Paul Craig Roberts: There Is No Ukrainian Crisis

The task of the American media is not objective journalism. The task is to support the official narrative. The two main narratives at the present time are: vaccination is necessary to control Covid and Russia is about to invade Ukraine. This article is about the latter. Following Bloomberg, New York Times, CNN, now it is the Washington Post’s turn to bleat the false message.

The official narrative on Ukraine is that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent, “as soon as tomorrow,” to use the words of Biden’s national security advisor.

No such invasion will take place. The question is why has the Biden regime painted itself into a corner? When no invasion occurs, Washington is going to look very silly.

Possibly Washington is making invasion accusations in order to block Nord Stream 2. But this would hurt Europe, not Russia.

There is no crisis. If there actually was a crisis, Washington and NATO would be doing more to get ready than to make token troop deployments.

The Russian position is also difficult to understand. The Russians see a crisis because Washington did not agree to keep Ukraine out of NATO and not to expand NATO further. But this is just a face-saving refusal. In actual fact, Russia made it extremely clear that Russia would not permit NATO membership for Ukraine. Washington got the message and has no intention of putting Ukraine in NATO. Washington is saving face by claiming a right it will never dare use. Already Washington has moved Ukraine’s NATO membership to the distant future. In other words, it is merely a possibility in some distant future. Ukraine knows she is abandoned by the West and will make a deal with Russia.

The Kremlin’s insistance on a signed mutual security agreement makes no sense. If Washington’s word given to Gorbachev that NATO will not move one inch to the East is no good, neither would Washington’s signature be any good. Indeed, Russia thought she had resolved the Ukrainian situation years ago when she obtained signatures to the Minsk Agreement, but the signatures meant nothing, and the agreement was not implemented.

Look at it this way: If there really is a crisis and a likely Russian invasion of Ukraine, Washington can prevent it by agreeing to exclude Ukraine from NATO.

Or Russia can prevent the Ukrainians from causing a crisis by reincorporating the Donbass Russians back into Russia. Not even Ukrainians are foolish enough to attack Russian territory.

Russia has overwhelming military superiority in Europe. The Kremlin does not need any agreements and could not trust them if it had them. All the Kremlin needs to do is to state publicly that Russia would consider NATO membership for Ukraine a declaration of war and would take the necessary action to end the threat. Privately, the Kremlin needs to tell Poland and Romania that the American missile bases on their territory have to leave. Period. No discussion. It can be done as quietly and in as face-saving a manner as desired, but they do have to go.

Russia will have obtained her goal, and the Baltics and the rest will have understood the message.

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