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Bill Totten
May 26, 2023, 5:00:25 PM5/26/23
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National security experts:
War in Ukraine is an 'unmitigated disaster'
Signers say the conflict will be 'our undoing' if we don't 'dedicate
ourselves to forging a diplomatic settlement that stops the killing'.
by Blaise Malley
https://responsiblestatecraft.org (May 20 2023)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/shutterstock_2302990273-scaled.jpg
Fresh graves of Ukrainian soldiers who died during defence against
Russian invaders in cemetery of village Chervonohryhorivka,
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast of Ukraine on May 14 2023.
An open letter calling for a swift diplomatic end to the war in
Ukraine was published on Tuesday in The New York Times. The letter's
14 signatories consisted mostly of former US military officers and
other national security officials, including Jack Matlock,
Washington's former ambassador to the Soviet Union; Ann Wright, a
retired US Army colonel and former diplomat; Matthew Hoh, a former
Marine Corps officer and State Department official; and Retired
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin
Powell's Chief of Staff.
Many are longtime critics of US foreign policy and post-9/11 war policies.
The letter calls the war an "unmitigated disaster" and cautions that
"future devastation could be exponentially greater as nuclear powers
creep ever closer toward open war".
While condemning Vladimir Putin's "criminal invasion and occupation",
the letter, which notes the serial invasions of Russia by foreign
adversaries, encourages readers to understand the war "through
Russia's eyes".
"In diplomacy, one must attempt to see with strategic empathy, seeking
to understand one's adversaries", according to the letter. "This is
not weakness: it is wisdom".
"Since 2007, Russia has repeatedly warned that Nato's armed forces on
Russian borders were intolerable - just as Russian forces in Mexico or
Canada would be intolerable to the US now, or as Soviet missiles in
Cuba were in 1962", the letter reads. "Russia further singled out Nato
expansion into Ukraine as especially provocative".
https://i0.wp.com/eisenhowermedianetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/MilitaryBases.png?w=582&ssl=1
https://i0.wp.com/eisenhowermedianetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/OtherFoot.png?w=576&ssl=1
The missive, which appeared on page 5 of the Times' print edition,
lays out the history of warnings by key US national security
officials, politicians, and others about the dangers of Nato expansion
in the late 1990s, and again in 2008 when then-US Ambassador to Russia
and current CIA director William Burns cautioned Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice against pushing for Nato membership for Ukraine.
Accompanying the text is a timeline of the deterioration in relations
between Moscow and the West that begins in 1990, when Secretary of
State James Baker assured Russia that Nato would not expand eastwards,
until Russia's invasion in February of last year.
TIMELINE
1990 - US assures Russia that Nato will not expand towards its border
"... there would be no extension of ... Nato one inch to the east",
says US Secretary of State James Baker.
1996 - US weapons manufacturers form the Committee to Expand Nato,
spending over $51 million lobbying Congress.
1997 - 50 foreign policy experts including former senators, retired
military officers and diplomats sign an open letter stating Nato
expansion to be "a policy error of historic proportions".
1999 - Nato admits Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic to Nato. US
and Nato bomb Russia's ally, Serbia.
2001 - US unilaterally withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
2004 - Seven more Eastern European nations join Nato. Nato troops are
now directly on Russia's border.
2004 - Russia's parliament passed a resolution denouncing Nato's
expansion. Putin responded by saying that Russia would "build our
defense and security policy correspondingly".
2008 - Nato leaders announced plans to bring Ukraine and Georgia, also
on Russia's borders, into Nato.
2009 - US announced plans to put missile systems into Poland and Romania.
2014 - Legally elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, fled
violence to Moscow. Russia views ouster as a coup by US and Nato
nations.
2016 - US begins troop buildup in Europe.
2019 - US unilaterally withdraws from Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.
2020 - US unilaterally withdraws from Open Skies Treaty.
2021 - Russia submits negotiation proposals while sending more forces
to the border with Ukraine. US and Nato officials reject the Russian
proposals immediately.
February 24 2022 - Russia invades Ukraine, starting the Russia-Ukraine War.
