Chaos Unfolding: The Israel-Iran Escalation and the Crisis of Western National Security

For years, if not decades, we’ve heard that Iran is on the brink of building a nuclear bomb. This rationale has been used again and again to justify interventions, sanctions, and threats. It has now served as the moral pretext for Israel’s preemptive strike against Iranian infrastructure and personnel. Not only did those operations target nuclear enrichment sites but have also been extended to pinpointed strikes and assassinations against individuals, nuclear scientists and military brass, including their families—all flagrant violations of the principles of international law, yet, more importantly, of the fundamental stakes of an Ethics of International Relations.

The classical boundaries of just war—proportionality and distinction—have been discarded. The guiding principle is no longer rooted in legality or morality but in Machiavellian expediency. Imaginary political goals are pursued by any and all means. The immoral logic of “the end justifies all means” is applied without any limits and humanitarian concerns—a shameful conduct, which is not merely tragic, but rather a symptom of a deeper civilizational disorder.

Yet, the Israel-Iran confrontation is but one facet of a much broader global descent into chaotic disorder. Alongside it, we witness the persistence of the Ukraine war—now in its fourth year and still dominated by the West’s refusal to engage in serious diplomacy and in acknowledging Russia’s legitimate security interests—as well as domestic turbulence in the United States.

Protests erupted nationwide on June 14—coincidentally Donald Trump’s birthday and the 250th anniversary of the founding of the US Army—against the perceived authoritarianism of his administration, while cities like Los Angeles see mounting resistance to federal ICE operations. People tend to forget—or, more accurately, people particularly on the left are unaware of—that a democratic system's governing executive in order to maintain social stability and security must grow more authoritarian the more society gets increasingly lawless and anarchistic. This apparent authoritarianism is a natural outcome of political evolution toward societal disintegration and internal striving rather than having anything to do with the reign of an absolute monarch or king. Local Democrat mayors and governors defy presidential directives and—in their civic illiteracy—act in support of the ignorant leftist mob.

Across the Atlantic, the European Union engages in its own form of institutional despotism. Unelected Eurocrats in Brussels frequently contest or sabotage Conservative triumphs in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Austria and other places. Under the pretense of unavoidable rule of law-interventions, results of democratic elections are nullified—exposing an ideological disdain of political leaders and administrations on the left for the very populations they purport to represent. Authoritarian imposition of the European Union on member states where conservative parties and candidates are democratically elected has meanwhile become a matter of course. These widespread pseudo-interventions of totalitarian character are proof that the world is ever more entangled in chaos and mayhem.

In this environment, violence and outright war are no longer an anomaly and appear to be on the resurgence. All promising attempts post-Cold War to usher the world into a new, more peaceful and cooperative order, have failed. From Washington’s neoconservative warmongers to the belligerent factions in Brussels, Berlin, London, and Paris, one sees little evidence of restraint or prudence. They act as if they’ve lost their minds and dropped their moral compasses long time ago. They push the continuation of armed conflict that comes at horrendous expenses for populations in terms of blood and treasure. The armament and buildup of military organizations across Europe and beyond accelerates at an alarming pace. The fiscal and human cost of these policies is staggering, yet they continue, animated by a doctrine that no longer consults moral reason.

Regarding Iran specifically, I have long maintained that a rational, credible, and peaceful deterrence strategy was available. In my essays of 10 August and 27 September 2017, published in this blog here and here and included in my 2024 book "44 & 45. The Tenures of US Presidents Barack H. Obama and Donald J. Trump. A Social-Philosophical Treatise" (pp. 158–162), I proposed to apply the already existing doctrine of Annihilation upon First Strike as a sufficient strategic response to North Korea. Now it should be applied to Iran as well. This doctrine assures powers that the US will not use nuclear means first against them, but will strike with all her might when herself and allies are attacked by nuclear means first. When paired with rigorous inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), this strategy would ensure Iran’s nuclear program remained confined to peaceful civilian purposes. No preemptive strikes, sabotage, or assassination campaigns were necessary—or justifiable.

One cannot help but wonder whether President Trump, now in his second term, is still in command of U.S. foreign policy? Or has he been sidelined by a permanent national security bureaucracy—the so-called “Deep State”—and shadow-government figures such as South-Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and like-minded interventionists and war hawks? Trump doesn’t seem to be wholly informed about the ongoings in the security arena and left out of important decisions, such as the preemptive strike Israel’s against Iran. Trump’s 2019 decision to cancel retaliatory strikes against Iran following the downing of a U.S. drone showed prudence and moral instinct. It is hard to believe he would have approved the Israeli strikes amid active negotiations. And yet, if he was uninformed or bypassed, it raises profound constitutional and strategic questions about the erosion of civilian oversight in matters of war and peace.

Of course, I hold no illusions that either he or his advisors are familiar with the outlined positions. Although, fortunately, President Trump seems to have intuitive grasp of my idea when expressing on social media: "If we were attacked in any way, shape, or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the U.S Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before." If he added to this statement "if we or Israel or other allies in the region were attacked," the strategy of Annihilation Upon 1st Strike would render any preemptive application of violent means unnecessary. I have consistently called attention to the shocking illiteracy of Western security elites in the realm of strategic philosophy and international ethics. That these actors, hidden behind a screen of bureaucratic privilege and ideological confusion, continuously ignore wiser counsel is no surprise. It is, however, a tragedy.

The only hope of returning to reason and to bring the Western world to its senses is to restore the voice of philosophical insight in matters of policy as I have also pointed out in my book 44 & 45 mentioned above. As Immanuel Kant once emphasized in his 1795 essay "Zum ewigen Frieden" (Perpetual Peace), philosophers—who ideally think holistically and are immune to manipulation and propaganda—should be welcomed (again) into the ranks of political advisors and counselors to those in power.

Today, that advice is more needed than ever. Without it, the West drifts ever further from sanity, morality, and the rule of (moral) law—and closer to an age of chaos, unrestrained violence, and unreasonableness.

The Unreasonableness of European Political Elites Prevents Peace in the Ukraine-Russia War

The war in Ukraine, now entering its fourth year, has left the European Union and much of the West on the wrong side of history. This conflict, deeply rooted in the complex geopolitics of Russia, Ukraine, and the broader Western alliance, was—at least from Russia’s vantage point—never merely about territorial disputes or nationalistic ambition. It was instead about NATO expansion and the ongoing subjugation of Russian populations in the Donbas by Kiev in the wake of the Maidan Revolution in 2014. The response to these legitimate Russian concerns by the US and Europe has been short-sighted and historically misguided, and owed to a substantial failure in the West’s security policy design and diplomatic foresight. 

