Casus Belli – a cause for just war.
Unannounced, and missing from all the Western Op-Ed’s is what has already transpired this late February 2023. Both Russia and China have directly laid out Casus Belli statements against the United States.
This fact should scare the living daylights out of you.
Really.
It should.
A casus belli (from Latin casus belli 'occasion for war'; pl. casus belli) is an act or an event that either provokes or is used to justify a war.[1][2] A casus belli involves direct offenses or threats against the nation declaring the war, whereas a casus foederis involves offenses or threats against its ally—usually one bound by a mutual defense pact.[3][4] Either may be considered an act of war.[5] A declaration of war usually contains a description of the casus belli that has led the party in question to declare war on another party.
Let’s review the two Casus Belli statements…
China’s Casus Belli against the United States
China released a Global Security Initiative (GSI) Concept Paper on Tuesday 21FEB23, fully elaborating a common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security concept and providing China’s wisdom in tackling growing risks and challenges in traditional and non-traditional security areas.
Without China’s security, there will be no global security.
The concept paper was released during the Lanting Forum on the Global Security Initiative: China’s Proposal for Solving Security Challenges, which was held by Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.
“President Xi first proposed a new vision for security, which goes beyond traditional security ideas and power politics in the West,” Xu Bu, president of the China Institute of International Studies and secretary-general of the Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy Studies Center, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
It transcends the long-term practice of Western countries of building their own security on the basis of jeopardizing the security of other countries. When times are so turbulent, “we need a correct vision as guidance,” Xu said.
Western media (propaganda) outlets, citing “experts”, claimed that the concept paper “continued Beijing’s ambiguity over the Ukraine crisis,” suggesting that it appears to be largely a strategic messaging exercise rather than a fully thought-out strategy.
The document highlights the positive interaction between major countries and the special responsibilities that a major country needs to shoulder in safeguarding global peace. Security and development are complimentary to building a new type of international relations, which is underscored in China-proposed ideas, Chinese experts said.
China’s “white paper” should be read and shared widely…
US Hegemony and Its Perils
US Hegemony and Its Perils
February 2023
Contents
Introduction
I. Political Hegemony—Throwing Its Weight Around
II. Military Hegemony—Wanton Use of Force
III. Economic Hegemony—Looting and Exploitation
IV. Technological Hegemony—Monopoly and Suppression
V. Cultural Hegemony—Spreading False Narratives
Conclusion
Introduction
Since becoming the world’s most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.
The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage “color revolutions,” instigate regional disputes, and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights. Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a “rules-based international order.”
This report, by presenting the relevant facts, seeks to expose the U.S. abuse of hegemony in the political, military, economic, financial, technological and cultural fields, and to draw greater international attention to the perils of the U.S. practices to world peace and stability and the well-being of all peoples.
I. Political Hegemony — Throwing Its Weight Around
The United States has long been attempting to mold other countries and the world order with its own values and political system in the name of promoting democracy and human rights.
◆ Instances of U.S. interference in other countries’ internal affairs abound. In the name of “promoting democracy,” the United States practiced a “Neo-Monroe Doctrine” in Latin America, instigated “color revolutions” in Eurasia, and orchestrated the “Arab Spring” in West Asia and North Africa, bringing chaos and disaster to many countries.
In 1823, the United States announced the Monroe Doctrine. While touting an “America for the Americans,” what it truly wanted was an “America for the United States.”
Since then, the policies of successive U.S. governments toward Latin America and the Caribbean Region have been riddled with political interference, military intervention and regime subversion. From its 61-year hostility toward and blockade of Cuba to its overthrow of the Allende government of Chile, U.S. policy on this region has been built on one maxim-those who submit will prosper; those who resist shall perish.
The year 2003 marked the beginning of a succession of “color revolutions” — the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine and the “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. Department of State openly admitted playing a “central role” in these “regime changes.” The United States also interfered in the internal affairs of the Philippines, ousting President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 through the so-called “People Power Revolutions.”
In January 2023, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released his new book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love. He revealed in it that the United States had plotted to intervene in Venezuela. The plan was to force the Maduro government to reach an agreement with the opposition, deprive Venezuela of its ability to sell oil and gold for foreign exchange, exert high pressure on its economy, and influence the 2018 presidential election.
◆ The U.S. exercises double standards on international rules. Placing its self-interest first, the United States has walked away from international treaties and organizations, and put its domestic law above international law. In April 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would cut off all U.S. funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with the excuse that the organization “supports, or participates in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” The United States quit UNESCO twice in 1984 and 2017. In 2017, it announced leaving the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2018, it announced its exit from the UN Human Rights Council, citing the organization’s “bias” against Israel and failure to protect human rights effectively. In 2019, the United States announced its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to seek unfettered development of advanced weapons. In 2020, it announced pulling out of the Treaty on Open Skies.
The United States has also been a stumbling block to biological arms control by opposing negotiations on a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and impeding international verification of countries’ activities relating to biological weapons. As the only country in possession of a chemical weapons stockpile, the United States has repeatedly delayed the destruction of chemical weapons and remained reluctant in fulfilling its obligations. It has become the biggest obstacle to realizing “a world free of chemical weapons.”
◆ The United States is piecing together small blocs through its alliance system. It has been forcing an “Indo-Pacific Strategy” onto the Asia-Pacific region, assembling exclusive clubs like the Five Eyes, the Quad and AUKUS, and forcing regional countries to take sides. Such practices are essentially meant to create division in the region, stoke confrontation and undermine peace.
◆ The U.S. arbitrarily passes judgment on democracy in other countries, and fabricates a false narrative of “democracy versus authoritarianism” to incite estrangement, division, rivalry and confrontation. In December 2021, the United States hosted the first “Summit for Democracy,” which drew criticism and opposition from many countries for making a mockery of the spirit of democracy and dividing the world. In March 2023, the United States will host another “Summit for Democracy,” which remains unwelcome and will again find no support.
II. Military Hegemony — Wanton Use of Force
The history of the United States is characterized by violence and expansion. Since it gained independence in 1776, the United States has constantly sought expansion by force: it slaughtered Indians, invaded Canada, waged a war against Mexico, instigated the American-Spanish War, and annexed Hawaii. After World War II, the wars either provoked or launched by the United States included the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan War and the Syrian War, abusing its military hegemony to pave the way for expansionist objectives. In recent years, the U.S. average annual military budget has exceeded 700 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 40 percent of the world’s total, more than the 15 countries behind it combined. The United States has about 800 overseas military bases, with 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries.
According to the book America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth, the United States has fought or been militarily involved with almost all the 190-odd countries recognized by the United Nations with only three exceptions. The three countries were “spared” because the United States did not find them on the map.
◆ As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter put it, the United States is undoubtedly the most warlike nation in the history of the world. According to a Tufts University report, “Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A new Dataset on U.S. Military Interventions, 1776-2019,” the United States undertook nearly 400 military interventions globally between those years, 34 percent of which were in Latin America and the Caribbean, 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, 14 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 13 percent in Europe. Currently, its military intervention in the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa is on the rise.
Alex Lo, a South China Morning Post columnist, pointed out that the United States has rarely distinguished between diplomacy and war since its founding. It overthrew democratically elected governments in many developing countries in the 20th century and immediately replaced them with pro-American puppet regimes. Today, in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, the United States is repeating its old tactics of waging proxy, low-intensity, and drone wars.
◆ U.S. military hegemony has caused humanitarian tragedies. Since 2001, the wars and military operations launched by the United States in the name of fighting terrorism have claimed over 900,000 lives with some 335,000 of them civilians, injured millions and displaced tens of millions. The 2003 Iraq War resulted in some 200,000 to 250,000 civilian deaths, including over 16,000 directly killed by the U.S. military, and left more than a million homeless.
The United States has created 37 million refugees around the world. Since 2012, the number of Syrian refugees alone has increased tenfold. Between 2016 and 2019, 33,584 civilian deaths were documented in the Syrian fightings, including 3,833 killed by U.S.-led coalition bombings, half of them women and children. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) reported on 9 November 2018 that the air strikes launched by U.S. forces on Raqqa alone killed 1,600 Syrian civilians.
