Four Western provocations that led to the U.S.-Russia crisis today

The one-sided indictments of Moscow’s behavior invariably ignore numerous missteps that took place, beginning with President Clinton.

DECEMBER 28, 2021

Written by
Ted Galen Carpenter

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/12/28/four-western-provocations-that-led-to-u-s-russia-crisis-today/

At the end of 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved — a surprisingly peaceful end to a brutal empire. Russia, as the principal successor state, sought to join the democratic West, and the United States and its European allies officially welcomed that aspiration. Three decades later, however, the West and Russia are locked in an increasingly acrimonious cold war struggle. It is a tragic development and one that could escalate into a catastrophic armed conflict. Neither side is blameless for the onset of a new cold war, but there is a substantial difference in the degree of culpability. Provocations by the United States and NATO were more numerous, more egregious, and began earlier.  

U.S. and NATO officials, as well as most of the Western news media, contend that Russia is to blame for the current ugly confrontation. They highlight four Kremlin actions that severely spiked East-West tensions. The first episode, according to that version of history, occurred in 2008 when Russian forces invaded Georgia and advanced to the outskirts of the capital, Tbilisi.  A second, even more, serious offense, took place in 2014 when Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine and annexed that strategic peninsula after holding a bogus referendum. The third incident followed just months later when Russia orchestrated a separatist insurgency in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and then sent in troops to assist the rebellion. During the years that followed, Vladimir Putin’s government exacerbated the emerging cold war by interfering in the internal political affairs of numerous Western countries, especially the United States.

Those allegations contain some truth, but all of them conveniently omit crucial context. For example, the 2008 invasion of Georgia occurred only after the Georgian military fired on Russian peacekeeping troops that had been in the secessionist region of South Ossetia since the early 1990s. Even a European Union investigation concluded that Georgian forces had initiated the fighting. The conflict also occurred in large part because President George W. Bush encouraged Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, to believe that the United States and NATO would support his country if it became embroiled in a conflict with Russia.

Putin’s seizure of Crimea was indeed a blatant violation of international law, but it occurred only after the United States and key EU allies had shamelessly assisted demonstrators to overthrow Ukraine’s elected pro-Russia president, Viktor Yanukovych. That thinly disguised coup triggered Russian fears that Ukraine was about to become a forward staging area for NATO military power. Among other worries, the Kremlin suspected that it would lose access to its crucial naval base at Sevastopol on the Crimea peninsula and watch that facility become a hostile NATO base. 

The one-sided, self-serving indictments of Russia’s behavior invariably ignore the numerous Western provocations that took place long before Moscow engaged in disruptive measures.  Indeed, the deterioration of the West’s relations with post-communist Russia began during Bill Clinton’s administration.

Western provocation number 1: NATO’s first eastward expansion. 

In her memoir “Madame Secretary,” former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and secretary of state Madeleine Albright concedes that Clinton administration officials decided already in 1993 to endorse the wishes of Central and East European countries to join NATO. The Alliance proceeded to add Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary in 1998. Albright admitted that Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his associates were extremely unhappy with that development. The Russian reaction was understandable since the expansion violated informal promises that President George H. W. Bush’s administration had given Moscow when Mikhail Gorbachev had agreed not only to accept a unified Germany but a united Germany in NATO.  The implicit quid pro quo was that NATO would not move beyond the eastern border of a united Germany.  

Western provocation number 2: NATO’s military intervention in the Balkans. 

NATO’s 1995 air war against Bosnian Serbs seeking to secede from the newly minted country of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the imposition of the Dayton Peace Accords greatly annoyed Yeltsin’s government and the Russian people. The Balkans had been a region of considerable religious and strategic interest to Moscow for generations, and it was humiliating for Russians to watch impotently as a U.S.-led alliance dictated outcomes there. The Western powers conducted an even greater provocation four years later when they intervened on behalf of a secessionist insurgency in Serbia’s restless Kosovo province. Detaching that province from Serbia and placing it under U.N. control not only set an unhealthy international precedent, but the move also displayed utter contempt for Russia’s interests and preferences in the Balkans.  

The Clinton administration’s decisions to expand NATO and meddle in Bosnia and Kosovo were crucial steps toward creating a new cold war with Russia. Former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack F. Matlock Jr. cites the negative impact that NATO expansion and the U.S.-led military interventions in the Balkans had on Russian attitudes toward the United States and the West: “The effect on Russians’ trust in the United States was devastating. In 1991, polls indicated that about 80 percent of Russian citizens had a favorable view of the United States; in 1999, nearly the same percentage had an unfavorable view.” 

Western provocation number 3: NATO’s subsequent waves of expansion.  

Not content with how the Clinton administration antagonized Moscow by moving NATO into Central Europe, George W. Bush’s administration pushed the allies to give membership to the rest of the defunct Warsaw Pact and to the three Baltic republics. Admitting the latter in 2004 dramatically escalated the West’s military encroachment. Those three small countries had not only been part of the Soviet Union, they also had spent most of their recent history as part of Czarist Russia’s empire. Russia was still too weak to do more than present feeble diplomatic protests, but the level of anger at the West’s arrogant disregard of Russia’s security interests rose.

Expanding NATO to Russia’s border was not the only provocation. Increasingly, the United States was engaging in “rotational” deployments of its military forces in the new alliance members. Even George Bush’s secretary of defense, Robert Gates, expressed worries that such actions were creating dangerous tensions. Putin’s February 2007 speech to the annual Munich Security Conference made it extremely clear that the Kremlin’s patience with U.S. and NATO arrogance was coming to an end. Bush, tone-deaf as ever, even tried to secure NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine — a policy that his successors have continued to push, despite resistance from France and Germany.

