What’s been going on in Ukraine represents a monumental turning point in the balance of world geopolitical/military power. Why? Well, it’s simply this: Ukraine will very likely go down in history as the country where America, the supposed sole superpower in the world, was checkmated and met its match at the hands of the other superpower in the world – Russia.
How did this situation escalate to this dangerous degree? In the decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, aka, the USSR, the U.S. and its NATO allies took advantage of Russia’s weakened condition and recruited one Eastern European nation after another into NATO to join in its relentless drive toward Russia’s borders with the specific intention of encircling that country and pinning it into a corner.
In fact that plan worked very successfully over many years as NATO continued to advance toward Russia, that is, until it arrived at the borders of Ukraine in 2014. Actually the U.S. and NATO did cross those borders, did enter in the internal affairs of Ukraine, and organized a clever political coup that upended and changed the leadership of its government in Kiev.
All was going well for NATO and it was poised to continue to dictate that government’s military strategies in its war against the Eastern rebels closely aligned with Russia; that is, until Vladimir Putin had had enough of what he considered a blatant encroachment and slammed the door right in the face of NATO and the U.S.
He didn’t start a war, he didn’t try to overthrow that NATO-connected government; he simply stated that he would never, ever allow the U.S. and NATO to take control of Ukraine and add it to NATO membership; and that if, President Obama followed through with his stated intent to send billions of dollars of lethal weapons to the Kiev government, then he would deploy Russian troops from one end of that country to the other to prevent any more incursion into Ukraine’s affairs.
When I say the U.S. government was checkmated that’s exactly what happened. Another way to put this is to say that Putin and Obama came head to head, eye to eye and Putin never blinked once. Now we could say that Mr. Obama blinked in that he apparently has backed off, at least temporarily, from sending those lethal weapons to the Ukraine government; he knows Putin is deadly serious and will follow through on his specific threats. Russia will never allow Ukraine or Crimea to join with the West and NATO Euro nations who know it are not about to call his bluff. So they are urging Mr. Obama to give up this reckless idea of encirclement.
These European nations have decided that they want no part in this potential war and so they are said to be in the beginning stages of slowly but surely separating themselves from NATO and forming a security force of their own. Now they are most certainly not publicizing what they are doing but rest assured you won’t see them helping to knock down the wall that Putin has erected around Ukraine.
If the Euro nations actually do what many observers think they will, then without them NATO will no longer function effectively and could very well become a non-entity. The U.S. will know that to try to continue this encirclement on its own would be a complete disaster and President Obama, fresh from his apparent success with the Iran nuclear negotiations, and the way that he is now beginning to be perceived as a president of peace, would certainly think twice before ever attempting it.
And so we could see Europe and the region of Eurasia become far more peaceful with many of these nations continuing to build strong trade relationships with Russia, and also with China which has massive plans to initiate all sorts of infrastructure projects in this region. If this happens, and I believe it will, the threat of war will largely disappear and many of these countries will then be able to use their funds for domestic purposes instead of acquiring more and more military weaponry.
So let’s talk about world superpowers and the fact that there is not just one, namely the U.S., but that there are two. Russia may be currently weighed down with massive sanctions from the West and it is struggling but one thing about Russia has not changed; it still has a very large and powerful military, a formidable naval force with many nuclear submarines. It also has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, with more nuclear weapons than the U.S. So there should be no doubt that Russia is also a world superpower.
It’s almost certain that Mr. Obama is not about to test Putin’s resolve in this situation and he’s not about to cross the line in the sand that the Russian leader has drawn. There should be no doubt that Putin will, if the U.S. dares to send those billions of dollars of lethal weapons to the Ukraine government in Kiev, immediately dispatch Russian troops all across Ukraine.
Besides, President Obama has his hands full with trying to figure out what to do in the ongoing raging war in Syria, as well as the bloody war in Yemen. He and his advisers must be having a very difficult time trying to figure out some kind of strategy to follow in these escalating confrontations between Sunnis and Shiites, with ISIS, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups fighting on all sides of these conflicts.
Yes I think that this confrontation at Ukraine will prove to be a critically important turning point in history of the world; one by which the U.S. government will finally be forced to realize that it cannot control any region of the world on which it sets its sights. Those days are over and it will be in the best interests of America, its people and the nations and people of the world if that is the actual outcome. It will bring much more peace to the world and far less needless wars.
So, whether the Washington war hawks like it or not, the days of the American military empire are going to come to an end. As students of history know, every major empire the world has ever seen came to an end, many in disaster. I see the American empire going the way of the British Empire whereby Britain didn’t crash in flames but, rather, was forced to give up its holdings and control over its colonies around the world. And that will be good for America and its people when they redirect their concentration and funding away from the military and back to making America stronger domestically by rebuilding its economic foundations.
And yes this might be considered by many to be wishing or dreaming. I and many others in this country dream of America returning to what it once was, a highly admired and respected nation, a leader, a model for other nations to follow. We no longer need an empire; we can scale it back substantially and still provide this country of ours with all the safety and security it needs.
But the biggest challenge to seeing this dream come true can be found with the many facilitators and proliferators of war who currently control Washington; those who thrive on endless war and, thereby, amass monumental profits. They will fight with all their might to make certain that this will never happen and they will attempt to try to make this empire live on forever. They do not want peace, it stifles their agenda. Likewise, they are going to do everything in their power to destroy any agreement to control Iran’s nuclear agreement. Those war hawks in Washington and especially those in the Congress, together with their strong ally Netanyahu of Israel, are already colluding to create a process by which to kill any such agreement if it is reached. This consortium of war mongers is the real enemy that the American people need to confront and defeat.
One thing is certain; whether the American government or the Washington war hawks like it or not, whether the U.S. military empire will actually be scaled back or not, it appears that the die has been cast and that the days of the U.S. trying to control the regions of Europe and Eurasia are coming to an end; and Ukraine will be known as the turning point at which that took place.
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