The two-decades-long war in Afghanistan devastated the country. A total of 47,000 Afghan civilians and 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers unrelated to the September 11 attacks were killed in U.S. military operations, and more than 10 million people were displaced. The war in Afghanistan destroyed the foundation of economic development there and plunged the Afghan people into destitution. After the “Kabul debacle” in 2021, the United States announced that it would freeze some 9.5 billion dollars in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, a move considered as “pure looting.”
In September 2022, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu commented at a rally that the United States has waged a proxy war in Syria, turned Afghanistan into an opium field and heroin factory, thrown Pakistan into turmoil, and left Libya in incessant civil unrest. The United States does whatever it takes to rob and enslave the people of any country with underground resources.
The United States has also adopted appalling methods in war. During the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, the United States used massive quantities of chemical and biological weapons as well as cluster bombs, fuel-air bombs, graphite bombs and depleted uranium bombs, causing enormous damage on civilian facilities, countless civilian casualties and lasting environmental pollution.
III. Economic Hegemony — Looting and Exploitation
After World War II, the United States led efforts to set up the Bretton Woods System, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which, together with the Marshall Plan, formed the international monetary system centered around the U.S. dollar. In addition, the United States has also established institutional hegemony in the international economic and financial sector by manipulating the weighted voting systems, rules and arrangements of international organizations including “approval by 85 percent majority,” and its domestic trade laws and regulations. By taking advantage of the dollar’s status as the major international reserve currency, the United States is basically collecting “seigniorage” from around the world; and using its control over international organizations, it coerces other countries into serving America’s political and economic strategy.
◆ The United States exploits the world’s wealth with the help of “seigniorage.” It costs only about 17 cents to produce a 100 dollar bill, but other countries had to pony up 100 dollar of actual goods in order to obtain one. It was pointed out more than half a century ago, that the United States enjoyed exorbitant privilege and deficit without tears created by its dollar, and used the worthless paper note to plunder the resources and factories of other nations.
◆ The hegemony of U.S. dollar is the main source of instability and uncertainty in the world economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States abused its global financial hegemony and injected trillions of dollars into the global market, leaving other countries, especially emerging economies, to pay the price. In 2022, the Fed ended its ultra-easy monetary policy and turned to aggressive interest rate hike, causing turmoil in the international financial market and substantial depreciation of other currencies such as the Euro, many of which dropped to a 20-year low. As a result, a large number of developing countries were challenged by high inflation, currency depreciation and capital outflows. This was exactly what Nixon’s secretary of the treasury John Connally once remarked, with self-satisfaction yet sharp precision, that “the dollar is our currency, but it is your problem.”
◆ With its control over international economic and financial organizations, the United States imposes additional conditions to their assistance to other countries. In order to reduce obstacles to U.S. capital inflow and speculation, the recipient countries are required to advance financial liberalization and open up financial markets so that their economic policies would fall in line with America’s strategy. According to the Review of International Political Economy, along with the 1,550 debt relief programs extended by the IMF to its 131 member countries from 1985 to 2014, as many as 55,465 additional political conditions had been attached.
◆ The United States willfully suppresses its opponents with economic coercion. In the 1980s, to eliminate the economic threat posed by Japan, and to control and use the latter in service of America’s strategic goal of confronting the Soviet Union and dominating the world, the United States leveraged its hegemonic financial power against Japan, and concluded the Plaza Accord. As a result, Yen was pushed up, and Japan was pressed to open up its financial market and reform its financial system. The Plaza Accord dealt a heavy blow to the growth momentum of the Japanese economy, leaving Japan to what was later called “three lost decades.”
◆ America’s economic and financial hegemony has become a geopolitical weapon. Doubling down on unilateral sanctions and “long-arm jurisdiction,” the United States has enacted such domestic laws as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, and introduced a series of executive orders to sanction specific countries, organizations or individuals. Statistics show that U.S. sanctions against foreign entities increased by 933 percent from 2000 to 2021. The Trump administration alone has imposed more than 3,900 sanctions, which means three sanctions per day. So far, the United States had or has imposed economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries across the world, including Cuba, China, Russia, the DPRK, Iran and Venezuela, affecting nearly half of the world’s population. “The United States of America” has turned itself into “the United States of Sanctions.” And “long-arm jurisdiction” has been reduced to nothing but a tool for the United States to use its means of state power to suppress economic competitors and interfere in normal international business. This is a serious departure from the principles of liberal market economy that the United States has long boasted.