Western Provocation number 4: treating Russia as an outright enemy in Ukraine and elsewhere.

Western leaders did not take Putin’s warnings seriously enough, however. Instead, the provocations on multiple fronts continued and, in some cases, even accelerated. The United States and key NATO powers bypassed the U.N. Security Council (and a certain Russian veto) in early 2008 to grant Kosovo full independence. Three years later, Barack Obama’s administration misled Russian officials about the purpose of a “humanitarian” U.N. military mission in Libya, convincing Moscow to withhold its veto. The mission promptly turned into a U.S.-led regime-change war to overthrow Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. Shortly thereafter, the United States worked with like-minded Middle East powers in a campaign to oust Russia’s client, Bashar al-Assad, in Syria. The egregious U.S.-EU meddling in Ukraine’s domestic politics followed.

It is unfair to judge Russia’s aggressive and destabilizing actions, including the annexation of Crimea, the ongoing military intervention in Syria, continuing support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, and attempted interference in the political affairs of other countries, without acknowledging the multitude of preceding Western abuses. The West, not Russia, is largely responsible for the onset of the new cold war.

 RETOS PARA MÉXICO

EN EL 2022

El año que iniciará el sábado próximo será crucial en muchos sentidos, para el proyecto personal del presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), que pretende pasar a la historia como el mejor primer mandatario que ha tenido nuestro país.

Primero, enfrenta una inflación desatada, la más alta en los últimos 20 años, de entre 7 y 8% anual, que por ahora no hay forma de controlarla, dado que proviene de los problemas en las cadenas internacionales de suministro, en las que nada puede influir el gobierno mexicano; y el Banco de México, con todo y su nueva gobernadora, se limitará a subir las tasas de interés, lo que sólo restringirá más el crédito a una economía que comienza a mostrar problemas en su camino a la recuperación.

Si bien el año que termina, 2021 el crecimiento económico podría llegar al 6%, con la caída de 8.5% en 2020 y de 0.1% en 2019, arroja aún un saldo negativo en el periodo gubernamental de – 2.6%.

Se especula que en el 2022 la economía pueda crecer un 3%, con lo que en los cuatro años del gobierno (2018-2022) se tendría un crecimiento acumulado de sólo 0.4%, lo que equivale a un 0.1% anual, el peor dato desde la crisis económica de los años 30 del siglo pasado.

A raíz de la pandemia y los cierres obligados de la economía, aumentó la pobreza en estos tres años en 3.7 millones de personas, y eso el gobierno de AMLO lo considera un logro, pues argumenta, contra factualmente que hubiera podido ser peor, de no ser por los programas sociales implantados por la actual administración. La misma explicación que daban los gobiernos neoliberales a los que se les criticaba el aumento de la pobreza durante sus administraciones, y de la misma forma argumentaban que “hubiera sido peor” de no haber aplicado sus programas de ajuste. Nada nuevo bajo el sol.

Si bien ha habido una histórica recuperación del salario mínimo; con el aumento de la inflación, se ha anulado dicho incremento para 2022, y en el caso de los salarios contractuales tuvieron una caída real de menos 2.14% en 2021.[1]

Gracias a las remesas, inversión extranjera directa y las exportaciones agropecuarias, la balanza de pagos del país, al menos al tercer trimestre del 2021, no resultó tan deficitaria, al llegar a -4,070 millones de dólares.

Así también, se ha visto una recuperación en el empleo, aunque para el último trimestre del año parece perder dinamismo.

De lo anterior se desprende que el gobierno de AMLO va a tener que buscar darle solidez a la recuperación económica, basada en gran medida en su sector exportador, que como se sabe está vinculado al aparato productivo de Estados Unidos.

Por ello, AMLO ha anunciado que en los próximos días, el secretario de Hacienda, Rogelio Ramirez de la O, anunciará el Plan México, que tiene como objetivo proponer al gobierno de Estados Unidos una estrategia para afianzar las cadenas de suministro entre ambos países y promover la relocalización de empresas estadounidenses desde China hacia México; todo ello con objeto de que en nuestro país se mantenga elevada la inversión extranjera directa, la creación de empleo y así se impulse la recuperación de la economía.

Sin embargo, este plan no embona con la falta de apoyo a las pequeñas y medianas empresas, que son las que crean hasta el 70% del empleo formal en el país, y que para 2022 no recibirán ni un solo peso de apoyos de parte del gobierno federal.

Si a esto se le suma el encarecimiento del crédito por el alza de las tasas de interés y la permanencia de la violencia criminal, la inseguridad, el “cobro de piso”, etc. que afectan desproporcionadamente a los pequeños empresarios, llegamos al escenario en que el Plan México se va a quedar en puros buenos deseos; sobre todo si le aunamos la desconfianza de los inversores estadounidenses en la política energética del gobierno de AMLO, que impulsa una mayor autosuficiencia en la producción de hidrocarburos y la rectoría del Estado en la generación y distribución de la electricidad.

