{"id":143430,"date":"2015-02-09T03:53:08","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T03:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=143430"},"modified":"2015-02-09T21:34:08","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T21:34:08","slug":"u-s-military-expert-shoots-washingtons-weapons-ukraine-argument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/u-s-military-expert-shoots-washingtons-weapons-ukraine-argument\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Military Expert Shoots Down Washington’s Weapons-to-Ukraine Argument"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

Michael Kofman isn\u2019t just an American defense expert; he\u2019s specialized in the precise region where Ukraine is located. He spent years managing professional military education programs and military-to-military engagements for senior officers at National Defense University. There he served as a subject matter expert and adviser to military and government officials on issues in Russia\/Eurasia. And, now, he is telling the Brookings Institution war-hawks, and its insider \u2018experts\u2019 whose expertise is about getting America into invasions but not getting us out, and is certainly not about \u201cwinning\u201d anything more than defense contracts<\/span><\/a> \u2013 he is telling them that their arguments for getting us into sending weapons to Ukraine as our \u201cproxy\u201d against Russia, is a shockingly stupid and counterproductive idea for everyone but America\u2019s armaments-makers. <\/span><\/p>\n

America\u2019s weapons makers won\u2019t like what he has to say, because he\u2019s not selling their products into Ukraine\u2019s civil war (a huge and wholly taxpayer-funded market), like President Obama\u2019s advisors, and John McCain and other Republicans, definitely are. (They\u2019re such fine salesmen.)<\/span><\/p>\n

In the February issue of National Interest<\/i> journal, he headlines, \u201cHow to Start a Proxy War with Russia\u201d<\/span><\/a> (with Ukraine being the \u201cProxy\u201d), and he subheads, with remarkable (even courageous) directness: \u201cArming the Ukrainian government would be a bad idea, no matter what the next defense secretary says.\u201d He opens by taking on not only the new Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, but the Brookings \u2018experts\u2019 who are looking to become hired by President Hillary Clinton (all war-hawks not much different from G.W. Bush\u2019s Paul Wolfowitz and other such \u2018defense experts\u2019).<\/span><\/p>\n

He says:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

Sending a mix of weapons to Ukraine is unlikely to improve the situation, given\u00a0the overwhelming force-on-force mismatch the country faces against Russia, but\u00a0it could add fuel to a fire that is steadily consuming the country\u2019s chances of\u00a0emerging as a new nation on a European path. \u2026 [The Brookings report]\u00a0does not offer recommendations on a path to peace, and no explanation of how\u00a0weapons shipments could result in a political settlement to the war. \u2026 The [Brookings] report is intended to press the reluctant president into changing his course in\u00a0Ukraine [so as to send lethal weapons]. \u2026\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Its core premise is that by giving Ukraine the ability to kill more Russian soldiers, sending weapons would raise the costs of war for Moscow to an unacceptable\u00a0level, thus forcing Russia to abandon its existing policy and thus deterring further\u00a0aggression. The weakness in the armaments proposal is that it offers no vision for\u00a0what a new political settlement to the current conflict might look like. \u2026\u00a0This [Brookings] document advocates in no subtle terms for the United States to undertake a\u00a0proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, and to supply the country with weapons\u00a0equivalent to half of its [Ukraine\u2019s] current defense budget. \u2026\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

One of the problems in the report\u2019s argumentation is that it lists\u00a0a series of fears\u00a0and anxieties regarding Russia\u2019s territorial ambitions. \u2026 [However,]\u00a0analysis of Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea has shown that the operation was\u00a0inherently unique and could not be repeated elsewhere in Europe, while Moscow\u00a0has demonstrated little interest in spontaneously invading NATO countries. On\u00a0the contrary, previous references regarding the Russian world, or Novorossiya,\u00a0have already been eliminated from official rhetoric. Real ultranationalists in\u00a0Russia are suppressed by the government, which does not plan to realize their\u00a0ambitions.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Russia has shown no desire for a broader invasion of Ukraine, either, although it\u00a0has the means, and the report confirms that Ukrainian officials believe a large-scale attack to create a land corridor to Crimea is highly unlikely. \u2026\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

