Peace is a process. It is practicing the Golden Rule. It is seeking to understand in order to establish mutual understanding.
I am writing to you from of the United States about the results of a journey I have been taking. For some years I have been surrounded by messages telling me that Russia is to be seen as my enemy, that its leaders are evil, and that we must prepare to go to war with Russia. For what it is worth I have declined to accept this messaging and have embarked on a different journey — going to peace with Russia.
What does this mean? Peace is a process. It is practicing the Golden Rule. It is seeking to understand in order to establish mutual understanding. I am writing to summarize what I understand about Russia as a result of this journey. Of course I have not been on this journey alone. I have had compatriots who have also rejected the instructions to consider Russia and her leaders to be “the enemy”. Who are these compatriots? I will mention only a few. There is the late Stephen Cohen whose writings appeared in The Nation magazine, and have now appeared in the memorial edition of the book War With Russia?: From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate.
There are writers whom you can find on the web:
— Ray McGovern, a former CIA agent and founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity;
— Sharon Tennison, founder of Center for Citizen Initiatives;
— Andrey Martyanov, a former Soviet military officer, now a U.S. citizen;
— Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent and U.S. State Department official;
— Scott Ritter, a former weapons inspector;
— Eva Bartlett, a Canadian journalist reporting from the Russian side of the war in Ukraine;
— Joe Lauria, an editor for Consortium News.
Then there are the translations of various speeches and interviews of Russian officials, particularly Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. These translations are available for free online from “Johnson’s Russia List”, a project of The George Washington University.
Now I imagine that some of my friends who are reading this will immediately think to themselves, “Going to peace with Russia??!! Are you mad? Would you have gone to peace with Nazi Germany? Would you have gone to peace with Hitler?” I understand that these associations between Russia and Nazi Germany, and between Putin and Hitler are well established in the minds of many in the U.S. But I ask my reader’s indulgence. Please put this question aside and consider what I have to say.
Since the re-emergence of Russia as a major power in the early 2000’s, we have witnessed a re-emergence of a massive Cold War against Russia in the U.S. mainstream media that has set the stage for our public’s conception of the causes of the current war in Ukraine, and has enlisted the public’s support for U.S./NATO military involvement in this war. A key feature of the Cold War narrative is that what Russia and its leaders have to say is not worthy of consideration. From my point of view, one can agree or disagree with how Russia and its leaders see reality, but to ignore these views entirely and to fail to try to understand the Russian perspective is to fall prey to Cold War programming and all it is designed to achieve. Of course, what I am going to report is my understanding of Russia. I do not claim that it is Russia’s understanding of itself. This report is not an attempt to convince you of the truth. It is an attempt to report my findings, in hopes that it will encourage you to embark on a similar journey, using the peace process to decide for yourself who is who, what is what, and what is to be done.
My Understanding of Russia’s Perspective: The Overall Geopolitical Context
The overall context for Russia involves the fact that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States with a triumphalist attitude has pursued a unipolar world order in which the U.S. makes the rules that everyone else is to obey. Various documents testify to this plan such
as the well known neocon “Project for A New American Century” and Zbigniew Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. The “rules-based order”, of which the United States speaks, is not something that was negotiated or agreed on. It is simply something that is made up by the United States for everyone else to follow. In large part Europe has fallen into line with this U.S. policy, in the process becoming a U.S. vassal. Any country that is unwilling to fall in line is viewed by the U.S. and its allies as an “enemy” or a “threat.”
In the course of the last three decades, in pursuit of world hegemony, the U.S. has abrogated numerous arms control treaties, and along with its NATO partners, has launched a series of wars, particularly in the Middle East and Europe that were in complete disregard for the United Nations Charter and international law. Examples of these wars include the war on Yugoslavia, the War on Iraq, the U.S. intervention into the Syrian civil war, and the War on Libya. All of this occurred within the context of Russia’s initial attempt to join NATO as part of a European wide security arrangement . This initiative was rebuffed by the U.S. The well- documented promises of the Western powers not to expand NATO after the reunification of Germany were brazenly broken by the self-declared “only indispensable nation.”
