From West's Broken Assurances To Non-Trivial Risk of Nuclear Conflict

INTRODUCTION

Evidence-based: Every “controversial” claim in this article is backed by evidence – i.e. documents from the Freedom of Information Act website, or audio and video files of various officials’ statements and conversations.

Motivation to write this article: There is a Non-Trivial Risk of Nuclear Conflict! If you are ok with this risk, note that your complacency is not a result of some kind of equanimity, psychological maturity, or rationality. It’s a sign of your misunderstanding of the situation. You don’t think so? Check the time on the Doomsday Clock set by the independent Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. On January 24th, 2023 it was set at 90 seconds before “midnight” (nuclear catastrophe) – this is the closest to midnight it’s ever been since its initiation in 1947. See links:

• Bulletin of Atomic Scientists - Doomsday Clock's Time
• Wikipedia - Doomsday Clock

Objective: The first aim of the article is to raise awareness of just how dangerous the war in Ukraine is given the non-trivial risk of nuclear escalation between the US (and US-led NATO) and Russia. The second aim is to raise the awareness about true causes behind the Russian attack on Ukraine because it isn’t “unprovoked” as the western media and western officials claim. The third aim is my hope that, once you read this and the references, you’ll raise your voice against actions of the US Government and NATO that prolong the war - including their propaganda in the mass media.

1990 - 2008 CHRONOLOGY OF WEST'S BROKEN PROMISES AND RUSSIAN WARNINGS

The below chronology of events shows that White House Administrations (and other Western officials) after 1990 reneged on the given assurances not to expand NATO. Recently it's become clear that Western Governments faked their sponsorship of peace agreements between Ukraine and Ukraine’s rebels (Minsk II Agreement). See for yourself:

The year 1990: The US, Western Europe, and NATO give assurances to the Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO won’t expand in return for Gorbachev's green light to reunify Germany.

"Not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction." James Baker, US Secretary of State

Some Western officials and mass media have denied over the years that assurances were given. Indulge yourself in the abundance of evidence from the US National Security Archive that proves US and West European officials gave assurances.

Source - The US National Security Archive: 'NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard '

The year 1993: Russian President Boris Yeltsin "angling for Russia to join NATO, wrote to President Bill Clinton to argue any further expansion of NATO eastwards breached the spirit of the 1990 treaty." Russia was blocked from joining NATO, which later expanded.

Source - The Guardian: 'Russia's Belief in NATO Betrayal and Why it Matters Today '

The year 1997: Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov tells his counterparts that Nato’s admission of Ukraine would cross a “red line”.?

Source: FINANCIAL TIMES 'NATO Honesty On Ukraine Could Avert Conflict With Russia'

The year 1999: NATO expands to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic

The year 2004: NATO expands to Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

The year 2007: In his now famous speech at the Munich Security Conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin explicitly warns that NATO’s eastward expansion is an existential threat to Russia’s security as well as a isregard to the international law.

"NATO has put its frontline forces on our borders and we continue to strictly fulfil the treaty obligations and do not react to these actions at all. It’s obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernization of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended?” And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? I quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr Woerner in Brussels on 17th May 1990. He said ‘the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee’. WHERE are these guarantees?"

In fact, the US Cato Institute, an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington D.C., wrote an article pointing out that the Ukraine crisis could have been predicted based on Putin's speech.

Source - CATO Insitute: 'Did Putin's 2007 Munich Speech Predict The Ukraine Crisis?'

The year 2008: Despite strong opposition from Germany and France (and smaller European NATO countries), Bush’s Administration forced a joint announcement in April that Ukraine and Georgia “will become” NATO members. Putin purportedly said behind closed doors that Ukraine will cease its existence as a state if it tries to join NATO. Russia invaded Georgia in August.

Sources:

The New York Times: NATO Allies Oppose Bush on Georgia and Ukraine

New Yorker: Why John Mearsheimer Blames The US For The Crisis in Ukraine

Unian Information Agency: Russia Prepares for Lengthy Battle Over Ukraine

The Cato Institute: Making Ukraine a NATO Member in All but Name

In August 2008, perhaps encouraged by the prospects of joining NATO, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili started the war with Russia, as per EU's Independent International Fact-Finding Mission.

Sources:

Reuters: Georgia Started War With Russia: EU-Backed Report

Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law: INDEPENDENT INTERNATIONAL FACT-FINDING MISSION ON THE CONFLICT IN GEORGIA, REPORT, VOLUME I-III, 2009

2013 - 2014, 'MAIDAN': A 'DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION' OR A COUP BY THE WEST AND UKRAINIAN NAZIS?

The year 2013: Per Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich didn't refuse to sign but "actually asked for more time to consider the terms" of the Ukrainian-European Association Agreement. Because "the EU agreement—purportedly only economic and civilizational—included provisions binding the new 'partner' to NATO 'military and security' policy," Yanukovich knew this would upset Russians.

Besides "astronomical financial costs" to Ukraine, Professor also points out that for two years Russia "sought to persuade the EU to make the economic agreement with Ukraine 'tripartite,' including Moscow so as not to disadvantage the very substantial trade relationship between Ukraine and Russia. The EU leadership, for whatever reason, refused, telling Kiev it had to choose between Russia and the West."

