How the war in Ukraine will end
Russia-Ukraine War: Facts, Comments and Scenarios. Italics by Teo Dalavecuras
William ("Bill") Burns, appointed director of the CIA by Joe Biden in March 2021 and confirmed unanimously by the Senate, was not "just" a career ambassador (unlike those the president customarily appoints, after the electoral victory, as a sign of gratitude for the support, mostly monetary, in the electoral campaign) which served his country in places not so comfortable as the Russian Federation or Jordan, but was and is also an exponent at the forefront of the apparatuses of American foreign policy and security.
Alexis Papachelas, editor of the most authoritative Greek daily, Kathimerini , is a long-time journalist with a respectable education. After graduating from the elite American College of Athens, he studied economics and politics at Bard College to finally obtain a post-graduate degree in journalism at Columbia University also in America. He was the first author, in 1998 (in the book "The Rape of Hellenic Democracy") to document the links between the military junta that had seized power on 21 April 1967 and the US secret services.
On January 5, Papachelas signed an article on the front page of Kathimerini which begins with some quotes: “As soon as I was installed in the embassy in Moscow I realized that NATO enlargement was premature at best and unnecessarily provocative at worst ( …). After his re-election, Clinton proceeded to enlarge NATO. As the Russians boiled with anger and showed feelings of inferiority, a storm of theories developed on the subject of the stab in the back, which blocked relations between Russia and the West for decades ”. These are words taken from the book "The Back Channell" which collects the memoirs of Bill Burns, in fact.
Papachelas comments: "I don't think there is a better explanation as to why the current situation has arisen (at the date of the article there had not yet been war actions but the accumulation of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine continued, ed. ). Putin is a product, a Russian response to the arrogance of the West, which thought it had ended once and for all with Russia as the superpower. The policy towards Moscow derived from the justified but not lucid agendas of the European countries that had suffered the Soviet regime. Today Russia is again a geopolitical actor. Could the story have developed differently? Obviously yes if America, but also Europe, had managed the collapse of the Soviet Union with more magnanimity and intelligence. This is how Bush the father had behaved by refusing to publicly celebrate the fall of the Wall so as not to provoke reactions. He knew that strategic hubris easily turns into a boomerang. Clinton belonged to another generation. His relationship with history was cerebral, not lived ".
Papachelas goes on to narrate the embarrassment of a Greek politician who found himself participating in a summit of Western leaders to which Boris Yeltsin was also invited. "Tonight we have fun" was the foretaste of Bill Clinton, who in fact had a lot of fun watching the drunken Yeltsin digging his fingers in caviar. “What we are experiencing today”, concludes Papachelas, is clearly explained by what happened 20-25 years earlier ”.
The wise and expert Guido Crosetto would comment that it will also all be true but now there is war and on the whys and wherefores there will be plenty of time to dwell further on, and this is by far the prevailing opinion. And it is understandable.
However, one can also ask whether it is not precisely the criticality and drama of the present situation that requires the utmost clarity and ability to put oneself in the role of the antagonist. Unless, of course, wars today are not won by fueling hatred for the enemy in public opinion, who can only be a determined person – in this it seems that Zuckerberg gives his part, and certainly knows how to do it – and in general transforming the information system into a factory of fanaticisms disguised as good intentions and good feelings (we have all read of invocations to send "international brigades" to Ukraine, probably also by those who have never heard of of the Spanish War). It may be, I repeat, that in this way wars are won, I know absolutely nothing about polemology.
What I think I know is that the background is still the one represented by the words of Burns and Papachelas, a background that cannot fail to condition the exit from this war in the heart of Europe, which is becoming chronic. Perhaps it would not be useless to keep this background in mind, perhaps to talk about it, unless the strategic choice of the West today is to "end it" once and for all with the Russian power by riding on Putin's mistakes (which risk turning out to be tragic) , as even some articles in Foreign Affairs implicitly suggest. Nothing to say, that would be Realpolitik. The question is: would it also be the same for Europe, beyond the statements of Mrs. Ursula von der Leyen (who evidently considers herself a John Fitzgerald Kennedy in a suit), on the fact that “we are all Ukrainians”?
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/come-finira-la-guerra-in-ucraina/ on Sat, 19 Mar 2022 06:25:03 +0000.