En lo que respecta a la inseguridad, los 106 mil asesinatos en lo que va del sexenio, ya constituyen un récord; la impunidad sigue siendo del 96%, los desaparecidos suman casi 100 mil personas, y la estrategia de seguridad sigue centrada exclusivamente en la presencia de los 100 mil elementos de la Guardia Nacional, que no pueden controlar los enfrentamientos entre grupos criminales, la violencia permanente en diversos estados del país y el creciente desplazamiento de población, especialmente en el medio rural y en pequeñas poblaciones, que es expulsada por los grupos criminales.

Así, para 2022, el que se logre la modificación constitucional mediante la cual la Guardia Nacional quede definitivamente encuadrada en la Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional, no resolverá nada, en la medida en que las policías, los ministerios públicos y los juzgados sigan siendo insuficientes, mal preparados, rebasados por la cantidad de casos que deben atender y en muchísimos casos intimidados y cooptados por el crimen organizado.

En materia de migración la crisis continúa y no parece existir una estrategia para ordenar, regular y absorber una creciente migración indocumentada que busca llegar a Estados Unidos, lo que se ha visto agravado por la política de “quédate en México” y las expulsiones mediante el título 42 de la Unión Americana a nuestro país, lo que sigue generando una crisis humanitaria en la frontera entre ambos países.

La pandemia sigue, y en nuestro país ya se llega a un total de 300 mil muertos (el cuarto lugar mundial), y si bien se ha moderado el crecimiento de los contagios, aún con la nueva variante ómicron, falta del esquema completo de vacunación, casi el 40% de la población; no hay planes para vacunar a los menores de 15 años y es muy posible que se tenga que vacunar con una tercera dosis de refuerzo a los ya inoculados.

Como cada año huracanes, sequías, incendios forestales y emergencias como las explosiones por pirotecnia o por robo de combustible, seguirán golpeando al país, y por ahora sólo la Sedena con el Plan DN-III y la Semar con el Plan Marina, se encargan de la mayor parte de la responsabilidad en estos eventos catastróficos, dado que la desaparición del Fondo de Desastres Naturales (Fonden), ha relocalizado los recursos para hacer frente a estos fenómenos en varias secretarías y organismos, lo que hace más difícil la respuesta rápida que se requiere para apoyar a la población afectada.

El presidente sigue obsesionado con que la mayor parte de los recursos, atención y esfuerzo gubernamentales se centren en sus proyectos preferidos como el Tren Maya, la Refinería de Dos Boca, el Aeropuerto Felipe Angeles y el Proyecto del Istmo de Tehuantepec, así como en ampliar los programas de ayuda directa a la población más pobre del país.

Ello significa que otras prioridades como la educación, los temas de salud adicionales al Covid-19, la inseguridad, el deterioro ambiental, las violaciones a los derechos humanos, la vivienda y otras obras de infraestructura necesarias como, por ejemplo, en materia de agua y drenaje, quedarán rezagadas o sub financiadas, con lo que la atención de problemas relevantes, en distintas regiones del país, será menor a la requerida.

En lo político, el presidente y su gobierno están enfocados en que se realice la consulta para la revocación de mandato, con lo que esperan reforzar el liderazgo de AMLO para la segunda parte de su periodo gubernamental; lograr la reforma constitucional en materia de energía eléctrica, para lo que requieren el apoyo del PRI en el Congreso de la Unión y ganar la mayoría de las 6 gubernaturas que están en juego a mitad del año.

Hay muchos otros temas, pero estos parecerían de los más relevantes para la actual administración y para el país en el año que inicia este sábado.

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[1] https://www.eleconomista.com.mx/capitalhumano/Revisiones-salariales-caen-a-su-peor-nivel-del-2021-inflacion-devora-incrementos-20211210-0041.html

 

 News Bulletin! Jewish Currents

Senior Reporter Alex Kane

alex@jewishcurrents.org.

December 28th, 2021

On Sunday, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who crusaded against apartheid and helped lead South Africa into a new democratic era, died at the age of 90. Leaders around the world, from the Dalai Lama to the mayor of New York, issued tributes to Tutu after news of his death broke.

By contrast, Israeli officials and the American Jewish establishment generally stayed silent. But they weren’t so quiet over the past two decades, as Tutu’s repeated denunciations of Israel’s rule over Palestinians and his comparisons between the South African and Israeli versions of apartheid earned him the ire of Jewish leaders in both countries, as well as the United States. Tutu’s pronouncements sparked a particularly intense reaction; criticism hurts more when it comes from someone widely lionized as a moral beacon.

Israel was one of South Africa’s closest allies during apartheid, even offering to sell the apartheid regime nuclear warheads in 1975. As early as the 1980s, the Anti-Defamation League kept a watchful eye on the US anti-apartheid movement as activists criticized Israel’s close relationship with Pretoria. In 1960, the ADL hired a private spy named Roy Bullock to collect information on Arab American activists and the broader left, which he did for the next 30 years. As Sasha Polakow-Suransky notes in his book The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship With Apartheid South Africa, the ADL dispatched Bullock “to attend the meetings of U.S.-based anti-apartheid groups, collect their publications, and take down the license plate numbers of leaders’ cars—including visitors such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani.”

The attacks escalated as the archbishop grew more outspoken about Israel’s military occupation after the end of apartheid in South Africa. In 2002, Tutu gave a speech to a Boston conference calling for an end to Israel’s occupation in which he said that, while “Israel has a right to secure borders,” a recent trip to Israel/Palestine reminded him “so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa.” The checkpoints in the occupied West Bank humiliate Palestinians, he said, comparing them to what South Africans experienced “when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.” He also noted that some were scared to forthrightly criticize Israel because of the power of the “Jewish lobby.”

