You of the Western Leadership cadre, own this war, which has spread from Ukraine to be World War III. As seen in 22 years of appeasement of Putin

You of the Western Leadership cadre, own this war, which has spread from Ukraine to be World War III. As seen in 22 years of appeasement of Putin

You of the Western Leadership cadre, own this war, which has spread from Ukraine to be World War III. As seen in 22 years of appeasement of Putin

  • Published on April 24, 2022


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Andrew Beckwith

Editor at JHEPGC, Associate Editor in Galaxies, and Visiting Professor in Chongqing University

1,432 articles

An article which related to arms delivery from 2015 to 2020 which was part of the initial article has been withdrawn from this piece due to Dr. Martin Esser stating that the article in point of fact was a smear job. Hence it is being removed because it is in no way pertinent to the main point being raised as to the general background as to what happened in the last several decades. Realpolitic calibrations remain though the same, and they are commented upon in full detail. In any case the prior record is horrific.

Status is online

Dr. Martin Esser

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1st degree connection

1st

Managing Director Spark44 Japan

1m

The UK tabloid article is flat wrong. Typical UK tabloid smear.

Due to the fact that Martin viewed the UK article as a smear, it is being withdrawn from the article, and I will make similar adjustments. But the point of what I am making stands without that article, which was not the main point of this article.

Still though there was a material normalization of Putin for decades which lead to our present situation.

Although this may be harsh, the point is that even after the occupation of Crimea, 2014, there was a pattern of consistent appeasement of Putin from Western leaders. Which boggles the mind but which is in tandem with Nord Stream II, oil deliveries by the metric ton to European nations , at the same time nuclear power plants were being decommissioned . I am a citizen of the United States, which of course has had its issues as of presumed interference by Russia in its own political processes as of the last several years, but in truth, the appeasement of Putin for 22 years has been a drum beat from all the major parties of the Western Alliance, with the result that Putin had until very recently what appeared to be an open and shut case as to getting away with destroying Ukraine with only minimalist protests. If there had been any honesty, the use of Putin operatives to terror bomb Moscow in late 1999 should have if honestly accessed lead to sanctions and treating Putin as an outlaw. But for 22 years until Putin murdered Ukrainians in industrial level fashion, Western leaders across the board were abetting a tyrant and terrorist in Moscow. All those whom like it or not wear a badge of shame for what we see today , and the only remedy is for those whom appeased Vladimir Putin, not to hold office again in our lifetimes\


The story of how Russia interfered in US politics is a matter of ongoing investigation as of 2022, but even so the USA did NOT engage in military sales and defacto transfer of technology to the Russian federation, as of the aftermath of the invasion of Crimea. But it is a matter of record, as of Armand Hammer, the so called Red Capitalist, whom was instrumental in the development of Soviet oil fields in Siberia, that indeed for decades there was US pivoting toward commercial interaction with the Soviet Union.

Why is all this important ? Right after World War II, the presumed international corporation, ITT (international telephone and telegraph) was COMPENSATED for damages of its plants in the ruins of "Festung Europa" as a not too closely affiliated program with the Marshal Plan to "reconstruct Europe" after World War II. A damning fact in its own right, but also part of when the USA instituted "operation paperclip" for the recruitment of Wernher Magnus Maximilian Werner von Braun , and others of the V2 rocket testing facility. This in spite of the fact it was richly documented that von Braun used slave labor , at an appalling cost in human lives in the construction of the V1 and V2 strategic weapon systems

https://appel.nasa.gov/2006/04/01/wernher-von-braun-lessons-taught-and-learned/

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Wernher von Braun: Lessons Taught … and Learned

Home /23 /ASK Magazine /Wernher von Braun: Lessons Taught … and Learned


April 1, 2006

Bob Ward


By Bob Ward

“Rocket scientist” Wernher von Braun remains a controversial figure. Even today, thirty-six years since his retirement from NASA and almost twenty-nine years after he departed planet Earth at the age of just sixty-five, the German-born engineer and physicist—and one-time enemy of the United States and its allies—still stands as an intriguing, dynamic, complex human being.

