The Ukraine War is effectively a US war against Russia set in Ukraine. Often referred to as a US-NATO proxy war, the member states of the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are not monolithic. While NATO member countries, excluding the United States and Canada, almost overlap with European Union (EU) member countries, Germany, a defeated country in World War II, has taken a different stance toward the former Soviet Union and Russia, which NATO confronts. Willy Brandt, the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who became Prime Minister in 1969, apologized for the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and launched an Eastern policy to reconcile with the Soviet Union (Russia). It aimed at building a pan-European security system, including Russia. This led to intense conflict with the neoconservative-led United States, which was promoting the concept of hegemony over Russia and Eurasia (Brzezinski Plan) under the post-Cold War solitary hegemony of the United States. The war in Ukraine is also an attack by the United States and Great Britain against Germany, which has become the leader of the EU, which aims for peace throughout Europe, including Russia. The post-war German government has been placed under the strict control of the United States and has paved the way for a relationship with the United States in contrast to the Japanese government, which has been single-mindedly subordinate to the United States. Here is a hint for contemplating how Japan should be in East Asia in the third period of modern Japan (2023-), which this blog raises.
<Note 1> For the Brzezinski Initiative, see the article published on March 3, 2022, "Putin's Cornered Brzezinski Initiative: The Ukraine Crisis and the U.S. Conquest of Eurasia."
<Note 2> This article is a continuation of the November 8, 2022 article, "The Shock of the German Prime Minister's Visit to China: Hollowing out the G7 and Promoting Participation in the China-Russia Led New Eurasia Initiative."
■ Merkel's setback
Angara Merkel, leader of the center- right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party , who was Germany's Chancellor from 2005 to 2021, has embraced the social democratic party (SPD) 's basic tenet of Brandt's administration : Wandel durch Annäherung . Inherited. The Merkel government pursued good relations with Russia by advocating the Look East Policy, Annäherung durch Verflechtung. Based on this, it has also improved relations with the European Union (EU) and Russia.
The reunification of Germany in 1990 under Helmut Kohl's CDU government dramatically changed relations between Russia and Germany . Chancellor Kohl, who was convinced that the reunification of East and West Germany would never have been realized without Gorbachev's reform policy , established the NATO Russia Council as part of the NATO reforms, making use of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ( OSCE) and establishing Russia as its framework. It tried to build a pan-European security system by incorporating it into The NATO-Russia Council was created by the 2002 Rome Accords under the Schröder SPD government. This attempt revived Brandt's vision, which was unfeasible during the Cold War.
Merkel's government, which took office in 2005, gave further life to the Kohl concept with the Look East Policy "Approach through Engagement". In other words, Merkel's policy aimed to build a pan-European security system by incorporating Russia into the OSCE framework advocated by Kohl. This is the reason why Merkel was called "Kohl's daughter".
The Merkel administration showed its first honeymoon with Putin and Russia at home and abroad, and put the United States in check. Merkel worked with French President Emmanuel Macron to avoid a crisis in Ukraine until shortly before her departure at the end of 2021. According to German media, at the EU summit on June 23-24, 2021, the German Chancellor told the leaders of member states that "silence will not help solve problems" and " even during the Cold War, we talked to each other." , insisted on holding an EU-Russia summit. However, the former Soviet bloc Eastern European member countries strongly resisted and the persuasion was frustrated.
The former Soviet bloc Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, the former Yugoslavia Slovenia joined the EU in 2004, Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, and Croatia in 2013 . Eleven of the 28 EU member states are former communist Eastern European countries. Anti-Russian sentiment is prevalent in many former Soviet bloc UE member states.
Germany's future task is "European tasks and peace should be solved and achieved by Europe itself." It is the refusal of the United States to act as the leader of NATO and interfere by joining the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ( OSCE). Efforts to eliminate U.S. interference can be seen notably in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas, which is a member of 10 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean , and the African Union, where the U.S. has begun to oppose China's approach. It is now the trend of the world.
[Pictured ] In May 2018, the German-Russian summit was held in Sochi, a resort town near Crimea on Russia's Black Sea. President Putin greeted Chancellor Angela Merkel and handed her a bouquet of flowers.
Their friendly expressions symbolized the German-Russian relations of the time. Following the February 2014 Ukrainian coup that ousted the pro-Russian president and Russia's annexation of Crimea in March, the West imposed sanctions on Russia, but the United States and the EU, especially Germany, did not keep pace. According to the results of a March 2014 opinion poll conducted by the German magazine Der Spiegel, 54% of respondents said that the annexation of Crimea should be allowed. In a survey conducted by the public broadcaster ARD, 49% of respondents said that Germany should take a position between the West and Russia, and 45% said that it should be united with the West.