The 'refusal' to sign the EU agreement lead to immediate protests that continued into the next year.

Sources:

The Nation: Four Years of Ukraine and the Myths of Euromaidan

YouTube Channel 'Commonwealth Club of California': Stephen F. Cohen: The Ukrainian Crisis - It's not All Putin's Fault (Recorded in 2015) (start at 1:01)

The year 2014: Western media calls Yanukovich's overthrow during Maidan protests a 'democratic revolution', but to Professor Stephen F. Cohen that was a coup:

Whether it was?in fact a?“revolution” can be left to future historians, though most of the oligarchic powers that afflicted Ukraine before 2014 remain in place four years later, along with their corrupt practices. As for “democratic,” removing a legally elected president by threatening his life hardly qualifies. Nor does the?peremptory way the new government was formed, the constitution changed, and pro-Yanukovych parties banned. Though the overthrow involved people in the streets, this was a coup. How much of it was spontaneous and how much directed, or inspired, by high-level actors in the West also remains unclear.

In fact, the below audio of the leaked phone conversation shows an incredible amount of planning by high-level US officials (Viktoria Nuland, US Assistant to Secretary of State for Europe, and Geoffrey Pyatt, US Ambassador in Ukraine) on who will take power after Yanukovich leaves. The two US officials also show a disrespectful disregard for the EU. Hear for yourself:

Source: Nuland-Pyatt leaked phone conversation

In the below video, a Ukrainian Nazi leader claims that his forces were the decisive factor behind the Maidan coup. See for yourself:

Source - Yevhen Karas, leader of Ukraine's Neo-Nazi gang: About "Maidan": The topic of European integration was just a screen

Professor Cohen complements the above sources:

But one other myth needs to be dispelled. The rush to seize Yanukovych’s residence was triggered by snipers who killed some 80 or more protesters and policemen on Maidan.?It was long said that the snipers had been sent by Yanukovych, but it has now been virtually proven that the shooters were instead from the neofascist group?Right Sector among the protesters on the square.?(See, for example,?the reports of the scholar Ivan Katchanovski .) Meanwhile, Kiev is semi-hostage to?armed ultranationalist battalions, whose ideology and symbols include proudly neofascist ones, which hate Russia and today’s Western “civilizational” values almost equally. It may be said that the Donbass rebel “republics” have their own ugly traits, but it should be added that they fight only in defense of their own territory against the armies of Kiev and are not sponsored by the US government.

In fact, per Stephen F. Cohen, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, "Obama was deeply complicit in the crisis in Europe."

2015, 'MINSK 2': PEACE OR UKRAINE'S WAR PREP COVERUP

*** [ coming soon ] ***

2021, RUSSIA'S CONDITIONS FOR PEACE

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OTHER ARGUMENTS AND RELEVANT INFORMATION

Rather than discussing events chronologically, this section points to numerous logical fallacies of the arguments of the Western politicians and mainstream media that Putin is a genocidal imperialistic dictator bent on conquering other European countries, etc. Problem? These constructs only came once Putin started criticizing NATO expansion and warning the West that this is leading to conflict. In fact, a respected American scholar pointed to Putin as the world's second-best diplomat - after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Who is right? See for yourself:

Why the US does not allow Russia it's own Monroe Doctrine?

[ coming up ]

Putin - Evil Dictator or Skilled Diplomat?

What do distinguished American scholars think of Putin?

First, Professor Emeritus of Russian and Slavic Studies at Princeton and New York University, Stephen F. Cohen:

Reading this as a historian, the record shows an aggressive America, not aggressive Russia. It shows, if we come to Putin, though all this began before Putin, a reactive foreign policy leder in Putin. Always reacting. And, in fact, this is often said critically in Moscow that he never initiates - he reacts. Everybody saw Crimea coming, he wasn't prepared. Why'd he wait so long in Syria, why did he wait for Obama almost a year? He's always reacting; not this aggressor Putin that's become the explanation of why we are innocent of responsibility for the new Cold War.

Source: The New U.S.-Russian Cold War - Who is to Blame? (start at 32:50)

Second, let's see what John Mearsheimer thinks of Putin:

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All Russian leaders, not just Putin, see NATO expansion as an existential threat!

Putin became a "dictator" in the West only once he started warning the West about NATO expansion and threatening that this - to Russia - is an existential threat. The Western media and politicians make it sound as if Putin is the only Russian leader who has a problem with NATO. In fact there are calls in the West to change the regime in Russia. But virtually all Russian leaders consider NATO expansion as a major security issue.

But even the most respected Russian leader in the West, the one who arguably ended the Cold War, Mikhail Gorbachev, felt betrayed by the West's expansion of NATO. Judge for yourself:

“The decision for the U.S. and its allies to expand NATO into the east was…a big mistake….definitely a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990.”

“...there is a crisis in European (and global) politics. One of the reasons is a lack of desire on the part of our Western partners to take Russia’s point of view and legal interests in security into consideration…I am referring primarily to NATO expansion,…”

Source - Russia Beyond: Mikhail Gorbachev: I am against all walls