Ukraine’s potential accession to NATO would have represented a significant shift in the balance of power on Russia’s doorstep. Rather than an imperial ambition, as often portrayed by the West, this was a matter of national survival for Russia.  Despite Russia's repeated warnings, Western policymakers, particularly in the US and the EU, dismissed these concerns, choosing to expand NATO right up to Russia’s borders.

 Maidan and the Neglect of Russia’s National Security Interests 

The situation took a decisive turn after the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine, which was largely instigated by the United States. The revolution overthrew then-President Viktor Yanukovych, who had been seen as pro-Russian, and installed the anti-Russian Petro Poroshenko as the new president. This shift, backed by Washington and much of the EU, sowed deeper divisions within Ukraine, particularly in the Russian-speaking eastern and southern regions.

Instead of seeking peace and reconciliation and preparing Ukraine as a neutral bridge for political exchange between Russia and Europe, the West pushed Ukraine into an arms race that ultimately escalated the conflict. [for the rise in Ukraine's defense budget from 2013 until before the outbreak of the war see https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2022/02/russian-statesmanship-against-ukraine.html]. Feeling its hand forced, Russia moved toward the annexation of Crimea in 2014. From Russia’s perspective, this move was a necessary and strategic response to the destabilization of Ukraine and the growing military presence of NATO forces near its borders. Crimea, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, held immense strategic significance. The possibility of Ukraine joining NATO posed a direct threat to Russia’s access to the Black Sea, making the annexation of Crimea an inevitable step in Russia’s security strategy.

As the Maidan Revolution unfolded, Russian-speaking minorities in these regions felt increasingly marginalized by the new Kiev government. Poroshenko’s policies, including restrictive language laws and the suppression of Russian cultural identity, led to a violent backlash that escalated into a full-blown civil conflict, with Russia stepping in to protect its ethnic kin and safeguard its strategic interests.

Ukraine War - Europe Destroyed by Vulgar Pacifism and Strategic Illiteracy among Western Elites

War of aggression! Criminal Putin! Heroic Zelensky! Barbaric Russians! Glorious Ukrainians! 

 

These designations and other absurdities have been regurgitated to dumb down the masses while the war raged for the past ten months. Despite the damage done, Western political elites are intensifying the propaganda in their desperate attempt to avoid losing face. They duplicate their pronounced security illiteracy, deepen the conflict, and reduce the chances of a negotiated peace. 

 

The false and vulgar pacifist attitude to designate the one who used violent military means first - no matter the reasons and overall context - still prevails in Western political and media quarters. It is totally left out of the picture that Mr. Putin had exhausted all peaceful means and was virtually thrust into violently resolving an existential threat to his nation's security. 

 

No war is an isolated act and should not and must not be regarded as such, as the armchair strategists and self-proclaimed security policy experts on TV have tried to make us believe. But I provided comprehensive political and philosophical analyses of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in previous blog entries and publications. Find details here and here.

 

Former radical pacifists of the European green and socialist parties keep pushing for further arms delivery to Ukraine and support of the war effort. Their hatred for Russia and subservience to a U.S. warmongering regime appear even to trump their long-held ideological convictions. And the public, by and large, still mirrors the pernicious bias of their political masters. 

 

According to polls, more than half of the population in Western European countries still prefer an unconditional victory of Ukraine over any deal that would respect Russia's interests. Even politicians and commentators who criticize sanctions want them lifted because they hurt Western nations' interests. They haven't figured or don't dare to mention that the sanctions are unjust and unethical in and by themselves. 

 

The lies - dictator Putin has launched a war of aggression out of pure lust for power to restore the borders of the Soviet Union - seem to persist successfully. The American president dared to declare that Putin started a war completely groundless and without provocation. A transparent falsehood, a convenient political lie in the face of all evidence and the truth of the matter.

War is always ugly but sometimes inevitable. Neither its justification nor condemnation should be decided from the gut!

Being against violence does not make for a beautiful soul (Aristotle)

If we consider war as a continuation of political activity by other means, it never arises out of nowhere. Every war has a history that led to it. The topic of war is complex and delicate, and assessing its justification or inevitability in specific instances is even more so.

The general public often views war as the worst of all evils. The prevailing opinion is that the side that starts a war is inherently wrong and evil, while the side that resists is right and good. But as history and rational reflection show us, this is not necessarily true. If it were so easy to distinguish between right and wrong in war, many instances would reveal the United States and its Western allies as the aggressors. If the question of war could be answered based purely on emotion, we would never need to discuss the "Just War" theory, which has occupied philosophers from Augustine and Thomas Aquinas to Michael Walzer and others, including myself. I devoted my doctoral thesis (and the book based on it) to the morality and immorality of violence (and non-violence) on both individual, collective, and politico-military levels.

The evaluation of war and its political-ethical implications can be approached from two essential perspectives. First, what triggered the war, and what prompted political leaders or governing bodies to go to war? What is the causa iusta—the just reason, as the primary consideration of the principle of ius ad bellum (right to war)—that justifies or seems to justify waging war?

The challenge in assessing this crucial aspect is that the justification for the use of force—no matter when it occurs—is always subjective, based on the intentions of political leaders or decision-making bodies. To assess this adequately, observers—whether individuals, political administrations, or international bodies—must rise to a meta-level of thought, striving to judge the events leading to the dispute as objectively and impartially as possible. Unfortunately, this rarely happens, as pacifist and political-ideological emotions often cloud judgment. The United Nations, which should ideally play this role, seldom succeeds in maintaining this objective and impartial perspective.

Two essential criteria of transcendental moral philosophy (independent of experience and comprehensible by reason alone) for ius ad bellum are necessity and inevitability. War must always be a last resort, necessary and inevitable as the only option for resolving a conflict. While this is relatively obvious in cases of clear defense, it becomes more complicated in cases of preemption or prevention. A pre-emptive war represents a proactive breach of the peace, aimed at addressing an imminent threat or gaining a strategic advantage before an inevitable armed conflict. Pre-emptive war may be justified if all alternatives to the use of force have been exhausted, or if immediate military intervention is needed to prevent a much larger threat. Examples of pre-emptive military strikes include Israel's Six-Day War in 1967 and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. In the latter case, the assumption that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) was used as a justification for war, though this proved to be inaccurate.

The ius in bello (law in war) is the second aspect of warfare to be evaluated. Do the warring parties and their military forces abide by the laws of war, such as the Geneva Conventions? Do they wage wars based on universal human principles that must not be endangered or abandoned, even in armed conflict? Do the warring parties distinguish between combatants and non-combatants? Are military targets the focus, with efforts made to minimize collateral damage? Are prisoners of war and wounded enemy soldiers treated in accordance with the Geneva Protocols, and are war crimes avoided?