IV. Technological Hegemony — Monopoly and Suppression
The United States seeks to deter other countries’ scientific, technological and economic development by wielding monopoly power, suppression measures and technology restrictions in high-tech fields.
◆ The United States monopolizes intellectual property in the name of protection. Taking advantage of the weak position of other countries, especially developing ones, on intellectual property rights and the institutional vacancy in relevant fields, the United States reaps excessive profits through monopoly. In 1994, the United States pushed forward the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), forcing the Americanized process and standards in intellectual property protection in an attempt to solidify its monopoly on technology.
In the 1980s, to contain the development of Japan’s semiconductor industry, the United States launched the “301” investigation, built bargaining power in bilateral negotiations through multilateral agreements, threatened to label Japan as conducting unfair trade, and imposed retaliatory tariffs, forcing Japan to sign the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement. As a result, Japanese semiconductor enterprises were almost completely driven out of global competition, and their market share dropped from 50 percent to 10 percent. Meanwhile, with the support of the U.S. government, a large number of U.S. semiconductor enterprises took the opportunity and grabbed larger market share.
◆ The United States politicizes, weaponizes technological issues and uses them as ideological tools. Overstretching the concept of national security, the United States mobilized state power to suppress and sanction Chinese company Huawei, restricted the entry of Huawei products into the U.S. market, cut off its supply of chips and operating systems, and coerced other countries to ban Huawei from undertaking local 5G network construction. It even talked Canada into unwarrantedly detaining Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou for nearly three years.
The United States has fabricated a slew of excuses to clamp down on China’s high-tech enterprises with global competitiveness, and has put more than 1,000 Chinese enterprises on sanction lists. In addition, the United States has also imposed controls on biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other high-end technologies, reinforced export restrictions, tightened investment screening, suppressed Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, and lobbied the Netherlands and Japan to restrict exports of chips and related equipment or technology to China.
The United States has also practiced double standards in its policy on China-related technological professionals. To sideline and suppress Chinese researchers, since June 2018, visa validity has been shortened for Chinese students majoring in certain high-tech-related disciplines, repeated cases have occurred where Chinese scholars and students going to the United States for exchange programs and study were unjustifiably denied and harassed, and large-scale investigation on Chinese scholars working in the United States was carried out.
◆ The United States solidifies its technological monopoly in the name of protecting democracy. By building small blocs on technology such as the “chips alliance” and “clean network,” the United States has put “democracy” and “human rights” labels on high-technology, and turned technological issues into political and ideological issues, so as to fabricate excuses for its technological blockade against other countries. In May 2019, the United States enlisted 32 countries to the Prague 5G Security Conference in the Czech Republic and issued the Prague Proposal in an attempt to exclude China’s 5G products. In April 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the “5G clean path,” a plan designed to build technological alliance in the 5G field with partners bonded by their shared ideology on democracy and the need to protect “cyber security.” The measures, in essence, are the U.S. attempts to maintain its technological hegemony through technological alliances.
◆ The United States abuses its technological hegemony by carrying out cyber attacks and eavesdropping. The United States has long been notorious as an “empire of hackers,” blamed for its rampant acts of cyber theft around the world. It has all kinds of means to enforce pervasive cyber attacks and surveillance, including using analog base station signals to access mobile phones for data theft, manipulating mobile apps, infiltrating cloud servers, and stealing through undersea cables. The list goes on.
U.S. surveillance is indiscriminate. All can be targets of its surveillance, be they rivals or allies, even leaders of allied countries such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and several French Presidents. Cyber surveillance and attacks launched by the United States such as “Prism,” “Dirtbox,” “Irritant Horn” and “Telescreen Operation” are all proof that the United States is closely monitoring its allies and partners. Such eavesdropping on allies and partners has already caused worldwide outrage. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, a website that has exposed U.S. surveillance programs, said that “do not expect a global surveillance superpower to act with honor or respect. There is only one rule: there are no rules.”
