Dmitry Trenin: The US could have ruled the world, but this one weakness ruined it allFor more than 30 years, Washington has failed to build a just order, which is why we are now experiencing unprecedented crises...

 

The wars in Ukraine and in Gaza are very different; yet, they are definitely linked as two flashing indicators of how the change in the world order is proceeding. Regrettably but unsurprisingly, the relatively peaceful previous power transition that followed the end of the Cold War is unlikely to be repeated. The slow end of the American Century is already being marked by hostilities and tensions involving some of the major powers. With more likely to come.

The ongoing conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East have the same root cause. Essentially, the self-proclaimed victors in the Cold War – above all, the United States of America – have singularly failed in creating a lasting international equilibrium to succeed the post-WWII bipolar setup. Moreover, the innate arrogance of its elites, their complete disregard for the interests of others and unlimited self-righteousness have gradually undermined their own once unchallenged position of power and dispelled a lot of respect and goodwill that many other countries initially had for them.

In Ukraine, the geopolitically and geo-economically sound idea of a militarily neutral country enjoying the trade, investment, and logistical benefits of its position between Russia and the European Union was dismissed by Washington as “giving the Kremlin a veto right” over its neighbor’s security status. Instead, NATO’s unrestrained expansion was upheld as almost a sacred principle. This led to an outcome that many had predicted: Moscow’s pushback.

Rather than reaching for a compromise settlement via the Minsk accords, the West and its Ukrainian protégés used diplomacy as a foil to win time to better arm and train Kiev’s army. Russia’s security demands were largely dismissed, and its humanitarian concerns were ridiculed. Moscow’s warning in the form of a display of military power along Ukraine’s border did not impress Washington either. Americans had probably calculated that by entering Ukraine in force Russia would walk into a trap, opening a chance for the coveted regime change in the Kremlin.

Things did not exactly turn out that way. Russia did not collapse under the weight of a dozen packages of Western “sanctions from hell,” and its military has recovered after initial setbacks. Western military and financial assistance to Kiev, unprecedented in living memory either in scale or scope, has been unable to lead Ukraine, the vaunted tip of the spear for the West, to victory over Russia. Just the opposite: a specter of disaster is now looming over the country and its masters in Washington. Looking ahead, Russia’s resources are vastly superior to Ukraine’s, and the Russian leadership’s political will as well as the popular support it enjoys at home look much stronger than what the current US administration can muster.   

With regard to Palestine, the US took conflict settlement into its own hands, sidelining the other three members of the defunct Middle East Quartet: Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations. As a result, the two-state solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict was de facto put on ice. In its place, Washington focused on economic handouts to the Palestinian Arabs who in return were expected to keep quiet and forget their claim to statehood. More recently, the US also worked to get the Arab states to engage diplomatically and commercially with Israel. The obvious purpose of this endeavor was to make the Palestinian issue, long the centerpiece of the regional conflict, virtually irrelevant, and eventually send it to oblivion.

Thus, instead of bolstering the Palestinian Authority (PA) and helping it become a real government in the State of Palestine, the US, alongside with Israel, sought to benefit from a split among the Palestinians. To them, Hamas’ rule in Gaza in opposition to the PA in Ramallah, was a de facto guarantee that the two-state solution was dead. For some time, it looked as if this was working. Even in late September, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan pronounced the Middle East more quiet that it had been for two decades. Within about a week, however, Hamas delivered its mega-terrorist attack against Israel, prompting a massive and ruthless response. 

So far, the conflict has mostly centered on Israel and Gaza, with the West Bank and the Lebanese border experiencing lower levels of violence. It has the potential, however, to spread beyond the immediate neighborhood, and involve Iran, another country that the US has not been able to come to terms with over the past four-plus decades. Biden's government is probably not itching now for an attack against Iran. However, its knee-jerk reaction to the Israel-Hamas conflict by sending two aircraft carrier groups as well as a nuclear-armed Ohio-class submarine to the region was meant as a clear threat to Tehran. For their part, various pro-Iranian elements, in Iraq and Yemen, have already targeted American bases and Israeli assets in the region.

The two wars have not only exposed the limits of US power and influence in the world’s key regions, but the glaring deficit of statesmanship. They have also laid bare the hypocrisy of American and West European foreign policy and their mainstream media's propaganda. The vastly different treatment of the Russian and Israeli, Ukrainian and Hamas actions in the parallel running conflicts has not been lost on anyone following the news. The moral authority of the US-led West is crumbling just as its power dominance is waning.