"Nato expansion, in sum, is a key feature of a militarized US foreign
policy characterized by unilateralism featuring regime change and
preemptive wars", according to the letter, which suggests that
Washington's "failed wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan have been two of
the results.
President Joe Biden has vowed that Washington will continue to aid
Kyiv "as long as it takes". The letter's signers fear that this is a
recipe for escalation that could result in catastrophe.
"As Dan Ellsberg has warned courageously and unceasingly, we - the
world - are at the nuclear brink again, perhaps closer to the edge
than ever before. It only requires one step to go over, and then our
steps end forever", Wilkerson said in the statement released by the
Eisenhower Media Network, which funded the full-page advertisement.
"If that's not sufficient reason for a return to diplomacy, our
extinction is at hand; the timing is all that is in question".
To date, the United States has sent $37 billion worth of military aid
to Kyiv. High-level discussions with officials in Moscow have been
rare, and a number of other entities, including China, Brazil, and the
Pope, have taken on the mantle of pushing for a diplomatic solution.
What Washington's role will look like going forward is more uncertain,
with recent reporting, as well as revelations from Pentagon leaks,
suggesting that the administration will continue supporting Ukraine
through the anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces before
possibly reassessing, although officials have disputed that narrative.
The letter, entitled "The US Should Be a Force for Peace in the
World", urges the Biden administration to pivot towards pursuing a
negotiated solution to end the war "speedily".
"This reality is not entirely of our own making, yet it may well be
our undoing", the letter concludes, "unless we dedicate ourselves to
forging a diplomatic settlement that stops the killing and defuses
tensions".
More from Blaise Malley: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/author/bmalley/
Links: The original version of this article, at the URLs below,
contains several links to further information not included here:
https://braveneweurope.com/eisenhower-media-network-us-national-security-experts-the-u-s-should-be-a-force-for-peace-in-the-world
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/05/17/national-security-experts-war-in-ukraine-is-an-unmitigated-disaster/
TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
the appropriate link at the top or bottom of
https://billtotten.wpcomstaging.com/2023/05/27/national-security-experts/
War in Ukraine is an 'unmitigated disaster'
Signers say the conflict will be 'our undoing' if we don't 'dedicate
ourselves to forging a diplomatic settlement that stops the killing'.
by Blaise Malley
https://responsiblestatecraft.org (May 20 2023)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/shutterstock_2302990273-scaled.jpg
Fresh graves of Ukrainian soldiers who died during defence against
Russian invaders in cemetery of village Chervonohryhorivka,
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast of Ukraine on May 14 2023.
An open letter calling for a swift diplomatic end to the war in
Ukraine was published on Tuesday in The New York Times. The letter's
14 signatories consisted mostly of former US military officers and
other national security officials, including Jack Matlock,
Washington's former ambassador to the Soviet Union; Ann Wright, a
retired US Army colonel and former diplomat; Matthew Hoh, a former
Marine Corps officer and State Department official; and Retired
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin
Powell's Chief of Staff.
Many are longtime critics of US foreign policy and post-9/11 war policies.
The letter calls the war an "unmitigated disaster" and cautions that
"future devastation could be exponentially greater as nuclear powers
creep ever closer toward open war".
While condemning Vladimir Putin's "criminal invasion and occupation",
the letter, which notes the serial invasions of Russia by foreign
adversaries, encourages readers to understand the war "through
Russia's eyes".
"In diplomacy, one must attempt to see with strategic empathy, seeking
to understand one's adversaries", according to the letter. "This is
not weakness: it is wisdom".
"Since 2007, Russia has repeatedly warned that Nato's armed forces on
Russian borders were intolerable - just as Russian forces in Mexico or
Canada would be intolerable to the US now, or as Soviet missiles in
Cuba were in 1962", the letter reads. "Russia further singled out Nato
expansion into Ukraine as especially provocative".
https://i0.wp.com/eisenhowermedianetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/MilitaryBases.png?w=582&ssl=1
https://i0.wp.com/eisenhowermedianetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/OtherFoot.png?w=576&ssl=1
The missive, which appeared on page 5 of the Times' print edition,
lays out the history of warnings by key US national security
officials, politicians, and others about the dangers of Nato expansion
in the late 1990s, and again in 2008 when then-US Ambassador to Russia
and current CIA director William Burns cautioned Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice against pushing for Nato membership for Ukraine.
