Residents look at destroyed Russian z tanks on the outskirts of Buzova village west of Kyiv
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Blinded by what Barbara Tuchman calls "the bellicose frivolity of senile empires," we are marching ominously towards war with Russia.
How else might we explain Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's public declaration that the U.S. goal is to "weaken Russia" and Joe Biden's request for another $33 billion in "emergency" military and economic aid - half of what Russia spent on its military in 2021 - for Ukraine?
The same cabal of generals and politicians that drained the state of trillions of dollars in the debacles in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Somalia, and learned nothing from the nightmare of Vietnam, revel in the illusion of their omnipotence. They have no interest in a diplomatic solution. There are billions in profits to be made in arms sales. There is political posturing to be done. There are generals itching to pull the trigger. Why have all these high-priced and technologically advanced weapons systems if you can't use them? Why not show the world this time around that the U.S. still dominates the globe?
The masters of war require an enemy. When an enemy cannot be found, as George Orwell understood in Nineteen Eighty-Four, an enemy is manufactured. That enemy can become an ally overnight - we allied ourselves with Iran in the Middle East to fight the Taliban and later the Caliphate - before instantly reinstated Iran as the incarnation of evil. The enemy is not about logic or geopolitical necessity. It is about stoking the fear and hatred that fuels perpetual war.
In 1989, I covered the revolutions that toppled the communist dictatorships in Central and Eastern Europe. President Mikhail Gorbachev, like his successor Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, in the early stages of his rule, hoped to integrate Russia into the Western alliance.
War Industry Needed Antagonistic Russia
But the war industry places profits before national defense. It needed an antagonistic Russia to push the expansion of NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany, in violation of a promise made to Moscow. There were billions of dollars to be made from a Russian enemy as there are billions more to be made from the proxy war in Ukraine.
There would be no "peace dividend" at the end of the Cold War. The war industry was determined to continue to bleed the U.S. dry and amass its obscene profits. They provoked and antagonized Russia until Russia filled its preordained role.
The humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan and two decades of military disasters in the Middle East have magically been atoned for in Ukraine, although the U.S. and its allies have yet to place any troops on Ukrainian soil. The U.S. has taken ownership of the Ukrainians, as it did with the Mujahidin it funded to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.
"For the first time in decades, an American president is showing that he, and only he, can lead the free world," wrote George Packer, one of the most ardent cheerleaders for the invasion of Iraq, in The Atlantic magazine.
"NATO has been revitalized, the United States has reclaimed a mantle of leadership that some feared had vanished in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the European Union has found a unity and purpose that eluded it for most of its existence," The New York Times crowed.
Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, The New York Times wrote, carries around a map of Ukraine, marked with tactical details. "With aides, he drills down for details about the location and combat readiness of specific Russian ground units and ship movements," the paper noted.
Former NATO commander Richard Shirreff told BBC Radio 4's "Today" program, the West should prepare to fight Russia.
"The worst case is war with Russia," he said. "By gearing itself up for the worst case, it is most likely to deter Putin because ultimately Putin respects strength."
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