Our Friday News Analysis | What the World Reads Now!

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• Will the US want to sabotage the Chinese rebuilding the Silk Road through Ukraine to Europe?
• Why does the US seem to oppose any Chinese intervention even though the Chinese want to stop the war?
• Who fomented the coup in Ukraine?
• People inside the Washington Beltway have an unrealistic view of Russia and its leader – ideological blindness.
• Can the US-EU produce enough weapons and ammunition to support the war?
• “We don’t have enough ammunition to last us two weeks.”
• What was the reason for NATO after the dissolution of the Soviet Union?
• What is the hidden agenda of the neo-globalists?

What is the Side of the Story that is Not Yet Decisive? Edited by Abraham A. van Kempen.

WATCH: TRUMP CLAIMS HE COULD SETTLE UKRAINE WAR IN JUST 24 HOURS AS PRESIDENT

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TRUMP CLAIMS HE COULD GET ZELENSKY AND PUTIN TO MAKE PEACE DEAL ‘IN ONE DAY,’ “I WANT TO STOP EVERYBODY FROM DYING.”

In a July 16 interview with Fox News, former US President Donald Trump said that, if elected president again, he would ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal.

By Alexander Khrebet
17 July 2023
Kyiv Independent

Trump is currently the most popular Republican candidate in the upcoming primaries for the 2024 presidential election, according to opinion polls. As many as 48 percent of the respondents will support him in the primaries, while 22 percent will back Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a YouGov and the Economist poll on July 8-11 revealed.

Trump said he would warn Putin that the US would increase military support for Ukraine if an agreement is not reached.

“I would tell Zelensky no more. You got to make a deal. I would tell Putin if you don't make a deal, we will give him a lot. We're going to (give Ukraine) more than they ever got if we have to,” Trump said, adding that “he will have the deal done in one day.”

Trump has repeatedly said he would end Russia’s war within 24 hours.

“It looks as if Donald Trump had already these 24 hours once in his time. We were at war, not a full-scale war, but we were at war, and as I assume he had that time at his disposal, he must have had some other priorities,” Zelensky told ABC News on June 9.

Zelensky introduced Ukraine’s 10-point peace plan at a G20 summit in November 2022. The peace plan includes the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops, establishing a tribunal for Russian war crimes, releasing all prisoners of war and deporting Ukrainians, and preventing ecocide.

Trump said in May that he would not commit to providing Ukraine with defense assistance if he won the 2024 election.

“We're giving away so much equipment, we don't have ammunition for ourselves right now,” Trump said on May 11, as cited by CNN.

He also refused to say who he thinks should win in the war between Russia and Ukraine, adding that he wants “everybody to stop dying.”

Meanwhile, around 65% of US citizens want Washington to continue military aid to Ukraine, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on June 28.

Alexander Khrebet is a reporter with the Kyiv Independent. He covers Ukraine’s foreign policy, alleged abuse of power in the country’s military leadership, and reports on the Russian-occupied territories. Alexander is the European Press Prize 2023 winner, the #AllForJan Award 2023 winner, and Ukraine's 2022 National Investigative Journalism Award finalist. His was published in the Washington Times and Atlantic Council.

OPINION | HERE’S WHY THE US WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY NEVER ALLOW UKRAINE TO JOIN NATO

Kyiv has to face up to some bad news – for the first time, NATO enlargement has become a threat to Washington itself

By Timofey Bordachev, Valdai Club Programme Director
12 July 2023
RT HomeWorld News

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy holds a press conference following the second-day session of The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Heads of State and Government Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 12, 2023. © Dursun Aydemir / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The Ukrainian crisis marks the first time in history that the United States has exposed itself to severe risks in defining the limits of its military presence in Europe. Any genuine move by Washington to invite Kyiv into NATO would imply a willingness to enter into a direct military confrontation with Russia. A less risky option, many believe, would be to promise the Vladimir Zelensky regime some unique bilateral guarantees.

The NATO military bloc was created based on the actual division of Europe into zones of influence between the US and the USSR after the Second World War. As a result of the most extraordinary armed confrontation in the history of humankind, the bulk of European states lost forever the ability to determine fundamental issues of their national policy. These included, first and foremost, defense and the ability to form alliances with other countries. Europe was divided between the real winners of the conflict – Moscow and Washington. Only Austria, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, and a small part of Switzerland were outside their zone of dominance.

Both great powers had an informal right to determine the internal order of the territories under control. This was because the countries concerned had lost their sovereignty as such. Even France, which continued to demonstrate freethinking for several decades, had no doubt on whose side it would fight in the event of a new global conflict.

NATO was created in 1949 to formally deprive American allies of the ability to make their own foreign policy decisions and military doctrines. In this respect, the alliance was no different from the Warsaw Pact that had emerged in the USSR’s sphere of influence.