V. Cultural Hegemony — Spreading False Narratives
The global expansion of American culture is an important part of its external strategy. The United States has often used cultural tools to strengthen and maintain its hegemony in the world.
◆ The United States embeds American values in its products such as movies. American values and lifestyle are a tied product to its movies and TV shows, publications, media content, and programs by the government-funded non-profit cultural institutions. It thus shapes a cultural and public opinion space in which American culture reigns and maintains cultural hegemony. In his article The Americanization of the World, John Yemma, an American scholar, exposed the real weapons in U.S. cultural expansion: the Hollywood, the image design factories on Madison Avenue and the production lines of Mattel Company and Coca-Cola.
There are various vehicles the United States uses to keep its cultural hegemony. American movies are the most used; they now occupy more than 70 percent of the world’s market share. The United States skilfully exploits its cultural diversity to appeal to various ethnicities. When Hollywood movies descend on the world, they scream the American values tied to them.
◆ American cultural hegemony not only shows itself in “direct intervention,” but also in “media infiltration” and as “a trumpet for the world.” U.S.-dominated Western media has a particularly important role in shaping global public opinion in favor of U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.
The U.S. government strictly censors all social media companies and demands their obedience. Twitter CEO Elon Musk admitted on 27 December 2022 that all social media platforms work with the U.S. government to censor content, reported Fox Business Network. Public opinion in the United States is subject to government intervention to restrict all unfavorable remarks. Google often makes pages disappear.
U.S. Department of Defense manipulates social media. In December 2022, The Intercept, an independent U.S. investigative website, revealed that in July 2017, U.S. Central Command official Nathaniel Kahler instructed Twitter’s public policy team to augment the presence of 52 Arabic-language accounts on a list he sent, six of which were to be given priority. One of the six was dedicated to justifying U.S. drone attacks in Yemen, such as by claiming that the attacks were precise and killed only terrorists, not civilians. Following Kahler’s directive, Twitter put those Arabic-language accounts on a “white list” to amplify certain messages.
◆The United States practices double standards on the freedom of the press. It brutally suppresses and silences media of other countries by various means. The United States and Europe bar mainstream Russian media such as Russia Today and the Sputnik from their countries. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube openly restrict official accounts of Russia. Netflix, Apple and Google have removed Russian channels and applications from their services and app stores. Unprecedented draconian censorship is imposed on Russia-related contents.
◆The United States abuses its cultural hegemony to instigate “peaceful evolution” in socialist countries. It sets up news media and cultural outfits targeting socialist countries. It pours staggering amounts of public funds into radio and TV networks to support their ideological infiltration, and these mouthpieces bombard socialist countries in dozens of languages with inflammatory propaganda day and night.
The United States uses misinformation as a spear to attack other countries, and has built an industrial chain around it: there are groups and individuals making up stories, and peddling them worldwide to mislead public opinion with the support of nearly limitless financial resources.
Conclusion
While a just cause wins its champion wide support, an unjust one condemns its pursuer to be an outcast. The hegemonic, domineering, and bullying practices of using strength to intimidate the weak, taking from others by force and subterfuge, and playing zero-sum games are exerting grave harm. The historical trends of peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit are unstoppable. The United States has been overriding truth with its power and trampling justice to serve self-interest. These unilateral, egoistic and regressive hegemonic practices have drawn growing, intense criticism and opposition from the international community.
Countries need to respect each other and treat each other as equals. Big countries should behave in a manner befitting their status and take the lead in pursuing a new model of state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership, not confrontation or alliance. China opposes all forms of hegemonism and power politics, and rejects interference in other countries’ internal affairs. The United States must conduct serious soul-searching. It must critically examine what it has done, let go of its arrogance and prejudice, and quit its hegemonic, domineering and bullying practices.
Russia’s Casus Belli against the United States
From HERE
Russia’s casus belli for war in Ukraine are numerous and Russia keeps promoting new ones as the war unfolds. The main ones leading up to the war were the genocide in separatist-held regions and NATO expansion threatening Russia. A couple of weeks ago, Russia added the development of WMDs in neighboring provinces as another reason the war is justified. Many of Russia’s casus belli that it has supported reeks of American foreign policy that we all have intimate knowledge of in the last 30 years.
