By Patrick J. Buchanan
A Russian invasion of Ukraine and the
war that would inevitably follow would be a
disaster for Ukraine and Russia, but also
for Europe and the United States. It would
ignite a second Cold War, the winner of
which would be China, to whom Russia would
be forced to turn economically and
strategically.
January 18, 2022:
Information Clearing House
-- In 2014, when Russian
President Vladimir Putin responded to a U.S.-backed
coup that ousted a pro-Russian regime in Kyiv by
occupying Crimea, President Barack Obama did
nothing.
When Putin aided secessionists in the Donbass in
seizing Luhansk and Donetsk, once again, Obama did
nothing.
Why did we not come to the military assistance of
Ukraine?
Because Ukraine is not a member of NATO. We had
no obligation to come to its aid. And to have
intervened militarily on the side of Ukraine would
have risked a war with Russia we had no desire to
fight.
Last year, when Putin marshaled 100,000 Russian
troops on the borders of Ukraine, President Joe
Biden declared that any U.S. response to a Russian
invasion would be restricted to severe sanctions.
The US would take no military action in support
of Ukraine.
Why not? Because, again, Ukraine is not a member
of NATO.
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Clearly, by its inaction, America is revealing
its refusal to risk its own security in a war with
Russia over a Ukraine whose sovereignty and
territorial integrity are not vital US interests
sufficient to justify war with the largest country
on earth with its huge arsenal of nuclear weapons.
This is the real world.
And as Ukraine is not a NATO ally, and we are not
going to invite it to become a NATO ally, Biden
should declare so publicly, urbi et orbi, to remove
Putin’s pretext for any invasion.
Biden has already declared that we will not put
offensive weapons in Ukraine. If, by declaring that
we have no intention of expanding NATO further east
by admitting Ukraine or Georgia, we can provide
Putin with an off-ramp from this crisis that he
created, why not do it?
Speaking last week, Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov said, "They must understand that the
key to everything is the guarantee that NATO will
not expand eastward."
If what Lavrov said is true – that the "key" for
Moscow, the crucial demand, is that the eastward
expansion of NATO halt, and Ukraine and Georgia
never join the U.S.-led alliance created to contain
Moscow – we ought to accede to the demand.
If this causes Putin to keep his army out of
Ukraine, admitting the truth will have avoided an
unnecessary war. If Putin invades anyway, the world
will know whom to hold accountable.
The purposes of the Biden declaration would be
simple: to tell the truth about what we will and
will not do. To remove Putin’s pretext for war. To
give Putin an off-ramp from any contemplated
invasion, if he is looking for one.
A Russian invasion of Ukraine and the war that
would inevitably follow would be a disaster for
Ukraine and Russia, but also for Europe and the
United States. It would ignite a second Cold War,
the winner of which would be China, to whom Russia
would be forced to turn economically and
strategically.
Thus, to avert a war, Biden should declare what
is the truth:
"Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and neither we
nor our allies have any intention or plans to bring
Ukraine into NATO or to give Kyiv an Article 5 war
guarantee."
The same holds for Georgia in the Caucasus. We
did not come to Tbilisi’s defense when it invaded
South Ossetia in 2008 and was driven out by Putin.
And we are not going to give Georgia any Article 5
war guarantee. Frankly, the time has come to declare
that NATO will expand no further east and that NATO
enlargement is at an end.
No more former republics of the Russian
Federation – not Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus,
or Kazakhstan – will be admitted to a NATO alliance
whose roster is restricted to present membership.
Indeed, if the purpose of NATO is the defense of
Europe from a revanchist Russia, why would we extend
NATO so far to the east that it provokes Russia into
attacking its neighbors in Europe?
With Russia having issued virtual ultimata, our
objective has to be to prevent a catastrophe war
that an invasion of Ukraine would ignite.
Such an invasion of Ukraine, a country of more
than 40 million, would inevitably end with Kyiv’s
defeat. And the longer Ukraine resisted and the
fiercer it fought, the greater the number of dead
and wounded on both sides and the more enduring the
hatred and hostility that would be created between
them.
Already, Americans in official circles are
reportedly discussing aid to Ukrainians in fighting
a guerrilla war against Russian occupation troops.
There is another issue here, and that is the
morality of not doing all we can to avoid an
invasion and its consequent war.
Would it be moral for the United States to
provide arms for a bloody insurgency if there were
no realistic chance of quickly expelling the Russian
invaders?
Given his problems in Belarus and Kazakhstan,
Putin cannot be anticipating happily the military
occupation of millions of Ukrainians.
Ending NATO enlargement could be a victory for
all of us.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of
Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War”: How
Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World.
To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read
features by other Creators writers and cartoonists,
visit the Creators Web page at
www.creators.com.
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