by JOE LAURIA
Sixty-two years ago this week, John F. Kennedy broke with the Cold War in his American University speech and warned against humiliating a nuclear weapons power, words that resonate more than ever, writes Joe Lauria.
In his momentous speech at American University in Washington 62 years ago this week, in which he controversially sought peace with Soviet Russia and an end to the Cold War, President John F. Kennedy said:
“Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy — or of a collective death-wish for the world.”
Twenty-eight years later, the Bill Clinton administration and every U.S. administration since, culminating in perhaps the most reckless, has proven the bankruptcy of U.S. policy by doing the exact opposite of what Kennedy advised, namely displaying a determination to humiliate and bully nuclear-armed Russia.
Today that most frightening moment has arrived, one dreaded by generations. The United States, under the Biden administration, in November continued to provoke Russia with American and British missile attacks on Russian soil fired from a third country with American and British personnel, ignoring Moscow’s unequivocally clear warning that this could lead to nuclear conflict.
By firing directly into Russia with its ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles, the U.S. and U.K., which Russia has not attacked, have given Moscow “a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.”
And then just last week, almost certainly with U.S. and British involvement, Ukraine attacked Russian nuclear bombers in a brazen, if mostly symbolic, stab at Moscow’s nuclear deterrence.
Beginning at the End of the Cold War
The humiliation of Russia began with the end of the Cold War that Kennedy had sought, but not on the terms he envisioned. Despite George H.W. Bush’s vow not to engage in triumphalism, that was in full swing once Clinton took power.
Talk of a peace dividend and a common Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok was swept aside. The U.S. considered themselves the victors and were poised to claim their spoils.
Wall Street and U.S. corporate carpetbaggers swept into the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, eyed its enormous natural resources, asset-stripped the formerly state-owned industries, enriched themselves, gave rise to oligarchs and impoverished the Russian, Ukrainian and other former Soviet peoples.
The humiliation intensified with the decision in the nineties to expand NATO eastward despite a promise made to the last Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev in exchange for reunifying Germany.
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