US not on haloed ground in Ukraine crisis

War clouds loom over Europe. It has been reported in US media that Russia has built up 70 percent of the military it needs to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Western powers fear a Russian invasion into Ukraine may be imminent given Moscow’s massing of more than 100,000 soldiers near the border with Ukraine.

In a tit-for-tat, the US has ordered an additional 2,000 troops in Germany and some 3,000 troops in Poland and Romania, to prevent a potential spillover of Russian aggression into Eastern Europe.

The latest US deployment goes beyond the 8,500 troops the Pentagon put on alert last month to deploy to Europe if needed. NATO defence ministers are expected to discuss further reinforcements at their next meeting on Feb. 16-17.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday, 2 February, the current initiative of deterrence was not permanent but necessary amid heightened tensions over Russia’s amassing of combat power in the region. “It’s important that we send a strong long signal to Mr. Putin and, frankly, to the world that NATO matters to the United States,” Kirby said. “It matters to our allies. And we have ironclad Article 5 commitments that an attack on one is an attack on all.”

Russia has vocally denied any intention, so far, to invade Ukraine but has, nonetheless, stationed more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders and says it could take unspecified military measures if its demands are not met, including a promise not to admit Ukraine to the NATO.

The US claims that its recent move is imperative following the failure of diplomacy with Russia in the situation. And the US has also announced sweeping sanctions designed to cripple the Russian economy.

The Biden administration has said that it will not go on the ground in Ukraine, which is not a NATO member. But there are about 200 members of the Florida National Guard currently in Ukraine, that have been training forces in the western part of the country.

The US has about 70,000 troops in Europe, but only around 6,000 are in eastern Europe. The NATO consists of 30-member states including the US. John Kirby said last week that: “We are making it clear that we’re going to be prepared to defend our NATO allies if it comes to that. There’s no reason for there to be armed conflict in Ukraine or anywhere else on the European continent. And Mr. Putin can go a long way to serving that end, by taking seriously the proposals that we have put forward diplomatically.”

Meanwhile, Kirby has confirmed media reports that the US has intelligence accusing Russia of planning to fabricate a pretext to invade Ukraine.

“We’ve discussed this idea of false flags by the Russians before; we made no secret of that. We do have information that the Russians are likely to want to fabricate a pretext for an invasion – which again, is right out of their playbook,” Kirby said at a press briefing at the Pentagon.

“One option is the Russian government, we think, is planning to stage an attack by Ukrainian military or intelligence forces against Russian sovereign territory or against Russian speaking people, to, therefore, justify their acts.

“We believe that Russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video, which would include corpses, and factors that would be depicting borders and images of destroyed locations …”

While it may seem, for the time being, like the US is playing good Samaritan in the region, a closer look may indicate that the US is no less culpable, and that Russia has been provoked into taking its tough stance. US President Joe Biden is planning to extend the NATO alliance to Russia’s very doorstep, by including Ukraine in the NATO, with scant regard for Russia’s strategic insecurities. Russia is only asking for a comfortable buffer zone between itself and NATO, to preclude an immediate land threat to its territory. The planned move to admit Ukraine into NATO, in fact, reeks of US aggression towards Russia.

But the real issue that is being ignored in the US media, that has hyped up the imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, is how craftily the US is changing the focus from China, the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits, to Russia. and Ukraine.

In fact, it suits US business interests immensely that the US does not engage in any hostilities, hot or cold, with China. US multinational companies have huge stakes in the Chinese business and investment pie. They certainly would not like to see worsening of US-China trade and business relations to their detriment.

This may sound a bit like a conspiracy theory, but, I reckon, US vested business interests had a large hand in ejecting former President Donald Trump out of office, because he was going ballistic on China. Certainly, US business interests have an all-pervasive role in shaping US foreign policy and domestic affairs…