The relationship between the United States and other NATO countries has never been an alliance in the traditional sense. In the last century, classic accords ceased to exist – the gap in military capabilities between the nuclear superpowers and every other country became too great.

A military alliance between relative equals is possible, as it was until the middle of the last century, but nuclear weapons have made this impossible. The former sovereign states of Europe became a territorial base from which the great powers could negotiate in peace and act in war. The creation of NATO and the subsequent accession of countries such as Greece, Turkey, Spain, and West Germany to the alliance was a formalization of the boundaries of US dominance that the USSR had already agreed to in bilateral relations.

After the Soviet collapse, extending American rule to Moscow's former allies in Eastern Europe and even the Baltic republics was not a policy that posed serious risks for Washington. Incidentally, this is why NATO has an informal rule of not admitting countries with unresolved territorial disputes with third states – the US has never been willing to occupy land whose ownership is disputed.

NATO’s post-Cold War expansion was based on deception, with the US promising Moscow that it would not expand NATO to Russia’s borders. But, initially, Russia did not have the physical strength to resist. This meant that the US could occupy “unclaimed” states without the threat of immediate military conflict. The US approach to NATO remained faithful to the philosophy of the 1945 victors: there are no sovereign states, only controlled territories.

Once the decision was taken in Washington, it was only a matter of strategy to ensure that local governments made the “right” decisions. This was all the more so as the accession of new countries to NATO in the 1990s and 2000s was ‘packaged’ with the enlargement of the European Union. This gave local elites every reason to aspire to join the bloc, from which they expected tangible material benefits. For some – the Baltic states and Poland – membership in the club also allowed solving internal problems through an aggressive anti-Russian policy by fostering fear of the big neighbor to the east. In the Baltic states, the status of an American outpost was also used by elites to combat any local opposition from radical nationalists.

For the countries that joined the bloc, NATO guaranteed internal stability. Since their most important decisions were taken outside their national political systems, there was no reason for internal competition and no danger of serious destabilization.

Of course, no country is safe from minor internal political disturbances, such as those caused by a change of government – especially if we do not like the one in power. But radical changes generally involve foreign policy issues that have become impossible.

In this sense, Western Europe increasingly resembles Latin America, where the population's quality of life doesn’t have dramatic consequences for the elites. There, geographical proximity to the US has long been a reason for almost total American control. The only exceptions have been Cuba and, in recent decades, Venezuela. This control is formal in Western Europe because of Russia's proximity, which should rule out surprises.

Joining NATO is an exchange of state sovereignty for the indefinite retention of power by the ruling elite. This is the secret of every political regime's desire to join the bloc: it gives them the possibility of “immortality" despite domestic or economic failures. The authorities in Eastern Europe and the Baltics immediately realized that they would not last long in power without being under Washington's control – the break with Moscow and the peripheral position of their countries promised them too many problems. And Finland joined NATO because the local elites no longer had confidence in their ability to hold power independently.

As we have seen, expanding its presence has never posed any serious threat or risk to the United States, at least until now. This is precisely what is being pointed out by those in America who are calling for a careful approach to be taken in response to the demands of the authorities in Kyiv for membership—a call that some members of the bloc support.

It is understood that a military clash between Moscow and NATO would mean a global nuclear war. Nevertheless, back in the Soviet period, the US believed that any conflict with the USSR could be confined to Europe and would not involve direct attacks on each other’s territory. There is reason to believe that Moscow felt the same way during the Cold War.

NATO’s eastward expansion after the Cold War was a case of acquiring territories for which no one wanted to fight. However, in Ukraine, for the US is not a question of gaining territory but instead of taking it from a rival power that wants to keep Washington out. This has never happened in the history of NATO, and one can understand those in Western Europe and the US calling for serious consideration of the likely consequences.

Inviting Kyiv to join NATO could mean something new for American foreign policy – a willingness to fight a peer adversary like Russia. Throughout history, Americans have shied away from this, using other players as battering rams willing to sacrifice and suffer for American interests. This was the case in both the First and Second World Wars. The most likely scenario is that the US will limit itself to promising to address the issue of Ukraine and NATO after the Kyiv regime has resolved its problems with Russia in one way or another. In the meantime, it will only be promised some “special” terms bilateral.

Read more: ‘NATO Gives Ukraine No Finishing Line,’ by Judy Dempsey, Carnegie Europe, 13 July 2023.

The lengthy communiqué—with surprisingly little content about the war in Ukraine—stated:

               “We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree, and conditions are met.”

It was almost a re-run of the ill-fated 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit, which promised that Ukraine would one day join NATO. In Bucharest, Kyiv wasn’t offered the Membership Action Plan (MAP), which sets out a path towards accession, because of pressure from France and Germany.