The next year, student groups at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo Law School decided to honor Tutu. In response, American Jewish officials joined some right-wing Jewish students in criticizing the decision. Mark Weitzman, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The New York Jewish Week that Tutu shouldn’t be honored because he “blames Israel disproportionately for tensions in the Middle East.” ADL head Abe Foxman was even harsher: “He has flirted with anti-Semitism and his condemnations have been angry and nasty.”

In 2005, inspired by the global movement to isolate South Africa’s apartheid regime, Palestinian civil society groups issued a call to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel. Tutu became one of the BDS movement’s most prominent endorsers. Seven years after the BDS call first emerged, the United Methodist Church debated whether to divest their funds from corporations that do business with the IDF. Tutu issued an open letter, urging the church “to disinvest from companies who benefit from the Occupation of Palestine. This is a moral position that I have no choice but to support, especially since I know of the effect that Boycotts, Disinvestment, and Sanctions had on the apartheid regime in South Africa.” As part of Tutu’s argument, he wrote that “The situation in Israel and Palestine pains me greatly since it is the place where God formed a very particular relationship with a particular group of people; Hebrews who were oppressed as slaves in another land. As time moved on, these people disobeyed God, and time and time again the prophets had to call them back to their deepest values.” In response, the ADL argued Tutu “veered into classical religion-based anti-Semitism.” (The church declined divestment that year, but the church pension board removed investments from Israeli banks that fund illegal West Bank settlements in 2016.)

Nineteen years after Tutu first raised the apartheid comparison—a parallel originally raised by Palestinian intellectuals and, in fact, by South African apartheid officials themselves—the rest of the world is beginning to catch up. In January, the leading Israeli human rights group B’Tselem proclaimed that Israel had instituted an “apartheid regime.” In April, Human Rights Watch issued its own report, arguing that certain Israeli abuses targeting Palestinians made Israel guilty of “the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”

The American Jewish establishment’s response to the charges of apartheid, though, hasn’t changed. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the umbrella lobby group for the Jewish establishment, denounced HRW for inflaming tensions, inciting violence, and “giving voice” to “vicious hate.” But with no end in sight to Israel’s military occupation, it’s inevitable that more liberal organizations like HRW will follow in Tutu’s footsteps, leaving the Jewish establishment with fewer and fewer allies in its defense of apartheid.

¿Y la reactivación? En 2022 desaparecerán los apoyos a las Pymes

El FMI reveló que México fue uno de los países del G20 con menores apoyos a las empresas por la pandemia, con 1.9 por ciento del PIB en 2020.

Por Felipe Gazcón diciembre 28, 2021

https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/economia/2021/12/28/pef-elimina-programas-de-apoyo-a-pymes/

El Presupuesto de Egresos de 2022 eliminó por completo los apoyos para las pequeñas y medianas empresas (Pymes), a pesar de que todavía estaban considerados en los Criterios Generales de Política Económica de abril pasado, donde se indicaba que pasarían a la Secretaria del Bienestar, afirmó Adriana García.

La coordinadora de Análisis Económico de México ¿Cómo vamos? explicó que el programa de microcréditos para el bienestar prestaba hasta 51 mil pesos, existía antes de la pandemia y en 2020 tenía un presupuesto de 2 mil 451 millones de pesos, para 2021 se aprobaron mil 500 millones y en 2022 no existirá.

El programa de apoyo financiero a microempresas familiares que prestaba 25 mil pesos, en 2020 tuvo un presupuesto de 36 mil 754 millones de pesos, en 2021 de mil 600 millones, y en 2022 desapareció, abundó.

“El año de 2022 debería de ser de reactivación económica, aunque aún estamos en pandemia, no hay apoyo para las Pymes”, enfatizó.

Clemente Ruíz Durán, profesor e investigador del Posgrado de Economía de la UNAM, expresó que debería de haber un programa de apoyos muy fuerte para las micro y pequeñas empresas, por ejemplo, las empresas gubernamentales deberían de comprarle a las micro y pequeñas empresas, para ayudarles a subsistir en estos momentos tan críticos.

Imperialismo, migración y clase obrera internacional

Raúl Romero*

https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/12/26/opinion/013a2pol

Los migrantes no somos criminales, somos trabajadores internacionales, cantaban los más de 200 migrantes que llegaron pasadas las 19 horas del 14 de diciembre a las instalaciones del Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM) en Polanco. El contingente llegó hasta ahí para sumarse a la manifestación, convocada por colectivos de la Ciudad de México, en memoria de las 56 personas migrantes fallecidas como consecuencia de la volcadura de un tráiler en Chiapas. Acompañados por al menos otras 200 personas solidarias residentes en México y de una batucada, el grupo decidió trasladarse, causando asombro entre los vecinos y trabajadores de Polanco, hacía las oficinas del mismo INM en las calles de Ejército Nacional. Ahí se encendieron veladoras, se pusieron ofrendas florales, se hizo un pase de lista y se guardó un minuto de silencio por los fallecidos. En su traslado otra significativa consigna era constantemente entonada: Manchadas de rojo están las fronteras, porque ahí se mata a la clase obrera.