While both sides appear to violate the ius in bello in the ongoing Ukraine war, only alleged Russian war crimes are widely reported in the West. For example, there is no mention of Ukrainian troops using civilians as human shields, choosing defensive positions in residential areas, or arming non-combatants in violation of martial law, actions that organized crime exploits to wreak havoc, while the blame is shifted to Russian forces. Furthermore, there is no mention of the restraint Putin has imposed on his armed forces, with a focus on military objectives. The West misinterprets this as incompetence on the part of Russian troops.

To understand the causalities that led to the war and provide criteria for its potential resolution, we must focus on the question of ius ad bellum—the reasons and motives for starting a war that lie within the hands of political leaders.

The Responsibility for this War in Ukraine is on the West's Side

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Disclaimer: I am a friend of Europe and the US, but not necessarily of their ruling political class or policy decisions. None of my criticism is intended to be malicious or adversarial. It is only meant to enlighten the discourse, broaden perspectives, and improve political relations and decisions.

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Although Western political elites and their media unanimously condemn President Putin's decision to recognize the breakaway regions of Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (LPR) in eastern Ukraine as autonomous people's republics, Putin's strategic maneuver can be seen as one of last resort.

Donetsk and Lugansk separated from Kiev following the Western-backed Maidan coup of 2014. They did not tolerate the deposition of the incumbent President Yanukovych and the installation of Poroshenko, whom they perceived as a puppet of Washington and Berlin. Poroshenko’s policies opened Ukraine to the political, military, and economic influence of the US and the West. Since then, the Ukrainian leadership has rejected—disregarding the Minsk I and II agreements—meaningful discussions on the status of its eastern territories, even resorting to a civil war-like conflict in an attempt to forcibly reintegrate the republics.

In 2014, following the Maidan revolution, it became immediately clear that Putin would not passively accept Ukraine's potential NATO membership, which could result in the expulsion of Russia from its Black Sea ports in Crimea. For the first time, Putin was confronted with an anti-Russian regime in Kiev. This prompted the annexation of Crimea and support for the separatists in Donbass, who opposed Ukraine’s transformation into a NATO base. The predominantly Russian population in these areas also resisted the Ukrainian regime's efforts to eliminate Russian traditions, language, and culture.

The annexation of Crimea and support for the eastern territories should have been predictable had the US and Europe taken the time to consider Russia's legitimate strategic interests and conducted an overdue, intelligent evaluation of the region’s security dynamics. How would the United States react, for instance, if Mexico allied with Russia and Putin stationed massive troops along the southern border?

Western political elites have not made a single meaningful effort to address Russia's legitimate security concerns. Instead, they have pursued ruthless regional and global dominance, which has shaped international relations—and particularly relations with Russia—for over a quarter-century.

Resolving the crisis in Ukraine would have only required a reassessment of Washington, Brussels, and Berlin’s strategic miscalculations and a respect for Russia’s legitimate security interests. Unfortunately, the current political leadership in the US and Europe lacks the necessary restraint to peacefully resolve the conflict.

For example, neither the weeks-long Russian troop build-up on the Ukrainian border nor Russia’s security demands—outlined in a letter to Western leaders prior to the military action—led to any acknowledgment of Russia’s national security concerns by the US, EU, or NATO. They denied Putin any opportunity for diplomacy. The blame for the collapse of dialogue and the first step toward Russian aggression lies solely with the West.

While public and international discourse on this issue often focuses on the Kremlin and the White House, little attention is paid to Ukrainian President Zelensky’s role in the current crisis. Had he defined his country’s national security interests wisely and sensibly within the broader geopolitical context, particularly in relation to Russia, he might have avoided the conflict and preserved his country’s territorial integrity. Instead, driven by his Western backers and perhaps megalomaniacal ambitions, he pushed Ukraine toward NATO membership and the stationing of nuclear weapons—decisions that overstepped the reasonable limits of an adequate security strategy.

When the Breakdown of Rationality becomes a Habit

I have been commenting on the political spectacle unfolding in U.S. domestic politics ever since Donald Trump first ran for office. From the beginning, I argued that the undignified scale of it was truly mortifying.

Over the years, my analysis of this mortifying spectacle has proven accurate. However, I was wrong about one prediction: I expected that the irrational Trump-hatred would subside within a reasonable time frame, and that fairness would return to the mainstream media.

That prediction has certainly not come to pass. On the contrary, the madness has continued and even intensified. While sane minds might assume it couldn't get worse, it somehow does. For now, it has culminated in the utterly unreasonable impeachment spectacle in the House of Representatives. This farce represents the shameful continuation of the tragicomedy of U.S. domestic politics that I first outlined in my post on October 12, 2019 (link).

The impeachment investigation in the House committees was a futile waste of time. For the most part, partisan, one-sided witnesses and so-called constitutional experts simply parroted their preconceived ideas. As the process dragged on, it became clear that the Democrats' conduct was fueled by an intent to destroy rather than to seek common ground. It was clear they had no interest in ending this political charade.

Even more astonishing, the forces opposing impeachment—including the majority of Republicans and President Trump himself—allowed themselves to be tricked into debating a phony cause. They fell for a scam, a scheme devoid of substance and reality. It is inconceivable that those who opposed the impeachment would participate in the charade with such willing participation.

Instead of refusing to dignify the unreasonable show trial orchestrated by the Democrats in the House, Republicans and others played along as though there were any real substance to the impeachment claims. This only fueled the out-of-control Trump-haters, who, completely neglecting the basic principles of governance, continued and even exacerbated the already appalling situation.

It was absolute nonsense when Democrat Representative Adam Schiff—a cold-blooded ideologue, liar, and Trump-hater—initiated the impeachment proceedings by claiming to have found “incontrovertible evidence” that President Trump abused his power.

The truth, however, is quite different. Mr. Trump’s request for Ukraine to investigate was legitimate and in the interest of the United States. When Joe Biden was vice president, the Biden family's actions already appeared corrupt on the surface. Who would want a politician to rise to the highest office in the land when he had previously abused his power in the second-highest office? Why should a presidential candidate’s bid for nomination shield them from criminal investigation? Moreover, why would President Trump even consider Mr. Biden a serious rival more than a year before the next presidential election, especially when it was still highly uncertain whether “Sleepy Joe” would even be the Democratic nominee? Schiff’s claim that Trump sought to “defeat Mr. Biden in the 2020 presidential election and enhance his prospects for reelection” is utterly foolish and beside the point.

The mental disorder of the Democrats became even more evident when they argued, through their henchman Adam Schiff, that Trump was undermining “a nation at war with our adversary, Vladimir Putin’s Russia” by withholding $391 million in military aid.