Editor’s note |

According to EU Member of Parliament Clare Daly, 80 percent of the EU Members of Parliament have voted to continue the war between the EU-US/NATO and the Russian Federation against 80 percent of the Europeans surveyed by the EU Commission who categorically demand an end to the war.

Why do just about all Europeans want to stop this madness?

None wants a nuclear crater in their backyards!

Neither do the Americans!

Nether to the Russians!

OPINION | AMID TALK OF A PREEMPTIVE NUCLEAR STRIKE ON NATO FROM RUSSIA, WHY DOESN'T MOSCOW TRY THIS INSTEAD?

The country should engage NATO members with proposals for bilateral agreements, which will also help them to regain sovereignty

By Eric Zuesse, Investigative historian and author of AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change
RT HomeWorld News
14 July 2023

FILE PHOTO. Moscow, Russia. © AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev

In late June, a former advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Professor Sergei Karaganov of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, published an article headlined 'Here’s why Russia has to consider launching a nuclear strike on Western Europe.' He argued that the time has now come for Moscow to seriously consider the possibility of pre-emptively invading or using atomic weapons against the most hostile European members of NATO:

               “When discussing a hypothetical atomic attack on Western Europe, the question arises: how would the US answer? All experts agree that the Americans would never respond to a nuclear attack on their allies with a nuclear attack on our territory. Incidentally, even [President Joe] Biden has said so openly. Russian military experts, however, believe that a massive conventional retaliatory strike could follow. It could be pointed out that even more massive nuclear strikes would follow this. And they would finish off Western Europe as a geopolitical entity.”

However, I believe that if Russia so much as even considers this course, it would be a catastrophic mistake without first having offered to every Western European country a specific type of bilateral mutual non-aggression treaty which would also require – where applicable – that they withdraw from America’s anti-Russia military alliance, NATO. Even if only one bloc member broke away, that could spark the organization's end.

Putin has thus far responded to the West’s aggressive expansion of NATO right up to Russia’s borders by targeting missiles against new member states and not by offering each of them individually a bilateral treaty proposal and guarantees for peace, including mutual weapons inspections. Instead, it seems that a NATO nation cannot quit the anti-Russia bloc and manage its peaceful relations with Moscow, plus increased trade and other mutual bilateral benefits. However, by abandoning alliances with the world’s most aggressive nation, the US, and agreeing with Russia directly, a future of peace and mutual economic benefit could prevail across Europe.

Putin ought to make this offer now. It might prevent World War Three. The historical background explains why.

               I agree with Dr. Karaganov that a fundamental change is needed in Russia’s relations with the other countries of Europe.

               Still, I propose the first step MUST be the following Russian offer to each of them.

               The offer should be made only discretely to each US-allied country.

               If any government concerned privately says no, Russia should then offer the deal publicly. Public opinion might then force that government – whose prior rejection of the agreement would not yet be publicly known – to agree.

               Thus, there would be two chances to obtain a deal, significantly increasing the odds of success in each case.

The substance of the agreement would be as follows:

               Russia will announce that its nuclear missiles will be targeted ONLY against the US and its allies, including all NATO member-nations, but not neutral or unaligned nations. In other words, any new NATO member nation will become a target added to Russia’s list for destruction in any World War III scenario between the United States and Russia. Any existing NATO nation that accepts the offered treaty would no longer threaten Russia and would consequently no longer be targeted by Russia.

Furthermore, Moscow should simultaneously announce that if any nation wishes to have an assurance that Russia will never, under any circumstance, invade it, then it will welcome from that nation a request for such an assurance from Russia. Moscow will include in that announcement explicit invitations to all countries which have, at some time, expressed an intention or a possible future intention to join NATO.

In this regard, it will also state, in advance, that if Russia were to provide such assurance to a nation and subsequently violate it, it would be violating its tradition of rigidly adhering to international treaties it has signed. It would also be forfeiting to the country it had broken its commitment to and violated any of its rights under international law. Consequently, under the arrangement proposed here, there would be no nation in the entire world that has, or ever did have, so strict an international treaty legal obligation as Russia would be accountable to under this proposed arrangement. It would be much more transparent than what the international law-breaking US government ever did or can offer in the NATO treaty. Russia’s record of strictly abiding by its agreements speaks for itself. So does America’s record of violating international agreements.

Finally, this proposed arrangement would offer, to all existing members of NATO, a promise that if and when any such existing member-nation quits that anti-Russia military alliance, Moscow will be happy to – at the moment that this is done – automatically provide to that nation the same legal commitment never to invade that nation, as has just been described here. In other words, the proposed arrangement will offer, to the entire world, a stark and clear choice between peace with Russia or being allied with the most aggressive nation in the world’s history. One that places illegal sanctions organizes coups, and even invades states that fail to cooperate with its goal to replace the United Nations as being the ultimate arbiter of international laws. A country seeking to be the ultimate judge of what it calls “the rules-based international order” in which all of those ‘rules’ come ultimately from whoever rules the US government.