México conoce bien a esa clase obrera internacional. Durante décadas, millones de mujeres y hombres mexicanos han cruzado la frontera hacia Estados Unidos (EU) en busca de mejores empleos e ingresos. Más recientemente, miles de personas de este país también han decidido ir a EU, con o sin documentos, ante el incremento de la violencia. Se calcula que 36 millones de migrantes mexicanos radican hoy en el país vecino, es decir 10 por ciento de la población total de aquella nación. Como se reportó en estas mismas páginas (https://bit.ly/3mopqIJ), las remesas de los migrantes mexicanos se han convertido en 2021 en la principal entrada de divisas del país, por encima incluso del turismo, los petrolíferos, las exportaciones agroalimentarias y la inversión extranjera.

El fenómeno migratorio no es particular de América. Se trata de uno mundial que se viene agravando en las décadas recientes. El proceso de globalización neoliberal que implicó la reorganización de la vida y del trabajo a escala internacional hizo que las migraciones masivas se volvieran necesarias para el proceso de producción. La clase obrera internacional que sale de naciones y regiones subdesarrolladas por el saqueo y el despojo, se convierte en mano de obra barata para los centros imperiales; trabajadores sin derechos ni prestaciones, amenazados con ser denunciados y expulsados ante cualquier queja o protesta. Es por eso que las poblaciones de países de África, Medio Oriente, Europa del Este y de Centro y Sur de América buscan llegar a naciones como Alemania, Estados Unidos, Rusia, Arabia Saudita, Francia, Reino Unido, por mencionar algunas. Estos fenómenos de desplazamientos masivos del ejército de reserva de las periferias hacia los centros y del sur hacia el norte, ocurre también del campo a la ciudad, pues las megalópolis y zonas de desarrollo parecieran ser el modelo de reorganización territorial que impulsa el capital.

Al mismo tiempo, algunos países expulsores de migrantes de Centro y Sudamérica y también de África, tienen como común denominador la devastación socioambiental, como resultado del papel que se les impuso en el sistema de producción: la extracción de recursos y el suministro de materias primas. Igualmente, se caracterizan por tener un gran desarrollo de las economías criminales, no sólo del mercado de las drogas, sino también de la extracción ilegal de minerales, de tráfico ilegal de armas, de trata de personas, etcétera.

Estamos aquí porque ustedes estuvieron allá, rezaba una pancarta en una movilización de migrantes en 2003, en España. La consigna resume bien el carácter histórico y la relación entre colonialismo, imperialismo y los fenómenos recientes de migración masiva.

Desde los sans papiers en Francia, hasta las caravanas en Centroamérica, la clase obrera internacional va encontrando obstáculos que tropiezan su tránsito. Al racismo institucionalizado y al nacionalismo exacerbado que deriva en xenofobia, la clase obrera internacional tiene que enfrentar en todo el mundo la militarización de las fronteras y la represión, así como las múltiples violencias del millonario negocio de la trata de personas.

Hoy que el gobierno de México acepta reproducir la política migratoria impuesta por los sectores más conservadores de EU, llegando al grado incluso de comenzar a exigir visa a personas provenientes de Ecuador, Brasil y Venezuela, vale la pena recordar nuestro pasado y presente como pueblos migrantes. Hoy que México hace de la “Guardia Nacional una especie de Border Patrol subrogada, internalizando la política migratoria de Estados Unidos” como escribió Luis Hernández Navarro (https://bit.ly/33INTBX), es necesario que nuestros pueblos y organizaciones desplieguen toda su solidaridad con la clase obrera internacional y en contra del imperialismo.

* Sociólogo

Twitter: @RarulRomero_mx

Putin lambasts West, endorses strong ties with China at a year-end press conference

China-Russia partnership has no precedent in history: Russian leader

By Global Times Published: Dec 23, 2021

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202112/1243265.shtml

In his year-end press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin lambasted the West's brazen lies and stressed the country was forced to make tough decisions as it has no space for concessions amid soaring tensions with the West over Ukraine, which have sparked fears of an all-out war. 

Asked by a SkyNews correspondent what guarantee Russia can provide that it would not attack Ukraine or any other sovereign state, the Russian leader said that it was not Russia that created threats to other countries, TASS reported.

"Have we approached the borders of the US or Britain? They have approached ours. And now they say 'Ukraine will be a NATO member,' " he explained.

"You are demanding some guarantees from me. But it is you that must provide guarantees. You must do that at once, now, and not keep talking about this for decades," Putin said.

Many Chinese people admire Putin's courage to defend the national interests of Russia, since US military forces have also approached regions like the South China Sea and Taiwan Straits to threaten China's sovereignty and security, and many web users hope China could be as tough as Russia against the US. 

However, Russian-style diplomacy and military action against Western pressure are unique and China has its own way of handling the challenge, said Chinese experts, adding that the tensions in Europe around Russia's border regions are much more serious, because they're too close to Russia's capital, and Russia has no room to compromise and no choice but to be tough and straight. 

"Putin and his country were being very sincere and friendly to the West in the 1990s and Russians have tried everything to improve ties with the West. But eventually, they found that the US and the Western world don't want to have good ties with them. All the West wants to do is to keep weakening Russia, profit from the collapse of the Soviet Union, until Russians lose hope to be a major power forever," said a Beijing-based expert on international relations who asked not to be named. 

He said, "Putin and Russia's unhappy experiences with the West just told many of us a lesson - that the problems we have with the West are never about ideology, culture or human rights…They're always about power. If you are a 'nobody' with no influence and unable to say no to them, the West wouldn't care about what you do in your countries. But if you are able to balance their hegemony and fend off their invasions and bullying, then you will become evil in their propaganda."

