Author: Spencer

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced yesterday that it had approved a four-year, $17.5 billion bailout package for Ukraine, the first $5 billion tranche of which will be made available immediately. The $17.5 billion is supposedly part of a larger $40 billion loan and aid program, designed, as the Wall Street Journal put it, to “keep the country afloat.”

Not to keep the population alive—it will be subjected to murderous austerity conditionalities—but to allow Ukraine to continue its war against Russia. Notably, $1.5 billion of the $5 billion for Ukraine will be extorted in debt payments “due” Friday and Monday from Greece, which refuses to join the assault on Russia.

The program’s anti-Russia bent is clear. As Ukrainian President Poroshenko tweeted ecstatically “today’s IMF decision proves the civilized world believes in and supports Ukraine,” the Journal reported, adding its own comment that many economists and analysts see the bailout as part of a “broader political decision to back the fledgling pro-Western government in Kiev. The U.S. and Europe are trying to help the former Soviet republic leave its decades-long political and economic orbit around the Kremlin.” David Lipton, the IMF’s No. 2 official, underscored that Ukraine’s crisis “proves an opportunity for the government to make a decisive break from the past.”

The idea that this program will “stabilize” Ukraine is fantasy. Conditionalities including much higher energy tariffs, privatizations, dismantling of any social safety net (already underway) will push existing political tensions to the breaking point. Virtually every commentator points to the “enormous risks” inherent in the program.

Built into the bailout program is the demand that Ukraine also come up with $15.4 billion in “savings” through negotiations with creditors, debt restructuring, or an outright debt moratorium. Reuters claims today that “some players” think a creditor “haircut” of 70% is possible. On Friday, Finance Minister and U.S. citizen Natalie Jaresko will hold a videoconference with creditors to outline plans for negotiations with holders of sovereign debt.

According to the terms of the agreement, release of the next tranche of the funding package, due in three months, is contingent on ramming through a “successful” debt restructuring with high creditor participation, David Lipton warned. Contrast this to the Troika fascists’ approach to Greece’s proposal for debt restructuring and write-down.   

The German Ambassador to Washington, Peter Wittig, told Associated Press on March 9th that Obama had promised German Chancellor Angela Merkel, during a February meeting at the White House, that he would give the Minsk ceasefire she negotiated time to take hold, rather than destroying it immediately by sending “lethal weapons” to the fascists in Kiev.

But at the same time Obama was pledging his word to Merkel, he was preparing to break it by ordering brain-dead Senators to denounce his own agreement and call for immediate arms shipments, as well as much harsher sanctions, as they did today at a hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the chairman and ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, prepared for their hearing yesterday, with a March 9 letter to Obama, which demanded that he immediately provide a report to Congress on why he has failed to provide lethal weapons. The duo wrote that that report was due by Feb. 15 under their “Ukraine Freedom Support Act,” which they say was passed unanimously by both houses and signed into law by Obama on Dec. 18.

Yesterday’s hearing was titled “U.S. Policy in Ukraine: Countering Russia and Driving Reform.” The first panel comprised administration witnesses representing State (Victoria Nuland), Treasury, Defense, and the military. All that happened there, was that each and every Senator who spoke from either party, simply badgered all the witnesses by chanting, as it were in unison, “I support lethal arms and harsher sanctions; why haven’t you done it yet?”

The witnesses were all noncommittal: it’s under discussion.

Among the notable moments were those provided by a drunken-sounding and -looking Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who had been enlightened at a hearing he held last week for two anti-Putin mental cases: NATO pawn Garry Kasparov and fugitive ex-Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili,— whose name Johnson could not pronounce at all recognizably. Johnson was clearly nearly hopeless about the fate of Russia after the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, but could not pronounce his name recognizably either; you had to infer who it was he was bewailing. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) was similarly close to tears with anxiety about various places he could never locate on a map, and people he clearly knew nothing about.

Among the senators who were just bright enough to know that they were playing “living theater,” was Democrat Tim Kaine of Virginia, who said he supported increased sanctions, and then asked what will happen if they only make Putin more “aggressive.”

Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut’s question was:

Clearly, Murphy understands on some level that he and the rest are only playing a charade. But what is his guarantee that he, personally, will survive its results? 

On the day before the opening of the 10th session of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization national coordinators in Khanty-Mansiisk in Siberia, the SCO secretary General for 2015, Dmitry Mezentsev, announced that “A 10-year strategy has been drafted by the Russian side. It is expected to be adopted during the SCO Summit in Ufa (in July)… The strategy will be the SCO’s proclamation for deeper and wider participation in global affairs,” he said, which will combine the national economic strategies of SCO members with the Silk Road Economic Belt project.

This will come as a great disappointment for those in the west who hope to foster tension and conflict between Russia and China in Central Asia, trying to stir up Russian anger over Chinese development projects in the former Soviet states.

Mezentsev also said that the issue of expanding the organization will be discussed, and that there are no legal hurdles to overcome for expansion.

At this time, the SCO members are the original six — Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan — with Afghanistan, India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan as observers, and Belarus, Turkey, and Sri Lanka as dialogue partners.

Russia responded quickly and firmly today to EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s proposal to create a Common European Army, made March 8.

Juncker, in comments to Germany’s Welt am Sonntag, claimed that, “A common army of Europeans would give Russia the clear impression that we are serious with the defense of European values,” further stating that this would seal Europe’s destiny:

“Before I thought that one no longer had to justify Europe but I have understood that there is a necessity for this. Europe has lost enormously in reputation, in foreign policy one doesn’t take us too seriously.”

Russians were not at all confused about what kind of a “destiny” Juncker was speaking of. In comments reported by TASS, first deputy chairman of the United Russia faction in the State Duma Frants Klintsevich stated that:

Juncker’s proposal was quickly dismissed by Britain, with Cameron claiming that the Conservatives would “never support” the idea, because, “defense is a national, not an EU responsibility.” U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) spokesman Mike Hookem stated that:

“A European army would be a tragedy for the U.K. We have all seen the utter mess the EU has made of the economy, how can we even think of trusting them with its defense?”

In Germany, Die Linke spokeswoman Christine Buchholz told the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel that:

“Juncker’s proposal is definitely aimed against Russia … the EU needs a peaceful foreign policy and disarmament.”

However, the anti-Russian proposal of Juncker got quick support from Germany’s Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen. Quoted by the London Financial Times, Von der Leyen — who has devoted much of her career to this idea — went even further, saying:

“I think that the Bundeswehr [German Armed Forces] would also be prepared, in certain circumstances,  to put units under the control of another nation. This interweaving of armies with a view to also have a European army one day, in my opinion, is the future.”

University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who served five years in the Air Force, is on a tour in Europe, not unrelated to efforts to break the U.S. free from actions leading to a strategic confrontation with Russia. He spoke on March 2 in Brussels along with Prof. Stephen Cohen of Princeton, and Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation, at a well-attended event, “Defining a New Security for Europe that Brings Russia from the Cold,” sponsored by Gilbert Doctorow of the American Committee for East West Accord. Many European Parliament members attended the event. Former Reagan Administration Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock was to have spoken at a December 2014 event of the group but was unable to attend.

In Berlin on March 4, Mearsheimer spoke to a packed event of the Die Linke party-associated Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, along with Bundestag member Andrej Hunko, (Die Linke) from Aachen, and Helmuth Markov, current Justice Minister of Brandenburg and former Deputy Minister President under Matthias Plazeck, who is now head of the German-Russian Forum.

In Berlin, Professor Mearsheimer made clear that Western efforts to escalate for a military “solution” by Kiev, including Western weapons and training, will not permit victory over the Donbass militias in eastern Ukraine, because the Ukraine Army would never be able to succeed. He then added without further commentary the following: “If I am wrong and if the West is successful with a strategy to raise the deployment and costs for Russia, one should be reminded, Russia has thousands of nuclear warheads.”

We have no text from the Brussels event, but a week earlier in a New York City radio interview, well-known Russia specialist Stephen Cohen, a co-founder of the East West Accord group, made a similar point, that the Ukraine Army decisively collapsed after being encircled recently. He emphasized that the current confrontation with Russia is potentially more dangerous than the Cold War.