Dr. Wernher Magnus Maximilian von Braun was the Superstar of Space of his day. He was rivaled only by some of the earliest astronauts and a bit later by a cool customer named Neil Armstrong. In von Braun’s case, the adulation was not universal.

Still, he had a passion for life along with his passion for rocketry and space exploration. It shone through in his work and all his communications. He was a communicator—in a voluble stream of speeches, conversations, briefings, press conferences, testimony, books, articles, technical papers, reports, correspondence, and patent applications. He helped turn much of his lifelong dream into reality, beginning in Germany, and then, for fully half his life, in America. To those who knew him well, von Braun was a larger-than-life, near-mythic figure, and yet also a fallible, feet-of-clay mortal.

He was the director of NASA’s George C. Marshall Space Flight Center for its first ten years of existence, and earlier the civilian technical head of the space-history-making Army Ballistic Missile Agency, both at Redstone Arsenal. Before that, he served for thirteen years as the German Army’s missile R&D civilian chief. He closed out his career with a largely frustrating two and a half years at NASA Headquarters as the Agency’s master long-range planner, and then an upbeat stint with Fairchild Industries in Maryland followed by a drawn-out death from cancer.

I began getting to know Dr. von Braun casually in 1957, the year the space age dawned, as a young and green daily newspaper reporter in Huntsville, Alabama. We got somewhat better acquainted over the ensuing years in “Rocket City, USA” and in his last years with NASA in Washington. I tried hard to maintain a journalist’s objectivity about him and keep a professional distance, but he was impressive. He became all the more imposing to me later, long after his death, through my seven years of researching and writing the 2005 biography, Dr. Space: The Life of Wernher von Braun.

He was, simply, a genius—as a technology leader, visionary, and as an inspiration to his various so-called “teams” in wartime, peacetime, and during the Cold War. Former astronaut, U.S. senator, and astronaut-again John Glenn told me in a 1999 interview that his longtime friend ranked as a modern renaissance man who possessed a “curiosity about everything around him.”

Von Braun had a hyperactive, almost compulsive sense of humor, and he used it in countless ways. He lightened the mood for his “board” meetings of laboratory directors and the rest of his management hierarchy with a joke or two. At the launch site, he often broke the tension with some witticism. He warmed up his 1950s audiences for speeches outside the South by apologizing “for my accent,” then grinning and adding, “I’m from Alabama.”

He would protest, “I’ve never considered myself a genius— and my wife is always ready to attest to this fact!” And in the 1950s and 1960s, when others might suggest their rocket-and- space success record showed his team’s German nucleus was “smarter” than everybody else, he would demur: “It’s not that we’re geniuses. It’s just that we old timers have been working on these things so long, we’ve had twelve more years to make mistakes and learn from them!”

Von Braun, born in 1912, an instant baron as the middle son of aristocratic Prussian parents, was a fast-walking, fast-talking bundle of contradictions. Brilliant as a youth, he became distracted and flunked math and physics. Sent off to boarding school and turned on academically in his early teens by visions of rocket ships in space, he earned degrees in mechanical and aeronautical engineering, plus a doctorate in physics, by age twenty-two. He had been named the civilian chief of the German Army’s rocket program two years earlier, before Adolf Hitler gained power. By age twenty-five he was the civilian technical director of the Wehrmacht side of the Peenemünde rocket R&D base on the Baltic seacoast. (The Luftwaffe ran the other side.)

This paradox of a bold, starry-eyed space cadet was one of the most ultra-conservative of engineers. A blend of visionary and realist, with a natural optimistic bent, he nonetheless inclined to move ahead only in safe, measured, incremental steps. He insisted on testing, testing, and testing again, down to the last component of the last subsystem.

Admiral Alan Shepard, a von Braun admirer, went to his grave believing he would have been the first human—not just the first American—in space, if only von Braun had not ordered just one more chimpanzee flight-test of Mercury-Redstone. That caution allowed the Soviet Union to send cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space in the spring of 1961, immediately before Shepard went up. Yet Shepard did have a safe flight aboard a souped-up U.S. Army “Jupiter-C” Redstone missile, as did Mercury astronaut “Gus” Grissom soon afterward. (A decade later, Project Apollo astronaut Shepard caught another flawless ride atop a von Braun launch vehicle—the somewhat larger Saturn V—to the lunar surface.)

