Moscow spent the whole of last week waiting for a response from Washington to its proposal for a bilateral treaty on peace guarantees. But Washington never mentioned the Russian proposal. On the contrary, the United States accused Russia of preparing to attack Ukraine and mounting a provocation to justify an invasion. Russia cannot go back, but any action on its part could degenerate into a third world war.
The western press is unable to understand or follow what is really happening in the relations between the three world superpowers - China, the United States and Russia - simply because it is obstinate in compartmentalizing them, focusing on each problem separately and insisting on ignoring the links among them. The most important thing is that the Western press ignores the difference between common law and United Nations law, which leads it to commit numerous errors of interpretation.
During the last week, representatives of the United States and Russia met 3 times to discuss peace guarantees. These meetings took place
- in Geneva, at the level of deputy foreign ministers; -
in Brussels, within the NATO-Russia commission
- and finally in Vienna, within the framework of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The United States reiterated its warnings about the stationing of 100,000 Russian soldiers… on Russian soil. For its part, Russia expressed its indignation at the refusal of the United States to address its peace proposal.
Simultaneously, in Washington, Congress was debating new sanctions against Russia, while the State Department was adopting the same attitude towards China as it had towards Russia, and the Department of Defense was proposing to increase the United States' nuclear arsenal.
As a background, the United States carried out a destabilization operation in Kazakhstan and pushed the European Union to establish a total economic blockade against Transnistria.
In short, while the United States refuses to take Russian reproaches into account and avoids responding to Moscow's arguments, it is now said that Moscow is threatening to deploy troops in the Caribbean.
The only positive element recorded in recent days is a possible resumption of negotiations between the United States and Russia on the control of intermediate-range nuclear missiles – it is important to remember that the United States annulled the previous treaty on this weapon.
THE CONTENT OF THE NEGOTIATIONS
Upon arrival in Geneva, the American delegation began by having a friendly dinner with the Russian delegation. But the next day, at the beginning of the talks, the Americans informed their Russian interlocutors that their mandate was limited to discussing the deployment of US and Russian troops in Ukraine.
Arriving in Geneva, the head of the Russian delegation, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, had stressed
:
« Other priorities are more important for us: no expansion of NATO, elimination of the created infrastructure, rejection of certain measures, and this not on a reciprocal basis but on a unilateral basis on the part of the West. » [ 1 ]
So the Russians replied that the mandate of the US delegation did not respond to the initial theme of the meeting, which was the guarantees aimed at guaranteeing world peace.
From there, the American negotiator Wendy Sherman and Sergey Riabkov reviewed the issues they could address later and found only one: negotiating a new treaty on intermediate-range nuclear missiles, since the United States left the INF Treaty. during the Trump administration.
The next day, Wendy Sherman participated in the NATO-Russia Commission meeting in Brussels. After the withdrawal of the United States from the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Anglo-Saxon betrayal of France, related to the AUKUS agreement, the ambassadors of the other NATO countries did not have the slightest idea about Washington's intentions. Mrs. Sherman let them speak first and then she said, addressing the Russian delegation: “ Certainly, we are 30, here before you. But we are one in our positions. »
After saying this, Wendy Sherman outlined a panorama of what, according to her, Europe would be if Washington gave in to Moscow, a continent divided again into two zones of influence – one Atlanticist and the other Russian – as in times of the Cold War.
The memories that this presentation of things aroused prevented the ambassadors of the other NATO member countries from hearing what was said afterwards. The remark of the Russian delegation, recalling that Russia is no longer Soviet and that it does not want to divide the continent, remained as background noise. It is possible that the Russians have once again presented their demand for strict respect of the UN Charter and the given word, but nobody remembers that.
The American press has commented on this meeting stating that it gave rise to a new reason for NATO's existence – strongly criticized by Donald Trump during his presidential term and by French President Emmanuel Macron. And what would that " reason for existence " be? Fight Russia.
Under these conditions, the third meeting, the OSCE meeting in Vienna, was only – according to the term used by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – “ dilatory ”. The OSCE has absolutely no decision-making power, it is just a forum created during the cold war as a means of assessing positions. The Swedish chairmanship of the OSCE Permanent Council was a true reflection of the general attitude of Sweden, an officially neutral country but very busy internally discussing its next NATO membership. The NATO members remained on the defensive while the United States, for its part, was only trying to play for time. There was not even a final statement at the end of that meeting.
Moscow had calculated that Washington would flatly reject its proposals, but was surprised by how NATO and OSCE members allowed themselves to be manipulated by US diplomats.
This is the second time that Vladimir Putin has come up against the irrational behavior of the members of the European Union. Already in 2007, Putin believed that the countries of Western Europe would dare to distance themselves from their American master to go to the Munich Conference on security and urged them to ask themselves what their own interests were [ 2 ]. Putin then mistakenly believed that he would succeed in arousing the attention of Europeans, especially the Germans. The same thing just happened now.
