By Mahboob Khawaja, PhD
Editor's Note
Be it NATO or the G7,
the US and European nations (on the whole) continue to place Russia on the
“outside”, even while considering adding other nations lead by dictators – such
as Turkey. This automatically fuels adversarial relationships and makes
peacemaking and common projects difficult if not impossible. This is as simple,
and as complex, as Relationships 101 (IMO, but I’m no diplomat).
Ukraine and the U.S. forced Russia’s hand into
their annexation of Crimea. As discussed by Dr. Mahboob below, this was a
Russian-speaking region that reportedly sought closer ties to Russia. However,
it was the threat of losing the seaport there that forced Russi’s hand as it is
Russia’s only open seaport, and has been for a very long time. The threat of
being blocked from that port forced Russia’s hand on annexation. Continued
militarism over this has now placed Russia, Ukraine, (and with them NATO) on
the brink of a full-scale conflict. One would well ask “whose interests are
being served here” for it is not that of the people of the region.
This
is not to say that Putin does not have dreams of glory of his own. The man is a
dictator in all but name, but he does see the standing and health of Russia as
part of himself. In other words, he is not as self-serving as Trump was (and
is), and while he is a dictator in all but name he has also tried to protect
the interests of Russia. On the other hand, for the U.S. at least, using Russia
as everything from a bullyboy to an imminent threat serves a number of
interests, particularly of the Military-Industrial-Financial complex.
Regardless,
we have growing global-scale threats from environmental collapse to climate
chaos to the current pandemic that require coordinated action and cooperation.
The messages are so clear that we need to work together, and yet it seems the
time of self-interest and nationalism. The current paths are putting us on a
short path to extreme hardship (as with Afghanistan and Ukraine) and a slightly
longer path to our own extinction. Sadly, it is not just the politicians and
official leaders who need to wake up, but the people – too many of whom are
allowing themselves to be tools of maniacs because of their fears. Rational
thought and empathy are equally running out like water from a cracked pot.
Ironically, shoring up either (rationality or empathy) might take us to higher
ground.
Mahboob Khawaja, PhD
Why Are the Lessons of History Ignored?
America,
Russia and NATO’s Geneva diplomatic talks ended in failure without any formal
course of action to avoid military confrontation on Ukraine’s border.
Other vital issues include how to treat each other in an imaginary future
encounter or their common interests. The global community is watching the
prelude to a staged drama of unwarranted warfare with profligate waste,
malevolence and unknown miseries for unthinkable multitudes. All the
superpowers – the stage actors of the 21st century – have fictitious monsters
equipped with innovative sophistry and captivating eloquence to talk about
peace, security, human rights, global order and justice. They are masters of
deception playing on the passion of an entrenched and exhausted mankind as if
they could stop the emerging pains, horrors and devastation of warmongering to
ensure a return to normal human affairs. To an analytical eye looking for
global peace and harmony, it does not appear rational to articulate fears and
misleading intentions to safeguard human peace and dignity while all actions
speak a different language of obsessed assertions based on their own despotic
national interests. They claim peace but talk about threats of wars – how to
rationalize the irony of human wickedness and inherent deception. Was the same
stage drama not enacted during the First and Second World Wars killing millions
and millions of people across this Planet Earth?
Human
progress and future-making are jeopardized when the lessons of history are
deliberately misinterpreted and ignored by the paranoid, vengeful and
suspicious (and likely duplicitous) leaders. If war is the only avenue to
seek peace, we are on the wrong side of history and thinking for our future. It
took several centuries for Europeans to understand the false shadows of
apprehension of peace and harmony and to come to terms with nation-building,
some resemblance to democracy, human equality of rights and unity for
future-making via the EU. A reasoned perspective would illustrate that Russia
after the breakdown of the former USSR is not the same inheriting entity of
Communist authoritarian ideology, leadership, institutions, political thought,
policies and practices within the working systems of global order. There are
visible progressive movements for political change, open communications,
elections, institutional developments and global interactions and seeking
reunion with the global order, UNO, world institutions, friendly relationships
with adversaries and balanced socio-economic ties with others. To enlarge
the scope of reason and understanding, Russia needs formidable change as it
appears to be forging on different national strategic interests; its position
on Ukraine is not the same as eluded by most NATO members. Ukraine and Russia
have common geography and history just like Britain, France and Germany
have. Would it not be a matter of extreme political-strategic sensitivity
if other perceived enemies would dare to come close to military confrontations
in Western Europe? It is logical that true friends of humanity will not
act blindly to cause wild uproars and evil-mongering anywhere on this planet.
Is NATO Relevant to the Emerging Conflicts of the 21st
Century?
The
focal issue seems to be the prospective membership of Ukraine to the community
of NATO in Western Europe. America and Russia and other EU members enjoin
conflicting views on this issue. Ukraine claims its freedom to join any
international organization for its betterment, peace and security. Russia and
America should not be concerned except that they want to draw certain strategic
gains out of this chaotic perceived tragedy of future warfare. After the
dreadful consequences of the Two World Wars, NATO was formed by the Europeans
to maintain peace and security and avoid future unwarranted national wars
within the European hemisphere. Its formation and scope is limited to
nationalistic conventional warfare in the European theatre. One wonders, what
wars did NATO fight to protect its ideals and strategic priorities after the
1945 WW? What did NATO have to do with Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya?
Were these accidental engagements or simply an extension of planned mischievous
catastrophic instances of tyranny against the people of Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya and elsewhere who never posed any threat to NATO, America or to any
Western European nations? American and European leaders pushed soldiers to
fight unwanted draconian wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and other parts of
the Middle East. Millions of innocent Afghans, Iraqi and Libyan civilians and
Western troops were killed during the US-led NATO wars in these regions. It is
clear that there was an expansion of NATO from European-based conflicts to the
“interests” of certain members of NATO. Could any American-European
leaders explain why every day approximately 18-25 US war veterans commit
suicides? (“Why Do Soldiers Commit Suicide and Global Warlords.”