As far as I know, neither Ukraine nor the U.S. is at war with Russia. Neither the Democrats' Russia-hatred nor the lies of Schiff can make it so. In fact, as I pointed out in my blog entries in 2015 (link) and 2014 (link), the U.S. and the EU instigated a coup in Ukraine, installing a Washington-friendly figure, Poroshenko. Then, under the pretense of Russian aggression, the U.S. deployed armored troops and anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and the Baltics. There has never been a legitimate security reason for the U.S. to station troops in Ukraine or provide massive military aid at the expense of American taxpayers.

The Cold War-minded, Russophobic factions in the U.S. State Department and the Deep State national security complex fabricated the idea of Russian aggression and war. They continued to deceive the American public, including during the impeachment trials.

As the primary actor in foreign affairs and national security, President Trump was fully entitled to withhold military aid to Ukraine while assessing corruption. He also had the authority to alter the failed foreign policy toward Ukraine, though that didn't happen. Nonetheless, the proceedings revealed how the left distorts facts, obstructs presidential power, and undermines constitutional principles.

The Democrats also disregarded the conclusions of special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who confirmed after two years of investigation that there was no collusion between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign. Yet Schiff tried to link Trump’s alleged abuse of power regarding Ukraine to the disproven allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

No matter the facts, the Democrats have remained steadfast in their false beliefs. Trump Derangement Syndrome at its peak.

Now, the impeachment trial has moved to the Senate, where the Republican majority could easily dismiss this sham process. But instead, the Republican Party is allowing the ludicrous articles of impeachment concocted by the Democrats to go forward with a trial. This shows that ill-will and anti-Trumpism are not confined to the Democrats and the radical left; they have spread through the Republican Party as well.

Someone once said the U.S. has two political parties: one, the Democrats, is evil; the other, the Republicans, is foolish. I would add that the Republican Party is also utterly cowardly.

An Earnest Facade of Lunacy: The Tragicomedy that is U.S. Domestic Politics

People who are interested in politics may not yet fully comprehend the magnitude of the undignified and mortifying political spectacle unfolding in this country.

There is no doubt that the U.S. is far too powerful to be destroyed from the outside. However, those outside powers with such intentions need not worry. There is plenty of evidence suggesting that this destruction is more likely to come from within, courtesy of the American people and their political representatives.

The lunacy of the situation is starkly visible in the field of more than 20 candidates initially running for the Democratic nomination to challenge President Trump in the 2020 election. Their stances on political issues are not just different; they are utterly unreasonable, if not downright insane and incompetent. Watching these candidates try to out-left and out-Trump each other in their bids to appear distinctive and exclusive makes it clear: they are unqualified for the office they seek.

Their ideas on issues like open borders, healthcare, voting rights for illegal immigrants, abolishing ICE, Medicare for All, Green New Deals to fight climate change, and a wealth tax—just to name a few—are completely out of touch with the needs of a functioning and orderly society. Even more astounding is the seriousness with which media outlets cover the absurdity and futility of this contest. One can only wonder at the time and effort being wasted.

The overall lawlessness and foolishness of the Democratic Party only serve to reinforce the ridiculous picture painted by these candidates. Need examples?

• Watch Democrat Jerry Nadler abuse his role as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to stoke partisan divisions and perpetuate the baseless effort to impeach the sitting President.

• Watch Democratic Party leaders and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam "Pencil Neck" Schiff, supported by elements of the Deep State, continue to push the Russia collusion narrative despite the conclusions of the Mueller Report, after two years of investigation, which disproved it.

• Watch Democrats and Never-Trumpers in the State Department, along with foreign relations pundits on nearly all news stations, interpret President Trump's legitimate foreign policy efforts to improve relations with Russia as treasonous—some even insinuating that Trump is a Russian agent.

• Watch neoconservative and neoliberal figures push for war with Iran under the pretense of the recent attack on Saudi oilfields, despite the Yemeni Houthi rebels claiming responsibility and the U.S. insistence on solely blaming Iran.

As I write these lines, a new opportunity for the Democrats to impeach Trump has presented itself. A whistleblower claims that Trump acted inappropriately during a telephone call with the newly elected President of Ukraine. While Trump sees this as just another witch hunt aimed at taking him down, impeachment proceedings are set to begin, further damaging the Democratic Party. In the end, it will likely lead to nothing. Three years of irrational Trump-hatred have clearly drained the radical left of reason and common sense. They seem impervious to more conciliatory approaches in domestic political relations.

Ultimately, if the anti-Trump forces are unable to remove him from office before the 2020 election, their final recourse to regain the White House will likely be a massive, all-out effort to commit voter fraud. This will be the subject of one of my next blog post.

The United States of America – Is a Hegemon Devouring Itself?

Half a year before last fall's presidential elections, I argued (see my blog essay "U.S. Presidential Elections and the Future of the West" https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2016/04/2016-us-presidential-election-and.html) that the fate of this country and the entire Western civilization will depend on its outcome. By denying Hillary Clinton the presidency, we must prevent a third term of Obama's Marxist-Globalist policies. The result was one I had predicted and hoped for; Trump won. In a follow-up essay, I explained how the U.S. and the world were supposed to get a respite from the insanity of previous years. 

But a look at Washington D.C. some eight months into Mr. Trump's presidency makes one wonder about wasted chances and failures to implement urgently needed policy promises. It appears that President Trump's pragmatic instincts succumbed to neoconservative imposition from within the White House as well as the Senate and the Congress.

 

Instead of vetoing it and signaling decisive course correction, a seemingly helpless Trump signed a sanctions bill on Russia and had himself bullied by the mainstream media into moral relativism and the absurdity of designating (fascist) right-wing violence worse than (equally fascist) left-wing violence. He disregarded the Virginia governor and Charlottesville mayor's lawlessness, both of whom intentionally and purposefully let a demonstration turn violent by ordering police forces to stand down. 

While fortunately proclaiming the end of nation-building and democracy export, Mr. Trump caved to the pressure for a troop surge in Afghanistan and the continuation of U.S. presence there. 

 

The malice of Never-Trumpers and the hateful obstructionism of Democrats and neoconservative Republicans appear to force Trump to continue the past two decades' terrible policy failures. He seems, at least partially, to abandon the promises he ran on in his presidential campaign. 

 

Given my political philosophy expertise and my participation in educational efforts in Eastern and Southeastern Europe after the end of the Cold War, I have tried to get in touch with the Trump administration since campaign times, particularly since its inauguration. But, alas, to no avail. I admit that I felt the need to do something about Washington's overbearing strategic blunder that has caused so much damage to global affairs. And I was sure that only President Trump gave hope to overcome and defeat the previous administration's wrong ways (after Rand Paul as the best suited among the Republican establishment candidates had dropped out). 