That has only one explanation. Most of the European leaders - with the notable exception of the Russians - simply do not want to be independent, they abdicate their own responsibility and prefer to submit, lower their heads before an illegitimate and cruel world order.
HYSTERY IN WASHINGTON
In the White House they know very well that the United States no longer has the means that its foreign policy needs. But the US ruling class doesn't know that. The congress saw grandiose positions taken by politicians who denounced Russian cynicism, especially that of President Vladimir Putin. The US congressmen even went so far as to speak of “sanctioning” him directly, which would imply breaking off diplomatic relations with his country. No one seems to have realized that the United States is no longer the world's leading military power and that their country has been replaced by Russia and China.
In a less stupid move than the "sanctions" discussion against President Putin, US congressmen clashed with each other over the possible reinstatement of sanctions against Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline . Republican Senator Marco Rubio defended the idea that sanctions should be imposed on Germans who make deals with " the devil ", including former Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, so that they have to submit [ 3 ]. The Democrats, on the contrary, following White House directives, maintain that it would be more sensible to encourage the Germans to decide for themselves to join the " right side ".» instead of forcing them. The Ukrainian government has joined this latest trend, recalling that the Germans had negotiated guarantees with Russia that Russian gas deliveries would not be used as a weapon [ 4 ].
This absurd debate has only been possible because the whole world has forgotten the reason that led US President Joe Biden to lift the sanctions against Nord Stream 2 … just before his meeting in Geneva with President Vladimir Putin [ 5 ]: it was a way to pass the bill to the Europeans for the war damage caused to Syria. What Biden did was accept that the Europeans would pay for Russian gas, at more affordable prices... but less advantageous than expected. No one seems to remember anymore that the United States lost the war against Syria.
EVERYTHING REMAINS AS BEFORE
Far from giving in on the underlying issue, the State Department has extended to China the narrative it was already applying against Russia. According to American diplomacy, now not only does Russia want to invade Ukraine and impose its rule on all of Eastern Europe, but China also wants to conquer the entire China Sea.
The dispute between the United States and Russia dates back to the dissolution of the USSR, but its dispute with China is much older, coming from the tragic colonial period.
To avoid Beijing's arguments, the State Department relies on a decision issued in 2016 by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague (PCA, also called the Permanent Court of Arbitration) that ruled against China in a territorial dispute between that country and the Philippines [ 6 ]. But an arbitration court is not a court, and since the People's Republic of China does not recognize the PCA, the latter accepted the Philippine version of the dispute. Far from proving anything, this matter is just one more example of the particular US interpretation of international law in general and of the UN Charter in particular.
China rightfully claims the islands it ruled in the 18th century and which were abandoned when the China of that time collapsed under the ravages of colonization. Most of these islands remained uninhabited until about thirty years ago, that is, until the dissolution of the USSR. With its claim to attribute these islands to its regional allies, the United States is displaying the same imperialist pretensions that it shows in Europe by attempting to place central and eastern Europe under the command of NATO.
In addition, during the same week, Washington continued its destabilization operation in Kazakhstan and encouraged the calls to overthrow the Kazakh government issued from Paris by the oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov. And finally, it pushed the European Union to establish an economic blockade against Transnistria, a small unrecognized state located in a strip of territory between Ukraine and Moldova [ 7 ]. Although it seems to have lost the game in Kazakhstan, the United States is already preparing the next episode in Transnistria.
The fact is that the United States refuses to see reality and continues to send emissaries to each of its vassals to convince them of the alleged imminence of a Russian attack in Ukraine, where Russia is even staging a provocation under a false flag to justify a invasion.
PROVISIONAL CONCLUSION
The week that has just passed has shown, as expected, that the United States has no intention of respecting the UN Charter or its own word. The United States will not back down of its own volition and its proposals do not seek anything other than to perpetuate the current situation.
The American strategy seems to be based on the idea that the Russians and Chinese will not dare to take the risk of a confrontation. It is the " madman theory " that President Richard Nixon used years ago against the Soviet Union, the theory of someone who acts according to the following scheme: "It is true that I am not right and that I am not the strongest. But I'm crazy, my reactions are irrational and unpredictable. I'm not interested in winning, but I can do a lot of damage.” Washington politicians should remember that such an attitude did not win the war in Vietnam.
It is clear that Russia planned the next move when it published its draft bilateral treaty with guarantees to ensure peace. But it will have to adapt it because Washington has managed to unite its fearful vassals. If there is a confrontation, it will be nuclear and the victims will number in the hundreds of millions.
While Washington is preparing the next skirmish in Transnistria, Moscow is preparing to make its next move, perhaps in the Caribbean and following the model of the crisis created around the Soviet missiles installed in Cuba, in October 1962, with a view to obtaining a shock effect that makes the US ruling class understand that the United States has lost the superiority that it abused so much in the past.
This article continues
1. « Russia wants to force the United States to respect the UN Charter », by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network , January 4, 2022.
2. « « Washington continues the RAND plan in Kazakhstan Corporation, which is already continuing in Transnistria », by Thierry Meyssan, January 11, 2022.
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