Visionary as he was, in the practical world of engineering von Braun strongly preferred the tried and proven. His conservatism showed also in the matter of rocket propellants. Because of liquid hydrogen’s dangerous volatility, he had to be forced to use it as fuel in Saturn vehicle upper stages during Apollo. But he readily admitted later that it was the right decision, because of its greater propulsive punch to the pound. Likewise, he had to be ordered into an “all-up” launch mode for Saturn V—starting with the first unmanned test flight—if Apollo was to meet its deadline. That meant, of course, that all stages had to be flown “live” on every flight. Von Braun later acknowledged the rightness of that decision, too.

A retainer of virtually all the knowledge he was ever exposed to, von Braun sometimes had trouble remembering to pick up his car-pool riders, buy the groceries his wife Maria told him to get at the market, or put on a belt or matching socks.

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Von Braun’s deliberate, step-by-step approach resulted also in the successful orbiting of America’s first space satellite, Explorer 1, on the last day of January 1958. An insistence on perfection led to an unprecedented thirty-two successful Saturn heavy-lift vehicle launches out of thirty-two attempts between 1961 and 1975. Von Braun preached perfection and demanded perfection. Long years of experience had taught him that anything less spelled disaster.

When the relatively apolitical German Army’s revolutionary, 46-foot-tall, 200-mile-range V-2 missile was ordered prematurely into mass-production by the Hitler regime in autumn of 1943, six of every ten flight-test missiles exploded on the launch pad or failed in mid-flight. The V-2 was not fired operationally by German troops until September 1944—after the Allies’ D-Day invasion at Normandy.

Under the fascist dictatorship, Wernher von Braun was a member of the Nazi party, having waited almost five years after Hitler came to power before signing up. Under heavy pressure, he later accepted an officer’s commission—essentially honorary—in Heinrich Himmler’s brutal SS corps. Without question, von Braun was a prominent member of the Third Reich at least peripherally connected with the underground, SS-run, forced-labor, main V-2 factory, with its atrociously high mortality rate. Yet this living, breathing paradox soon became America’s perennial “Patriot of the Year” and “Scientist of the Year,” although certainly not in everyone’s minds.

It had not hurt von Braun’s case, after he and about 120 of his fellow German rocketeers transferred to the United States in 1945–46, that he had been arrested early in 1944 by Himmler’s Gestapo secret police, imprisoned on political charges of treason, and placed on trial for his life.

Spies had reported the rocket-meister saying he was more interested in exploring space than developing weapons; they had also overheard him denigrating certain Nazi big-wigs. He had further been accused of keeping his fast, four-seat, personal Messerschmidt aircraft gassed up at Peenemünde and handy for an escape to England with all the V-2 secrets. He was sprung in mid-trial by direct order of Hitler, thanks to intercession by the rocket Wunderkind’s commanding general, Walter Dornberger, and one of his patrons in the Nazi hierarchy, Albert Speer, archenemy of Himmler. Hitler acted on the probably questionable grounds that the V-2 program would collapse without von Braun.

As with the R&D problems of the V-2 and its predecessor, test-bed German rockets, the U.S. Army’s Redstone missile endured a less-than-perfect performance record early on in its history. This 200-mile, nuclear-capable weapon was the first major new development project assigned to the von Braun team in this country in the early 1950s. Launch-pad failure followed launch-pad failure after three years of work.

Witnessing one catastrophic Redstone explosion at Cape Canaveral, the scientist’s boss, Major General H. N. Toftoy, asked, “Wernher, why did that rocket explode?” Von Braun said the answer must await analysis of data. Toftoy persisted, finally questioning whether the German had “any idea why it exploded?” Von Braun fired back: “Yes. It exploded because the s.o.b. blew up!”