Russia said earlier it wanted a legally binding guarantee that NATO would give up any military activity in Eastern Europe and Ukraine, part of a wish list of security guarantees it wants to negotiate with the West, Reuters reported. 

It is the first time that Moscow laid out in detail demands that it says are essential for lowering tensions in Europe and defusing a crisis over Ukraine.

Yang Jin, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that facing questions from hundreds of journalists, Putin has always shown a sharp and tough stance against the West as he is dedicated to safeguarding Russia's sovereignty and national interests by drawing clear redlines. 

This is similar to China when it comes to questions on China's core interests such as the Taiwan question, Yang noted.  

Despite the fierce response to the US and NATO, Putin also showed his soft persona and a firm commitment to solving domestic issues. He also mentioned China many times, stressing Russia and China trust each other and their cooperation is a stabilizing factor in the international arena.

"It's an absolutely comprehensive partnership of a strategic nature that hasn't had precedents in history, at least between Russia and China," he said during his annual news conference. "This hard day-to-day work benefits Chinese and Russian people and is a serious stabilizing factor on the international stage."

Putin also stressed he has always been against the politicization of sports, noting that the US "boycott" aims to curb China's development. "This decision is unacceptable and erroneous. I spoke with a former US president, and he told me that the boycotts of the Olympics in Los Angeles and Moscow were a big mistake, made by the US as well. But the US continues to make the very same mistake. What caused that? It is an attempt to curb China's growth," the president stated.

Chinese experts noted Putin spoke highly of the country's cooperation with China in his press conference and showed the West how unshakable China and Russia relations are. 

Putin said, "They (the US) cannot hold back the development of China. The Chinese economy is already larger than the US economy in terms of purchasing power parity. China will inevitably become the world's top economy in all respects. But you have to understand this."

 Thirty years after Soviet Union’s disintegration, US approaches deadlock: Russian scholar

By Global Times Published: Dec 21, 2021 

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202112/1243017.shtml

Editor's Note:

Thirty years ago, on December 26, 1991, the Soviet Union disintegrated. How is this event viewed today among the people of Russia? Is the US walking down the same path as the former Soviet Union? Russian scholar Mikhail Chelnokov (Chelnokov) discusses these issues in an interview with Global Times (GT) reporter Xia Wenxin. Chelnokov served as the People's Deputy of Russia from 1990 to 1993. He is also a member of the Union of Russian Writers and a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.

GT: In your opinion, what is the collective feeling in today's Russian society about the disintegration of the Soviet Union? 

Chelnokov: This year marks the 30th anniversary of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. This collapse is inseparable from the collapse of the socialist system in the Soviet Union. In my view, both events are perceived differently in Russian society depending on the ages of the people. The younger generation knows very little about these events, and they are indifferent to them.

The older generation has already accepted the disintegration of the Soviet Union as a historical fact. They feel disappointed about it but it is not appropriate to say if they have a positive or negative opinion of the event.

I would say that people of the older generation pay more attention to the changes in the socio-political and economic system in Russia. And in this regard, there are both positive and negative aspects.

On the positive side, there is no shortage of food and goods in the country today. The endless queues in front of the stores have disappeared, the so-called Iron Curtain has fallen and people are free to travel around the world.

On the negative side, Russia accepted not only the reasonable features of capitalism but also all the negative repercussions connected with this system. 

First, the total power of the financial tycoons goes beyond literally every aspect of life. And this fantastic exaggeration of the value of money has led to a hypertrophied distortion of all human life. The financial sphere of the economy is not a real sector of the economy. There is absolutely nothing substantial produced in the financial system.

All the various facets of the financial system, including the stock market, pyramid schemes, and various speculative operations, are all meaningless and empty children's games. But this game is very expensive for mankind. It has led and will repeatedly lead to severe crises which, by the way, have already happened several times in the modern history of Russia.

Second, of course, today people evaluate the collapse of socialism and the Soviet Union by the consequences of these events and, above all, by today's living standard in Russia. This assessment is very pessimistic and gloomy. According to various estimates, Russia today is close to the 70th place in the world ranking of living standards. At the end of 2020, 17.8 million people in Russia, about 12 percent of the population, were living below the poverty line. The problem of social stratification is very serious and all of this happens in one of the richest countries in the world in terms of natural resources. 

Third, today in Russia we honor our victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 by holding commemorative events, such as the march of the "Immortal Regiment." But this, unfortunately, is the only bright spot and the only exception against the backdrop of spiritual impoverishment that reigns in the country today.

[Note: the term "Great Patriotic War" refers to the confrontation between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in the Eastern Front of World War II.]

Ideas and concepts, including conscience, honor, patriotism, desire for creativity, and scientific work, have practically disappeared from the media's field of vision. And perhaps most frightening of all is how young people grow up in such an environment and what kind of goals they set for themselves.

GT: In general, relations between Russia and the West have not improved since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The US and the West continue to view Russia as a "threat" and an adversary. What do you think of the continued hostile attitude of the US and the West toward Russia?

Chelnokov: I believe that the hostile attitude of the US and the West in general toward Russia exists due to several reasons. On one hand, this is the way things have developed historically. On the other hand, Russia is the richest country in the world in terms of natural resources. And thus, some countries feel envious and believe that these resources should belong to the whole world, not just to one country.

Moreover, it is very convenient to divert people's attention from the internal problems of the US and Western countries and shift the blame onto an "external enemy." So, focusing on an "external enemy" is the usual policy of leaders who are not very strong and smart. There has not been any strong leader in the Western world in recent decades like former US president Franklin Roosevelt or former French leader Charles de Gaulle. Also, having an "external enemy" is profitable for the military organizations and the military-industrial complex because they will be well-financed. In fact, they live off it.

