Putin, in his movement of troops into the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, together with his strategic air attacks on Ukrainian military and command and control facilities, has followed more or less exactly the same military play book adopted by NATO when it attacked Serbia, Iraq, and Libya. As I set out in opposing those earlier military interventions by NATO, they would inevitably be used by Russia, as models and justifications of its own military adventures, and that is what is now being seen. Having opposed the earlier military adventures of NATO, socialists can, with full justification, condemn Putin's military adventure. The same cannot be said for NATO, or its liberal and social-imperialist apologists.
In the 1980's, the US financed Osama Bin Laden, via Pakistan, to launch a war against the soviet backed government in Afghanistan that had been seeking to modernise the country, introducing the education of girls, development of the economy, removal of various forms of oppression imposed by the landlords and clergy etc. Having established these links with Bin Laden, the US then used him as go-between to establish links with the Kosovan Liberation Army. The KLA were a bunch of nasty gangsters, whose main claim to fame was their involvement in human organ harvesting and trafficking. They were a pretty rag-tag, ineffective bunch until, via this link, the US was able to provide them with arms, finance and training.
The purpose of that was to enable them to undertake guerrilla strikes on Serb communities in Kosovo, so as to stir up ethnic violence in a community that had, until then had fairly harmonious relations, with Kosovan Serbs and Albanians intermarrying, and living within mixed communities. The US inspired KLA activities changed all that leading to increasing ethnic violence in Kosovo, and with the KLA armed by the US, it was in a better position to inflict greater damage, and to bring about ethnic cleansing of Kosovan Serbs. The US did not provoke this communal violence for no reason. In doing so, it made it inevitable that, at some point, the Serbian government would itself intervene in Kosovo, a long established part of Serbia itself, to protect the Kosovan Serbs and take action against the KLA, and those involved in pogroms against Kosovan Serbs.
That provided NATO, for which read the US, as the US provides nearly all the financing and military might of NATO, with the pretext it required to begin its war against Serbia, and to carve Kosovo out of Serbia itself. When NATO and its apologists talk about the right to self-determination, this blatant denial of the right to self-determination for Serbia has to be considered. NATO uses self-determination, as and when it suits its own global strategic advantage, and for no other reason.
So, why did NATO deny Serbian self-determination, and launch into this war, a war that could not be justified on the basis of any threat to NATO, and was not sanctioned by the UN? The reason is simple, global US Strategic advantage, as set out in the ideas of The Project For A New American Century. After 1990, the USSR had collapsed, and Eastern European countries were returning to the capitalist fold, mostly under the guiding hand of the EU, whose capital was quick to buy up old means of production for nothing, and to rush to employ cheap labour-power.
Russia was different. Rather than it being the EU that took Russia under its wing, it was US investment bankers, economists and bureaucrats who rushed in to pick over its bones in a frenzy of asset stripping, enhanced by the introduction of Freidmanite Monetarist policies that demolished what was left of an already shattered economy, leaving millions picking amongst refuse to find something to eat. All of this took place under the presidency of the drunkard Yeltsin, who acted as US dupe.
Much as the Versailles chains imposed on Germany led to a reaction, which came in the form of Hitler, and a vicious nationalism that was the knee-jerk response to the national humiliation that was being inflicted by the Entente, so too the humiliation that had been inflicted on Russia by NATO, provoked a similar vicious nationalist reaction. Its symbol is Putin, and his kleptocratic regime.
It was not just the former soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe that fell. The Central Asian Republics also fell, and they became the fiefdoms of their former national political leaders, many of whom ruled by the use of barbaric methods, including boiling their political opponents in oil. These Central Asian Republics had particular interest for NATO, because not only are they immensely rich in minerals, but they also occupy an important strategic position in terms of both Russia and China, as well as Iran and the Gulf. When the new long wave upswing got underway in 1999, the prices of minerals skyrocketed, bringing forth a veritable gold rush of companies seeking to undertake exploration and mining in the region. The fact that these “stans” were ruled by vicious dictators, was, of course, no obstacle to US imperialism in seeking to obtain permission to site military facilities within them, just as the vile medieval nature of the monarchical regimes in the Gulf is no obstacle to the US and other imperialist powers being on the friendliest of terms with them.
The encirclement of Russia, by the end of the 1990's, as envisaged in The Project For A New American Century, was then well established, and formed the backdrop to the rise of Putin, and Russian nationalism, as a response to it. There was no possibility that Serbia was going to follow the example of other Eastern European states in seeking membership of NATO, given its historic relations with Russia, and that made it a thorn in the side of the US's plans for the area. Undermining Milosevic, and the Serbian regime was fundamental to that, and so some pretext for military action against it was required, hence the financing and arming of the KLA, and the creation of that pretext.