Von Braun had learned long before that close-knit teamwork and honest communication were the keys to eventual success. A classic example occurred with another Redstone mid-flight test failure. Telemetry data showed all systems had performed well until a precise point. This enabled troubleshooters to localize the probable source. The suspected area had been checked and rechecked during lab tests. Finally, the likeliest explanation was accepted, and corrective action ordered.

Then an engineer with the firing group asked to see him. The engineer explained that during pre-launch preps, he had tightened a certain connection for good measure. In so doing, he had touched a contact and drawn a spark. But since the system later checked out well, he had not paid any attention to it. Now that everybody was talking about that apparatus, he just wanted von Braun to know. A quick study showed that this was indeed the answer, and the planned “remedial action” was canceled. Von Braun sent a bottle of good champagne to the engineer. He wanted everyone to know that honesty pays off, even at the risk of incriminating oneself.

In America, aerospace leader von Braun was competitive and aggressive in seeking programs, projects, and budget dollars for his agency. He tended to seize the moment. The very night that Sputnik went up, Eisenhower administration Secretary of Defense-designate Neil McElroy was visiting at Redstone Arsenal with von Braun, his commanding general, John Bruce Medaris, and other Army brass. Within a month, the von Braun team and its partners got the go-ahead to prepare and launch America’s first satellite. They did so in less than ninety days, having earlier made under-the-table preparations.

When NASA was being created, von Braun sought to have the lion’s share of responsibilities based in Huntsville. And when Agency roles and missions for the space shuttle effort were being considered by Headquarters, he proposed that Marshall be lead center for almost everything, including central program management.

Two brief stories shed more light on aspects of von Braun’s management style and philosophy. One involves Marshall Center’s old “neutral buoyancy simulator.” Von Braun had the 33-by-35-foot water tank built on the sly and on the cheap in the 1960s, using in-house welders and funds borrowed from various accounts. It had its own “temporary” building. It proved a valuable tool for space flight hardware engineering design, evaluation, and eventually astronaut EVA training. It was also a great public-relations boon—a prime visitor attraction. Von Braun had not wanted to go through Congress and endure the inevitable restrictions on its use, so he called this huge structure a piece of “equipment,” not a “facility.” Eventually he was found out, and Congress did apply restrictions. The ploy reflected his philosophy of “better to ask forgiveness than permission.” As he told his inner circle at Marshall: “You build the facility first, then take the slap on the wrist. But you have the facility. They are not going to burn it.”

Von Braun tended to be a decisive, action-oriented manager. He detested bureaucratic indecision. When Hurricane Camille ravaged the Gulf of Mexico Coast and the Marshall-managed Mississippi Test Facility in 1969, its manager called urgently for help. A Marshall management staffer suggested the center send down a team to survey the critical needs. Von Braun said, “They don’t need a survey! They know what they need. We’re going to get a relief convoy together in the morning, and we are going down there and help!” The Marshall Center convoy arrived on the scene before the National Guard.

Von Braun was far from a perfect manager. He tended to hold overlong meetings, was considered too compassionate to reprimand or discipline wayward staffers (and usually had his chief longtime deputy, Eberhard Rees, do it for him), and was loathe to deny his management hierarchy unlimited access to him.

At one point, thirty-eight managers at Marshall had direct access to him between the weekly “board” meetings. An American-born insider finally persuaded him to appoint an R&D overlord to whom the majority would routinely report. After heated debate, von Braun directed the group to choose one from its number as the Uber-boss. The director was going on a holiday trip with his wife, and he said, “I won’t come back until I see the ‘white smoke’ of agreement.” The team acquiesced, selecting Hermann Weidner for the superchief’s role. Thereafter, von Braun would introduce him as “my pope,” chosen by his cardinals, the lab bosses.

The engineer-scientist could not, or would not, operate a dictation machine or a VCR, or learn how to adjust a color television set. A retainer of virtually all the knowledge he was ever exposed to, von Braun sometimes had trouble remembering to pick up his car-pool riders, buy the groceries his wife Maria told him to get at the market, or put on a belt or matching socks. When traveling, he never carried money, credit cards, or checks, leaving it to others, usually his assistants, to pay the bills and tips.

