A Unified Force to Stop the Brinkmanship toward World War

The Foreign Ministers of the G7 together with the EU’s top diplomat released a virtual declaration of war against Russia, at the end of their May 14 meeting on the Baltic Sea in Germany. Their statement, as usual, accuses Moscow of bearing sole responsibility for the escalation in Ukraine and makes no offer of negotiations. It asserts: “We will never recognize borders Russia has attempted to change by military aggression, and will uphold our engagement in the support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea, and all states.”

The next day, at the meeting of foreign ministers of NATO members in Berlin, the organization’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg claimed that Moscow’s offensive is failing and that Ukraine “can win this war”. To help them do so, he said, the Allies have supplied “security assistance worth billions of dollars” and trained “tens of thousands of Ukrainian forces”.

It is an illusion to think that Ukrainian forces could force Russia to capitulate, and give up all its demands, no matter how much advanced weaponry and training is supplied from the West. Confronting Crimea and the Sevastopol naval base means world war – as any half-competent military leader knows.

Rather than seeking a negotiated settlement to the conflict, which was the stated objective of most European leaders in the beginning, the West is pursuing a strategy of “nuclear brinkmanship”, reminiscent of the Cold War era. That approach is based on the chicken game, which originally involved two drivers hurtling their cars toward one another on a direct collision course, until one swerves (“chickens out”) to avoid the crash, thus losing the game. But if neither swerves, both are destroyed.

How else can one explain the mad rush to get Finland and Sweden to apply for NATO membership, and give up their treasured neutrality, although it is generally admitted that Russia represents no threat for them (cf. SAS 19/22)? This move makes it the sixth expansion of the western alliance eastward toward Russia’s borders since 1990, violating commitments made at the time. And most unfortunately for Ukraine and the Ukrainian population, they are being used as pawns in this cynical game. After Russia, as we have warned many times, the ultimate target of the war party is China.

However, there are a growing number of people and organizations in the United States and Europe who are speaking out against the war danger, but they remain quite disparate and unorganized. The role of the Schiller Institute now is to try and bring them together to form a coherent force globally to demand an agenda of peace and mutual development. This initiative will be discussed at the May 26 webinar.