Uncommon Thought Journal, USA).
How
would one rationalize the role and actions of NATO in a global theater of
strategic interests? The history of NATO and its plans and ideological
motives are equally distorted and disfigured on the global screen of reason,
honesty and accountability. Russia overtook eastern parts of Ukraine – Crimea –
with forces aligned to Russian-speaking masses and trying to integrate those
territories into the Russian federation. This issue has been discussed
between Russian President Putin, former German Chancellor Merkel, and French
President Macron on several occasions. Could America, Russia and Europeans not
talk again for a peaceful resolution of this and other related problems?
Would it help if Russia was not excluded from NATO, which contains many former
Eastern Bloc nations, and the G7/8?
Looking for Hope of Peace Beyond the Lens of Geopolitics
Scott Ritter (a former Marine Corps
intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms
control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in
Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD): “What War with Russia Look
Like” (Global Research: 01/11/2022): explains the irony of current
affairs:
If
the U.S. tries to build up NATO forces on Russia’s western frontiers in the
aftermath of any Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia will then present Europe
with a fait accompli in the form of what would now be known as the “Ukrainian model.”
In short, Russia will guarantee that the Ukrainian treatment will be applied to
the Baltics, Poland, and even Finland, should it be foolish enough to pursue
NATO membership. Russia won’t wait until the U.S. has had time to accumulate
sufficient military power, either. Russia will simply destroy the offending
party through the combination of an air campaign designed to degrade the
economic function of the targeted nation, and a ground campaign designed to
annihilate the ability to wage war. Russia does not need to occupy the
territory of NATO for any lengthy period—just enough to destroy whatever
military power has been accumulated by NATO near its borders.
Is
NATO being managed by those people who lived in the distant past and perhaps
post WW2 historic culture is still alive and flourishing? Is there any glimpse
of hope for change and newly reasoned relationships between America, Russia and
West European people? The future of violence and nationalistic resentment looks
embedded into the distorted strategic necessities of current affairs, be it the
argument of Russia or American-led NATO and/or the EU on its own. NATO is run
by the wrong people, glued to wrong thinking and doing the wrong things without
any rational sense of time, people’s interest and history. Craig Murray (“NATO-an Idea Whose Time has Gone.”: AntiWar.com), a former
British diplomat and Rector of the University of Dundee, UK, foresees the body
as obsolete to emerging strategic thinking and needs of the Western
alliance:
It
is also the case that the situation in countries where NATO has been most
active in killing people, including Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan, has
deteriorated. It has deteriorated politically, economically, militarily and
socially. The notion that NATO member states could bomb the world into good was
only ever believed by crazed and fanatical people like Tony Blair and Jim
Murphy of the Henry Jackson Society. It really should not have needed empirical
investigation to prove it was wrong, but it has been tried, and has been proved
wrong….NATO’s attempt to be a global arbiter and enforcer has been disastrous
at all levels. Its plan to redeem itself by bombing the Caliphate in Iraq and
Syria is a further sign of madness. Except of course that it will guarantee
some blowback against Western targets, and that will “justify” further
bombings, and yet more profit for the arms manufacturers. On that level, it is
very clever and cynical. NATO provides power to the elite and money to the
wealthy.
Dr.
Paul Craig Roberts was US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and is the author
The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic
Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order. “Provocations
Have A History Of Escalating Into War: Can War Be Avoided and the Planet
Saved?” Information Clearing House: (8/31/2018), strikes a proactive caution to
all Western policymakers:
The
Zionist neoconservatives who rule in Washington are capable of the same mistake
that Napoleon and Hitler made. They believe in “the end of history,” that the
Soviet collapse means history has chosen America as the model for the future.
Their hubris actually exceeds that of Napoleon and Hitler. When confronted with
such deluded and ideological force, does turning the other cheek work or does
it encourage more provocation.
Every
beginning has its end. America needs Navigational Change after the January 6,
2021 Trump’s revolutionary attack on democracy and the Constitution, and so do
Russia and NATO in their search for a peaceful transition to sustainable
future-making. We, the People of the global community live on one floating
Planet Earth, and we must be conscious of who we are, how connected we are in
human solidarity, and where are we heading in our imagination of the present
and future. It is awful and a tragedy of human conscience to be speaking of
military conflicts and territorial gains when mankind urgently needs an
effective cure for the Covid-19 pandemic. George Floyd’s cries continue to be
heard all over the globe: “I can’t’ breathe.”
We are One People, One Humanity –
ignorance, natural disasters, and man-made fatalities know not any borders,
flags or nationalities but surge like wildfires as are being witnessed in the
COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. Again political absolutism heightens animosity and
hatred rather than human understanding and cooperation for a precious cause of
saving human lives on Earth. To save the life of one human being is to
safeguard the whole of humanity. We are all born equal One Humanity: – the
Divine Message of Al-Qur’an clarifies the truth:
“Proclaim in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who
created,
Created
man (human being) out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood,
Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful, He Who taught (the use of) the
Pen, Taught man (human
being) that which he knew not.”
Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global
security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western
comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications
including Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of
New Thinking. Lambert Publishing Germany, May 2012. His forthcoming book is
entitled: One Humanity and The Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict
Resolution
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