The Insanity of US Policy Thought

RAND published a piece yesterday looking at the possible end of the Ukraine war. Given RAND’s status as a crucial think tank for the US government, which published the anti Russia strategy that led to this conflict, it is important to review.

This is part seven of the series, so it summarizes the current thinking of US policymakers.

The Western goal is stated as this:

Meanwhile, the West hopes that the continuing Russian military failure in Ukraine, and the mounting economic costs of sanctions, will eventually persuade Russia to quit.

The goal of the overall policy, including this war, is the collapse of Russia.

This next sentence on negotiations is particularly telling:

Negotiations are a continuation of the conflict, not an alternative to the conflict.

This idea is why America fails as diplomacy. They don't believe in resolving issues except through force.

As such, they rarely can deliver more than can be achieved militarily.

If you can actually win militarily that is. Instead of realizing that negotiations should be part of overall strategy and understanding that war is a continuation of interaction, they can only understand negotiating surrender and dictating terms to vassals.

Negotiating is vital to peacemaking and resolving conflicts. I negotiate daily with the other side in litigation. I create the space where the other side is willing to resolve the conflict. In law, over 90% of cases settle because at some point it makes more sense to end a conflict than increase the costs through litigation. If you are winning and have a good case, it is still often better to resolve the case rather than risk failure, if you can get most of what you want.

The problem for the West is that the war was a means to an end, not the end itself. The West wants Putin gone and Russia broken up and even that is just an intermediate goal. This is largely because they fear Putin and what his opposition to foreign control does to their globalist schemes, and global domination by the oligarchy is their ultimate goal.

As such, negotiations are a losing proposition for the West and this is why the West is willing to fight until Ukraine its destroyed.

Can the West expect to restore good “postwar” relations with Russia? Absent a clear-cut Western success in Ukraine, and with Putin in power, such an outcome seems unlikely.

The West cannot even envision a peace with Putin in power. Nevermind that Putin is much more moderate and reasonable than any realistic successor to Putin. When they talk about removing Putin, they mean breaking up Russia and reducing it to a bunch of vassals states to be exploited.

A return to the status quo antebellum also seems unlikely. Some suggest that Western countries will forgive and forget, but will sanctions be removed?

What about whether Russia can forgive and forget? I am reminded of a time I was asked to give some advice to a young mother who had been arrested for hitting her husband. He had a black eye and he still didn't call the police. His family did.

The young mother said, “How can I ever forgive him for having me arrested?” She had seen herself as the victim, even though she hit her husband who was smaller than her. I responded, “How can he forgive you is the better question.”

The West created the situation and has been dumping fuel on the fire, stopping peace and keeping the war going, in order to serve its own goals, at the expense of Ukraine and Russia, as well issued sanctions the goal of destroying the Russian economy. It reached earlier peace agreements in bad faith. To fix post war relations, the West will need to make extreme amends, including likely pulling back NATO from eastern Europe stopping anti Russia efforts.

Some Western analysts have argued that Russia must not be alienated, but instead turned into an ally for the looming and more-threatening conflict with China. At the very least, they argue, the United States should not waste energy and resources on Ukraine while preparing for inevitable war in Asia. But is reconciliation with Russia realistic? Russia has a long history of tension with China— can the West divide the two?

The fools! Do they really not understand how the world has changed and that the American hegemony is over? Do they not understand that the entire anti Russia project pushed Russia and China together? That their efforts have done more to create a multipolar world based upon state sovereignty than anything else since the end of the Cold War?

The outcome of the war in Ukraine is critical to the future of NATO, which has invested heavily in stopping Russian aggression. “Success,” however that may be defined, will strengthen the alliance. Anything perceived as failure could adversely affect the organization in a variety of ways.

Yes, NATO is at risk of dying over the Ukraine war. It should have died 30 years ago. Its post Cold War goal was to keep Europe a vassal of America. They can try to call something a success, but NATO should die and this will help advance irs death.

It is as if the writer can't grasp the birth of the multipolar order, which isn't a new thing in the world. Past multipolar orders had long periods of stability. Balance of power keeps conflicts at lower levels. It is when one country is too powerful that the order is disrupted.