Youtube screenshot.
Ukraine is back on the front page again. One of the most pointless wars in US history may be coming to an end. US liberals and some leftists are joining various governments in Europe demanding the war continue. Indeed, some members of some European governments are ready to ramp it up again, as if the idea of peace negotiations is morally wrong when in fact it’s their expanding war industry that is the morally questionable endeavor. Ukraine’s Zelenskyy continues his shtick, unwilling to acknowledge that the military element of the war he staked his political life on may be over sooner rather than later. His best move right now might be to get Ukraine into the peace negotiations even if its presence means little to the final outcome. After all, the land which bore the brunt of the military conflict should be involved in deciding its future. Although some argue that it’s Kyiv’s own fault for this situation, the truth is Kyiv’s tragedy has been a Washington-funded and directed production since before the curtain went up in February 2022. It’s past time the curtain went down. The drama has become a tragic farce. The televised argument on February 28, 2025 between Zelenskyy, Trump and Vance made this very clear. US pundits called the spectacle embarrassing. I have a feeling such things between rulers occur behind closed doors more often than most people think. Rulers, after all, seem to have very big and very tender egos. Although no one knows what the effects of that Oval Office clash of egos will mean, Trump and Vance’s actions seem likely to encourage more aggressive involvement from Germany, Britain and other European nations, extending the killing rather than ending it.
Looking at history, it seems clear that if Europe had stuck to its guns and worked on enforcing the existing peace and security agreements, the war that began in 2022 would probably never have happened. Instead, Europe went along with a US-UK plan which virtually guaranteed there would eventually be armed conflict, given the nature of Moscow’s concern. Now, a peace agreement most likely means that Ukraine will have to give up something—most likely territory in the east it currently considers its own. Agreements before 2022 called for removal of all Ukrainian, Russian and other military forces from those territories with the residents of those provinces eventually voting on their future. Although a vote did occur that called for regional autonomy, neither Russia or Ukraine followed through on its results. In the wake of Kyiv’s authoritarian edicts banning the Russian language, Russian religion, Russian books, etc., many in the provinces are going to want some serious security promises to protect them from further repression.
If there was a punch line to something that is not a joke, we could laugh at UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s stated opposition to the trumpist plan because it doesn’t guarantee that Russia won’t attack again. Sometimes, one has to truly wonder if today’s so-called leaders understand the nature of international relations; no treaty or peace agreement can guarantee that war will not start again. Lasting peace is the hope of such agreements, but it’s what governments do after the agreement is signed that make long-term peace a reality. Russia will also have no guarantee that Europe, Washington or Kyiv will not attack in the future.
Those who call Trump’s demand that Ukraine pay for the US military support provided over the last few years as extortion are at best, being somewhat naive. One of the reasons the US assisted the overthrow of the elected government in 2014, convinced Zelenskyy to ignore signed peace accords, refused to let Europe make its own decisions regarding Ukraine, insisted on those nations imposing sanctions (which have upended their economies), and told Kyiv to reject the Istanbul peace accords after Russia invaded is to gain access to these minerals. Biden and his people might not have been as brutally obvious as the trumpists, but they certainly expected a good deal on accessing these resources as well. One need only look at how the privatization of Ukraine’s state-owned enterprises intensified after the invasion, with many of those enterprises being purchased by US and European financial interests. In addition, since its independence Kyiv’s debt has gone from zero to over $115 billion, with much of that debt accrued in the last three years. Although Washington has provided most of its aid in grants, most of Europe’s aid is in the form of loans. The IMF and World Bank have also lent billions. In other words, Washington has always expected payment, albeit through international financing institutions it dominates. Trump’s demands are of course considerably more boorish and aggressive, but all elements of the US empire expected to come out ahead after the war ended. Succinctly stated, US imperialism now wants the minerals without a Kyiv victory. It used to want the minerals and troops on Russia’s border with a Kyiv victory.
Trump’s demand is an opening salvo. His performance on national television was intentional. Truth to be told, nobody owes the United States anything for that war. Indeed, most of the billions spent on the war went into the bank accounts of the US war industry. We’ll see how the negotiations go. While Kyiv should certainly be involved in them, the fact it hasn’t been invited tends to strengthen the argument that this war was always understood by most governments to be between Washington and Moscow.
I am reminded of some other peace negotiations conducted by the United States that took place a little more than fifty years ago. The war was in Vietnam. In 1972, peace talks between the North Vietnamese, the National Liberation Forces in the south (NLF), the Saigon regime and Washington had been going on since 1967. Much like the Trump administration wants to keep Zelenskyy and Kyiv in the backseat during its negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine, the Nixon administration (with Kissinger in the front) pushed the Saigon negotiating team to the sidelines. Nixon was ready for the war to end. Saigon wanted the war to continue at least until South Vietnam was guaranteed a future existence. South Vietnam’s President Thieu hoped that its supporters in the US Congress would get US troops back in action. These pro-war politicians in Congress decried Nixon and Kissinger’s “betrayal” of Saigon, much like the pro-war politicians in today’s Congress are criticizing Trump’s willingness to trade some land for peace in Ukraine as a betrayal. A primary difference between then and now is that the pro-war politicians in the early 1970s were mostly Republicans; today they are mostly Democrats.
At its core, NATO is a neocolonial arrangement. Washington’s recent conflict with Russia is also about reasserting control over Europe by subverting the economies of Germany and other economic powerhouses. The Trump administration has reopened the conversation regarding the future of NATO. The trumpists issue contradictory statements regarding the military pact’s future; most Democrats together with many Republicans cannot see a world without it. That being said, it seems fairly clear that the Trump agenda may mean an end to NATO, but only to give the trumpist sector room to create a more unilateral approach to Washington hegemony. Indeed, Trump’s crude demand for Kyiv to repay Washington for the war is actually a demand for a tribute, much like the European empires of old demanded from their subjects as a sign of submission.
In other words, the imperial goal of the trumpist axis is a world where Washington is in complete control—no grand coalitions to fight its wars, just pure unadulterated US power. George Dubya Bush and his administration sought something similar in its wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. Teddy Roosevelt is their inspiration. His dreams of a “manly” empire begun on the isles of the Caribbean lives on in the fantasies of many twenty-first century white men and their financiers.
NOTES
1. Eric Toussaint, Ukraine’s Debt: an instrument of pressure and spoliation in the hands of creditors; International Viewpoint: 1/26/2025. ↑
Source: Counter Punch