According to Schiller Institute representatives in Berlin who attended the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung event, and asked questions regarding the threat of a U.S.-Russia nuclear confrontation, and the BRICS alternative, all of the speakers forcefully condemned the West’s approach towards Ukraine. Hunko, who is familiar with the Schiller Institute policy, gave a thorough summary of the chronology of the Ukraine crisis and mentioned all important elements of the Western-financed coup d’ état. Even in his speech, he repeatedly emphasized that what happened was not a revolution but a coup, which had also been recognized by the scientific advisory board of German government. Nonetheless Germany has seen this revolt as a legitimate revolution like the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.  Hunko further pointed out the danger of the Nazi fighting-forces who serve as private armies, an issue that has to be resolved.

Mearsheimer’s remarks focused on three main trends dominating the political motives of the U.S., that have caused the Ukraine crisis: NATO expansion, EU expansion, and the promotion of democracy. Professor Mearsheimer repeated that ignoring or provoking Putin even though he had made many warnings, is foolish and dangerous, especially since Putin is in possession of nuclear weapons. He recalled George Kennan’s warning that “the expansion of NATO will lead to a crisis with Russia and we will blame the Russians for it.” Mearsheimer also noted that the regime-change policy aiming to overthrow Putin is a goal and that its ultimate target of containment is China.

Helmuth Markov attacked the EU for pushing the association agreement on Ukraine, with ridiculous demands, such as the release of Yulia Tymoshenko. He welcomed the BRICS development and said he believes that Russia’s increasing involvement with China is enhanced by the sanctions against it. Therefore, in order for there for to be de-escalation,  not only for the region but the political atmosphere as a whole, there has to be support for the OSCE’s positive steps, which have to be strengthened and integrated more deeply. Even so, Markov was quite optimistic about the agreement reached in Minsk, whereas Hunko is not that hopeful, since after the Minsk agreements, there was promotion of more sanctions, which halt the process of collaboration and trust.

During the question-and-answer period, many people brought up the danger of a potential war, and even nuclear war, and the policy of regime-change.

University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who served five years in the Air Force, is on a tour in Europe, not unrelated to efforts to break the U.S. free from actions leading to a strategic confrontation with Russia. He spoke on March 2 in Brussels along with Prof. Stephen Cohen of Princeton, and Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation, at a well-attended event, “Defining a New Security for Europe that Brings Russia from the Cold,” sponsored by Gilbert Doctorow of the American Committee for East West Accord. Many European Parliament members attended the event. Former Reagan Administration Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock was to have spoken at a December 2014 event of the group but was unable to attend.

In Berlin on March 4, Mearsheimer spoke to a packed event of the Die Linke party-associated Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, along with Bundestag member Andrej Hunko, (Die Linke) from Aachen, and Helmuth Markov, current Justice Minister of Brandenburg and former Deputy Minister President under Matthias Plazeck, who is now head of the German-Russian Forum.

In Berlin, Professor Mearsheimer made clear that Western efforts to escalate for a military “solution” by Kiev, including Western weapons and training, will not permit victory over the Donbass militias in eastern Ukraine, because the Ukraine Army would never be able to succeed. He then added without further commentary the following: “If I am wrong and if the West is successful with a strategy to raise the deployment and costs for Russia, one should be reminded, Russia has thousands of nuclear warheads.”

We have no text from the Brussels event, but a week earlier in a New York City radio interview, well-known Russia specialist Stephen Cohen, a co-founder of the East West Accord group, made a similar point, that the Ukraine Army decisively collapsed after being encircled recently. He emphasized that the current confrontation with Russia is potentially more dangerous than the Cold War.

According to Schiller Institute representatives in Berlin who attended the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung event, and asked questions regarding the threat of a U.S.-Russia nuclear confrontation, and the BRICS alternative, all of the speakers forcefully condemned the West’s approach towards Ukraine. Hunko, who is familiar with the Schiller Institute policy, gave a thorough summary of the chronology of the Ukraine crisis and mentioned all important elements of the Western-financed coup d’ état. Even in his speech, he repeatedly emphasized that what happened was not a revolution but a coup, which had also been recognized by the scientific advisory board of German government. Nonetheless Germany has seen this revolt as a legitimate revolution like the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.  Hunko further pointed out the danger of the Nazi fighting-forces who serve as private armies, an issue that has to be resolved.