From Russia’s point of view, none of this had to be. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was possible to develop a new world order based on a principle of international democracy in which each state’s interests and needs would be taken into account. A new security architecture could have been developed, not based on weapons but based on cooperation. But this did not suit the desires of the powers-that-be who were seeking world hegemony.
Ukraine
Before turning to specific events in Ukraine, I must turn to something of which most people in the U.S. are unaware. I am referring to the history of collaboration between U.S. government officials and Nazis dating back to World War II. In The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government, David Talbot’ documents how, against President Roosevelt’s orders, Allen Dulles, later to become head of the CIA, shepherded important German Nazi officials out of Germany and into the United States and Latin American where they served U.S. interests in supporting fascist regimes. Two sources on this topic are an essay by Gerald Sussman, Professor of International Relations at Portland State University, “Ukraine: The CIA’s 75-year-old Proxy”, and an article by Joe Lauria “The Influence of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine”. How must this look to a nation that suffered twenty million deaths fighting Nazi Germany in World War II?
It is in this context that the government of Ukraine was overthrown in a 2014 coup involving U.S. officials, a coup that brought Neo-Nazis into positions of power. Following this coup, Russian ethnic communities that did not accept the new regime came under physical attack from Ukrainian Nazi forces. The Ukrainian government passed laws banning the use of the Russian language in public places.
In Crimea, which had for centuries been part of Russia from the time of Catherine the Great until 1956, the population voted overwhelming to return to Russia, and based on this, Russia reincorporated Crimea as part of the Russian Federation. From the Russian perspective, this was done in conformity with the UN Charter and international law. At this same time, there were calls from the Donbas Republics for Russia to allow them to follow a similar process to that of Crimea, but the Russian government declined these requests and instead attempted to engage in a diplomatic process to reach agreements providing security for the Russian ethnic populations in Ukraine and for Russia itself. It was these diplomatic efforts that led to signed agreements known as the Minsk I and Minsk II accords. In these accords, Germany, France, Ukraine, Russia and the Donbas Republics agreed to a ceasefire, demilitarization of the conflict and changes to the Ukrainian constitution that would provide relative autonomy to the Donbas Republics while they remained a part of the Ukraine nation.
These agreements were never fulfilled by Ukraine. Ukrainian, German, and French officials who were parties to the agreements have subsequently publicly stated that there was never any intention of fulfilling the agreements, and that they were only meant to buy time for Ukraine to increase its armaments. Here is a link to an interview with Andrey Kior, a journalist and resident of Mariupol, describing what life was like for people with fraternal feelings toward Russia starting in 2014.
In December 2021 with mounting tensions in Ukraine, Russia confronted the United States with a set of security demands in the form of a draft treaty. These demands included legally binding agreements that NATO would not expand to Ukraine, and that Ukraine would remain a neutral state with regard to Russia.
Ray McGovern has commented on this critical period as follows:
On Dec. 30, 2021 U.S. President Joe Biden, in a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, assured him that “Washington had no intention of deploying offensive strike weapons in Ukraine.” Against that backdrop, bilateral talks in Geneva to start on January 9, 2022 seemed off to a promising start. The Kremlin clearly thought so. Then Biden changed his mind. The key issue of offensive missiles on Russia’s borders fell off the table. The day after the Dec. 30 Biden-Putin conversation, the Kremlin published a readout that included the following: “The conversation focused on the implementation of the agreement to launch negotiations on providing Russia with legally binding security guarantees, reached during the December 7 [Putin-Biden] video conference to launch negotiations … Vladimir Putin … stressed that the negotiations needed to produce solid legally binding guarantees ruling out NATO’s eastward expansion and the deployment of weapons that threaten Russia in the immediate vicinity of its borders… It was confirmed that the negotiations would take place first in Geneva on January 9–10 … In this context, Joseph Biden emphasized that Russia and the U.S. shared a special responsibility for ensuring stability in Europe and the whole world, and that Washington had no intention of deploying offensive strike weapons in Ukraine. …” After a Feb. 12 telephone conversation between Putin and Biden, Putin aide Yury Ushakov provided the following readout to the media, describing the telephone talk as “a follow-up of sorts” to the Dec. 7 and Dec. 30 conversations. Ushakov: “I want to note straight away that the Russian President responded by saying that Russia was going to carefully study President Biden’s proposals …. He made clear, however, that these proposals did not really address the central, key elements of Russia’s initiatives either with regards to non-expansion of NATO, or non- deployment of strike weapons systems on Ukrainian territory … To these items, we have received no meaningful response….”
