Right Again, Unfortunately, On RussiaPaleocons were right about endless wars in the Middle East, right about the dangers of a rising China and have, disappointingly, been proven right again.
By Bradley Devlin
February 24, 2022
As Russia began its drive into Ukraine on several fronts overnight, neoconservatives and right-liberals tried to lay the blame for the invasion at the feet of American nationalists and paleoconservatives. They’ve labeled restrainers Russian stooges, or variations of the term, and preemptively impugned them for what some already describe in terms of an impending Holocaust. Their deep well of historical analogies never ceases to impress.
While the hawks would like you to believe that recent developments in Ukraine have discredited the paleoconservative position, it has proven quite the opposite. For decades, this magazine and a coalition of foreign policy restrainers have warned that our reckless, irrational, and incoherent strategy toward Russia in Europe would lead to a Russia more antagonistic towards the West, and distract from other geopolitical arenas. All the tragedies that come with the reality of war will surely transpire in the coming days, but today that position has been vindicated.
Political Twitter was ablaze in Washington, as establishment types offered their condemnations of the Russian invasion in the strongest possible terms, each seeming to try to outdo the rest. Meghan McCain, never missing a chance to remind us who her father was, tweeted, “Dad was nicknamed one of the godfathers of the Ukrainian revolution. He supported and protested alongside Ukranians [sic]. He was so beloved there, a street in Kiev was named after him. There was decades of warnings about Putin. But weak leadership continued to ignore it. SHAME on us.” Indeed, there were decades of warnings about Putin. Warnings men like her father—who, as she proudly admits, actively encouraged the Euromaidan protests that further destabilized the region—did not heed.
What Americans are witnessing now, half a world away, is the result of decades of misguided policy towards Russia. In the twilight of the Soviet Union, then-U.S. Secretary of State James Baker allegedly promised the Soviets that NATO would move “not one inch” eastward. While some point out this promise was never codified in subsequent negotiations, this makes it all the more shameful. A “take back” on an issue of such strategic import for both parties should hardly be considered serious diplomacy. Somewhat understandably, the Russians felt sorely betrayed in 1999 when NATO added the former Warsaw Pact countries of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to its ranks.
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But the temptation to portray Russia as Europe’s next Hitler was too much for the U.S. and NATO to withstand. In 2004, NATO followed through on the alliance’s biggest single enlargement in its history. Overnight, NATO grew by almost a third in terms of member states, two of which, Latvia and Estonia, shared borders with Russia.
Those who claim that NATO’s expansion has not been a threat to Russia betray their ignorance. From its founding, NATO’s raison d’être was to counter whatever territorial ambitions the USSR might have had in Western Europe. Those who cling to the NATO-expansion narrative respond that NATO was a defensive alliance. But so was the Warsaw Pact. If the Soviet Union had attempted to court Yugoslavia, or Austria, or Switzerland, how could the West not have perceived this as a threat? What’s more, many of NATO’s actions since the end of the Cold War—like intervening in wars in Bosnia and Kosovo—have not been defensive in nature.
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Source:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/right-again-unfortunately-on-russia/