Apart from the wars in Europe and the Middle East, a third hotbed of tension is simmering in East Asia. For decades, the US has been juggling its formal acceptance of the One China principle, and its practical support for Taiwan. The latter included political backing, advance weapons sales and military maneuvering around the island. Given China’s determination to eventually reunify it with the mainland, and Taiwan’s drift toward formal independence, this juggling act appears unsustainable in the long, or even the medium term. Should this happen – and there is a non-trivial chance that it might, – this third war could lead to a direct clash between America and China. 

Thirty years ago, at the end of the Cold War, the US, as the world’s principal power, had an opportunity to begin building a multipolar world in which it would secure the role of a balancer and moderator. There was even a historical precedent for such a course. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s blueprint for the UN was headed precisely in that direction. In 1991, the situation was uniquely propitious for that – much more so than in 1945. Russia, having just shaken off communism, was dreaming of integration into Western institutions and councils. China was busy building capitalism and focusing on itself. The Oslo accords sent a ray of hope that the Middle East could be reformed on a platform of peace. 

Sadly, America’s political class chose instead to celebrate its victory in the Cold War, and then indulge itself in unipolarity, indispensability, and exclusivity. Our wars of today are the price people in various parts of the world have to pay for Washington’s dereliction of its duty as the architect of a world order. Never before in the history of the world has so much depended on a single power. But that power failed them all.

https://www.rt.com/news/587128-us-could-have-ruled-world/

 

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it's time for being earnest.....

 

 

SCOTT RITTER: ‘My Life’s Work Melting Before My Eyes’

 

By Scott Ritter
Special to Consortium News

On July 1 the Russian delegation to the Vienna Negotiations on Military Security and Arms Control organized a round table on “The Transformation of the World Order in the context of the Ukrainian Crisis.” This article is derived from the author’s presentation there.

Reflecting on my participation on July 1 in the Russian-hosted forum in Vienna on the ongoing transformation of the world order, I was struck by the words of Ambassador Alexander Lukashevich, the permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). 

The ambassador told a very personal story when he took part in the Istanbul summit back in November 1999 as a junior diplomat in the delegation he now heads. There, despite tensions that existed between the United States/NATO and the Russian Federation over NATO’s then bombing of Serbia, OSCE leaders, through a process of dialogue, adopted three foundational documents that served as the framework for European security for the next two decades. 

These were the Charter for European Security; the Agreement on Adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe; and the Istanbul Summit Declaration.

The Charter for European Security reaffirmed the commitment to a free, democratic and integrated Europe as defined by the geographic and political boundaries set forth by the territories encompassed by the OSCE,  which coexisted in peace, with their respective individuals and communities enjoying freedom, prosperity and security.

The Agreement on Adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) served to modify the existing CFE Treaty to consider the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact; the unification of Germany; and the expansion of NATO, all with the goal of facilitating equitable security and stability for all parties to the treaty.

Finally, the Istanbul Summit Declaration outlined the shared vision for European security and cooperation, emphasizing strengthening cooperation between the OSCE and other international organizations,  enhancement of OSCE peacekeeping efforts, and expansion of OSCE-backed police activities designed to maintain the rule of law.

Ambassador Lukashevich lamented that the conflict in Ukraine, beginning with the 2014 Maidan coup that saw Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich ousted by U.S. and E.U.-backed Ukrainian nationalists, has undermined and destroyed all three of the Istanbul Summits crowning achievements.

INF

The OSCE, working at the behest of NATO, used the Minsk Accords to further the expansion of NATO, instead of brokering peace in Ukraine. Today, NATO is engaged in a war with Russia using Ukraine as its proxy. In short, the very processes of peace and security Lukashevich said he’d worked so hard to create and implement back in 1999 were “melting before my eyes.”

I had been involved in a process of foundational importance to European security — the implementation of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The INF Treaty was signed by President Ronald Reagan and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev on Dec. 8, 1987. 

In February 1988 I was one of the first military officers assigned to the newly created On-Site Inspection Agency (OSIA), created by the U.S. Department of Defense to implement the INF Treaty. 

In June 1988 I was dispatched to the Soviet Union as part of an advanced party of inspectors to install a multi-million-dollar monitoring installation outside the gates of a Soviet missile factory in the city of Votkinsk, some 750 miles east of Moscow in the foothills of the Ural Mountains. 

For the next two years I worked in the company of my fellow American inspectors, side-by-side with our newfound Soviet colleagues, to implement a treaty which, without our mutual commitment to making the world a safer place through disarmament, would most likely have failed in the face of deep-seated opposition in both the U.S. and Soviet Union (you can read about my experiences in my book, Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika.)  

