“The underlying cause of the war lies not in an unbridled expansionism of Mr. Putin, or in paranoid delusions of military planners in the Kremlin, but in a 30-year history of Western provocations, directed at Russia, that began during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and continued to the start of the war.” – How the West Brought War to Ukraine
Pogo, a comic strip character featured in a 1970’s Earth Day poster, popularized the quip, “we have met the enemy, and he is us. While encouraging the preservation of the planet, the ad reminds us of how often we create our own problems and have only ourselves to blame for the negative outcomes that follow. As the war in Ukraine rages on, and as more information is revealed, we find that NATO and the United States are not without blame. Although Putin is certainly accountable for his own decision to invade, causing significant loss of life and destruction, he does not hold full responsibility. Blood is also on the hands of those who chose continual incitements while neglecting to appreciate Russia’s own security interests.
To say that Putin’s aggression in Ukraine was reactionary is to out oneself as a Russian asset, puppet, or apologist. Now with nuclear weapons on the table, the same critics deriding peacekeepers for their concerns, are claiming Putin’s threats are merely propaganda. Yet as the conflict continues, it is only further dividing warring factions as it pushes Russia into the arms of China. And, as the United States, a nation that regularly bullies countries around the world over their own safety concerns, runs the risk of hypocrisy by applying a different standard here. If US and NATO can claim security violations, why not Russia?
NATO was originally formed following the end of WWII as a collective security force aimed at the Soviet Union, where an attack against one member nation is considered an attack against all. Using politics, diplomacy, and military might, NATO serves to protect the security and freedoms of its members from threats far and wide. In 1991, following the Soviet collapse, Russia removed its forces from East Germany in exchange for NATO’s agreement to curb expansion toward Russian borders, including former Soviet countries. Unfortunately, NATO has not kept its promises, nor has the United States.
In early 2022, after successive US-led missile launches and training simulations played out at the Russian border, came news of a Russian request to return to the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, a treaty between the two entities. Since the start of the agreement, 14 countries, including three former USSR countries, have become members of NATO. Unsurprisingly, this last-ditch effort by Russia fell on deaf ears, and just four weeks later, the first breach into Ukraine would begin.
With every violation of these early agreements, the US and NATO’s actions have broadened the threat level for Russia, from its membership expansion to Russian borders, to its withdrawal from both the Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty in 2001 and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019. American and European forces continued to conduct numerous military drills near the Russian border with the aid of dozens of countries, have placed missile launchers within range of Russian territory, and most recently, forced an ultimatum on Ukraine to choose between Russia and the West. Then, by refusing to allow Russia to renegotiate new terms just weeks before the invasion, NATO’s steady drip of incitements finally forced Putin’s hand.
In Benjamin Abelow’s 2022 book, “How the West Brought War to Ukraine”, Abelow reveals how NATO’s continual expansions are only one part of ongoing provocations toward Russia. By tinkering irresponsibly in Ukraine’s business, the West has only worsened an ongoing war, that could and should have been averted. Imposing more sanctions and delivering more arms is only prolonging the war with potentially catastrophic consequences. Abelow emphasizes how we misinterpret the Russian/Ukrainian conflict at our own peril if we refuse to understand the history of how we arrived at this point.
In another important book on the events leading up to the Russia/Ukraine War, Stephen Cohen’s “War with Russia”, shows how through a series of actions, NATO has incited the very behaviors they condemn, whether the continual training and arming of Ukrainian forces, its hope for regime change, or its ongoing expansion eastward to Russia. In fact, Russia’s 2008 foray into Georgia, and the 2014 Ukrainian skirmish all followed NATO's teasing expansion of its membership in Eastern Europe. Nor is American and NATO participation in the Ukrainian conflict a humanitarian attempt to settle differences and find common ground, but instead an obvious ploy to take advantage of the war to humiliate Russia and destroy them militarily.
The official Western narrative is that Putin is the new Hitler 2.0, with the same aggression and quest for dominance. But one would have to pick a number and get in line behind all the people who have been called that name, from Bush to Trump, to DeSantis, not to mention all their supporters. This one-dimensional look at Putin, is simplistic, even for Putin. Having been in power for over 20 years, Putin inherited a country with a certain level of corruption baked into the system, yet despite that, has continued to westernize his country with more freedoms today than at any time in the past. Putin is far from perfect, but hardly the monster that NATO and media organizations have claimed him to be. In fact, it’s all too possible that both Putin and NATO can both be wrong at the same time.
After 30 years of provocations with Russia, it is déjà vu all over again, but this time of our own making. Continuing to misrepresent what is happening will only intensify and prolong the Ukrainian war and risk drawing in the rest of the world in an all-out nuclear Armageddon. If the United States must poke its nose into the matter, it should do so in an attempt to bring peace to the region through détente. Unless we do, we will once again become the enemy we had hoped to slay.
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