On the other hand, Moscow would be helping to reposition the UN to its original goal: to replace the historic use of force by-and-between rival international empires. This vision was to create a peaceful and democratic international world order in which a “United Nations” would be a worldwide federation of all nations, in which international laws would be produced by the global legislature of duly authorized (under each nation’s internal laws) representatives, and adjudicated by the global Supreme Court, and enforced by the sole global possessor and user of strategic weaponry – the UN. Additionally, penalties that this global Court of international relations rules should be enforced against the government of any nation judged by this Court to have violated the rights of any other nation’s government.

In this understanding of the UN’s proper scope of power and authority, the body would have no control and no influence regarding the constitutions or laws of any nation that apply internally to a given country but ONLY to international laws, which pertain exclusively to international relations, and never to a nation’s internal matters. It would make another World War – another war between empires – impossible by eliminating all realms and replacing all of them with an international democracy of (an international federation of) nations. Russia, in the proposed arrangement, would be striving to achieve, for the entire planet, what had been once planned for the post-War War II world.

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Editorial | Why?

I’ve got a ‘sour apple to peel’ (a Dutch saying meaning I’d like to have a strong word) with the EU-US (NATO) Axis leadership. Why? Why didn’t you do everything imaginable to build trust with the Russian Federation? After all, trust is the thrust to engender and sustain peaceful coexistence that might lead to friendship.

Instead, you intimidated the Russians and provoked fear by expanding NATO from 14 countries during the Cold War to 30 countries, mostly since 2004. Then, you threatened Russia by including Ukraine and Georgia in NATO, not to mention Sweden and Finland, to be followed by Ireland. What have you gained? War!

You blame Russia. You propagate, “Putin intends to expand Russian Lebensraum and return to the former glory of the Soviet Union.”

You’re so wrong. Mr. Putin wants to increase his market share to improve the Russian economy, not by grabbing land but by selling Russian oil, gas, foodstuffs, and other natural resources. Yes, Mr. Putin fully intends to expand his sphere of influence to make money, not to hoist the Russian flags all over Europe.

Any simpleton knows Russia’s rationale intuitively. Do the clowns in Brussels and their stooges in Washington – they call themselves world leaders of the World Community, also known as the Free World or the West – know this truth? Yes, of course, they do. Do they want Russia to become another economic powerhouse like China? No! It is against the national interests of member-states that consider themselves part of the Free World to fuel economic development in Russia. As the President of the United States, Mr. Joe Biden, stated, “We intend to weaken Russia and get rid of Putin.”

If the West genuinely wanted peaceful coexistence, the EU-US (NATO) Axis would have:

               1) Allowed Ukraine to become a trading partner of BOTH the EU and the Russian Federation.

               2) Guaranteed open access to the seaports and shipping lanes and the pipelines in Ukraine to facilitate the free flow of oil and gas.

               3) Gradually disengage and eventually terminate NATO to countervail a threat that does not exist. The Russian Federation wants to work with, not against, Europe. After all, Russia is not just the largest country on earth, with 11 time zones. It is also the largest country in Europe.

And what an economic feast it could be for Ukraine. They could be simultaneously trading with East and West. Instead, today a small handful of NAZI sympathizers, indiscriminately armed to the tilt by the West, shoot Russians, their neighbors who’ve lived in the same communities for generations. I fully expect the Ukrainians and Russians to become friends again. But first, Russia must secure the sea lanes and pipelines and effectuate a regime change in Kyiv, ‘American style.’

In the meantime, the EU-US (NATO) Axis has instigated the idea that Russia and China are considering forming separate countervailing alliances. One global police force under the auspices of the EU-US (NATO) Axis is out of balance. The world needs to recalibrate the balance of power, starting with Russia allied with Iran and possibly with several other countries in the Middle East, the Sub-Continent, and Africa. China might contemplate developing an Asian Pact in alliance with most of Asia and perhaps even the Americas south of Mexico. As I have stated in previous articles, this is a formula for peaceful coexistence but a potential recipe for disaster. But can the world rely on one global police force? The 198 member countries of the United Nations can no longer condone more police brutality.

Thank you, EU, thank you, US, thank you, NATO, for inculcating fear. Historically, despite the ups and downs, Russians and Ukrainians feel more at home with each other than with NATO. I know what I’m talking about. I lectured at the University of Kyiv in Chelyabinsk, located more than 2,300 kilometers East of Kyiv in deep Russia.

…

Most people fear the EU-US/NATO global formula. It smacks like colonialism, ‘neo-colonialism.’ What is neo-colonialism? No different than colonialism! “What is mine is mine. What is yours is mine also.”

Through its many guises, Western imperialism still lives in its full glory. Russian imperialism is a figment of their imagination.

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The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of the Building the Bridge Foundation, The Hague.