In all wars between bourgeois states, a pretext is required so as to give some semblance of legitimacy. In the Balkans, Russia used atrocities by the Ottomans; in WWI, the Entente used atrocities in Belgium committed by Germany; and in WWII, although the actual casus belli was Germany's invasion of Poland, it was covered over in all sorts of talk about fighting against fascism and so on, despite the fact that the ruling classes in Britain etc., had welcomed Mussolini and Hitler to power, and knew about atrocities against Jews early in the 1930's, without it provoking them into any kind of response. In fact, the attitude of most of the ruling class in Britain, France and the US to Jews, was not that different to the kind of anti-Semitism that was seen in Germany. The anti-Semitic views of Churchill in Britain, and Henry Ford in the US, for example, were well known at the time.
As Trotsky states in relation to the Balkan Wars, it was certainly the case that the Ottomans perpetrated atrocities and war crimes, for example, and he did not seek to deny that. What he did seek to deny, however, was a) that this was the real reason for Russian intervention, whose real motivation, was Russian imperial ambition, and b) that the atrocities were committed all on the one side. When states, seeking a pretext for intervention, talk about, atrocities, this is never the real basis of their intervention, just as, when those opposing such intervention seek to deny the existence of any such atrocities, and describe them as “false flag” operations, this is almost, also, certainly a lie.
When Milosevic sent Serb troops into Kosovo in response to ethnic cleansing of Kosovan Serbs by the KLA, that was not a “false flag” operation, and given that Kosovo was already part of Serbia, nor was it some pretext used to occupy what was already Serbian territory. When NATO argued that it was intervening in Kosovo, in response to atrocities committed by the Serbian army, as part of that intervention, that too was not a “false flag” operation, because the Serbian army, in undertaking its action, was, indeed, guilty of atrocities. But, the fact that these atrocities were not the real motivation for NATO's actions is shown by the fact that, if it hadn't financed, armed and trained the KLA, in the first place, and enabled it to undertake its ethnic violence against Kosovan Serbs, there would have been no reason for the Serbian army to go into Kosovo to begin with!
Putin has used the NATO military play book used in Kosovo, almost page for page as the basis for his interventions in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Crimea, and now Donetsk and Lugansk. The only difference is that in Kosovo, as described, NATO needed Serbia to provide it with the pretext of atrocities, which it brought about by first getting the KLA to undertake atrocities that provoked the Serb response. In Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as Russian majority provinces of Georgia, it was straight off attempts by Georgia to oppress the Russian minorities that led to them resisting, and eventually to Russia intervening in their defence from attack. The fact that these were war crimes committed by Georgia has been documented by Human Rights Watch.
Crimea, is also a Russian majority area, where pro-Russian candidates have won overwhelming majorities in elections, over the years, and where, there was obvious concern after the pro-Russian Ukrainian President Yanukovitch was overthrown in a coup, in 2014. So, again, Putin was able to use the Kosovo NATO play book as his guide, not only to intervene, on the basis of defending an oppressed Russian minority, but having done so, to carve Crimea out of Ukraine, in the same way that Kosovo was carved out of Serbia by NATO. Now, Putin is doing the same thing in Donetsk and Lugansk.
The argument by some such as Paul Mason, that there have been no atrocities committed by Ukrainian forces against the peoples of these regions is simply untenable and unbelievable. Under the terms of the Minsk Agreements, Ukraine should have granted large-scale autonomy to these regions, but not only has failed to do so, but has attempted to militarily suppress the attempts by them to implement it unilaterally. The reports of shelling of the areas by Ukrainian military, and fascist gangs do not come from just Putin's propaganda machine, but also from the observers of the OSCE, and even from Sky News reports who were on the front lines in previous days.
Its always necessary to treat any Russian media reports with the greatest suspicion, but the video of thousands of inhabitants from Donetsk and Lugansk fleeing into Russia, to escape the fighting seemed genuine enough. According to Paul Mason, who was transmitting the position of the Ukrainian government pretty unfiltered, those fleeing were only doing so, because they had been forced by Russian separatists to do so, but in the interviews with those fleeing, their accounts of their children having their heads blown off by incoming shells and so on, seemed pretty real enough. They would have to be award winning actors to have put on that kind of performance and it not be real.
In Serbia, and a similar thing could be seen in Iraq, and Libya, NATO combined a limited ground assault with air strikes, and Putin is again following this same play book. It was always unlikely that Putin would launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine. The troops he has on Ukraine's border are only a fraction of what would be required for a successful invasion of the whole country. Its also unlikely that he even wants to invade the whole country, because there is nothing in it for him. Its a bankrupt country that will only cause him further drains from his treasury, not to mention perpetual drain of blood of soldiers trying to hold on to it. He has said he has no intention of occupying it, and that is probably true.