GT: Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the US is following the path of the Soviet Union, TASS reported in June. What's your take? Is the fate of the Soviet Union a lesson for the US?

Chelnokov: It is true that the US today has come closer to a deadlock but this is an entirely different situation from the one that the Soviet Union faced at the end of the last century.

The US believes it has the right to rule the world, impose its will on other countries, and be the hegemon. Yes, the Soviet Union lost the Cold War to the US but the world has changed and the world does not want to be a colony of the US. Incidentally, the 9/11 attacks in 2001 showed that the US is not as invincible and strong as it would like to be. The US cannot offer its ideals as a model to the world today as it does not follow these ideals itself. 

However, today the enmity between black and white people in the US is becoming increasingly acute and there is no end in sight to this problem. It destabilizes the whole situation, leads to numerous conflicts, and brings the country to a dead end.

The US considers itself a model of democracy. But democracy, in other words, the power of the people, is exercised through elections. And the result of these elections in the US is really determined not only by the will of the people but probably to a much greater extent, by the electoral system itself.

So, in this sense, US elections are a terrible travesty of democracy. The president of the US is chosen not by the people of the country, but by an electoral college. The whole world has been laughing at this system for quite a long time and many Americans have been demanding changes, but the US government does not want to. Why not? The answer is very simple. In this system, it is very convenient to manipulate the results of the election to the advantage of the incumbent government.

But in addition to the votes and the electoral system, there is a third factor that determines the outcome of the elections. This factor is probably the most important and decisive one. It is the financial support of the election campaign.

The financial cost of the presidential campaign in the US is so high that not even the wealthiest people of the country can cover it personally. It is known, for example, that US President Joe Biden spent about $1 billion on campaigning alone. And such huge funds come from the contributions of various sponsors. But sponsors do not invest their money altruistically. They make these investments only when they are very sure that they will be repaid in the near future.

Under such a policy, political figures think about the interests of their sponsors in the first place instead of the interests of the country and people. What democracy, what power of the people, are we talking about here?

GT: Many people compare the current competition between China and the US to the rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War era. What do you think of the rivalry between China and the US? How will it end? 

Chelnokov: I think that such a comparison is quite appropriate. The rivalry between the US and China today increasingly impacts the whole world. China, in my opinion, is on the rise. It is on the path toward progress and the US, on the contrary, is in a stage of regression but it has not realized it. As far as I understand, the tension in relations between the two countries comes from the US, a country that continues to strive for hegemony in the world.

China is gaining more and more power, politically, economically, and militarily. Hopefully, China can encourage the US to remain rational. However, I think now it is still impossible to predict how this rivalry will end.

Putin draws lines over NATO, Ukraine: Let the negotiations begin

As the crisis intensifies, Moscow’s ambitious security proposal may provide an opening to resolve the stand-off.

DECEMBER 20, 2021

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/12/20/determined-diplomacy-can-prevent-war-in-eastern-europe/?

Written by
Rajan Menon and Benjamin H. Friedman

The virtual meeting between President Biden and Russian leader Vladimir Putin on December 7 didn’t resolve the crisis that began when Russian forces massed around Ukraine’s border, where they currently remain. But Biden’s readiness to engage in further talks with Russia in order to reach an unspecified “accommodation” provides an opportunity for diplomacy to avert a looming disaster.

Russia’s military build-up on Ukraine’s border has two objectives — one is to force a settlement, on its terms, between Kyiv and the Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s east, in line with the February 12, 2015, Minsk II Agreement. Moscow’s second but more immediate goal is to pressure NATO to meet a list of demands: a legal guarantee that it will not admit Ukraine to its ranks, essentially a renunciation of the April 3, 2008, Bucharest Summit declaration that all but promised membership; a commitment not to emplace NATO’s troops or strike weapons on Ukrainian territory; a pledge that American weapons capable of striking Russia will not be stationed in states neighboring it; and an agreement to revive the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF Treaty), which President Trump formally exited in August 2019. On Friday, the Russian foreign ministry presented many of these proposals in the form of a draft treaty.

Some experts suggest that Russia’s demands are so extravagant that they are designed to fail and make an invasion of Ukraine seem legitimate. But there remain reasons to believe that Russia still hopes to avoid war, is making an opening bid in a negotiation, and would settle for less than it now demands because it understands that attacking Ukraine could prove costly.

Indeed, Russian ground forces moving westward following the initial air and missile attacks could encounter dogged resistance, especially once they enter areas containing a substantial ethnic Ukrainian majority. While the military balance between states can be useful for predicting the winner, history shows that those confident of quick victory may face unforeseen complications.

The United States would impose more economic sanctions on Russia, including severing it from the SWIFT messaging system used for global banking transactions. At their virtual meeting, Putin dismissed Biden’s threat of further sanctions; Russia, he countered, had become used to them. Washington has been on a sanctions binge for the past two decades — nearly 8,000 were in place by 2019 — and Russia and other targeted countries have devised various workarounds to ease the pain. Moreover, cutting Russia off from SWIFT would hurt the EU’s trade with Russia, which totaled $219 billion in 2020, as well as its banks, which have $56 billion due back from Russian borrowers. Still, additional penalties could hurt the Russian economy, which has just begun a (still uncertain) recovery following a three percent contraction last year caused largely by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Were sanctions so easy to cope with, countries on the receiving end wouldn’t complain continually about them.