When the V-2 finally flew successfully on October 3, 1942, Hitler made the paradoxical von Braun an honorary “Research Professor,” a title he proudly emblazoned on his stationery at Peenemünde. He liked his colleagues there to address him as “Professor,” yet he never formally taught anywhere, aside from occasional guest lectures on campuses in America and abroad. But he was a teacher most of his adult life. When a Marshall Center delegation visited the Palomar Observatory in the late 1960s, a California university astronomer gave a lecture on the subject of white dwarfs. This inspired von Braun later that evening to give an all-night lecture on astronomy to his associates back in his quarters.

And once in the mid-1960s, a Marshall contingent traveling by Lear jet across Kansas at 41,000 feet had to fly around the giant meteorological phenomenon known as an anvil cloud. Von Braun left the cockpit and proceeded to give a young engineer a learned discourse on anvil clouds.

As a space leader, von Braun was quite the political operative, and he had warm relationships with national political figures ranging from President John F. Kennedy to NASA Administrator Tom Paine to Texas Congressman Olin “Tiger” Teague, longtime chair of the House space subcommittee. The rocket scientist worked at cultivating personal political relationships. He was a willing, popular, enthusiastic, but straight-shooting congressional witness. He went on countless hunting trips with politicians. He rolled out the red carpet for them at Marshall Center.

Given his past in Nazi Germany, it was unknown how the image of this human paradox would fare in the twenty- first century. Aviation Week & Space Technology coordinated a worldwide survey in 2003 for the centennial of man’s first powered flight, to determine the “Top 100 Stars of Aerospace” history. More than a million ballots came in from industry professionals in 180 countries. The results put him first among world space figures. In the overall category, he came in second, behind the Wright brothers. Walter Cronkite compared von Braun to Columbus. He said that, just as 500 years afterward we remember Columbus’s voyages of discovery as the supreme events of that time, so, too, will people 500 years hence remember the Apollo missions to the Moon as the crowning human achievement of the twentieth century. Cronkite observed that, while earthlings of the twenty-fifth century will undoubtedly fixate on the daring exploits of Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins, and their successor lunarnauts, Apollo’s engineers would also be prominently remembered: “[People then] will recognize it as an engineering feat. And when they do, they will fix on von Braun as certainly one of the greatest space engineering pioneers.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Bob Ward, a former managing editor and editor-in-chief of The Huntsville (Alabama) Times, is the author of the 2005 biography Dr. Space: The Life of Wernher von Braun, published by the Naval Press Institute.

End of quote

The point being made, in its imbibement of Russian OIL, and commercial ventures, that Western Governments were going way beyond the questionable von Braun appointment of the era of "operation paperclip" in developing the sinews of war of the Russian military especially AFTER Putin stole Crimea, in 2014. i.e. and even today, EU members are contributing ONE BILLION USD a DAY to the Russian war machine, via OIL sales, with no basic letup of sales YET. This when Ukraine is facing the entirety of Russian attacks on a scale not seen since World War II, in Europe.

As of the last 22 years, across the board, there was, in spite of plenty of warning, clear specific indications as to the malevolence of Vladimir Putin's intentions. But now we are in the mists of a defacto WORLD WAR III moment, in part to Putin having 22 years of gentle wrist slaps and remonstrations, without real consequences.

Every single Western Government as of the last 22 years, is defacto a contributor to the massacre of Ukrainian citizens, and singling out Donald Trump for singular criticism is missing the point. At the same time, commercial ventures to the tune of billions were signed off for over 22 years. And let us not forget the famous agreement concluded in 1996

https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Ukraine-Nuclear-Weapons

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Ukraine, Nuclear Weapons, and Security Assurances at a Glance




Last Reviewed:?

February 2022

Contact: Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director,?(202) 463-8270 x107

At the time of Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine held the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, including an?estimated ?1,900 strategic warheads, 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and 44?strategic bombers. By 1996, Ukraine had returned all of its nuclear warheads to Russia in exchange for economic aid and security assurances, and in December 1994, Ukraine became a non-nuclear weapon state-party to the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT ). The last strategic nuclear delivery vehicle in Ukraine?was eliminated ?in 2001 under the?1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START ). It took years of political maneuvering and diplomatic work, starting with the?Lisbon Protocol ?in 1992, to remove the weapons and nuclear infrastructure from Ukraine.