 

As repeatedly addressed in my blog essays, I sensed the lack of philosophical depth in U.S. politics. I had observed the mistakes ill-educated and ideologically disoriented politicians and advisors, liberals as well as neocons, had perpetrated time and again, and from whose apparent failures they refused to learn. I witnessed how the establishment of a post-Cold War New World Order started as an initially well-intended and seemingly meaningful project. In 1991, the transatlantic alliance instituted close relations with Russia in the North Atlantic Cooperation Council/NACC (later on named Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council/EAPC). The creation of NATO/Partnership for Peace (PfP) in 1994 intended to expand the alliance's reach to meet the new challenges Out-of-Area in close cooperation with Russia. 

I shared the initial enthusiasm for building a new stable and just world order by providing educational input in multiple undertakings within the PfP framework. Sadly, those good relations soon became perverted by nothing else than Washington's geostrategic arrogance and hubris.

Propaganda from both sides aside, relations began to sour due to aggressive power projection and the increasing neglect and alienation of Russia's and other global players' strategic and economic interests by the U.S. and its European and NATO allies. Of course, this carelessness happened in combination with the old strategic ploy for vindicating one's unjust policies by reversing actual cause-effect relations. As so often before in history, it resulted in the grounding of U.S. foreign affairs and national security policies on intentional misconceptions and outright lies. While the U.S. pushed NATO closer to Russia's borders and engaged in ever-bolder imperialism, it blamed Russia precisely for what it was doing itself. 

 

Two cases may exemplify this reversal of facts and the blaming of an alleged and yet never existing so-called "Russian aggression" and Mr. Putin's dream of reinstating the boundaries of the "Old Soviet Empire." In the summer of 2008, after Georgia invaded South Ossetia, a tiny province that had won its independence in the 1990s, and Georgian artillery had killed Russian peacekeepers, the Russian army entered and chased the Georgians back into their own country. Since then, Russia has recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, very much to the chagrin of the U.S. and the U.N.  

The aggressor was not Vladimir Putin but Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili, a megalomaniac and now stateless sociopath who had been brought to power in 2004 by one of the US-engineered color-coded revolutions, at the time under Bush II. By annexing those two provinces, Georgia as an ally to the West would have enlarged its national territory and moved NATO-friendly terrain closer to Russian borders, despite a tendency in those provinces that broke from Georgia in the early 1990ies for ethnic and other reasons, to instead ally with Russia. The same applied to Transnistria and Moldova, both of which show interested in joining the Russian Federation. Thus, the question arises, astutely asked by Pat Buchanan, why in a time of peoples' self-determination, the U.S. (and the transatlantic community for that matter) support every ethnic group or fledgling republic that secedes from Russia, but considers any ethnic group or little state moving toward Russia a threat, a traitor, and insinuates it could only take place because of Russian imperialism? The only viable answers are:

 

• A paranoid and untenable Russophobia endures in Washington.
• A misconceived strategic design for a post-Cold War global setting dominates national security circles.
• An astounding lack of any sound political philosophy of international relations abounds among Washington's elites who to this day impose their unreasonable concepts on the White House and the U.S. State Department. 

 

 The distorted narrative on foreign affairs and Russia's role is kept alive by the paranoid Washington elites at all costs. It became tangible in early August this year when the honorable Vice-president Pence, speaking in Montenegro, the tiny nation in the Balkans that had just become the newest member of NATO. He repeated the apparent national security lies about Russia vis-à-vis Georgia. As was to expect, he also replicated the falsehoods about Ukraine to justify the offensive deployment of forces and missiles to Poland and the Czech Republic, and other Eastern European Nations. In Ukraine, President Putin responded to a U.S.-backed coup, which had ousted a democratically elected political ally of Russia. He bloodlessly seized the pro-Russian Crimea where Moscow's Black Sea fleet was present by Treaty. The West alienates Russia and Putin now over a reaction it could have easily foreseen, had it only pursued just and wise policies that acknowledge the existential interests of other global players. I commented on all this in more detail in several earlier blog entries ('Russophobia - Achilles' Heel of US-Russia Relations of February 17, 2017, https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2017/02/us-russia-relations-russo-phobia.html and 'Ukraine - Another Failure of Western Interventionism' of February 22, 2015, https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2015/02/another-failure-of-western.html).

 

Not Russia, but the U.S. has become the primary threat to world peace and global stability through aggressive policies of indifferent power projection that neglected legitimate geopolitical and geostrategic claims of other international players. Over the last two decades, the old buffers of the Soviet Union toward the West, most of all Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, and not to forget the Baltic States, have all become full-fledged NATO members; with only minor diplomatic resistance from Russia and clearly no intent to invade those countries or reinstate the boundaries of the old Soviet bloc. It is of strategic importance for Russia and a core consideration for her national interest to keep Ukraine, an important geopolitical region that it designated the 'Near Abroad' somehow in a militarily neutral state. 

 

But the foreign relations experts in Washington do not rest contented with all the strategic blunder on the ground and in military terms. They pair their misguided policies with economic foolishness by way of economic warfare through sanction regimes that impact not only the U.S. but allies and partners in Europe and beyond as well. Just ignorant politicians could jubilee over the significant disruption of Russia's economy, the Ruble's inflation, and working "trade barriers." What they forget or perhaps willfully put on the line is the fact that the European Union is, by far, Russia's leading trade partner and accounts for about fifty percent of all Russian exports and imports and seventy-five percent of all foreign investments in Russia. From whatever angle, it sure comes at too high a price to prop Russia as an artificial enemy for one's own failed imperialism and as the scapegoat for a presidential election's unsuccessful outcome. After all, the presidential candidate herself as secretary of state had caused the blunder in cooperation with the presidential predecessor. 

The opposite of what the strategic calculus of Washington wanted to achieve is happening – not only is the global standing of the U.S. diminishing, but the hegemonic superpower harms itself in various policy fields. Putin increasingly writes off the U.S. and the West and enters into a Russian-Chinese strategic alliance. And if Washington continues to ignore and alienate Russia, the European Union and individual European countries will have to weigh their commitment to the North-Atlantic Alliance against their own economic and security interests. The latter process is what has commenced in Europe right now. It is relatively easy to comprehend that if Washington is not coming to its senses, a continuation of this policy will drive a wedge into transatlantic relations. 

 

Will President Trump be able to stand up against all these war-mongering and Russia-hating Democrats, Neoconservative Senators and Congressmen, Brass-Officer advisors, and Military-Industrial lobbyists? Will he bring home the troops from Afghanistan and Syria and end the aggressive posture of U.S. and NATO forces in eastern and southeastern Europe and the Baltic Region? After all, he was elected to complete the conglomerate of provocative, aggressive, and, indeed, unethical policies the United States has pursued in recent years.  