Response to rebels/terrorists
Ukraine has been fighting Russian-backed rebels in eastern provinces since 2014. Putin has denied the allegations and used this fighting as a justification for war. Putin has gone so far as to consider the fighting between insurgents and the Ukrainian military to a genocide. This is precisely the language the US used to justify bombing Serbia in the 90s. What makes this parallel even more on the point is that the US and Russia have funded the rebels that caused the reaction that led to what both sides called a genocide.
First, let’s start with the US moving the mujahadeen to Kosovo to fight for independence. While civilian casualties are unavoidable when fighting insurgents like the mujahadeen, Serbia even admits to outright killing many civilians on purpose. This led to the intervention by America. NATO then made its ultimatum clear: allow NATO to occupy Kosovo. When this was obviously not allowed by the Serbian government, NATO could claim it tried diplomacy. With the casus belli set up and being able to claim it tried diplomacy, NATO set about its bombing campaign. This bombing campaign was brutal and killed many civilians.
Now we can move to the current day where Russia has done the same thing to justify its war against Ukraine. Many Russian volunteers and Chechens have been boosting the rebel ranks since the fighting in the Eastern provinces began. Russia also hired the Wagner Group, a mercenary company to fight in Ukraine. Ironically, Russia says it wanted to “denazify” Ukraine but used Wagner founded by Dmitry Utkin. Russia, just like America did in the 90s for the Bosnians, funded and armed the Ukrainian rebels.
As covered above, Putin has claimed there has been a genocide going on against the regions the separatists have been fighting in. This parallels America’s claims of genocide in Serbia without the evidence or admission by the perpetuating parties that America has been able to put forth as well as cross-examination by a third party as Russia is not neutral here. This may come to the fore in the future and would only make this analogy more spot on.
Finally, Putin has claimed this genocide was a casus bellis against Ukraine. It has also taken to bombing much of Ukrainian cities, much like America did to the Serbs. Only time will tell just how many civilians will be killed by Russian bombs and missiles.
Bioweapons
Russia has also claimed that WMDs were being developed in eastern Ukraine, particularly anthrax. The claim is that American-funded biolabs in Ukraine has been developing bioweapons. Putin has also claimed Ukraine was destroying evidence of this. All of these accusations and excuses for not providing evidence reek of what the US government accused Iraq of in the 00s. The US finally had to admit the WMDs it found were from an abandoned research program and I suspect that Russia will also have to walk back its bold accusations to something that was not a threat as well, even though Russia and America will continue to pretend that Iraq and Ukraine were threats to use WMDs.
Realities
Having dealt with the all too familiar spin for aggressive wars, let us turn to the casus belli that doesn’t have a direct American parallel but is itself worthy of examination.
NATO Expansion
The premise of NATO expansion eastwards being an existential threat to Russia relies on a few presuppositions. One of these is that NATO had promised a former Russian government that NATO would expand “not one inch” west of West Germany. This would mean the US and its allies didn’t keep a promise to Russia from the 90s, which was the basis of allowing the reunification of Germany to occur. Another is that NATO’s expansion eastwards endangers NATO militarily because Russia cannot defend itself if the battle lines are pushed from Western Germany to Eastern Poland. None of these presuppositions is true, even if Putin believes it is so.
Firstly, no representative of NATO has ever claimed NATO would never expand to the east. As the Daily Kos points out, the original promise was that non-German NATO troops would not set up bases in East Germany. Gorbachev, the person to who the promise was made, not only confirms that NATO didn’t promise that it wouldn’t expand eastwards, but confirmed that the promise that was made was kept by the West.
Odd that Russia would lie about a promise from the 90s when it is violating one now. In the 90s, Ukraine was asked to give up its nuclear arsenal. In exchange, Ukraine asked both America and Russia to guarantee its security. Not only has Russia abandoned that by poisoning presidential candidates and funding rebels in Ukraine, but Russia has now invaded Ukraine. That is the ultimate betrayal of a promise from the 90s from a country that supposedly very much cares about promises from the 90s. Anti-American activists have been pushing this narrative that America failing its promises is what led to the war in Ukraine, but the only promise America has failed here is to protect Ukraine from foreign aggressors. If such activists were consistent, they would be calling for America to fulfill this promise.
