Mises Institute: 'With Russia launching a military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the corporate press has grown shrill in its calls for punishing Russia with draconian sanctions, supplying Ukraine with increased military aid, and diplomatically isolating the Eurasian power as much as possible. The Two Minutes Hate against Russia has been cranked up to eleven, making any nuanced analysis of why the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has reached such a point almost impossible.
'The failure of policy wonks to understand why Russia took decisive action against Ukraine is emblematic of a flawed grand strategy that has dominated DC foreign policy circles since the end of the Cold War. Once the dust from the Soviet Union’s collapse settled, international relations specialists were convinced that the US had entered an “end of history” moment where liberal democracy would become the governing standard worldwide. Former Soviet Union states would be the preliminary trial ground for this new liberal democratic project.
Through expanding the reach of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into former Soviet states and carrying out color revolutions in the region, Washington believed that it could reshape this part of the world in its image. From dealing with violent insurgencies in the Caucasus to confronting precipitous declines in life expectancy and other social ills, such as rising criminal activity, the Soviet Union’s successor, the Russian Federation, was in no shape to resist American influence, let alone project power in its own backyard during the 1990s.
'It’s little wonder that NATO was able to easily intervene in the Balkans, a region featuring ethnic groups like Serbians, who have traditionally been Russian allies, at a time when Russia was in a wobbly state. Nevertheless, avid students of Russian history such as George Kennan, the author of America’s containment policy toward the Soviet Union and the Long Telegram, recognized that the Russian bear was down but not out. During the 1990s, the renowned diplomat warned about the dangers of NATO expansion following the Soviet Union’s dissolution. Despite Kennan’s admonitions, the DC political class was drunk on the notion that the US would remain unipolar and be able to impose its universalist vision across the globe at will...'
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