What did it mean when … following a Biden-Putin conversation on Feb. 12, 2022 – the Kremlin (Ushakov) lamented “we have received no meaningful response on non-deployment of strike weapons systems on Ukrainian territory”? In my view, Putin saw this as further proof that Biden is not his own man, that someone had changed Biden’s mind; in other words, that Biden himself is…not capable of making a deal.
Having exhausted the diplomatic route, the Donbas Republics and Russia decided to take matters into their own hands. The republics officially declared their independence from the Kiev regime, the Russian Parliament officially recognized these republics as independent, and Russia launched its “Special Military Operation” aimed at demilitarizing and “de-nazifying” Ukraine and at securing the safety of the people of the Donbas and Crimea. The following words of Russian President Vladimir Putin in his speech announcing the Russian “Special Military Operation” express the Russian view of the history that I have recounted:
“It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is approaching our very border. Why is this happening? Where did this insolent manner of talking down from the height of their exceptionalism, infallibility, and all-permissiveness come from? What is the explanation for this contemptuous and disdainful attitude to our interests and absolutely legitimate demands?
“The answer is simple. Everything is clear and obvious. In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union grew weaker and subsequently broke apart… As a result, the old treaties and agreements are no longer effective. Entreaties and requests do not help. Anything that does not suit the dominant state, the powers-that-be, is denounced as archaic, obsolete and useless. At the same time, everything it regards as useful is presented as the ultimate truth and forced on others regardless of the cost, abusively and by any means available. Those who refuse to comply are subjected to strong-arm tactics. What I am saying now does not concern only Russia, and Russia is not the only country that is worried about this. This has to do with the entire system of international relations, and sometimes even U.S. allies. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a redivision of the world, and the norms of international law that developed by that time — and the most important of them, the fundamental norms that were adopted following WWII and largely formalized its outcome — came in the way of those who declared themselves the winners of the Cold War.”
The full text of the speech is here.
International Law and the UN Charter
Before concluding this essay, I want to address another aspect of the Russian perspective. While it is virtually axiomatic in the U.S. mass media that Russia’s military operation in Ukraine is condemned as “illegal” and “in complete violation of international law and the UN Charter”, it is important for the reader to be aware that, again, there is another perspective. Indeed Russian officials have explicitly discussed certain aspects of international law and the UN charter that they believe justify Russia’s actions. The following is an excerpt from a recent press conference by Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, in which he discusses this matter.
Reporter:
“You talked about respect for the UN Charter. What respect for international law were you showing when you sent troops into Ukraine on February 24?”
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov:
“The question of respecting the UN Charter is much broader than your simple question suggests. It may be an easy sell for an average person in the United States, but in front of a serious audience, the approach must be somewhat different….
“The UN Charter is not that big a document. You can read it, if you are interested. It sets forth sovereign equality of states and self-determination of nations, which comes first in the text, as the main principles, along with the territorial integrity of states. The Charter mentions these two principles – self-determination and the territorial integrity of states – as being at the same level. There have been questions as to which of the two comes first and has priority over the other ever since the early days of the United Nations, as soon as the Charter was approved, ratified and came into force. A special procedure was instituted, and all UN members spent several years discussing this issue, along with other matters related to interpreting the Charter.