Secondly, NATO expansion eastwards doesn’t make Russia harder to defend as Russia’s defense never relied upon conventional warfare. As can be seen by the struggle Russia has had with invading a weak Ukraine, outdated Western infantry weapons have stopped Russian armored pushes into Ukraine. Russia also hasn’t been able to win the air war in several weeks, despite America doing it against what was considered a powerful regional power in Iraq in a matter of hours in the 90s. Iraq had the 6th largest airforce in the world when America invaded and America still knocked out its ability to respond to the invasion within hours, while doing so 30 years ago.
Russia is fighting against the same planes America did 30 years ago and cannot gain air superiority. American planes are much better than Soviet warplanes from the 70s, with the F22 being unrivaled by anything Russia has. Russia would badly lose an air war with the West. Western air dominance would hand a huge advantage to the West in any war.
A war between NATO and Russia would never amount to a conventional war where the technological and strategic advantages enjoyed by the West would see them roll into Moscow to win the war. Any war between NATO and Russia would turn nuclear far before that. Thus, NATO expansion eastwards is of little consequence so long as nuclear weapons do not move eastwards. This was shown many decades ago with the Cuban missile crisis that occurred when Russia responded to NATO stationing nuclear weapons in Turkey, which is still a member of NATO. America and its NATO allies could already move nuclear weapons eastwards even prior to the 90s. NATO expanding eastwards since the 90s doesn’t actually add to this threat. The movement of nuclear weapons to the east is what Russia should be concerned about, but that wasn’t the caucus belli given and this threat was solved decades ago.
The Casus Belli Russia hasn’t outwardly stated
The main driver for Russia’s aggression in Ukraine since 2014 is the oil found in Ukraine and off its coast. While Ukraine’s oil deposits are the second largest in Europe, it also has many other natural resources that are crucial for economies. The oil off its coast is why the annexation of Crimea happened – to contest resource property rights. In the past, Russia has made sure that foreign companies helping Ukraine to utilize its natural resources were driven out. This is a strategic reason for supporting the rebels. Russia has taken control of Ukrainian oil rigs in the past and that is telling of their motivations in Ukraine.
This demonstrates why Ukraine joining NATO and the EU was such a red line for Russia. As previously noted, Russia has nothing to worry about militarily from Ukraine joining NATO, but it does mean that Russia wouldn’t be able to dictate Ukrainian politics as it did in the 90s and 00s, take over Ukrainian oil rigs, fund rebels in Ukraine, or invade Ukraine. By vassalizing Ukraine, as it did in the 90s and 00s, there would be no threat to Russia’s oligarchical economy. The inability to vassalize or annex Ukraine means that newly found natural resources would decrease Europe’s dependence on Russia’s natural resources. Essentially, Ukraine joining NATO and the EU is a threat to the current order of Russia and its oligarchy. This has nothing to do with the defense of Russia, but the defense of the rich oligarch’s wealth.
The inability to keep as vassals Eastern Europe is the most threatening thing to Russia’s national interests as the landscape can change in the future, as it did in Ukraine. To continue being a corrupt oligarchy, Russia needs to keep its place intact. Such changes, such as oil being found elsewhere in Europe, can threaten the Russian state as it is an oligarchy founded on raw resources. As an oligarchy, it is unable to change into other areas of trade as easily as a freer market would allow. Taxes from oil are also essential to the Russian state and Ukraine finding oil after 2010 has made it imperative Russia vassalize or annex Ukraine.
Ethnic Cleansing in Ukraine
Russia has long considered Ukraine to be Russia and more recent statements have not countered this assessment. Putin even went so far as to deny the nationality of the Ukrainians. Recent events in Ukraine confirm that a Russian victory will mean the destruction of the Ukrainian identity. Russia is allegedly already mass deporting Ukrainians and it is something Russia has engaged in for centuries. While the destruction of nationality is defined as a genocide the Geneva convention and using deportation was explicitly banned under the first draft of it, it also meets the definition of ethnic cleansing. In fact, that was the exact claim against Nazi Germany at Nuremburg.
