Russia’s military buildup around the borders of Ukraine has raised the prospect of a major war in Eastern Europe. The tensions between Ukraine and Russia are largely the product of a misguided U.S. foreign policy aimed at displacing Russia’s influence in the former republics of the USSR. In Ukraine, the U.S. has engaged in saber-rattling through substantial military assistance and provocative naval and aircraft maneuvers. The Russians believe Ukraine is moving toward becoming a de-facto NATO member and a threat to their security. The NeoCon ideologues who directed two decades of disastrous foreign policy have now maneuvered the U.S. into confronting a nuclear-armed nation with massive conventional armed forces poised to strike.
Unable to respond militarily to this crisis, the U.S. is threatening to impose extreme economic sanctions on Russia, which would inevitably strengthening economic and military ties between Russia and China, further weakening U.S. global influence. None of this matters to the Blob, the Washington military-industrial-congressional complex, which seeks endless international conflict as a sure means of continuing and expanding U.S. weapons sales worldwide.
GPAX calls for the U.S. government to end the policy of deliberate aggravation of international conflicts in Ukraine, Taiwan, and the Mideast. The risk of one or more of these conflicts erupting into a disastrous large-scale war is too great to ignore in order to please arms makers and bellicose politicians. Specifically, in the matter of Ukraine, the U.S. should negotiate a reduction of military forces in the conflict zone and a halt to NATO expansion. U.S. economic aid to Ukraine should be conditioned on acceptance of the Minsk accords, which would grant partial autonomy to the breakaway provinces in the Donbass region. This would end the current military confrontation between Ukraine and Russia.
Ever since the end of WWII, the United States has squandered its wealth on a series of futile regional wars. These wars have been justified by vague threats and dubious theories and have wasted trillions of dollars and cost millions of lives. It is time to stop what has become a pathological foreign policy and to return to responsible statecraft that serves the interests of the American public and not the greed of arms merchants and the ambitions of cynical politicians.
Haig Hovaness
Secretary, Green Party U.S. Peace Action Committee
1/24/2022