In reality, the United States has absolutely no obligations to Ukraine\u2019s security\u00a0under any type of accord or framework. \u2026 American credibility is not on the line in what is first and foremost a European\u00a0effort, especially when Berlin refuses to see such policies as viable. \u2026\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Experts familiar with the reasons for Ukraine\u2019s military defeat understand that it is \u2026 because its army as a whole is not a capable force. It lacks logistics, training, commanders with experience at maneuvering brigade- or battalion-sized\u00a0elements, any coordination between volunteer battalions and regular forces,\u00a0along with independent military analysis of the problems. There is no intelligence,\u00a0no mobile reserves, no unified command and a political leadership that often\u00a0seems disconnected from the facts on the ground. Dumping weapons into this\u00a0operating environment is unlikely to prove a solution to the problems, all of which\u00a0are fundamental and structural. \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

[Furthermore, despite Washington\u2019s assumption to the contrary,] the overwhelming majority of fighters [on the rebel side] are locals and likely Ukrainian citizens,\u00a0which completely undermines the premise of the entire [Brookings] report that Russian forces\u00a0are the key participants and their casualties will prove a deterrent. \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

NATO\u2019s estimates [of Russian involvement] \u2026 are so fantastical in range, that they suggest there is an entire Russian armored\u00a0division fighting in Ukraine, perhaps even two, that have gone unnoticed by U.S.\u00a0satellites. \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The [Brookings] authors also advocate for strategic air defense, even though one of the few\u00a0areas where Ukraine\u2019s military remains effective is precisely in air defense. \u2026 [and]\u00a0no airpower has been used by Russia in this war [so that\u2019s useless anyway]. \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The real problem is that many of Ukraine\u2019s munitions are long past their service\u00a0lives, the United States has no replacements for them or a quick fix for the lack of\u00a0training and experience amongst Ukraine\u2019s soldiers. The administration was right\u00a0in arguing that any weapon we provide will be matched by Russia, escalating the\u00a0conflict with no advantage gained for Ukraine. …<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The [Brookings] authors keenly argue for the provision of armored Humvees, a piece of equipment not only long derided by U.S. troops and due for\u00a0replacement, but also an unnecessary recommendation in light of Ukraine\u2019s\u00a0advanced defense industry. Ukraine is highly capable and proficient at producing\u00a0indigenous lightly armored vehicles and heavy tanks. This is actually Ukraine\u2019s\u00a0defense industry\u2019s area of expertise.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

Bottom line: If Obama sends weapons, like Brookings advises $3 billion worth<\/span><\/a>, it\u2019ll get the U.S. into a \u201cproxy war\u201d against Russia, and one that we\u2019ll almost certainly lose (along with that $3 billion of expenses paid to U.S. arms-makers by us taxpayers). <\/span><\/p>\n

For once: a real military expert, who\u2019s something more than just a salesman for Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, GE, and other eager manufacturers of killing-machines.<\/span><\/p>\n

For once: a patriotic American in Washington. Probably this scathing report he wrote on the Establishment\u2019s new proposal for wasting another $3 billion to kill people (specifically to kill the residents in the Donbass<\/span><\/a> region of the former Ukraine) will prevent Michael Kofman from rising any further. He\u2019s not doing his sell-job for the privateers; he\u2019s doing his advisory job for the public, but in a country that\u2019s being run for the benefit of its aristocracy, not<\/i> of its public. (The public are here only to pay taxes to fund the aristocracy\u2019s ventures \u2013 in this case its next invasion.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Will Michael Kofman end up in the breadlines, while the authors of the Brookings report end up in the headlines, and inside the White House? What would a President Elizabeth Warren, or a President Bernie Sanders, say about that? Of course, no one knows, but virtually all of the other prospective Presidential candidates would probably love to preside over more opportunities to \u201cprotect\u201d \u201callies,\u201d such as Ukraine\u2019s ravenous oligarchs, who are already stripping that entire country clean \u2013 but they\u2019re \u2018America\u2019s friends.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the residents of Donbass<\/span><\/a>: they get in the way of Obama\u2019s plans \u2013 such as to place nuclear missiles right next door to Russia<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