Completing the expansion of Russian nationality has been a long-term goal of the Russians, which goes by the name Russian irredentism. It is a New World Order ideology of the East and we should be as careful to not support the Russian Empire as a dialectic against the American Empire.
Russia has turned to American propaganda tactics in its goal to launch a war on Ukraine – making hypocrites out of those who either supported the wars America was involved in but opposing Putin’s aggression or vice versa. Russian irredentism is alive and well in Russia, which has been the fear of Eastern Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union. This clear example of Russians going back to their old ways has made NATO stronger in Eastern and Middle Europe. Poland and Germany will take a much more active role in NATO, as Germany did in the 50s. We may likely see long standing neutral countries like Finland and Sweden join NATO. We should lament Russia’s aggression and find a way to both preserve peace and keep the Russian bear from further expanding its borders.
China and Russia align to challenge collective west
Damn! This is an awesome video!
Conclusion
In different languages, and in different formats, made at different times, both Russia and China have publicly released Casus Belli statements against the United States.
Looking up on Bing or Google, you have to pass through about 50 pages of Western propagandized “fluff” before you can find the actual statements and documents.
But once you do so, and read the actual text, the meaning is clear. These are formal Casus Belli statements against the United States.
You might not like the fact that these were made, or Russia or China (the six years of anti-East propaganda makes sure of that) but, you must face the reality. The United States is waging war. It is targeting both Russia and China simultaneously, and the leaders in those countries are not asleep. They know exactly what is going on.
Whether it emerges into …
- Status quo
- Accelerates into something far worse.
- Nuclear world war 3
Makes no difference. We are at the critical pivot point, as I have said in all my writings, and it is exactly on time.
Please take reasonable precautions. Do your affirmations. Be proactive and smart.
I look forward to this
Neither China nor Russia will tolerate America’s shit any longer, and they’ve made it clear in their Causus Belli, which of course the West buries without a second thought.
It’s only a matter of time before the West, in turn, get buried either under their own hubris or the swift retaliation of the Dragon and the Bear.
russian casus belli is a joke. It is a collection of the same gripes russians have been pushing since the fall of their syphilitic empire, predicated on falsehoods ( viz supposed NATO promises not to expand east) . You don’t get to keep your colonial empire if you can’t afford to feed your soldiers….and you don’t get to rebuild it if your armed farces can’t handle your former satrapy with an army 1/8th the size of yours, using your castoff armor. China’s tries to promote a local power to superpower status. You can’t seriously take accusations of cultural hegemony from a multicultural empire masquarading as nation state.
Should we worry? not about “cassus belli”. No one ever needs it to launch a war, and the idea that either the PRC or the Kremlin need to justify war to their populations is a fundamental misunderstanding of how those systems work.
If the ICBMs start flying, it’s not because the PRC published a whitepaper.
How many hours of worry will I have to complete in order to rectify this situation? I’m being facetious, of course, but beyond the preparations I’ve been putting in place for the last 30+years, including moving to a 50 acre tract of land in a very rural area long ago, what could I do, personally? It seems as though I’m chained up in the trunk of a car being driven by someone else, and we’re rapidly heading toward a precipice. I refuse to run away to another country; it wouldn’t do any good anyway if this escalates. Any advice would be appreciated.
Yes, those of us who can read and think are very concerned. However, the American Sheeple, at least in my A/O are more worried about Gonzaga’s basketball team, fleecing us on fixed incomes for more money for their failing government schools, and other bread and circuses distractions. Shambling, texting slack-jawed, mouth-breathing, brain-dead, vaping Mall Zombies they are. I guess when they see the flash in the west as Fairchild AFB turns into a radioactive cat litter box, they might wake up. Life is a vale of tears. Bleib ubrig.
FOR many years FOREIGN military have been pouring accross the borders of america UN CHECKED,they are a hundred times the amount of foreign military in america THEN ALL THE MEN IN AMERICA could stop,ONLY 3% of the men will fight,the rest are YELLOW COWARDS.them and their families will all be killed in the invasion of the stupidest country on earth..