Two Decades of Aggravating Russia - A Washington Pastime

A recent viewpoint by Branko Marcetic on the American Committee for US-Russia Accord entitled "Diplomatic Cables Show Russia Saw NATO Expansion as a Red Line" provides us with some important background on the current conflict in Ukraine that is rarely (if ever) discussed in the Western mainstream media.  Thanks to this article, we also gain an understanding regarding the importance of organizations like WikiLeaks whose mandate (in part) it was to shed light on the seedy and secretive underbelly of American politics.

  

Let's look at a selection of classified diplomatic cables from the United States Department of State that were released by WikiLeaks as part of its Cablegate program which began on November 28, 2011:

 

1.) In this April 2002 cable, U.S. Ambassador to Italy Melvin Sembler is relaying information from a meeting held with then Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi following the Prime Minister's meetings with Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Sochi.  In this cable, Sembler outlines Putin's belief in the importance of Russia being seen as part of the NATO family and that a new NATO-Russia agreement could be negotiated and signed in May 2002:

 

3.) This September 2005 cable from the U.S. Embassy in France outlines a meeting between U.S. officials and French officials in which they discussed NATO, Russia and Ukraine among other issues.  France's Presidential Diplomatic Advisor Maurice Gourdault-Montagne noted that France had developed a good working relationship with Russia which made it possible to discuss difficult subjects at a high level.  It notes that Moscow is sensitive to "an eventual Ukraine accession to NATO".  Interestingly, in a discussion about NATO, France's Director for Strategic Affairs Philippe Carre noted that "the U.S. has a tendency to seek military solutions to security problems, which could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.".  He also commented that France did not want to risk fallout in Ukraine by offering NATO membership:

 

Here is one additional interesting section in the cable which clearly shows Washington's agenda toward Russia:

4.) This February 2007 cable from the U.S. Embassy in France outlines a meeting between U.S. Ambassador to France Craig Roberts Stapleton and France's Political Director Gerard Araud.  In this meeting, the issue of Russia's reaction to Washington's missile defense initiative with Poland and Russia was discussed.

 

In order to keep this posting to a reasonable length, let's look at one final cable:

4.) This September 2007 cable from the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Ambassador William Burns outlines Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's comments on the course of Russian foreign policy and how U.S.-led positions on key issues remain at odds with Russia, most importantly noting that the eastward expansion of NATO should be minimized.  It also notes that the Bush II Adminstration's withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and the delay of Russia gaining entry into the WTO "dashed Putin's hope" for rapprochement with Washington.  It also notes that "resurgent Russia is...seeking international recognition, particularly from the U.S., for its recovery from political, economic and social disrepair" and that Putin had hoped that relations between the two nations would improve after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  Lavrov also noted that all parties, even those that are considered to be "undesirable" should have a seat at negotiating tables.

In order to keep this posting to a reasonable length, let's look at one final cable:

 

4.) This February 2007 cable from the U.S. Embassy in France outlines a meeting between U.S. Ambassador to France Craig Roberts Stapleton and France's Political Director Gerard Araud.  In this meeting, the issue of Russia's reaction to Washington's missile defense initiative with Poland and Russia was discussed which is important as it relates to NATO's expansion to the east.

 

There are other Department of State cables that clearly outline Russia's concerns about NATO expansionism that are available on WikiLeaks website which prove that Washington was well aware that Russia was concerned about its western flank, the same flank that proved to be extremely vulnerable during the Second World War as Nazi Germany expanded eastward in its move to destroy Russia's untermenschen.  So what has Washington done?  Here is a map showing NATO's expansion over the decades, particularly in the 1990s as former Soviet states acceded to NATO membership:

 

Other that Belarus and Ukraine, NATO member states now directly share common borders with Russia, making the nation feel vulnerable to an attack from the west.  Given this table which shows the estimated number of military and civilian fatalities due to the Second World War between the years of 1939 and 1945, Russia has valid historical reasons for being concerned about its security along its western frontier, an issue that only China can truly understand given its losses to Japan during the Second World War: