Ukraine Archives - Invent the Future

Nato’s proxy war highlights urgent need for a multipolar future

The following is a slightly updated version of an article by Carlos Martinez in the Global Times, published on 22 February 2023.

A year ago, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin met in Beijing at start of the Winter Olympics, issuing a joint statement that called on the West to “abandon the ideologised approaches of the cold war”. The statement expressed their shared opposition to the further expansion of Nato and emphasised the need for “long-term legally binding security guarantees in Europe”.

President Xi said the two countries were “working together to bring to life true multilateralism.” A year later, with the horrifying proxy war between Russia and NATO dragging on, the people of the world are living – and dying – with the consequences of the US and its allies’ stubborn refusal to join the path of multipolarity.

With the benefit of hindsight, the Ukraine crisis has acquired a certain tragic inevitability. Russia had made its red lines perfectly clear over the course of many years: that Ukraine must never become part of Nato; that Nato’s expansion must end; that Ukraine must never be allowed to be used as a launching pad for war on Russia; and that the national rights of the Russian-speaking peoples of Eastern Ukraine must be respected.

As John Wojcik wrote in the left-wing US journal People’s World in January 2022, what happens in Ukraine is of critical importance to the survival of Russia. “From Napoleon to the Kaiser to Hitler, Russia has been invaded too many times from Europe, and it is understandably determined to maintain a militarily non-aligned buffer zone on its border.”

It was within the West’s power to prevent the current war, and it remains within the West’s power to put a stop to it now. Unfortunately the leading Western power, the US, has only a marginal interest in helping to bring about peace in Europe. If the US wanted peace, it could have supported Ukraine in adopting a path of military neutrality and building friendly and mutually-beneficial relations with both East and West. But the US privileges hegemony over peace, and has therefore constantly meddled in Ukraine with a view to exploiting its people and geography to project imperial power against Russia.

US leverages Ukraine crisis for NATO expansion, to push Europe further into chaos

The following article by Carlos Martinez, on the aggressive and expansionist nature of NATO and the importance of dismantling the military architecture of the New Cold War, is a slightly expanded version of an article originally published by Global Times on 15 April 2022.

NATO was formed in 1949, just four years after the end of World War II, to provide military infrastructure for the US-led Cold War alliance. Its existence allowed the positioning of American troops and weaponry in Europe, ready for rapid deployment against the Soviet Union and the newly formed People’s Democracies in Eastern and Central Europe.

NATO’s purported raison d’être was to protect its members from Soviet aggression and expansion. Yet when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Warsaw Pact dissolved in 1991, there was no serious discussion about disbanding NATO. Indeed NATO only became more aggressive.

In 1999, NATO forces launched an illegal bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, bypassing the UN Security Council and committing numerous war crimes. Hospitals, schools and market places were targeted, and depleted uranium bombs were dropped. Notoriously, even the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was attacked, resulting in the death of three Chinese journalists.

Between 2001 and 2021, NATO led a sustained assault on Afghanistan, causing tens of thousands of civilian casualties, holding back the country’s development, and achieving precisely nothing of value for the Afghan people.

In 2003, NATO countries launched an illegal war on Iraq, resulting in the death of an estimated 1.2 million Iraqis. Then in 2011, stretching the definition of a ‘no-fly zone’ beyond the limits of imagination, NATO led a regime change operation in Libya, leaving the country in ruin and chaos.

Nobody can seriously argue that NATO is fundamentally defensive in character. It is an aggressive, nuclear alliance designed to enforce US hegemony.

Responsibility for Ukraine crisis lies in Washington and Kyiv, not Moscow

The following article by Carlos Martinez, giving an overview of the causes of the escalating crisis in Ukraine, was originally published by CGTN on 26 February 2022.

Contrary to the superficial analysis in much of the Western media, the escalating crisis in Ukraine is not a product of any psychopathology on the part of Vladimir Putin. Nor has it emerged out of thin air. It represents the culmination of a storm that has been brewing for many years.

There are two key components of this situation that are crucial to understand.

First is the issue of Russia’s security. During talks with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and his team about the reunification of Germany in 1989-90, Western leaders made firm commitments that NATO would not seek to extend its borders eastward and that Russia’s legitimate security concerns would be taken seriously. Yet in the event, as Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying has commented, “the U.S. drove five waves of NATO expansion eastward all the way to Russia’s doorstep and deployed advanced offensive strategic weapons,” in a clear breach of the commitments made by George HW Bush and Helmut Kohl. Since the 1990s, 14 states in Central and Eastern Europe have joined NATO.