■Scholz 's anguish
Merkel's successor, SPD leader Scholz, formed a coalition government with the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats. Robert Habeck and Annalena Beerbock, co-leaders of the Green Party, who are critical of their energy dependence on Russia, are appointed as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, respectively. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 , Germany decided to provide weapons to Ukraine, which it had previously refused, and announced that it would increase its defense budget to NATO levels. In a televised speech on May 8, 2022, the anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany, Prime Minister Scholz said, "I am convinced that Mr. Putin cannot win the war." and showed a stance of fully cooperating with the sanctions policy against Russia led by the United States and Britain.
Under such circumstances, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the core of the ruling coalition, was attacked as the leader of the German pro-Russian faction. Merkel's predecessor, former Chancellor Schroeder of the SPD, who is close to Putin , said that "we should not cut ties with Russia" even after the invasion of Ukraine, and remained at several Russian energy company executives. In May 2022, the German House of Representatives Budget Committee decided to ban Schröder from using parliamentary offices, the European Parliament resolved to impose sanctions on him, and the SPD also imposed punishment on Schröder.
Nevertheless, after the invasion, he made it clear that he visited Russia in March and July of the same year and had a meeting with President Putin, saying, "The Kremlin wants a solution through negotiation." Schroeder also filed a lawsuit against the Bundestag's action with the administrative court in Berlin, calling it illegal. The mainstream faction that has led Germany's Eastern diplomacy should be growing distrustful of the United States and Britain, saying, " We continued to contain Russia and cornered it in Ukraine ." Schroeder's series of words and actions can also be taken as encouragement for the current prime minister, Scholz.
When Schroeder was prime minister, he advocated an independent foreign policy, the "Der deutsche Weg". During the 2003 Iraq War, he declared to the United States, "It is hard to recognize that this is a war in self-defense. I will not participate in the attack on Iraq." Schröder formed the “Berlin-Paris-Moscow Axis” through close relations with French Prime Minister Chirac and Putin, who were opposed to the Iraq War. The Nord Stream natural gas pipeline project between Russia and Germany is a symbol of the honeymoon period between Germany and Russia.
For Chancellor Scholz, former Chancellor Schroeder, who has been criticized by anti-Russian forces, was SPD 's predecessor prime minister. In November 2022, Scholz visited China as if to challenge the United States and Britain, suggesting a stance of reconciliation with China-Russia-led Neo-Eurasianism. Chancellor Scholz of Germany, the G7 presidency , arrived in Beijing during the G7 Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Münster, northwestern Germany. It was unheard of. He told Xi Jinping that he would never cut off supply chains with China, demonstrating Germany's stance of distancing itself from the US-led policy of containment of China and Russia . This seemed like the best counterattack to Washington.
■ Putin's speech 16 years ago
When Putin took office in 2000, relations between Russia and the United States and Britain experienced a temporary consolidation. In 1998, when President Yeltsin was in office, the United States invited Russia to participate in a summit meeting of major countries, turning the G7 into the G8, encouraged Russia to join the World Trade Organization (WHO), and invited Putin to join NATO. However, Russia's stance toward the United States changed dramatically in January 2007 when the Pentagon began formal negotiations with the Czech and Polish governments on the pretext of threats from Iran and North Korea over the deployment of the United States' missile defense (MD) system. The missile was clearly aimed at Russia.
A month later, at the Munich Security Conference in February of the same year , President Putin delivered a speech severely criticizing the United States. The speech pointed at unilateral U.S. hegemony and was directed at the highly militant U.S. neoconservatives. The neoconservatives, who were at the height of their prosperity at the time, led by Vice President Jack Cheney, who was said to be the shadow president, recognized that ``the United States, which has become the only superpower, has transcended international rules,'' and viewed it as a threat to the United States. In order to prevent the rise of its rivals, it has launched a policy of using military force without hesitation. The gist of Putin's speech was, " We do not accept the unipolar system of the United States . Its actions are not a means of settling disputes at all."
The “Berlin-Paris-Moscow Axis” against the US 2003 war in Iraq, which Putin , in concert with Germany and France, violated international law, is upheld, and Chancellor Merkel invited Putin to the meeting. In the midst of the Ukraine war, the US government is currently "interpreting" this Putin speech as "a sign of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, nonsense." However, it has been handed down as a memorable speech in Germany, China, non-aligned countries, and the third world. (Putin's Munich Speech 2007 - Bing video)
The sharp point was the United States' disregard for the United Nations and its violation of international law.