Mearsheimer’s remarks focused on three main trends dominating the political motives of the U.S., that have caused the Ukraine crisis: NATO expansion, EU expansion, and the promotion of democracy. Professor Mearsheimer repeated that ignoring or provoking Putin even though he had made many warnings, is foolish and dangerous, especially since Putin is in possession of nuclear weapons. He recalled George Kennan’s warning that “the expansion of NATO will lead to a crisis with Russia and we will blame the Russians for it.” Mearsheimer also noted that the regime-change policy aiming to overthrow Putin is a goal and that its ultimate target of containment is China.

Helmuth Markov attacked the EU for pushing the association agreement on Ukraine, with ridiculous demands, such as the release of Yulia Tymoshenko. He welcomed the BRICS development and said he believes that Russia’s increasing involvement with China is enhanced by the sanctions against it. Therefore, in order for there for to be de-escalation,  not only for the region but the political atmosphere as a whole, there has to be support for the OSCE’s positive steps, which have to be strengthened and integrated more deeply. Even so, Markov was quite optimistic about the agreement reached in Minsk, whereas Hunko is not that hopeful, since after the Minsk agreements, there was promotion of more sanctions, which halt the process of collaboration and trust.

During the question-and-answer period, many people brought up the danger of a potential war, and even nuclear war, and the policy of regime-change.

NATO deployed four ships from its Standing Maritime Group Two into the Black Sea on March 4th. The four ships—the US Navy’s USS Vicksburg, flag ship of the group; the Turkish frigate Turgutreis; the Canadian frigate Fredericton; and the Italian frigate Aliseo—are to participate in training that will include simulated anti-air and anti-submarine warfare exercises, as well as simulated small boat attacks and basic ship handling maneuvers, reports a NATO release. Commander Adm. Brad Williamson said:

It won’t be just NATO that will be training, however. Russian combat aircraft assigned to the Black Sea Fleet will also conduct training. “These ships’ crews are doubtlessly conducting exercises in repelling air attacks from our planes, which gives our pilots the opportunity to gain experience in maneuvering and conducting aerial reconnaissance both in the range of anti-air systems and outside their range,” a Russian Navy source in Sevastopol told RIA Novosti. The Russian pilots will be flying Su-30 fighters and Su-24 attack aircraft from the Novofedorovka air base in Crimea.

The Russian Defense Ministry also announced, today, air defense exercises in the Southern Military District, which borders southeastern Ukraine and the Black Sea. The exercise is set to last about a month and involves 2,000 troops with 500 pieces of equipment.

NATO deployed four ships from its Standing Maritime Group Two into the Black Sea on March 4th. The four ships—the US Navy’s USS Vicksburg, flag ship of the group; the Turkish frigate Turgutreis; the Canadian frigate Fredericton; and the Italian frigate Aliseo—are to participate in training that will include simulated anti-air and anti-submarine warfare exercises, as well as simulated small boat attacks and basic ship handling maneuvers, reports a NATO release. Commander Adm. Brad Williamson said:

It won’t be just NATO that will be training, however. Russian combat aircraft assigned to the Black Sea Fleet will also conduct training. “These ships’ crews are doubtlessly conducting exercises in repelling air attacks from our planes, which gives our pilots the opportunity to gain experience in maneuvering and conducting aerial reconnaissance both in the range of anti-air systems and outside their range,” a Russian Navy source in Sevastopol told RIA Novosti. The Russian pilots will be flying Su-30 fighters and Su-24 attack aircraft from the Novofedorovka air base in Crimea.

The Russian Defense Ministry also announced, today, air defense exercises in the Southern Military District, which borders southeastern Ukraine and the Black Sea. The exercise is set to last about a month and involves 2,000 troops with 500 pieces of equipment.