To begin with I would to say right off that I am in NO way trying to justify the actions by a paranoid Schizophrenic like Putin by sending forces into Ukraine….all this is trying to show the events that lead to the event…..to the death and destruction.

I recently read a piece that stated that the US was planning even more troops to the border with Russia….

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is in the middle of a “fundamental transformation” and planning a massive military buildup along Russian borders.

Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO will undergo a major “reset” and plans to put enough troops in states that border Russia to repel an invasion. The alliance currently has 40,000 troops in eastern member states.

NATO considers its forces in Eastern Europe a deterrent against Russia but insufficient to actually stop incoming forces. The “tripwire” policy believes Moscow would be unwilling to kill American soldiers and provoke a larger war. Stoltenberg did not say how many troops would be needed in states like Latvia and Estonia to fight off a Russian invasion.

The alliance recently announced the creation of four new battlegroups of about 1,500 troops each to be deployed to Eastern European states. NATO will have a battlegroup that  stretches from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

Stoltenberg said the change in policy is a response to the invasion of Ukraine and will claim the buildup is defensive. Moscow is unlikely to share that interpretation. Russia demanded a withdrawal of NATO forces from Eastern Europe in the December security proposal.

Since the 1990s, NATO has expanded and moved forces into former Soviet states. Moscow has consistently said the alliance’s eastward expansion is a threat and is part of the reason President Vladimir Putin elected to launch a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

(antiwar.com)

Now think about if you were the leader of a country and foreign troops were pouring into the regions around your borders…..what would you think?

Keep in mind the NATO has been expanding its troops presence in the border regions for decades…..what would you think?

A report details how the CIA helped Ukraine prepare for a war…..

CIA paramilitaries had been training Ukrainian forces on the frontlines of the Donbas war against Russian-backed separatists since 2014 and were only pulled out by the Biden administration last month, Yahoo News reported on Wednesday, citing former US officials.

The CIA first sent a small number of paramilitaries to eastern Ukraine when the war started in 2014, which was sparked by a US-backed coup in Kyiv and the Donbas separatists declaring independence from the post-coup government.

As part of the training, CIA paramilitaries taught Ukrainian forces sniper techniques, how to operate US-provided Javelin anti-tank missiles, and how to avoid being tracked on the battlefield by using covert communications and other means. The former officials said at first the CIA was surprised at the capability of Russia and the separatists compared with US adversaries in the Middle East.

The US military held similar training programs for Ukrainian forces in western Ukraine that have been publicly acknowledged. In January, Yahoo News revealed that the CIA had also been holding a US-based training program for Ukrainian forces. A former CIA official said the US-based program was training “an insurgency” and taught Ukrainians how to “kill Russians.”

(antiwar.com)

The beginning?

Then there are those that are looking for a long war…..

Washington Post reports that some NATO states prefer Ukrainians continue “fighting and dying” over “a peace that comes too early,” rejecting any outcome that could be sold as a “victory” for Moscow.

Even the joint chiefs are on board with the long war thing….

Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley on Tuesday said he believes the conflict in Ukraine is “very protracted” and will last for years.

Milley, the highest ranking military official in the United States, testified before the House Armed Services Committee, his first appearance since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February. He shared that he expects “NATO, the United States, Ukraine, and all of the allies and partners supporting Ukraine will be involved in this for quite some time.” It might not be a decade, he said, but the conflict will be “measured in years.”

Would you see a provocation?

Is this wishful thinking or a plan?

It looks like this could turn into a long war which would mean much more suffering for the Ukrainian people.

Zelensky’s interview over the weekend points to my concern…..

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has not let up on his criticism of NATO and told 60 Minutes in an interview that aired Sunday that he is “no longer interested” in the military alliance’s diplomacy.

“When you’re working in diplomacy, there are no results. All of this is very bureaucratic,” Zelensky said when asked about recent harsh comments about NATO. “That’s why the way I am talking to them is absolutely justified. I don’t have any more lives to give. I don’t have any more emotions. I’m no longer interested in their diplomacy that leads to the destruction of my country.”

(antiwar.com)

That to me signals a long protracted war with all the death and destruction that comes with it.

The thing that also worries me is that the US, as far as we can know, is not actively trying to find a peaceful solution to end the hostilities.

I find both of these war strategies dysfunctional and dangerous. For Russia to impose its will on Ukraine by military force is unlikely to succeed while inflicting great harm on Ukraine and Ukrainians, as well as on themselves as a result of the sanctions and diplomatic isolation. One symbolic result has been the activation of the International Criminal Court in pursuit of an indictment of Putin. Some critics are urging. the UN to establish the type of tribunal used to prosecute surviving Nazi leaders at Nuremberg after World War II. Although these gestures towards accountability for international crimes are plausibly associated with the Russian leader’s behavior, their wider credibility is gravely compromised by moral, legal, and political hypocrisy given past U.S. comparable behavior that was carefully spared similar scrutiny.

Looked at differently, for the U.S. to pursue a militarist strategy toward Russia in this manner is to choose a path leading toward frustration and danger, drawn out humanitarian suffering, disastrous economic spillover effects already leading to food insecurity throughout the Middle East and North Africa by way of spikes in prices and shortages, renewed pressures to turn to nuclear power and fossil fuels in the vain search for energy independence, and the likelihood of inducing a severe global recession coupled with an escalation of geopolitical tensions of the West with Russia and possibly China. In other words, these antagonists on the geopolitical level of conflict are on a treacherous collision course, with only China so far acting prudently throughout the crisis, remaining on the sidelines, unwilling to give either Russia assistance or to endorse its massive military encroachments on Ukrainian sovereignty while opposing sanctions and punitive action directed at Russia.

Make Peace, Not War, in Ukraine

Think back to 2014 (I know that seems like the dark ages)….

In 2014, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was faced with the choice of economic alliance with the European Union or with Russia. In a country that was nearly evenly split, the choice of either partner was divisive and dangerous. But there was a way out of the dilemma: compromise was possible. Ukraine doesn’t have to choose, Putin offered. Both Russia and the EU could work economically with Ukraine.

There didn’t need to be a dangerous dilemma. But Washington and the EU rejected Putin’s peace offering. The late Stephen Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Politics and director of Russian Studies at Princeton, reminded in a 2014 interview that “it was the European Union, backed by Washington, that said in November to the democratically elected president of a profoundly divided country, Ukraine, ‘You must choose between Europe and Russia.’” There was a diplomatic solution to the catalyst of today’s crisis. The U.S. rejected it.

Is the US hindering much-needed diplomatic efforts?

Without diplomacy there is NO peace.

All this could be seen as provocations for a long war.

Wars start for reasons….right or wrong…..

Any thoughts?

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”