“We are witnessing an increasing disregard for the fundamental principles of international law (by the United States, especially in the Iraq War), and independent legal norms are, in fact, in the legal system of a nation. A nation, and of course, the United States first and foremost, is encroaching upon its borders in every sense of the word, by imposing economic, political, cultural , and educational policies on other nations. There is."
In the speech as a whole, (1) the United States has become the sole center of the world after the Cold War and threatens lasting peace, (2) a system in which sovereignty is centralized in the United States cannot be called democratic, and (3) the use of military force is permitted under the agreement of the United Nations. NATO and the EU also have decision-making power (4) NATO expansion is an act of provocation, a new wall to replace the Berlin Wall .
During the question and answer session after the speech, he was asked, "Isn't the expansion of NATO the (Eastern European) democratic countries themselves choosing? " 2) It is not democracy when one country is influencing another country The National Fund for Democracy, which is said to be the second CIA, has flowed abundantly into the NGOs of the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, and has violently protested against the development of pro-American and democratization movements.
What is the reality of Putin's " increasing disregard for the basic principles of international law (by the United States)" and "violation of national borders in every sense"? As Eisenhower expressed his concern in his January 1961 farewell speech, the military-industrial complex began to take off on its own after World War II. It refers to the fact that repeated attempts have been made to “destroy the anti-American regime” and convert to a pro-American regime under the name.
Post-World War II America's behind-the-scenes foreign activities can be described as subversion and sabotage of the anti-American nation. The 1953 military coup in Iran that overthrew the Mossadegh government, which nationalized the oil industry and eliminated the oil majors; the 1973 military coup in Chile that overthrew the Allende government ; , the 2011 destruction of the Gaddafi regime in Libya due to NATO military intervention , the 2014 Ukrainian coup, and so on. In the backyard and Central and South America, it is normalizing coup attempts to overthrow the US regime in cooperation with the military department of the country concerned.
The unilateral hegemony of the United States and the rise of the neoconservatives spurred this, and Brzezinski's vision that "a non-Eurasian state (the United States) will manage Eurasia for the first time" came to the fore. In the 2000s, Putin Russia became the target of sabotage.
An April 10, 2021 article published by China's state-run Xinhua News Agency pointed out the history of US aggression abroad.
“ The U.S. act of using foreign force under the pretext of ``humanitarian intervention'' not only claimed the lives of many military personnel, but also caused extremely serious civilian casualties and property damage, resulting in a serious humanitarian disaster. According to rough statistics, the United States initiated 201 of the 248 armed conflicts that occurred in 153 regions around the world from the end of World War II to 2001. The United States also initiated proxy wars. They frequently interfered in other countries by supporting the CCP, inciting rebellion, assassinations, providing arms and ammunition, and fostering anti-government armed groups, causing serious damage to the social stability and public security of those countries.
■ Putin's Question, British Foreign Minister's Sophistry
The next point in the speech was a warning against NATO's eastern expansion.
“It is clear that the expansion of NATO has nothing to do with modernizing the alliance itself or ensuring European security. On the contrary, it is a serious provocation that undermines the level of mutual trust. And what happened to the guarantees given by Western partners after the Warsaw Pact was dissolved?” “Werner, NATO Secretary General , May 17, 1990. said in Brussels , `` The fact that we do not deploy NATO forces outside German territory gives the Soviet Union an undeniable security.'' Where is the guarantee?"
Three countries ( Poland , the Czech Republic , and Hungary ) joined NATO in 1999, seven countries ( Slovakia , Romania , Bulgaria , the Baltics, and Slovenia ) in 2004, and two countries ( Albania and Croatia ) in 2009. It was followed by Montenegro in 2017 and North Macedonia in 2020 . All of the former Warsaw Pact member states that confronted NATO during the Cold War were drawn into NATO, with the exception of the former Soviet Union member states (Russia, Ukraine , Moldova , Georgia , Belarus , etc.).
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, in 1990, at the Six-Party Talks between East and West Germany, the United States, Britain, France, and Russia toward the unification of Germany, then U.S. Secretary of State Baker said, " I will guarantee that NATO will not expand to the east. '' he said. However, this remark to Gorbachev was not included in the official agreement.
Successive U.S. administrations have completely denied that there is no agreement on non-expansion of NATO to the East. Even if the Russian side, which has records of the talks , countered that “Secretary Baker promised not to expand NATO even one millimeter eastward,” Washington simply dismissed it as saying, “There is no record of such an agreement.”
The following remarks by British Foreign Secretary Wallace in January 2021 represent the sophistry of the United States and Britain regarding NATO expansion.