PS: <\/span><\/p>\n

My personal goal is now to end NATO; its continued existence after the end of the Soviet Union is an enormous crime and exposes that a significant part of NATO’s support during the Cold War had nothing whatsoever to do with any ideological battle, between communism and capitalism, or between democracy and totalitarianism, but is instead a mere global grab-for-power by America’s aristocracy, to subordinate all other nations’ aristocracies to it \u2013 and to ignore all the bloodshed and vast economic waste that has been entailed by this psychopathic American aristocratic grab-for-global-power. That ugliness of NATO’s past is now the ONLY thing that exists in NATO’s present; the ideological case for NATO’s existence is long-since entirely gone; so, NATO is now 100% fraudulent, 100% an aristocratic lie; it must therefore end, ASAP, in order to end the growing global danger of catastrophic nuclear war. Why are ‘peaceniks’ not marching by the millions worldwide to end that abomination, NATO?<\/span><\/p>\n

There was justification for America’s post-WW-II cold war against communism and against totalitarianism. There is no justification for the U.S. Government’s war (of any type) against Russia. That entirely unnecessary and increasingly harmful and dangerous war doesn’t say anything about Russia, but it says lots \u2013 all of it very damning \u2013 about the current U.S. Government, and about all of NATO. It’s a criminal operation now. Germany should quit. France should quit. Albania should quit. Belgium should quit. Bulgaria should quit. Canada should quit. Croatia should quit. Czech Republic should quit. Denmark should quit. Estonia should quit. Greece should quit. Hungary should quit. Iceland should quit. Italy should quit. Latvia should quit. Lithuania should quit. Luxembourg should quit. Netherlands should quit. Norway should quit. Poland should quit. Portugal should quit. Romania should quit. Slovakia should quit. Slovenia should quit. Spain should quit. Turkey should quit. U.K. should quit.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Soviet Union is gone. Communism is gone. Permanent war should also be gone.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world”: George Washington said this to us in his Farewell Address. The inaugural pledge of Thomas Jefferson was equally clear: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations\u2013entangling alliances with none.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The continued existence of NATO is actually un-American. The U.S. should therefore now also quit NATO. The U.S. aristocracy should quit itself. America\u2019s Founders were firmly against aristocracy, and were passionate supporters of the public, no caste system at all (except acceptance of slavery, which the South insisted on keeping, and which the last of America\u2019s Founders, Abraham Lincoln, finally ended).<\/span><\/p>\n

And, while we\u2019re at it, special trade-alliances between aristocracies \u2013 TTIP, TPP, TISA, and others \u2013 are also un-American; and anyone in Congress who supports them is un-American, and should be removed from Congress for that.<\/span><\/p>\n

But NATO is now, because America\u2019s war-mongers are on fire to shed the blood of others in order to conquer Russia. The war-mongers might benefit from it, but everyone else will be harmed by it. The end of NATO should come now. NATO is today\u2019s clear and present threat. Ending it will be good for America. Ending it will be good for the world. Ending it will enable countries around the world to spend more on building prosperity, and to spend less on building bombs to destroy other people\u2019s prosperity.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the spirit of America\u2019s Founders to lead in the modern world, it will be by our example, not by our bombs. America\u2019s enemies, such as ISIS, can be dealt with far more effectively without NATO, than with it. NATO sets an example that even ISIS can use in order to further inspire hatred against America. What did we gain by invading Iraq? Hatred. The aristocracy might have gained, but the publics everywhere suffered from it. Invading Iraq gained us the hatred of much of the global public. America\u2019s public also suffer from this global growth in hatred, even if America\u2019s aristocrats might have gained financially from instigating it. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is supposed to be a democracy. We should become one, again.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse Michael Kofman isn\u2019t just an American defense expert; he\u2019s specialized in the precise region where Ukraine is located. He spent years managing professional military education programs and military-to-military engagements for senior officers at National Defense University. There he served as a subject matter expert and adviser to military and government officials on issues […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":143431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,1622],"tags":[115,30,32,96,29,535,59,526,524,523,49,76,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-143430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-featured","9":"tag-barack-obama","10":"tag-big-brother","11":"tag-cia","12":"tag-cover-up","13":"tag-democrats","14":"tag-global-news","15":"tag-military","16":"tag-propaganda","17":"tag-russia","18":"tag-ukraine","19":"tag-usa-news","20":"tag-warfare","21":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}