A U.S.-Russia War Over Ukraine? by Patrick Buchanan

Today, SLL is reposting three articles about Ukraine and potential war with Russia. Even the possibility of war with Russia, whose nuclear arsenal matches and in some aspects exceeds that of the US, dwarfs other concerns. As Patrick Buchanan points out, there are “hotheads” in both the US and Russia for whom an escalation to nuclear war is not inconceivable or unacceptable. Two atomic bombs destroyed two Japanese cities in World War II, and today’s thermonuclear bombs are thousands of times more destructive. The threat of millions of lives lost and economies, cities, countryside, and infrastructure decimated may not be enough to curb the egos of the publicly bellicose; that’s often why wars either start or escalate. It should be a trivial and trite bromide, not worth repeating, but unfortunately it has to be: nobody would “win” a nuclear war.

Justin Raimodo examines the Ukraine government the US is supporting diplomatically, financially, and militarily. Finding anything in the mainstream American press other than boilerplate about Ukraine’s “democratic” government and the magnificent Euromaidan Revolution that put it in power is virtually impossible, but if that government is going to be the possible linchpin of a US war with Russia, it’s crucial to understand for whom we are risking nuclear holocaust. For anybody who does not believe what they read on the Internet until it is confirmed by the MSM,  A Wall Street Journal article this morning, buried on page A16, “Kiev Is Hit by Series Of Mysterious Deaths,” 4/17/15, “confirms” the deaths cited by Raimondo in his article.

If you only have time to read one article, salon.com’s interview with historian Stephen F. Cohen is recommended. It is the first of two parts and SLL will also repost the second part next week. Cohen is careful and analytical, not prone to rhetorical hyperbole. He considers, sometimes endorsing and sometimes condemning, Russia’s point of view, and makes a strong case against US policy stretching back to when President Bill Clinton pushed for the expansion of NATO.

From Patrick Buchanan at buchanan.org:

“Could a U.S. response to Russia’s action in Ukraine provoke a confrontation that leads to a U.S.-Russia War?”

This jolting question is raised by Graham Allison and Dimitri Simes in the cover article of The National Interest.

The answer the authors give, in “Countdown to War: The Coming U.S. Russia Conflict,” is that the odds are shortening on a military collision between the world’s largest nuclear powers.

The cockpit of the conflict, should it come, will be Ukraine.

What makes the article timely is the report that Canada will be sending 200 soldiers to western Ukraine to join 800 Americans and 75 Brits on a yearlong assignment to train the Ukrainian army.

And train that army to fight whom? Pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine whom Vladimir Putin has said will not be crushed, even if it requires Russian intervention. Says Putin, “We won’t let it happen.”

What are the forces that have us “stumbling to war”?

On our side there is President Obama who “enjoys attempting to humiliate Putin” and “repeatedly includes Russia in his list of current scourges alongside the Islamic State and Ebola.”

Then there is what TNI editor Jacob Heilbrunn calls the “truculent disposition” that has become the “main driver of Republican foreign policy.” A “triumphalist camp,” redolent of the “cakewalk war” crowd of Bush II, is ascendant and pushing us toward confrontation.

This American mindset has its mirror image in Moscow.

http://buchanan.org/blog/a-u-s-russia-war-over-ukraine-15894

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