“ NATO is a defensive alliance based on Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. … If there is no military attack, there is no need to use military force. We simply responded to the demands of the countries.” (Ben Wallace, “ An article by the Defense Secretary on the situation in Ukraine ”, Ministry of Defense , January 17, 2022)
However, it goes without saying that the formation of an attack system against enemy bases in the name of Japan's exclusive defense and counterattack capability is an example, and the defense system is the reverse of the offensive system. As mentioned above, the deployment of missile defense ( MD ) systems to Poland and the Czech Republic in 2007 arose, and the Georgian War of 2008, which was the prelude to the Ukraine War, can be said to be a battle between the Georgian military, which was raised by the United States, and Russia . Moreover , NATO has carried out military interventions in the Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict , the Kosovo conflict , the Macedonian conflict , the Afghanistan conflict , and the 2011 Libyan civil war . It is only natural for Russia to be wary of NATO's eastern expansion.
The establishment of the NATO Russia Council and the invitation of Russia to participate in NATO were the result of the efforts of successive German administrations after Brandt to incorporate Russia into the pan-European security system. NATO's eastward expansion was influenced not only by the will of new entrants, but also by the United States' desire to exclude the United States from the European region and its dislike of German hegemony. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 gave Washington the perfect opportunity to sanction not only Russia but also Germany, which has been attempting to make peace with Europe without the United States.
NATO, which was formed in 1948 by the United States and Britain , can be said to have returned to the starting point of its formation, symbolized by the words `` to draw in the United States, to shut out Russia, and to suppress Germany (the first secretary-general, General Hastings Ismay) .
■The madness of US neoconservatives
<Note: The following is a partial quote from an article on US neoconservatives (neoconservatives), such as the article published on April 16, 2022, " The madness of the neoconservatives and the revolutionary theory of the new left change the world with the use of force by the elite's leadership. ">
The established media in the US, Europe, and Japan report daily that the war in Ukraine is the work of Putin's madness. Is that so? No matter how you look at it , “the Ukraine war is the result of neoconservative madness.”
Let us pay attention to Robert Kagan's book "OF PARADISE AND POWER America and Europe in the New World Order", which was published in conjunction with the outbreak of the Iraq War in 2003, by Robert Kagan, a leading American neoconservative . Bearing in mind Germany and France, which strongly opposed the Iraq War, Kagan declared that "Europe is headed for a 'postmodern paradise,' and America will use force."
" With the end of the Cold War, Europe has lost interest in military power and is moving beyond the world of power to its own world of laws and norms, international negotiations and international cooperation. After the end of history. A paradise of peace and prosperity to come, the ideal envisioned by the eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant in Forever Peace.In contrast, America struggles in a world where history never ends. In the world of war of all against all, as discussed by the seventeenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, international law and rules are unreliable, guaranteeing security and free order. We are using force in a world where maintaining and using military force is still essential to defending and expanding the United States."
For the neoconservatives, the end of the Cold War was not the beginning of eternal peace. The world is still in the midst of a constant battle of forces clashing against each other. Therefore , the United States, the only superpower that has become the sole hegemonic power, is not bound by existing international rules . The collective security system advocated by the United Nations, organized by the victorious powers of World War II, is not functioning, and they will use force to build a new world order based on the rules set by the United States .
In 2014, Kagan's wife, then- U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Nuland , led the coup d'état that overthrew the pro-Russian Yanukovych government . She was under the command of then-Vice President Biden from the White House . As Germany and France stood in the way of the US-led coup d'état, she was recorded in a wiretapped phone call as saying, "Fuck the EU."
Beginning with Iraq in 2003, neoconservatives have forced anti-government armed groups to wage proxy wars in Libya, Yemen, Syria, and elsewhere in order to overthrow anti-American and socialist regimes that are close to Russia. Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria were plastered as the "Arab Spring ." This was intended to prevent the rise of the Libyan-led African Union (AU), which sought to have its own common currency by attempting a drastic restructuring of the power map in the Middle East led by the United States and with Israel at its core.
In Iraq alone, 500,000 to 600,000 civilians were involved. Ukraine is at the center of the Arab Spring and the color revolutions in the former Soviet bloc, such as Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. A series of wars led by US neoconservatives have killed millions of non-combatants.
Sharing the universal values of "freedom and democracy, human rights, and the rule of law." This is the front sign of the US G7 . Their deception reaches its peak here.
In February 1992, the New York Times reported that it had obtained the final draft of the "National Defense Planning Guidance" prepared by the Department of Defense, with the headline "U.S. Government Plans to Prevent the Emergence of New Great Powers in the Post-Cold War." The draft, which is said to have been drafted mainly by Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz, stated that (1) the United States, which became the sole superpower after the collapse of the Soviet Union, should
prevent It included guidelines such as maintaining enormous military power and constructive power to the extent that it would not accept any challenger, and (3) conducting independent military action if it was found that this coalition was not functioning adequately.
