By Georgia Kelly
Editor’s Note: While Georgia Kelly has committed much of her life to the admirable effort of promoting dialogue, discussion and citizen diplomacy to the cause of global peace, this article does not reflect the views of the Sonoma Valley Sun’s Editorial Board. And we feel compelled to take exception to the assertion that the CIA participated in the successful effort “to topple Ukraine’s democratically-elected president in 2014.” We do, however, respect the intention behind this analysis and provide it as another point of view.
The fact that the war in Ukraine still continues today is a travesty. The unnecessary loss of lives, infrastructure and basic necessities of life have been destroyed for an outcome that has probably been predictable from the beginning. There is no justification for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, that’s a given, but there is a need for us to understand why it happened so that we might ascertain how this war could end, how we might lobby for that result, and how such wars could be prevented in the future.
First, there is no “inevitable Ukrainian victory” as mentioned in a previous Sun article. To believe that is one of the things that perpetuates this horror. In March 2022, not long after Russia’s invasion, there were negotiations organized in Belarus and Istanbul between Russia and Ukraine. When British Prime Minister Boris Johnson got wind of the negotiations that seemed to be on track for an agreement, he flew to Turkey to talk Zelensky out of making a deal with Putin, just at the point when a deal was within sight. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who conducted the mediation, attributed the collapse of negotiations to the UK and the U.S.
President Biden opposed the near agreement between the warring parties. How many lives might have been saved if these negotiations continued? Could the war have ended four years ago?
The intervention by Boris Johnson and, at the same time the U.S., promising more aid to Ukraine, but usually not supplying it when needed, kept the war raging and kept Zelensky believing that Ukraine could win the war. That naivete partially reflects the fact that he was an actor, not a politician. The negotiations were scrapped. That Ukraine could win the war has always been a fantasy – i.e., unless the U.S. put troops on the ground in Ukraine and/or started bombing Russia, which would ignite WWIII. That was unlikely to happen.
Sonoma is a sister city to Kaniv, Ukraine and our local sister city organization has been supplying much needed help to the people of Ukraine as it undergoes the hardships and devastation of war. Humanitarian aid is essential. What is also essential for peace activists is to lobby for peace negotiations and an end to this war that is costing the Ukrainian people more and more every day.
In the meantime, the weapons’ manufacturers are making a killing from killing, and too many people are cheering for the underdogs like it’s a football game instead of a war where people are dying.
In the end, Ukraine will cede some territory where a majority of the population is Russian and, while Ukraine will probably become part of the EU, it will not become a NATO state. Just like the U.S. didn’t tolerate Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962 and almost started WWIII over it, Russia will not tolerate NATO troops on its borders.
Part of understanding this war is to also see U.S. history in Ukraine, the CIA’s successful efforts in helping to topple Ukraine’s democratically-elected president in 2014, and the U.S. troops, advisors, USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (CIA front) that were in Ukraine several years prior to that coup. United States interference in countries surrounding Russia goes back decades, and to understand more than “Russia invaded Ukraine,” it’s important to look at the history and deeper details of what has been happening between Russia, the U.S., NATO, and Ukraine since the dissolution of the USSR.
Two former U.S. Defense Secretaries Robert Gates and William Perry warned against attempting to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, that it was a direct provocation to Russia. And, several historians and political experts like Jeffrey Sachs, John Mearsheimer, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Richard Sakwa, Yanis Varoufakis, Chris Hedges, and others, consider this a proxy war between Russia and the U.S., with Ukraine suffering all the consequences.
Remember that Peace Dividend we were promised at the end of the Cold War? Notice how it vanished without a trace? Instead, we got an expansion of the Cold War with NATO galloping across Europe like an unbridled horse. When the USSR dissolved, NATO bases were in 12 countries. But, by 2020, long after the Cold War supposedly ended, NATO was in 32 countries. NATO was a Cold War safeguard. Why were we expanding it after the dissolution of the USSR? With Gorbachev, we had an opportunity to co-create the promised Peace Dividend. Gorbachev was a visionary with the right instincts for a collaborative and peaceful world-order. But he was rebuffed by the U.S. that considered itself “the winner” of the Cold War and, therefore, entitled to set the next agenda. Russia dismantled the Warsaw Pact and today, in contrast to the 800 U.S. military bases located throughout the world, Russia maintains fewer than 30 foreign bases. These are the kind of details that provide a wider lens on the war.
As for the particular crimes of war, all war is a crime against humanity. War is the big atrocity that makes all the specific atrocities possible. All war is a horror that kills and maims innocent civilians as well as soldiers. All wars include rape and atrocities. Recently, I read Barbara Tuckman’s The March of Folly and The Guns of August, two incredibly well-researched books that detail the horrors that were unleashed in wars from Troy to Vietnam. They paint pictures that are almost impossible to read in their graphic details and highlight decisions that are equally senseless in their sometimes willful stupidity. It becomes clear that the people who plan the wars are not usually the ones fighting and dying in them. But, it is also apparent that there are always opportunities to stop and even prevent wars, but too often they are ignored, rebuffed, and usually accompanied by macho posturing or caving to peer pressure. The lack of thoughtful intelligent communication in dealing with adversaries is too often bypassed for a burst of emotionally-charged rhetoric and bellicose bumbling. We need political leaders who can rise above this knee-jerk reactionary hubris.
For the war to end in Ukraine, skilled negotiators need to be part of the meetings. The U.S., under this administration, has no skilled negotiators to send, and most of the people who are sent in as negotiators have neither the skills nor experience to facilitate a conclusion to this war. The unfortunate part is that many people have been trained in conflict negotiation, but they don’t seem to be the ones invited to do the work where their expertise is most needed. Also, the word “negotiation” has fallen out of our lexicon like a highly offensive expletive. As with Trump and Biden before him, that word has not been part of our foreign policy vocabulary for a long time. And, on the rare occasion when it is used, it tends to define demands, not points for negotiation. Negotiations prioritize issues and interests, not demands and ultimatums.
After World War I, there was an attempt to ban war completely. The Kellogg-Briand Pact, written by U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, was meant to outlaw war as a method of resolving disputes. It was signed by 15 nations in 1928 and was eventually signed by 64 nations. And, though it has been ignored for decades, it has been considered an important document for informing international law ever since its creation. And, oddly enough, the Kellogg-Briand Pact has never been rescinded and is still in effect. Maybe it’s time – nearly 100 years later – to revisit this idea of making war internationally illegal. That would take a lot of international cooperation and, for starters, voting out the warmongers and the representatives that take cover in supporting the majority who beat the drums of war. It also means taking on the military-industrial-corporate war complex. No small task.
For a deeper exploration of the Russia/Ukraine war, I will interview Richard Sakwa, PhD in Russian and Eastern European history and politics and emeritus professor at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK, on Thursday, March 19 at 11 a.m. on zoom. It will also be recorded.
Sakwa’s earlier book, “The Lost Peace: How the West Failed to Prevent a Second Cold War,” covers much more of this territory, but his latest book, which we will discuss, is “The Russo-Ukraine War: Follies of Empire.” Details and registration: www.praxispeace.org/events
Georgia Kelly is the founder and director of Praxis Peace Institute and former professional musician (harpist, composer, recording artist). She organizes educational programs for Praxis as well as conferences and seminars abroad.
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