Square One

On June 28 last month, a mere three days before the Russian round table in Vienna, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia was going to resume production of short- and intermediate-range missiles — the very weapons myself and my fellow American and Soviet inspectors had worked so hard to eliminate. Putin said he would weigh their potential deployment in Europe and elsewhere to offset similar deployments by the United States of intermediate-range missiles in Europe and the Pacific. 

Putin was referring to the deployment by the U.S. of Mk 70 containerized missile launchers capable of firing the SM-6 “Typhon” dual-capability missile as well as the Tomahawk ground-launched cruise missile. The SM-6 has a range of under 310 miles, making it compliant under the terms of the INF Treaty, the Tomahawk’s range of 1,800 miles makes it an INF-capable system.

The United States withdrew from the INF Treaty in 2019, during the presidency of Donald Trump. Russia, however, indicated that it would not either produce or deploy INF-capable missiles (despite being accused by the U.S. of doing just that in justifying its decision to withdraw from the landmark arms control agreement) so long as the U.S. did not introduce them into Europe.

In September 2023, the U.S. deployed two Mk 70 launchers onto the soil of Denmark as part of NATO military exercises. And in May of 2024 the U.S. likewise deployed the Mk 70 launcher on the soil of the Philippines. These actions prompted Putin’s response. 

In short, we have literally gone back to square one when it comes to arms control and nuclear disarmament — to a time when Cold War politics nearly brought the U.S. and Russia to the edge of the nuclear abyss.

That is where we stand today.

Like Ambassador Lukashevich, I am literally watching my life’s work melt before my eyes.

The difference between now and then is stark. Four decades ago, we had an engaged public, and diplomats who talked to one another.

June 24 marked the 42nd anniversary of the million-person march in Central Park against nuclear war and for nuclear disarmament.

The political pressure created by this event resonated into the halls of power. 

‘Walk in the Woods’

July 16 will mark the 42nd anniversary of the famous “Walk in the Woods” conducted by Paul Nitze and Yuli Kvitsinsky, respectively the U.S. and Soviet lead negotiators for INF talks that, at the time, were stymied. 

Faced with a calcified recalcitrance on the part of U.S. hardliners, the two men took a walk in the woods outside Geneva, Switzerland, where they outlined possible ways to break the negotiation impasse.

The ideas that Nitze and Kvitsinsky came up with never came to pass — neither the U.S. nor the Soviet Union were ready to undertake such drastic actions. 

But their courageous stab at diplomacy at a time when neither side was talking to the other shook free the rust that had frozen their respective sides, lubricating the machinery of diplomacy, and set in motion the processes that led to Reagan and Gorbachev signing the INF Treaty some five and a half years later.

The key take-away from the Nitze-Kvitsinsky “Walk in the Woods” was that, when it comes to meaningful arms control, success is not immediate. The process of arms control must be seen in the long term. 

It was also clear that fear fueled consideration of positive outcomes that eventually led to an equitable solution in the form of the INF Treaty.

There is no doubt in my mind that within the ranks of the Russian and U.S. diplomatic corps today are two men possessed of the vision and courage of Paul Nitze and Yuli Kvitsinsky who can, if given the opportunity, recreate the magic of the “Walk in the Woods.” That magic helped create the conditions for negotiations that helped pull the U.S. and Soviet Union from the nuclear abyss more than four decades ago. 

But two hurdles must be crossed first. It is difficult to imagine a U.S. and Russian diplomat walking and talking today when, as Professor Sergey Markedonev, a fellow participant at the Vienna round table pointed out, official U.S. policy precludes even shaking hands with Russian diplomats.  

It’s Up to the American People

To cross that bridge the U.S. government needs a signal from the American people that such behavior is not acceptable.

We need a modern-day version of the June 1982 Central Park million-person rally in support of nuclear disarmament and arms control and against nuclear war.

America has an election coming up in November where issues of our collective existential survival as a people and nation are on the line.

There is no more existential issue than that of nuclear war.

As was the case in June 1982, we, the people of the United States, need to send a collective signal to all who seek to represent us in the highest office of the land, that we will not tolerate policies that lead toward nuclear war.

That we insist on policies that promote nuclear disarmament and arms control.

That we demand that our diplomats begin talking with their Russian counterparts.

I’m tired of watching my life’s work melt before my very eyes.

It’s time to rebuild the foundations of our collective survival.

To make mainstream the cause of disarmament that once saved us from nuclear Armageddon.

Scott Ritter is a former U.S. 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. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.

 

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/07/07/scott-ritter-my-lifes-work-melting-before-my-eyes/

 

 

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