In Abkhazia and South Ossetia, NATO claimed that the Russian incursions were just the start of it invading the whole country. They weren't. Fourteen years later, Russia has simply continued to simply guarantee the Russian majority in those provinces. It made a small incursion into the surrounding territory at the time it went in to clear out the Georgian forces, but then withdrew once its objective was secured. There seems no reason why it will not do the same in Donetsk and Lugansk, unless Ukraine continues to try to use military force to evict Russia from them, by continued shelling and so on, in which case, Russian forces would almost certainly respond by taking out that potential, which is what it has done in its initial air strikes.
The air strikes again are a repetition of the NATO play book in Serbia, Iraq, and Libya. NATO began its attack on Serbia, and on Iraq and Libya by a huge barrage of bombing and cruise missile strikes on strategic targets such as airports, and military command and control posts. In fact, in all these cases, those NATO strikes, despite it being claimed they used precision munitions, resulted in large scale civilian loss of life, that NATO describes as “collateral damage”. In Belgrade, for example, NATO bombs hit the Chinese Embassy, as well as a hotel used by international journalists. In fact, the Russian air strikes seem, so far, to have been far more limited than those conducted in similar conditions by NATO, and with fewer, if any civilian casualties, or strikes on civilian facilities.
The occupation of the breakaway republics was probably always likely, but the imposition of sanctions on Russia, and particularly, the suspension of Nordstream 2, even before it had launched any invasion made it almost inevitable, because Putin must have thought if he was going to be punished even before he had launched an invasion, he might as well do what he was being punished for. His calculation is probably that, once he has secured the breakaway republics, and assuming that Ukraine does not attempt to continue military action against them, things will settle down, and negotiations will then take place, with Russia, now, in a stronger bargaining position.
After all, its not Russia that particularly needs Nordstream 2, as they can sell oil and gas to China. Its Germany and the EU that really needs Nordstream 2, as oil and gas prices soar along with high levels of inflation in general. Voters in the EU, and in Britain, will soon want to limit any sanctions that result in their bills continuing to rise, let alone the potential for energy supplies being cut off, whilst Winter continues. Nor is there any reason for the EU to want to face all of these economic costs of sanctions against Russia, including yet another wave of refugees and migrants, whilst the US faces no such costs. Expect the EU to be pushing for talks as soon as possible.
What again all of this shows is the lamentable state of the left, as it has not only failed to analyse events, but also to have any independent working-class response to them. The social-imperialists, of course, have simply formed a Popular Front with NATO and the ruling class, in their opposition to Putin. They have no independent working class position or politics, having completely subordinated it to that of the ruling class. Their only response is to support sanctions against Russia, which means to support entry level war by their own imperialism against Russian imperialism, the logic of which leads to further escalation, and eventually all out military conflict, the result of which is thermonuclear war and the destruction of humanity. It is to support the “defence of the fatherland” position of the Ukrainian ruling class, and its right-wing, corrupt government, including the provision to that government of the latest military hardware.
They have no independent working-class position that would enable the Ukrainian working-class to organise to defend itself against both its own ruling class, the fascist gangs that are also now armed to the teeth with the latest military hardware, or against Russian troops. They have no means of working towards a joint struggle of Ukrainian and Russian workers against their combined ruling classes, because their politics starts from an orientation not to the workers, but to the Ukrainian state, and the NATO powers that stand behind it. By organising their position on the basis of a “defence of the fatherland” for Ukraine, they inevitably put Ukrainian workers in opposition to Russian workers, both in Russia and the breakaway Republics. In so doing they cut away any path for them to address the Russian workers, and those in the breakaway Republics themselves, because they have now put themselves firmly in the side of the Ukrainian government and NATO, which many of those Russian workers see as their enemy.
An independent working class position requires us to start from the position that The Main Enemy Is At Home, and that applies to the Ukrainian workers primarily. The key to their security is not NATO, nor the Ukrainian state, but is their own independent organisation and activity, and also their ability to reach out to the workers in Russia and in the breakaway republics. They cannot do that if they are seen to be standing side by side with their own ruling class and its state, especially one that has NATO standing behind it, nudging it in the direction it desires. For the international working-class, that is the solidarity that we should provide, not solidarity with the Ukrainian state, nor with the NATO strategists, for whom this all just part of a great global game for advantage.
The international labour movement should demand that Russian troops get out of the breakaway republics, and that they do not enter the rest of Ukraine, as well as stopping the air strikes. We call upon the Russian workers to mobilise against Putin's kleptocratic regime, and his reckless military adventure that has no advantage for you, and has the potential to escalate out of control to the destruction of humanity. Our alternative is not war, or defence of the fatherland, but international workers' solidarity across borders, and a joint struggle against our common oppressors the ruling capitalist class, which is now a global class.
No To War – Russian Troops Out – Disband NATO – Bring The Boys Home – The Main Enemy Is At Home – Workers Of The World Unite
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