NATO announced in Brussels today that it planned to mover forward with annual nuclear exercises called “Steadfast Noon,” prompting angry calls from the Kremlin to contain its escalation in the Ukraine conflict. President Joe Biden, 79, said Oct. 7 that the risk of a nuclear Armageddon was like it was during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, where Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev sought to place nuclear missiles in Cuba, some 90 miles from the U.S mainland. Whether admitted to or not by Biden, the situation is far more dangerous today with the U.S. fighting a bloody proxy war using Ukrainian troops to topple 70-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin government. Never before has any U.S. president gone to war against Russia, despite, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, in the so-called Cold War. Today’s war with Russia is anything but a Cold War, watching missiles hit Russian troops in Ukraine.
Putin said Sept. 21 that he was not bluffing when it came to using nuclear weapons to defend the Russian homeland. Putin sees the Ukraine War as a U.S.-NATO proxy war aimed, as stated by the U.S., to degrade the Russian military to the point it could no longer wage war. “We express our daily regret that Western heads of state, in the United States and Europe, engage in nuclear rhetoric every day,” said Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Putn never said he would use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. What he said was he’d use them as a last resort to protect the Russian homeland it the event of a U.S. or NATO attack. “We consider this very harmful and provocative practices,” Peskov said, all the chatter in the West about using nuclear weapons. Biden won’t admit that never in history has the U.S. been at war with Russia, until he escalated the Ukraine War.
Biden can’t say why he’d use U.S. troops to defend Taiwan but has no intent of using U.S. forces to defend Ukraine. Ukraine’s 44-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky asked for U.S. and NATO troops, even asked NATO’s 64-year-old Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg for fast-tracked membership. Stoltenberg made clear that, with two months left on his watch, NATO won’t offer Ukraine membership, knowing, if they did, Zelensky would trigger Article 5 requiring all NATO’s members to defend one of its members. Zelensky can’t understand why NATO would resist fast-tracking Ukraine even it meant fight WW III on the European Content. No one in the 30-member alliance wants to got to war against the Russian Federation, certainly not for Ukraine. Yet Zelensky has consistently asked for NATO membership and for the U.S. to send troops to fight the Russian Federation.
All the talk about nuclear war should send a red flag to the EU and NATO that the Ukraine War, no matter how committed Biden to defeating Putin, should end at the earliest possible time. Whoever started the war or whatever the differences with Ukraine, talk of nuclear war should be the signal that it’s time to end the nearly eight-moth conflict. Zelensky thinks that it’s OK to drag the EU and NATO into WW III, all because he decided to take on the Russian Federation. When Zelensky realized he lost about 25% of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, he had no clue how to get it back, other than continuing the fight at the U.S. expense. Biden got far too involved in defeating Putin than finding a way out of the Ukraine War, even if it mean Zelensky would have to fact territorial concessions. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, far more lucid than most at aged 97, said Ukraine would have to make territorial concessions.
Zelensky said he would not stop the war until Putin was removed from power. So how’s that supposed to happen without the U.S. and EU embroiled in a protracted WW III with the Kremlin? Zelensky doesn’t consider what happens if China joins the fight to preserve the Russian Federation. How’s the world supposed to get out of WW III, if the conflict spirals out-of-control? Speaking today in Brussels, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. is committed to defending every inch of NATO territory, insisting it will not give up on Ukraine. Yet the U.S. and NATO refuse to commit any troops to Ukraine, forecasting a conflict that could last years, threatening international security and damaging the world economy. Peace efforts in the EU and NATO need all hands on deck, if, for no other reason, to stop the needless loss of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, carnage and infrastructure destruction.
Talk of Biden meeting at the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Bali Nov. 15, Indonesia gives the world some hope. But Peskov said he’s no aware of any plans for Putin to meet with Biden, unless something changes. Biden said he’s willing to meet with Putin but only the issue of a prisoner swap to get WNBA star Brittney Griner out of Russian prison. Biden knows that as long as h prosecutes his proxy war using Ukrainian troops to degrade the Russian military or topple Putin nothing will get done with Griner. “As far as I know, there have been no initiatives from either the Russian or the Amrican side to organize contacts at the highest leve,” Peskov said. There’s nothing to prevent Biden and Putin from meeting face-to-face in Bali. What the world needs now is both leaders to put aside their differences and do what’s right for world peace. Keeping the Ukraine War going serves no one.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