 

Not forget we must that the appalling course of U.S. foreign affairs policy of late runs parallel to the deterioration of internal politics in the United States. The civil war over ideas and convictions – a real culture war – is in full swing and seems to intensify day by day. Relentlessly dishonest and Trump-hating news outlets push it, above all CNN, the New York Times, Washington Post, and, the most abysmal and painfully foolish of all, MSNBC. The degree of disinformation and corruption is mind-boggling in its unreasonableness and almost inconceivable in its blatant immorality. The Washington swamp is real. It is so bad that certain commentators even identify an ongoing silent coup to oust Trump by the joint conspiracy of mainstream media, deep-state exponents, liberal politicians, and radical left-wing interest groups. The latter, who organize protests wherever Trump appears and carry out counter-demonstrations with the explicit aim to instigate violence, which they blame on Trump, are funded by billionaires like George Soros or Mark Zuckerberg. 

 

The pigheadedness of never-Trumpers and all those politicians, pundits, and commentators who were so wrong about Trump never being able to win the presidency seems boundless. These people give precedence to their stubbornness and political and ideological inertia over the nation's best interest. Insight into one's wrongs and judgment errors, learning from mistakes and wising up, and notions like critical self-reflection no longer count or even exist in certain people's consciousness. Instead, they are doubling down on stances that experience has proven wrong. Unprecedented obstructionism not only from the opposition party but from the GOP's ranks – the most despicable example provided by the traitor senator John McCain on the repeal vote on the Affordable Care Act – dominate the domestic political landscape. 

 

 A look into U.S. politics, not even a year into Trump's presidency, reminds one of a young and fledgling republic in some Third World region of the globe. In the previous blog essay entitled 'A Sick Republic' of July 5, 2017 (https://edwinseditorial.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-sick-republic-yeah-dude-im-talking.html), I outlined the parameters of this profoundly flawed political system and the unmatched decay of intellectual and moral political standards in the U.S., which continues to push the nation toward more violence and outright civil war. 

 

Who or what could remedy this state of affairs of division and hatred in the United States society that goes far beyond any acceptable measure a functioning republic could withstand in the long run? How can we overcome this mental tyranny of the left that denounces everybody and everything running counter to their views? How can we break the vicious collaboration of forces on the political left to remove Trump from office, even at the cost of throwing this country into mayhem and internal violent conflict? The only answer I can come up with is "success." 

 

 To improve relations and defeat obstructionism, President Trump and his allies in Senate and Congress will have to be successful in pulling off a significant tax reform for businesses and working citizens. Furthermore, they will have to push through a decisive modification of the healthcare system, in both cases with immediate and tangible results that can no longer be hidden from the public, not even by hostile news media outlets. A new paradigm in foreign and security affairs is overdue. It should feature pragmatic strategic prudence and restraint rather than globalist adventurism. The U.S. has to disentangle from the continued involvement in the Middle East and Southeast Asia and bring troops home. It should abandon regime change interventionism and come to a new understanding in US-Russia relations. These steps should enable the nation to recover and find political and social stability. 

 

The United States finds itself at a crucial crossroads at this point. The significance of the moment goes far beyond saving Mr. Trump's presidency and marks a juncture that determines the future not only of this nation but the future direction of Western civilization as a whole. 

 

Let's make no mistake. The election of Donald Trump to become the 45th President of the U.S. came at a point of existential significance as to the future course of our civilizational development. It is the defining moment of decision between, on the one hand, liberal-Marxist globalism in conjunction with cultural decadence and the rise of moral relativism in ever more secularized social milieus; and in contrast, on the other hand, the furtherance of orderly (international) relations among sovereign nations with western countries grounding their pluralism in traditional morality and a minimal nucleus of their Christian heritage. 

 

It is clear before the power of our reasoning that both opposing sides in this ongoing culture war over principles and values cannot claim the same amount of validity for how they envisage our Western-style democracies' future path. Opposing concepts in all kinds of social and political realms – immigration, the rule of law, gender and race relations, education, economics, international affairs, etc. - cannot be equally meaningful. The course of social and political 'progressivism' that we have witnessed in recent years is either the right one for a prosperous future or a pernicious concept that destroys our societies and our civilization in its entirety. Yet, who could honestly believe, considering the evidence of societal mayhem, confusion, and polarization regarding open border globalism in recent years, that cultural progressivism is the right way as we advance? 

 

It might be wise for the left to end their demonization of conservative politics and specifically of President Trump, and give the man and his program a chance to succeed. But for this to happen would require the mainstream media to stop its one-sided anti-Trump crusade and bethink their exact principal role as an unbiased and objective interface for information and dialogue between people and government. 

Furthermore, perhaps even more importantly, it will take the ceasing of obstructionist efforts from certain Republicans in Congress. Full support of Mr. Trump's by his party, whose representatives have to set aside personal vanities and sanctimonious reservations, and a constructive political opposition that recovers at least some minimal sense of fairness decency, appear to be immediate requirements for success. 

 

The period of trial and error and political and social experimentation with the radical ideas of the left, domestically and internationally, has to end. It is high time that the Washington elites and stakeholders come to their senses, intellectually and morally, and refocus on this country's common good, which is so closely related to the entire western hemisphere's well-being.

Russophobia - Achilles’ Heel of US-Russia Relations

The demonizing of Russia and specifically of Vladimir Putin has been profoundly regretful and damaging to global affairs in recent years. It appears the U.S. could not rise above the old animosity vis-à-vis the follower nation to the Soviet Union that dominated bi-polar relations during the Cold War. In the quarter-century since, the United States, in its leading role in NATO and cooperation with the European Union, has pursued interventionist policies. Those aimed at global predominance and strengthening its position as the sole remaining superpower.

The U.S. and its partners wasted the opportunities to establish a righteous new world order the post-Cold War security environment offered. As I've made clear in my blog entries over the past years, geopolitical misconceptions paired with strategic hubris and ideological delusions as rampant in the White House and the State Department regimes led to utterly folly in foreign affairs international relations. Besides the undermining and destruction of nation-state structures in the Middle East and the intentional armed support of extremists and insurgents, color revolutions have been backed by the U.S. and E.U., for example, in Georgia and Ukraine. Central to the failed policies was the stunning neglect of legitimate national and strategic interests of other players in international relations.

The latter fact became painfully visible in the wake of the regime change in Ukraine. Every reasonably informed scholar of strategic and security studies could have foreseen the control of Crimea and eastern Ukraine's support by Russia. The installation of a puppet regime in Kiev by Washington and Berlin was unacceptable to Russia after the U.S. had pushed toward her borders through aggressive NATO expansion. To drive Russia out of its Black Sea ports and potentially prepare full-fledged membership of Ukraine, as the geostrategic 'Near Abroad,' in NATO would be intolerable for Russia. The blatant disregard of legitimate Russian interests went along with the infamy of blaming Russia for imperialism that had been clearly and unashamedly pushed by the U.S. and the transatlantic alliance.

