While Russian military forces are encircling several of Ukraine’s key urban centers, American hawks on both sides of the political aisle are squawking in typical fashion.
Ever since Russia invaded in Ukraine in late February, many Americans have willingly joined in the anti-Russia hysteria. Several states and private establishments took it to another level by organizing boycotts against Russia vodka and other Russian products. Acts of vandalism against Russian-owned businesses have been reported following Russia’s military incursion.
Undoubtedly, the American corporate press has done a fantastic job riling up the American populace and priming it for war against a country that has not even aggressed against the continental US, its military assets, or nationals abroad.
For example, a recent poll by Rasmussen Reports demonstrated that 53% Democrats and 49% Republicans are in favor of sending US troops to Europe to potentially confront Russia. By contrast, 44% of unaffiliated voters support sending troops to the Old Continent.
Despite being placed on the hook for trillions of dollars during majority military boondoggles in Afghanistan and Iraq, America’s most politicized individuals are not averse to entering into another conflict. Above all, one with thermonuclear implications.
The bipartisan consensus witnessed among American voters is more pronounced in the Beltway. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, US foreign policymakers have vigorously pursued NATO enlargement, a policy that Western-friendly Russian President Boris Yeltsin all the way to current President Vladimir Putin had categorically rejected.
With so much turmoil on the home front during the 1990s, Russia was in no position to counter Western encroachment in its historical influence. The bombing of Serbia, a historical ally of Russia, was one of the starkest examples of the Russia’s geopolitical flaccidity during this period.
Both parties in DC continued NATO’s expansionist agenda in the first two decades of the 21st century. However, Russia grew more assertive towards Western encroachments in its backyard in the final year of George W. Bush’s presidency. When countries like Georgia were dangled NATO membership, the Russian Bear roared during the Russo-Georgian war of 2008. Russia demonstrated similar decisiveness in occupying Crimea and providing military assistance to separatist rebels in Eastern Ukraine during the Euromaidan crisis of 2014, where the U.S. Deep State was heavily involved in.
Before being elected in 2016, former president Donald Trump hinted on the campaign trail that he was open to working with Russia on certain strategic issues such as combating radical Sunni militants and re-setting relations with Russia (something that ironically both the Bush and Obama administrations promised). Though things didn’t work out as planned once Trump was in office. Trump learned firsthand how embedded anti-Russia sentiments were within Congress and the foreign policy bureaucracy.
For one, the corporate press drummed up an entirely bogus “collusion” narrative of Trump being allegedly installed by the Kremlin and beholden to it. The constant media guffawing about this conspiracy fulfilled the Deep State’s objective of ensuring that Russian-American relations were never repaired.
The media wasn’t alone in this endeavor, however. Trump’s administration was crawling with neoconservative policy advisors who made sure that no meaningful rapprochement between Russia occurred. Most egregious was how Trump brought hawk extraordinaire John Bolton on board to be his chief national security adviser — a man who has an unquenchable thirst for war. Amusingly, Bolton criticized Trump for delaying the deployment of military aid to Ukraine and for his alleged “contempt for the Ukrainians.”
In sum, the Trump administration was a missed opportunity for mending relations with Russia. Under the Trump administration, the US pulled out of the Open Skies Treaty and INF Treaty, while also providing lethal military aid to Ukraine and targeting Russian military contractors in Syria. It did not help matters that both parties in Congress were also filled with interventionists.
The Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), the toughest sanctions passed against Russia, enjoyed nearly unanimous support from both parties. In the former’s case, the only dissenters in the US Senate were Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rand Paul (R-KY) and in the House was Thomas Massie (R-KY), Justin Amash (R-MI), and John Duncan (R-TN).
Like all bad policies that come out of DC, there’s bipartisan unity behind them. Democrats have used Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to rekindle the Russiagate narratives they indulged in during the Trump administration. This scapegoating is an attempt to divert attention away from the Biden Administration’s bungled energy policies such as shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline. This move has left the US vulnerable from an energy independence standpoint but that hasn’t prevented the Biden administration from engaging in petty political scapegoating. President Joe Biden went as far as to describe the rising energy costs taking place in the US as “Putin’s price hike.”
https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1501959821368737792
As the 2022 midterms draw closer, Democrats have now found the perfect foreign boogeyman in Russia. They will use Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to explain away all the administration’s economic shortcomings.
Russia is public enemy #1, for now. But that will change as China grows stronger and likely extends a financial helping hand to Russia once it gets fully disconnected from the collective West’s financial networks. The same temptation to unify around a common external foe will exist with China. One can expect this to go into overdrive once the pivot to Asia is fully realized.
It goes without saying, but anytime there’s a bipartisan consensus on a political issue, it’s likely a bad idea. If there’s a place that needs more diversity of thought, it’s foreign policy. The present foreign policy monoculture only magnifies the probabilities of the US sleepwalking into a military disaster.
