By Melvin GOODMAN
The Biden administration and the mainstream media are trumpeting a Russian effort to create allies in Latin America, America’s backyard. This becomes part of the U.S. propaganda campaign versus Moscow. Last week, journalism spokesman for the Department of State (DoS), Ned Rate, gratuitously invoked the Monroe Doctrine versus Russian involvement in Latin America, cautioning that the United States would “respond promptly and decisively.” In so doing, Price inadvertently and implicitly pled the concern of how Russian President Vladimir Putin’s defense of its western border differs from U.S. hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.
Initially, some details. The mainstream media, especially the New York Timesand the Washington Post,are exaggerating Russian diplomatic efforts in South America, explaining typical diplomatic activity as a crazy campaign to increase impact in Washington’s backyard. In the only proof theTimesmight produce, the short article said that Putin “spoke” to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega for the first time given that 2014; “called” the leaders of Cuba and Venezuela; “hosted” the president of Argentina; and “arranged” a conference with Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro. The Timesconcluded that these contacts were evidence of Putin’s efforts to “develop on ties that return to the Cold War and clarified the worldwide nature of his ambitions.” Overall boilerplate!!
A day later, the Post— playing catch-up– castigated Bolsonaro for bringing “Latin America’s biggest and most effective country into a welcome with one of the United States’ biggest foreign enemies.” Like the Times, the Post reviled Putin’s “gambit to forge more powerful relationships in Latin America, far from Russia’s traditional sphere of influence.” The Postconcluded that Putin was successfully “outflanking the West’s attempts to separate his country.” U.S. authorities have contributed to this propaganda campaign with charges of Russian online influence operations to sow discontent in South America. Once again, no evidence was produced.
In distorting typical diplomatic activity that presented no danger to the United States, the mainstream media was bring propaganda water for the Biden administration. But there was one relevant aspect of this activity as an outcome of the Times‘ efforts to create out of entire cloth the possibility of Putin seizing the day to provide “military assistance” or release “weapons in the area.” The Timesincorrectly linked Putin’s individual diplomacy to the possibility of putting “military infrastructure” in Venezuela or Cuba. No proof of such activity was offered; there is none and Latin American experts sneered at the idea of Russia releasing weapons throughout the region.
Nevertheless, this conjecture showed up in a DoS press conference and Rate, rather of evading the issue, threatened a swift and definitive U.S. reaction. In so doing, he unlocked to a conversation of whether Putin had legitimate factors for wished to manage the release of contemporary Western weapons, consisting of a sophisticated air defense system in Poland and Romania, where there are U.S. bases.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken pled some concerns of his own on February 18, when he spoke with the United Nations about the evidence of Russian intrusion strategies. Senior European officials have actually revealed frustration with Blinken’s remarks since he didn’t share specific intelligence, not to mention sources and approaches. After all, it was nearly twenty years back– February 2003– when another secretary of state, Colin Powell, made a case for war against Iraq by offering 2 lots incorrect claims concerning Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Powell deliberately put two leading U.S. intelligence officials behind him– Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte and CIA director George Tenet, who played significant functions in the politicization of intelligence regarding Iraq. Most Likely Blinken and CIA director William Burns, the former deputy secretary of state, keep in mind the setback to U.S. reliability from the politicization of intelligence and the deceiving speech from an as soon as reputable American authorities.
I’ve never ever been sure about the lessons of history, however since we just have the history of the past to go on, it may be a great time to reprise U.S. historic reactions to foreign intervention in the Western Hemisphere. The Cuban missile crisis is well known to most. Less well known is the German campaign in 1916-1917 to entice the Mexican government into a war with the United States. German Foreign Secretary Alfred Zimmermann sent his telegram to Mexico with the support of the American embassy in Berlin because of Britain’s control of cable television traffic in Europe. The “Zimmermann telegram” ended up being a significant component In President Woodrow Wilson’s address to an unique session of Congress in April 1917 to require a statement of war.
Prior to we mindlessly expanded NATO twenty-five years earlier, it would have been handy if the Clinton administration had kept in mind the history of the Monroe Doctrine in addition to the history of Russian and Soviet efforts to safeguard their sensitive borders in the European theatre and Central Asia. Ironically, the Cold War started to recede in the early 1980s when the United States deployed Pershing-II and cruise rockets in Europe, but the Soviets reacted with diplomacy rather than releases of their own. The short time-to-target Pershing II presented a serious vulnerability problem for Soviet strategic forces and its early caution systems.
The United States (and the world) were lucky that a Soviet leadership– not just Mikhail Gorbachev however Yuri Andropov too– recognized the need to end the rocket race in Europe, and accept an arms control treaty that eliminated intermediate-range rockets in the European theatre. The Kremlin might have added to their own SS-20 force of intermediate-range rockets, but they picked not to. The INF Treaty to eliminate intermediate-range rockets led to the resignations of two essential Cold Warriors, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle.
Alternatively, the release of Western weapons in East Europe has produced the conditions for a renewed Cold War in between the United States and Russia. Putin has duty for encircling a helpless Ukraine with unimaginable force, but the United States is accountable for repudiating an understanding in 1990 to resist releasing military force in East Europe and expanding a NATO company with former members of the Warsaw Pact along with former Soviet republics. Our company believe that Putin is seeking to reverse the European security order with his policy of military browbeating. The Russians think that we ruined the European security order with the expansion of NATO, which threatens to place the fifth NATO state on Russia’s border.
If war occurs, there will be a great deal of blame to appoint to both sides. Like World War I, nobody really wants war in Europe, but no statesman has emerged to invoke diplomacy to keep the peace.