It is impossible to accurately verify the degree to which strategic ignorance, national hubris, indifferent imperialism, pseudo-democratic universalism, or apparent economic interest and pressure from the military-industrial complex have led to the failed policy design. Yet, the miserable Pax Americana attempted in the last quarter-century was certainly a conglomerate of all these and probably more factors. In conjunction with Putin's demonization and the artificial preservation of Russia as the primary geopolitical enemy, western powers set the course for missing out on establishing a functioning global post-Cold War world order, including meaningful collaboration for containment of radical Islam. The outrageous claim of the Democratic Party that Russian hacking and cyber intervention lost the election for Hillary Clinton –probably one of the biggest scams in politics ever suggested– further exacerbated the relations with Russia. Mr. Obama's decision to expatriate Russian diplomats and impose additional sanctions under the pretense of Russia's alleged interference in the U.S. presidential elections will rank prominently among the many political follies this man has perpetrated.

The new administration under President Donald Trump, which alone gave hope to conquer the old resentments toward Russia and alleviate the damage the previous administration had caused, appears to be succumbing to the Russophobe and Putin-hating pressure forces in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Congress, and the media. The new U.S. Ambassador's aggressive speech to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, and the ousting of security advisor General Flynn based on informal conversations with the Russian ambassador provides sad testimony to that assessment.  

Overcoming the hysteria vis-à-vis Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin has to be considered the number one priority in U.S. foreign affairs. Maintaining Russia artificially as an enemy image for a new Cold War and conventional arms race must be ended. A mindful and critical, yet simultaneously constructive and respectful relationship with Russia from the part of the United States is long overdue, for whose materialization the numerous challenges to international relations and global security offer ample opportunity. Russia has to be part of fighting the Islamic State and radical Islamism worldwide and has to play a role in stabilizing the Middle East. While mutually respecting legitimate national interests, a balance of power should result in the pursuance of common objectives and joint ends in global affairs.

But this might require prominent representatives of society and state in the U.S. to stop calling Mr. Putin a murderer, abandoning the sanctions regime, and acknowledging Russia's legitimate strategic and economic interests concerning the Caucasus, Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. It will also necessitate the easing up of U.S. and NATO forces' aggressive posture in the Baltic States and Eastern Europe.

The new administration must not continue the insanity of the Obama years. The step from considering Russia as a geopolitical enemy toward Russia as a geostrategic counterpart and potential collaborator in global affairs must take place now. In light of Western Christian societies' Islamic subversion, this appears to be a strategic necessity and social obligation.

2016 U.S. Presidential Election - Political Intuition TRUMPS Propaganda

The United States, and with it the world, got a respite. The utter catastrophe, namely the prolongation of the past eight years' nightmare, so it seems, could be averted. A horrific and ultimately devastating third Obama-term was prevented by denying Hillary Clinton the presidency. Something already to be considered the political miracle of the century. 

Against almost all polls and the united predictions of media pundits and news outlets, Donald Trump got elected to become the 45th president of the United States. The good intuition of some 60 million Americans made them vote for Mr. Trump, despite unparalleled disinformation and defamation campaign against him, carried forth by the mainstream media and advanced on the school grounds and college campuses in the months leading up to the election. They voted for him despite the vitriol spewed at Trump not only from his Democrat opponent in the race but also from certain elements in his political party. But most importantly, they voted for him because their political instinct made them see through the concerted attempt of almost all forces of public information and discourse to cover up for the colossal failure of the first African-American president's presidency. 

Over the years, I have commented on the utter follies of Obama's policies in previous blog entries back to 2009, criticizing the pursuance of his Marxist-utopian notions of politics in domestic and international affairs. Imagine that after that sham of Obama's presidency, some people dare to consider anybody else unfit for that office! Mind-boggling political shortsightedness, cultural parochialism, and ideological prejudice of those who still approve of Obama's job performance. Yet, signs that he had turned the Democratic Party into an ailing enterprise and that he doomed Hillary Clinton's run were already tangible to all those who had kept an open mind, and heart for that matter. As the Daily Caller reported, under Obama, Democrats had lost more than 900 state legislature seats, 12 governors, 69 U.S. Congress, and 13 Senate seats.

On regional and local levels, significant numbers of American people had already rejected the advancement of Obama's delusional globalist policies. They neglected human coexistence's ontological necessities and were therefore highly damaging to our social and political coexistence. (for more on the 'Ontological Principles of the Political,' compare my blog essay of November 15, 2015, on "Immigration – U.S. and Europe Governed by Lunacy" https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2015/11/immigration-us-and-europe-governed-by.html). 

However, I emphasized that the lunacy of such policies not only occurs on the side of the progressive Left in this country—the neoconservative elements in the Republican Party also support these ideas. Domestically, out-of-their-mind proponents like Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan propped up Obama's policies of open borders and uncontrolled immigration. Internationally, prominent Republican politicians such as John McCain or Lindsay Graham went along with the Middle East's destruction by arming and supporting dubious insurgents and bringing down established nation-state structures. They also endorsed the U.S. government's idiotic stance toward Russia, most of all the aggressive posture and saber-rattling of the U.S. and NATO in Ukraine and the Baltic states. Quite clearly, neglecting other stakeholders' legitimate national interests in global affairs and negating the significant stakes of strategic thinking had turned the attempted imposition of this type of Pax Americana into an absurdity. 

As I made clear in a blog back in April of 2016, after the dropping out of Rand Paul of the Republican presidential preliminaries, only the election of Donald Trump could raise hope for an urgently needed turnaround to bring U.S. policies to its senses. Alas, the overdue reversal of U.S. foreign affairs policies is not a given now where Mr. Trump got elected. It will all depend on whether or not he will prevent the influence of neoconservatives from altering his policy promises. Of paramount importance will be the person the President-elect is going to assign as his secretary of state. Politicians of statesmanlike stature have always acknowledged the supreme significance of foreign affairs in governance and thus dedicated their prime effort and attention to it. 

The radical policies of ignorant and deluded people, who happened to reign over global affairs in the quarter-century gone by since the collapse of the Soviet Union, drove the United States and Western civilization in its entirety to a crossroads. They wasted the chances the post-Cold War order offered by a reckless U.S. strategy aiming at singular global dominance. At the bottom of this move toward a centralized world stood the weakening and indeed dissolution of the nation-state concept, combined with a pseudo-messianic democratic universalism, manifesting itself in attempts and support for interventionist regime-change for instance in Libya, Syria, in Ukraine and the Caucasus, as well as in imposing nation-building in the Middle East and Asia, most foolishly in Afghanistan. This strategic design for a new world order presented us with a new face of contemporary warfare, featuring the advancement of militant progressive secularism and the ethnic and cultural subversion of western societies by pushing and facilitating disproportional immigration from non-western nations and regions. Such strategies aimed to synchronize the masses and prepare the ground for continuous governance by liberal and progressive regimes.