This guideline, which preceded Kagan's thought, can be read as a declaration to ignore international law, including the United Nations Charter , for the sake of U.S. unilateral hegemony, and to crush all forces hostile to the U.S. with enormous military power. These American neoconservatives can be said to be the “demons of the modern world.” In 2007 Putin , worried about the fate of neoconservative madness in Munich, was cornered in Ukraine .
Western media cover their eyes with the madness that covers this modern world. They are too cunning, too.
■The Minsk Agreement: Merkel's Confession
Despite many denials in the Western media, the mutual trust between Putin and Merkel has been seen as unparalleled. However, in November 2022, Merkel told the leading German newspaper Die Zeit and the weekly Der Spiegel: " Ukraine in 2014/15 is not the Ukraine of today . Putin At that time, Ukraine could easily be subdued." "The two Minsk agreements of 2014/15 (giving high autonomy to the two eastern Russian-populated provinces) were an attempt to give Ukraine time. " It was clear to everyone that the military was frozen, that the issue was not resolved, but that gave Ukraine precious time . "
Regarding this remark, Putin said on December 9, ``To be honest, it was a completely unexpected event for me. "I have always proceeded on the premise that the leaders of the Federal Republic acted with integrity towards us," he said.
But Putin did not say that he was deceived by Germany and France, which guaranteed the Minsk agreements. "It's an unexpected event. It's a disappointing result," he said softly, according to Russian media. "Germany and France bear moral and material responsibility for what is happening in Ukraine," said Russian Foreign Ministry and parliamentary sources . I have to,” said a rather strong voice. Former Chancellor Angela Merkel's remarks to leading German newspapers and weekly magazines do not indicate hostility toward Russia.
(Pictured) German, French and Russian leaders meet in Paris on December 9, 2019.
It was the meeting of the four Normandy nations (Germany, France , Russia, and Russia) aimed at settling the failed Minsk Agreement 1, which Washington raged at, saying that it was “excluding the United States .” Starting with the meeting held in France in October 2015, a quadrilateral meeting was held in what was called the "Normandy" format, with the participation of the leaders and foreign ministers of Germany, Russia, and Ukraine . The agreement, called Minsk Agreement 2, which replaces Minsk Agreement 1, will be signed in Minsk, Belarus on February 11, 2015.
An agreement intended to end the Donbass conflict in eastern Ukraine was signed by Ukraine and Russia , brokered by France and Germany , under the supervision of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The deal also included a "special status" granting broad autonomy to two regions in eastern Ukraine where pro-Russian militants sought independence, but Ukraine did not honor it. He continued to sabotage both the former Poroshenko government and the current Zelensky government. It has been said that the intention of the United States is behind it.
How should we read the true meaning of Merkel's remarks?
For the time being, it should be read from the harsh energy situation in Germany and the EU member countries, which have faced a harsh winter.
Before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Germany accounted for 55% of its natural gas imports from Russia in 2020, compared with about 40% for the EU as a whole at the end of 2021. Since the military invasion, Russia has severely cut gas supplies from the Nordstream natural gas pipeline to Germany. It has caused energy prices to rise and supply insecurity.
Nord Stream experienced a major gas leak in September 2022. Swedish authorities concluded that it was sabotage by someone. Under these circumstances, Germany and the EU are trying to secure liquefied natural gas (LNG) produced in the United States and the Middle East, aiming to break away from dependence on Russia for energy.
Germany's true intention is that it cannot provoke Washington any more to survive the winter by relying on LNG imports from the United States. The Russian side should also understand that and accept Merkel's remarks.
Gorbachev's idea of a "common European home" proposed by Gorbachev at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France in July 1987 will never be abandoned.
dpatopbilder epa04614801 Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) German Chancellor Angela Merkel (2-L), French President Francois Hollande (2-R) and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (R) pose for the media during the Ukrainian crisis talks in Normandy format in Minsk , Belarus, 11 February 2015. EPA/TATYANA ZENKOVICH / POOL +++(c) dpa - Bildfunk+++
In a photo taken shortly after the Minsk Accord 2 was signed, you can see Merkel's expression worrying about a emaciated Putin. And the truth of the matter seems to be encapsulated in the intimidating attitude of Ukrainian President Poroshenko, who threatens French President Francois Hollande on behalf of Washington...
<Regarding the Minsk Agreement, see the March 2022 article “ Ukraine Fighting for the United States: Germany and France are Trapped and Destroyed”>