The Nordstream II gas pipeline to Europe — already opposed by the Green Party, a member of Germany’s new coalition government — could be doomed, and Russia, whose economy relies heavily on oil and gas exports, would forgo billions of dollars in annual revenue. Europe is divided on Nordstream — some countries tout its benefits, while others warn that it exposes the continent to Russian blackmail — but Russia’s leaders see it as very beneficial to their country’s economy.

France and Germany, the two biggest proponents in Europe of engagement with Russia, would lose influence relative to Poland and other dogged opponents of rapprochement. More generally, Russia will effectively, and indefinitely, burn its bridges with the West. True, Moscow has the strategic partnership with China to fall back on, but it would have more strategic flexibility if it could combine that with a working relationship with the West, as it did in years past.

None of this means that Putin’s warning that NATO will cross Russia’s “red lines” if the alliance admits Ukraine amounts to posturing or that his national security concerns lack foundation and can be dismissed as propaganda.

A view widely held in the United States, including by the Biden administration, is that Ukraine, an independent country, must be free to make its foreign policy choices independent of other countries’ preferences. As the September 1 “Joint Statement on U.S.-Ukraine Strategic Partnership,” put it, “Sovereign states have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances.” This is true in principle, but it does not obviate the reality created by the amalgam of power and geography, namely, that if NATO grants Ukraine’s aspiration to join its ranks it will commit itself to defend a weak country that has a 1,426-mile border with Russia and that the hazards of making good on that pledge will be borne overwhelmingly by the United States, not its NATO allies.

Another prevalent assessment, voiced recently by influential Russian experts, is that Russia’s claims to be threatened by the prospect of Ukraine’s entry into NATO amount to a ruse — that what Putin really fears is a democratic Ukraine. Though Putin presides over an authoritarian polity, the historical record demonstrates that Russia has complained consistently about the proposals for, and the implementation of, NATO’s expansion toward its borders, including during the 1990s, when Russia, led by Boris Yeltsin, was hailed in the United States as a democracy and a partner. As Thomas Pickering, the American ambassador to Russia, wrote to Washington in a now-declassified cable in December 1994, hostility to NATO expansion “is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here.” Hence Moscow’s preoccupation with NATO isn’t a Putin phenomenon.

NATO not only opened the door to Ukraine’s (and Georgia’s) membership in its Bucharest summit declaration — “We agree today that these countries will become members of NATO” — it has never closed it thereafter. Moreover, the U.S. secretaries of state and defense reaffirmed recently that Ukraine may yet join the alliance. Meanwhile, since 2015, American troops have been training Ukraine’s armed forces and the United States has been holding regular military exercises with Ukraine. Washington has also provided Kyiv with $2.5 billion of weaponry and military equipment, $400 million in this year alone, and the National Defense Authorization Act for the 2022 fiscal year approved by Congress earmarks $300 million for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

No American government would, no matter the circumstances, regard parallel developments in its own hemisphere benignly. The United States, a superpower, sees sources of insecurity in every corner of the planet and has a 200-year-old doctrine that denies the right of countries in its neighborhood to join an adversary’s military alliance or play host to its weapons (recall the Cuban Missile Crisis). How can Washington reasonably expect Russia to react differently?  

Americans might reason that Russia, a nuclear power with a powerful military, surely knows that Ukraine’s admittance to the alliance is unlikely because a 30-member bloc will fail to reach an agreement on such a controversial and consequential step. But that amounts to arguing that Russian apprehension is valid only to the extent that it comports with Americans’ reasoning. Having witnessed NATO grow from 16 members in the late 1990s to 30 today, it is scarcely unreasonable for Russia’s leaders to anticipate additional expansion, including membership for Ukraine.

This current crisis remains dangerous, and the consequences of its boiling over into war would be disastrous, above all for Ukraine. But there are ways to prevent that outcome. The Biden administration’s willingness to hold follow-on negotiations with Moscow is, therefore, a wise move.

While Biden cannot possibly meet Putin’s demand for a legal guarantee that Ukraine will be barred from NATO, diplomats can surely negotiate to produce a formulation that provides Russia an assurance to allay its concerns that there will be no short-term change in Ukraine’s status with respect to NATO but does not foreclose Ukraine’s options.

But will Russia be satisfied with that? Ideally, Moscow wants a neutral Ukraine, a la Cold-War Austria. Will it be willing to settle for something short of that? We won’t know — and perhaps even the Russians don’t — until the effort is made to find language that reconciles Ukraine’s insistence on self-determination and Russia’s demand that its security interests be respected. Given the continued danger of war, the effort is certainly worth it.

U.S. negotiations with Russia should not be confined to Ukraine alone. They should include confidence-building measures aimed at reducing the risk posed by continual close encounters between Russian and American warships and aircraft in the Black Sea and Baltic Sea.

The usual chorus of denunciation will depict any U.S. dialogue with Russia to defuse the immediate crisis as a cave-in to Putin’s pressure. Such complainants aren’t actually willing to go to war for Ukraine; they want to pretend they might and assume that Russia will be deterred in consequence, no matter that the geographical and military circumstances overwhelmingly favor it. That amounts to engaging in bravado and leaving Ukraine to deal with the consequences if the bluster fails to concentrate minds in Moscow.

The current crisis involving Ukraine may recede, but we shouldn’t count on being lucky the next time. Let the negotiations begin.