How many times has Russian President Vladimir Putin had to say that he will not invade Ukraine? A Google search shows that the Russian leader has denied 11 times so far what United States President Joe Biden sees as a "distinct possibility." We don’t know what his game is, but Biden is about to provide the exact date and time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One can only hope that the American leader will have his hands full nominating the first black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court so he drops this "Russian invasion lottery" from his daily routine. However, his neo-con cabal within the U.S.' national security and diplomacy apparatus shows no sign of letting up.
From columnists in Tel Aviv to good friends in Tbilisi, using terminology varying from escalation to conflagration, pundits paint a picture of a war in and around Ukraine on a scale unseen in Europe since the end of World War II.
According to the reasoning of pro-U.S. commentators, Putin has gotten himself into a very difficult position from which he cannot escape. Russia’s Dec. 17 memorandum to NATO (and the U.S.) insisted that the organization cease its “open door” policy – which could (and would) make all the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact members NATO members – and desist stockpiling all the used tanks, mortars, guns and factory-default helmets. Thank you, Germany; what’s next, inflatable soldiers?
Like all those cease and desist letters – unless they have a ticket for the “Love and Be Silent” concert – the Russian memorandum was bound to procure the standard response taught in Law 101 courses in four steps:
NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) followed the same route: They said, "No, NATO’s door should stay wide-open; but we can discuss the deployment of NATO weapons along the Russian borders." Now the ball is in Putin’s court as the world tries to decipher his next move. The only problem is that half of the jigsaw pieces are missing and the other half are misunderstood.
Columnist Alon Pinkas of the Haaretz newspaper tries to allegorize the problem in light of the 1984 book "March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam" written by U.S. historian Barbara W. Tuchman (whose mother was the daughter of Henry Morgenthau, 28th U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire). During World War II, Tuchman worked in the United States Office of War Information and later wrote that book to draw attention to "one of the most compelling paradoxes of history." Ms. Tuchman successfully showed that governments pursue policies contrary to their own interests. Her examples included the Trojans' decision to move the Greek horse into their city, the failure of the Renaissance popes to address the factors that would lead to the Protestant Reformation in the early 16th century, England's policies relating to American colonies under King George III and the U.S.' mishandling of the conflict in Vietnam. According to Pinkas, Putin is on his own march of folly pushing the U.S. and NATO, who will inevitably reject his plans and offer a response that the Russian leader will turn down. Pinkas doesn’t say this explicitly but since all the examples of marches of folly in Tuchman’s book led to wars, one can glean that he believes Putin is dragging his people and the Ukrainians toward an inevitable disaster.
Jaba Devdariani, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Civil.ge, Georgia's news and analysis magazine, writing in a Russia-related newsletter, does a similar analysis and reaches the same conclusion.
"If Paris and Berlin succumb to these siren calls and agree to put pressure on Ukraine to respect the Minsk agreements, they will permanently dynamite democracy and peace in Europe," Devdariani writes.
From the BBC’s "world-famous analysts" to the warmongers at the National Review, the Western media – social or traditional – has tunnel vision: Neither the U.S. nor Russia could placate the other side; so far, they are headed toward combat. (William F. Buckley, may he rest in peace, would somersault in his grave, let alone turn, if he saw his Review fanning the Democrat’s global fires from the Black Sea to the waters of China.)
Another one of the most compelling paradoxes of history, which the esteemed ladies and gentlemen of the press keep forgetting, is the tradition of leaders backpedaling in their pursuit of national policies. Reversals of opinion, attitude and position have been witnessed since the phrase volte-face was imported from the Italians (voltafaccia) by way of the French in the early days of the 19th century. Sometimes they go and talk to others, as Putin did in Paris last week and will do again next week. They don’t always act as stupidly as the Trojans, as stubbornly as the Renaissance popes or as clumsily as the British monarchs; rarely but surely, they learn from history. If, and only if, Putin finds that strutting around pompously will help expose NATO's weak points, he will bide his time until we all hear a monstrous cracking sound coming from Europe. He should understand there are certain points that NATO cannot accept like the reversal of its open-door policy. But a person who only 30 years ago witnessed the dissolution of what he considered his nation for four decades would be very skittish and wary. Any self-respecting Russian intellectual with a little sense of history would know it was the call of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to tear down the Berlin Wall that actually shattered their universe.
If you understand this then you are able to communicate sensibly with not only Putin but also Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the leaders of Ukraine's pro-Russian breakaway regions in Donbass. Putin is not pushing is country forward on a track of follies, nor is he keeping everyone guessing. He simply does not like seeing Russia surrounded by NATO infrastructure. Dec. 26, 1991, is still fresh in the Russian memory.
