, this topline does not even include the $79 billion in FY15 plus the $30 billion estimated in each following year to pay for the so-called global war on terror (these add-ons are depicted in the chart on page 2 of the same briefing).
.
It does not take a conspiracy theorist to see why Ukraine has the champagne corks popping for the “green line and beyond” lobbyists in the gucci-shoed halls of K Street. I will have more to say on this budgetary nuttiness in later articles. For the moment, I urge you to read Steve Weissman’s report: “Meet the Americans Who Put Together the Coup in Kiev“, Reader Supported News, 25 March 14.
——————————————-
About Chuck Spinney
Franklin “Chuck” Spinney retired from the Defense Department in 2003 after a military/civilian career spanning 33 years, 26 of them as a staff analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He is author of many articles about US military and geopolitical affairs.
Some of his major publications:
- Defense Facts of Life: The Plans/Reality Mismatch (1985)
- The Defense Death Spiral, 8 November 2000
- Bill Moyers Interviews Chuck Spinney, 1 November 2002 –Won an Emmy as the best news magazine show of the year
- “The Domestic Roots of Perpetual War“, chapter one in The Pentagon Labyrinth: 10 Short Essays to Help You Through It, ed. Winslow Wheeler (2011)
- A contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (2012)
Many of his articles are published at CounterPunch:
- “Incestuous Amplification and the Madness of King George“, 10 September 2008 — “Can Obama Put Down the Brie and Opt for Real Change?”
- “The Enablers: The Central Role of Faux Republicans in the Anatomy of Decline“, 10-12 August 2012 — review of Mike Lofgren’s book The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted
Other posts by Chuck Spinney at the FM website:
- The Taliban Rope-a-Dome, 19 July 2009
- Can Obama, or anyone else, outmaneuver the war advocates?, 2 October 2010
- Chuck Spinney describes the next phases of the Afghan War: defeat, retreat, & demobilization, 9 April 2012
- Chuck Spinney explains our broken OODA loop, 25 September 2012
For More Information
(a) Articles about the Ukraine crisis:
- Provocative (but unverified): “Reichstag Fire in Kiev“, Dmitry Orlov, 1 March 2014
- Recommended: “Here’s What Is Going to Happen With Ukraine“, Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, 1 March 2014 — We’re running the standard script.
- “The Ukrainian Grand Delusion” by billmon — Summary: “U.S. and E.U. to pro-West Ukrainians: You f***ed up, guys. You trusted us.’”
- Recommended: “The Resolve Fairy and the Precedent Fairy“, Robert Farley (Prof Dipomacy, U KY), Lawyers Guns, and Money, 2 March 2014
- “Why Russia No Longer Fears the West“, Ben Judah, Politico, 2 March 2014 — They neither fear nor respect a West run by plutocrats interested only in money, lacking strength and morality.
- “Is Putin the Irrational One?“, Pat Buchanan, The Unz Review, 18 March 2014
- “The U.S. has treated Russia like a loser since the end of the Cold War“, Jack F. Matlock Jr., op-ed in the Washington Post, 14 March 2014 — He was ambassador to the U.S.S.R. from 1987 to 1991
- “8 Questions on Ukraine“, David C. Speedie, The Moscow Times, 21 March 2014 — Speedie is with the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
- “The Imperial Bully – How Much War Does Washington Want?“, Paul Craig Roberts, CounterPunch, 26 March 2014 — Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration, and is considered a co-founder of Reaganomics.
(b) Posts about the Ukraine crisis:
- About the Ukraine-Russia conflict. First, know what we don’t know., 2 March 2014
- America’s hawks sing a song of national decline, 4 March 2014
American Priorities
.
.
.