“Finally, this paved the way for the adoption, in 1970, of the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, which remains in full force and effect to this day. In it, there is an entire section on self-determination saying that this is a universal principle, which means that respecting territorial integrity is a principle that everyone must respect when dealing with countries whose governments comply with the principle of self-determination and represent the interests of all peoples living on the territory in question. Under the Charter, we must respect the territorial integrity of states representing the entire population of their countries.
“A coup against the government happened in Ukraine in 2014 …. The putschists who came to power said they would expel Russians from Crimea. When Crimea and eastern Ukraine refused to obey, the people who came to power illegally after staging a bloody coup, the coup organizers, declared war on them. They went to war against their own people. They burned 48 people alive in Odessa’s Trade Union House. There is video evidence out there for everyone to see. You don’t even have to institute a tribunal. Just look at the footage and hand down a guilty verdict. There are the last names of people firing their guns at civilians trying to save themselves from the fire by jumping through windows. It is all there. Instead, the Ukrainian authorities opened criminal cases against those who perished in the fire. And all the progressives in the international community follow America’s rules by turning a blind eye to this entire situation. Many of the events there constitute war crimes. How can those who came to power be considered a government representing the interests of the entire Ukrainian population within its borders? How can the Poroshenko administration be considered such a government, if he became president thanks to his promise to make peace in Donbas, [and] within a week… started claiming that they would finish the Donbas people off, that their own children would go to schools and kindergartens while children in Donbas would shelter in basements. This was said by the president of the country Donbas belonged to. Did he represent the interests of the people he insulted?
“Some hoped that with Vladimir Zelensky, everything would change. He also came to power as a “president of peace,” implying in every way he [would] … act on behalf of ordinary people…. But in a November 2021 interview …when asked about people living in Donbas, he said that there are people and there are creatures. Earlier, in August 2021, he suggested that all people who live in Ukraine and identify as Russians should get out and go to Russia for the sake of their children and grandchildren. If you tell me now that, with these views and with his actions in general, Vladimir Zelensky represents the interests of the entire population of
Ukraine he wants to see within the borders set in 1991, then perhaps there is not much point in continuing this conversation. But it is the only interpretation recognized by the international court for the relationship between the right to self-determination and respect for territorial integrity….
“I gave you a justification of our actions from the perspective of international law. The Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics could not exist under a government that openly declared them terrorists, savages, subhumans and daily bombed their kindergartens and schools….
“Of course, history will see that justice is served, but international law must not be ignored.”
The entire press conference can be found here.
Conclusion
With the specter of nuclear war looming over the world, today’s international crisis is being compared to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. It is worth remembering that President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev were able to avoid nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban Missile Crisis, because they had previously established a personal private correspondence in which they sought to understand each other’s perspectives and concerns. Following his harrowing experience during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy made a dramatic turn against the Cold War with the Soviet Union and on June 10, 1963, delivered a commencement address at American University on world peace, one of the most important speeches ever given by a U.S. President.
Today, when we do not appear to have leadership in this country that embraces President Kennedy’s wisdom, it is more important than ever that we, people of the United States, return to that speech and use it to help us take up the quest for world peace. Here is are two brief passages from that speech:
“Some say that it is useless to speak of peace or world law or world disarmament – and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must re-examine our own attitudes – as individuals and as a Nation – for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward – by examining his own attitude towards the possibilities of peace, towards the Soviet Union, towards the course of the Cold War and towards freedom and peace here at home….
“We must, therefore, persevere in the search for peace in the hope that constructive changes within the Communist bloc might bring within reach solutions which now seem beyond us. We must conduct our affairs in such a way that it becomes in the Communists’ interest to agree on a genuine peace. And above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy – or of a collective death-wish for the world.”
The full text of President Kennedy’s speech can be found here.