 

In the face of all this, Mr. Trump's victory came at the eleventh hour. His empowerment by way of sufficient Electoral College votes was a clear rejection of globalist policies and politicians, against which Mr. Trump waged his presidential campaign in the first place. His victory also delivered a devastating blow to the hubris of those liberal and progressive elites who thought they had already won the struggle for the political future of the lead nation of the free world. 

 

It remains to be seen if Mr. Trump and his incoming administration will be able to redress, neutralize, and reverse the policy failures of recent years. The scope of what he needs to accomplish is vast. Above all, it ranges from foreign affairs, the pacification of the Middle East, the resetting of relations with the Kremlin, and preventing the U.S.'s political culture from further decline by overcoming the cultural and moral nihilism that has taken hold in significant segments of society and state. Additionally, an important task will be the narrowing of the ethnic and ideological division within the country. 

While the task is not an easy one, all good-willing people should dearly hope for Mr. Trump to succeed. The hour of decision for the survival of this republic as well as our whole civilization has arrived!

Astonishing Media Double Standard on Ukraine

The murder of Boris Nemtsov, a liberal Russian politician and avid critic of President Putin, back in February, caused a significant outcry and was covered extensively by virtually all mainstream media in the West. Without substantial evidence, from the beginning, the murder of the politician culminated in speculations about the Russian Government's involvement. 

When somebody murdered three Ukrainian critics of the incumbent president Poroshenko within a few days in April, no such outcry could be heard. The assassination of Oleh Kalashnikov, a former Ukrainian member of parliament and vocal critic of the ruling administration, and the murders of opposition journalists Oles Buzina and Sergei Sukhob went by more or less uncommented. In previous blogs, I've already made clear that Poroshenko was a stooge installed by Washington and Berlin in a coup in the course of the so-called Maidan Revolution in the spring of 2014. Barely any media reported on these events, and the silence of the media in conjunction with the lack of comments from the US state department and EU foreign ministries and NATO, OSCE, and EU representatives speaks volumes. It gives indirect testimony to the West's collaboration in Ukraine's Maidan coup and the ensuing destabilization and radicalization.

Aside from the double standard in reporting and commenting, which violates the primary principle for news outlets to report factually and objectively, it demonstrates how most of the media degenerate into mere propaganda instruments for whatever policies suit their ideological agenda.

Ukraine - Another Failure of Western Interventionism

As I've made clear in my previous blog of March 2014 below, by overthrowing a democratically elected government in Ukraine, Washington, with support from the European Union's leading powers, has brought the United States and the West into a confrontation with Russia.

In about a year, the West has managed to topple the democratically-elected Ukraine government, install the Washington and Berlin-backed Poroshenko administration in Kyiv, and drive the nation into a fratricidal civil war. It turned the country into a failed state, virtually destroyed its economy, and severely damaged Russia's.

In its usual reversal of cause-effect realities, the mainstream media, in its typical reversal of cause-effect facts, blamed Russia and Putin's aggression and expansionism for protecting incumbent administrations and concealing their sad and ill-defined policies. Had the U.S. and Europe conducted just and wise policy procedures, they could have foreseen the support of Ukrainian separatists and annexation of Crimea by Russia as inevitable for its national interest.

Think about this: A year before scheduled presidential elections through which the Ukrainian people could have gotten rid of president Yanukovich's allegedly corrupt administration and chosen an administration espousing a more EU-oriented course, the U.S. and E.U. instigated an unnecessary coup. Why, for what reasons? To install a Western puppet administration that the people of Ukraine might have never elected themselves? To prevent a Russian-prone government (that was simultaneously establishing good relations with the West) from being democratically confirmed in OSCE-monitored elections? To put Ukraine into NATO and E.U. and drive Russia out of its Black Sea ports in Crimea?
 
Whatever the reason or ensemble of reasons, the applied policies provide evidence of a colossal misunderstanding of foreign affairs in a post-Cold War global setting and an astounding lack of any practical political philosophy of international relations in Washington. However, the incompetence and dilettantism that is hiding behind the democratic principle is widespread and not limited to the White House. Senators and politicians of both parties in Washington are pushing the notion of arming Ukraine and an increased show of force in Eastern Europe by the U.S. and NATO. GOP Senator James Inhoffe just introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate to arm Ukraine with "Lethal Military Aid" against pro-Russian separatists, which means the hawks are doubling down on the political foolishness. They perpetuate the damage to global affairs and continue to push Ukraine into a proxy war with Russia.

However, the overbearing arrogance and hubris of Washington appear to drive a wedge into transatlantic relations, as ever more European nations distance themselves from the idea of arming Ukraine and potentially dragging NATO into war with Russia. Western Europe's economic ties with Putin's country are too close, and a significant portion of Russia's natural gas delivery to Europe runs through Ukraine. Aside from that, European nations, even when NATO-members, know that their populations are not ready to subscribe to go to outright war with Russia over Ukraine.

What are the options for future development? From Ukraine breaking apart with the eastern and separatist parts integrating into Russia to outright war between the West and Russia over Ukraine, almost anything appears possible. Given the strength and commitment of the Russian-backed separatists, it seems unlikely that the Ukrainian Armed Forces, lacking in coherence and dedication to the cause, would reconquer the eastern and southeastern parts of the country. A diplomatic solution along the lines of the Minsk negotiations results will depend on the ending of military and armament support from the U.S. and other western nations. I am convinced, though, that the arms support will seize soon or never get up to speed as it has become quite clear by now that Kyiv has lost and is unable to wage a full-scale war with or without weapons from the West. While the U.S. and individual European nations might be willing to prolong the agony, Kyiv can't fight a war without the will of its people behind. And in the long run, even the most hawkish politicians in Washington couldn't possibly want to throw NATO in and fight World War III against Russia over some folly and utter political blunder they have instigated and committed in Ukraine by themselves in the first place?

It is mind-boggling to note that, like in the Middle East, western political authorities could have easily prevented the meaningless bloodshed in Ukraine and the state's unnecessary disintegration. The hubris of liberal interventionism and U.S. activism worldwide - resulting from distorted interpretations of history, misguided doctrines of international relations, and an unjustifiable sense of moral superiority - appears unconquerable.

No matter how many times history proves them wrong and presents the horrendous damage, these policies are causing worldwide, self-righteous pride and defiant inertia prevail over any judiciousness or informed judgment.