Who’s at fault?

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside the Western Hemisphere.

On December 25, 1991, the Soviet hammer and sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, after that replaced by the Russian tricolour. Earlier in the day, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post as president of the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin as president of the newly independent Russian state.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and a few former Soviet Union states like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joining NATO after being independent, NATO had outlived its security needs and ideally must have wound up. The public in Georgia and its government have favoured joining NATO. Ukraine, bordering Russia, initially desired to join NATO and later declared neutrality and ceased to seek NATO membership.

The war industry cannot idle. During Trump’s tenure, there was little of NATO involved significant conflicts. Putin of Russia warned NATO not to militarise the former Soviet Union states in its vicinity, which is precisely what the US had done. This war wouldn’t have been, had Ukraine not pumped up with dreams of joining NATO, an assurance given by the EU leaders to their newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Russia had repeatedly been warned that including Ukraine in NATO would be construed as a provocation.

Acerbic sounds from the US President and a few states prompted Putin to enter the battle, which is on. Russia is blamed as the aggressor, and the International Criminal Court will be hearing on Russian war crimes soon. It reminds me of an international war tribunal after Japan’s surrender in WWII. The West quickly declared Japan a criminal state, sending many to jail. The Indian Judge Radha Binod Pal absolved the Japanese but was shunned not only by the West but also by India.

The West chooses to monitor and decide what is right or wrong. Therefore the direct or indirect invasions and wars in El Salvador, Guatemala, Angola, Afghanistan, Balkans, Iraq, Sudan, Rwanda, the Gulf war, Panama, Somalia, the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Ukraine all seem legal and justified to establish a style of democracy they believe.

Russia has a right to live in peace. The Russian economy is $1.7 Trillion as against the US, $22.99 and is no match for the US. If the US and EU are interested in world peace, they must discard the idea of arming former Soviet country members, especially those bordering Russia. A clever West has sanctions against the Russian economy, its defence etc., but must show equal chivalry against Russian gas, which I guess is the reason for this bloody war!

My heart goes to the Ukrainians out on the streets, defending their motherland.

Sampath Kumar

Intrépide Voix