1990 Declaration of Sovereignty

Partly in an effort to gain international recognition, Ukraine’s pre-independence movement supported efforts to join the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state. With its Declaration of Sovereignty on July 16, 1990, Ukraine?pledged ?“not to accept, produce, or acquire nuclear weapons." However, despite this public commitment, Ukrainian politicians were not entirely?united ?by the idea. Some felt that Russia was a still a threat and that they should keep the weapons as a deterrent.

1991 Minsk Agreement on Strategic Forces

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States signed the Minsk Agreement on December 30, 1991, agreeing that the Russian government would be given charge of all nuclear armaments. However, as long as the weapons remained in Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, the governments of those countries would have the right to veto their use. The target date for dismantling the weapons?was set ?for the end of 1994.

1992 Lisbon Protocol

Ukraine signed the Lisbon Protocol on May 23, 1992. The protocol sought to return the nuclear weapons in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine to Russia. All states were to join START and the NPT. However, within Ukraine, there was little motion towards the ratification of START, joining the NPT, or overall denuclearization. The protocol required that Ukraine adhere to the NPT as quickly as possible, but it gave the country up to seven years to follow through.

By late 1992, the Ukrainian parliament was?vocalizing ?more pro-nuclear views. Some believed that Ukraine was entitled to at least temporary nuclear weapon status. Perhaps optimistically, the U.S. government?promised ?Ukraine $175 million in dismantlement assistance. Instead, the Ukrainian government began implementing administrative management of the nuclear forces and claimed ownership of the warheads.

In late April 1993, 162 Ukrainian politicians signed a statement to add 13 preconditions for ratification of START, frustrating the ratification process. The preconditions required security assurances from Russia and the United States, foreign aid for dismantlement, and compensation for the nuclear material. Additionally, they stated that Ukraine would dismantle only 36 percent?of its delivery vehicles and 42 percent?of its warheads, leaving the rest under Ukrainian control. Russia and the United States?criticized these demands, but Ukraine did not budge. In May 1993, the United States?said that if Ukraine were to ratify START, Washington would provide more financial assistance. This began subsequent discussions between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States?over the future of Ukrainian denuclearization.

1993 Massandra Accords

Ukrainian and Russian officials reached a set of agreements, including protocols on nuclear weapons dismantlement, procedure, and terms of compensation. However, the two sides could?not agree ?on the final document, and the summit ultimately failed.?

1994 Trilateral Statement

The Massandra Accords set the stage for the ultimately successful trilateral talks. As the United States?mediated between Russia and Ukraine, the three countries signed the Trilateral Statement on January 14, 1994. Ukraine committed to full disarmament, including strategic weapons, in exchange for economic support and security assurances from the United States and Russia.?Ukraine agreed ?to transfer its nuclear warheads to Russia and accepted U.S. assistance in dismantling missiles, bombers, and nuclear infrastructure. Ukraine’s warheads would be dismantled in Russia, and Ukraine would?receive ?compensation for the commercial value of the highly enriched uranium. Ukraine?ratified ?START on February 3, 1994, repealing its earlier preconditions, but it would not accede to the NPT without further security assurances.

1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances

To solidify security commitments to Ukraine, the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom signed the?Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances on December 5, 1994. A political agreement in accordance with the principles of the Helsinki Accords, the memorandum included security assurances against the threat or use of force against Ukraine’s territory or political independence. The countries promised to respect the sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine. Parallel memorandums were signed for Belarus and Kazakhstan as well. In response, Ukraine officially acceded to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state on December 5, 1994. That move met the final condition for ratification of START, and on the same day, the five START states-parties exchanged instruments of ratification, bringing the treaty into force.

2009 Joint Declaration by Russia and the United States

Russia and the United States released a joint statement in 2009 confirming that the security assurances made in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum would still be valid after START expired in 2009.