Accompanying the text is a timeline of the deterioration in relations
between Moscow and the West that begins in 1990, when Secretary of
State James Baker assured Russia that Nato would not expand eastwards,
until Russia's invasion in February of last year.
TIMELINE
1990 - US assures Russia that Nato will not expand towards its border
"... there would be no extension of ... Nato one inch to the east",
says US Secretary of State James Baker.
1996 - US weapons manufacturers form the Committee to Expand Nato,
spending over $51 million lobbying Congress.
1997 - 50 foreign policy experts including former senators, retired
military officers and diplomats sign an open letter stating Nato
expansion to be "a policy error of historic proportions".
1999 - Nato admits Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic to Nato. US
and Nato bomb Russia's ally, Serbia.
2001 - US unilaterally withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
2004 - Seven more Eastern European nations join Nato. Nato troops are
now directly on Russia's border.
2004 - Russia's parliament passed a resolution denouncing Nato's
expansion. Putin responded by saying that Russia would "build our
defense and security policy correspondingly".
2008 - Nato leaders announced plans to bring Ukraine and Georgia, also
on Russia's borders, into Nato.
2009 - US announced plans to put missile systems into Poland and Romania.
2014 - Legally elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, fled
violence to Moscow. Russia views ouster as a coup by US and Nato
nations.
2016 - US begins troop buildup in Europe.
2019 - US unilaterally withdraws from Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.
2020 - US unilaterally withdraws from Open Skies Treaty.
2021 - Russia submits negotiation proposals while sending more forces
to the border with Ukraine. US and Nato officials reject the Russian
proposals immediately.
February 24 2022 - Russia invades Ukraine, starting the Russia-Ukraine War.
"Nato expansion, in sum, is a key feature of a militarized US foreign
policy characterized by unilateralism featuring regime change and
preemptive wars", according to the letter, which suggests that
Washington's "failed wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan have been two of
the results.
President Joe Biden has vowed that Washington will continue to aid
Kyiv "as long as it takes". The letter's signers fear that this is a
recipe for escalation that could result in catastrophe.
"As Dan Ellsberg has warned courageously and unceasingly, we - the
world - are at the nuclear brink again, perhaps closer to the edge
than ever before. It only requires one step to go over, and then our
steps end forever", Wilkerson said in the statement released by the
Eisenhower Media Network, which funded the full-page advertisement.
"If that's not sufficient reason for a return to diplomacy, our
extinction is at hand; the timing is all that is in question".
To date, the United States has sent $37 billion worth of military aid
to Kyiv. High-level discussions with officials in Moscow have been
rare, and a number of other entities, including China, Brazil, and the
Pope, have taken on the mantle of pushing for a diplomatic solution.
What Washington's role will look like going forward is more uncertain,
with recent reporting, as well as revelations from Pentagon leaks,
suggesting that the administration will continue supporting Ukraine
through the anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces before
possibly reassessing, although officials have disputed that narrative.
The letter, entitled "The US Should Be a Force for Peace in the
World", urges the Biden administration to pivot towards pursuing a
negotiated solution to end the war "speedily".
"This reality is not entirely of our own making, yet it may well be
our undoing", the letter concludes, "unless we dedicate ourselves to
forging a diplomatic settlement that stops the killing and defuses
tensions".
More from Blaise Malley: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/author/bmalley/
Links: The original version of this article, at the URLs below,
contains several links to further information not included here:
https://braveneweurope.com/eisenhower-media-network-us-national-security-experts-the-u-s-should-be-a-force-for-peace-in-the-world
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/05/17/national-security-experts-war-in-ukraine-is-an-unmitigated-disaster/
TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
the appropriate link at the top or bottom of
https://billtotten.wpcomstaging.com/2023/05/27/national-security-experts/
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