by DAVE LINDORFF
Nobody is talking about the blame that must be shouldered by the German government for the crisis and humanitarian disaster in Ukraine.
Sure Russia is guilty of a huge war crime in invading Ukraine. Surely too, the US must be blamed for creating the situation which led Russia and its autocratic leader Vladimir Putin to decide it had to invade to prevent Ukraine from being pulled into the US orbit with the goal that it would ultimately become a base for US offensive weapons — even nuclear weapons — on Russia’s border — something the US would never allow to happen anywhere in its self-proclaimed “backyard” of Latin America and the Caribbean.
But Germany, the largest country in NATO after the US, is almost as guilty for this current war in Europe as is the United States.
Germany was only reunified without any difficulty after 45 years of being split in two following World War II, because of a deal struck by the US with Russia in 1990 at which US Secretary of State James Baker stated that NATO would not be expanded “one inch ” eastward past the reunified German border.
Now it is widely known that despite having a powerful economy, Germany remains something of a lackey of the US in its foreign policy. Nonetheless, on this key important issue of expanding NATO, the country has always had considerable potential power. This is because NATO’s own rules require that any new member of the alliance must be approved by all existing members of the organization. That is, to put it bluntly, if Germany were to have said, at some point, that no new members would be given Germany’s approval for admission to NATO, then no new members could have joined, or even entertained the idea of joining.
That would have included — and could still include — Ukraine, which the US since at least the Obama administration’s second term, has been encouraged to think that it might someday be able to come under the protection of NATO, with its Article 5 provision requiring all members to come to the aid militarily of any member attacked by a non-member state.
It is precisely that desire by Ukraine, together with US insistence on the false “right” of Ukraine to determine its own international relationships, that led to Russia’s launching this war. Sure Ukraine can pursue its own foreign policies, but it has no “right” to join NATO. That organization’s member states must as one agree to admit another member. NATO is an exclusive club, not an anyone-can-join book club.
Counterpunch for more