2014 Russian Annexation of Crimea

Following months of political unrest and the abrupt departure of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Russian troops entered the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine in March 2014. On March 18, over the protests of the acting government in Kiev, the UN Security Council, and Western governments, Russia declared the annexation of Crimea. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine called the action a blatant violation of the security assurances in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. However, according to the?Russian Foreign Ministry , “the security assurances were given to the legitimate government of Ukraine but not to the forces that came to power following the coup d'etat.”

Timeline

  • July 16, 1990: Ukraine’s Declaration of Sovereignty
  • July 31, 1991: The United States and the Soviet Union sign?START
  • Dec. 26, 1991: The Soviet Union officially dissolves, delaying entry into force of START
  • Dec. 30, 1991: Minsk Agreement on Strategic Forces
  • The Commonwealth of Independent States agrees?that strategic forces would be under the joint command of the former Soviet Union states
  • May 23, 1992: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and the United States sign the?Lisbon Protocol
  • The protocol calls for the return of nuclear weapons in three formerly Soviet states to Russia and for all states to be added to the START treaty and join the NPT
  • Jan. 14, 1994: Ukraine, Russia, and the United States sign the Trilateral Statement
  • Ukraine commits?to full disarmament, including strategic offensive weapons, in exchange for economic support and security assurances from the United States?and Russia
  • Sept. 4, 1993: Massandra Accords
  • Failed summit between Russian and Ukrainian governments
  • Dec. 5, 1994: Russia, Ukraine, United States, and the United Kingdom sign the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances
  • Includes?security assurances against the threat or use of force against Ukraine’s territory or political independence
  • Dec. 5, 1994: Ukraine submits?its instrument of accession to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state
  • The five START parties exchange?instruments of ratification for START, which enters?into force
  • June 1, 1996: Ukraine transfers?its last nuclear warhead to Russia
  • October 30, 2001: Ukraine eliminates?its last strategic nuclear weapon delivery vehicle
  • Dec. 4, 2009: Joint Statement by Russia and the United States
  • The two countries confirm?the security guarantees made in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum
  • March 18, 2014: Russia annexes Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and provides supports an ongoing insurrection by separatist forces in the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk provinces of Ukraine.
  • Late 2021 to early 2022: Russia engages in "military exercises" with a force estimated to exceed 150,000 military personnel?involving land-, sea-, and air-based weaponry on the northern, eastern, and southern borders of Ukraine raising fears of an invasion by Russia.
  • February 24, 2022: Russia began a large-scale military attack and invasion of Ukraine,?with planes and missile launcher attacks on Ukrainian cities, airports, and military infrastructure?across much of the country.

End of quote

The hypocrisy of this span of decades of history , is beyond measure. And since the fourth week of February 2022, due to the fact it was, ahem too INCONVENIENT for diplomats and others to go into the flagrant violation of the 1996 pact, we have, defacto World War III.

Yes, the USA made whopping uses of "enemy combatants" as attested in the Operation paperclip, but it takes the cake the mealy mouth platitudes of decades in the making starting from the Minsk Agreement on Strategic Forces, 1991 to its hideous peak of 1999 when Intelligence agencies across the globe knew full well Vladimir Putin had clinched onto power due to false flag attacks upon his nations Capital. In all, the shift in emphasis as of the last 2 months is high time overdue, but prior to this war, the entire Western Governmental cadre across the spectrum from North America to the EU OWNES it as to why PUTIN though he could get away with attacking Ukraine. We have defacto World War III right now due to spineless appeasement for decades, and it is time for people to admit it. That admission is the only way to end future repetitions of the bloodbath occurring in Ukraine today. A good start would be if the EU cuts energy supplies from Russia and faces up to what continued sales mean. Mainly more funding of the architect of World War III. Vladimir Putin.

Andrew Beckwith PhD

Rodney Carl Petrie (Former and Retired Game Warden and Ranger)

Conservationist, Environmentalist, and Preservationist

1 年

Give ukraine ships to rebuild it's navy start with the retired Aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy and the two retired amphibious assault ships USS Tarawa and USS Peleliu with retired Aircraft.

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