As all U.S. wars other than WW I and II (and they’re not as “clean” as our infantile minds like to believe), the “American Way of War” follows a pattern, with virtually no exceptions, since 1619 with Native Americans, but as a more recent year to choose, 1898. When Teddy Roosevelt and Republican “War Lovers,” Henry Cabot Lodge, Elihu Root, et al., took the U.S. to war on the false pretext to “Remember the Maine.” A series of “Small Wars,” where the USMC developed its doctrine of the same name picked up from where Taft and Roosevelt left off enforcing the "Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,” from 1921 to 1932 under Republicans Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, in Latin America to continue the Republican tradition of always having us in a war at any given time (not excusing Wilson, FDR, and Truman, who weren’t much better, though to be historically accurate, never quite as bad. Read Stephen Kinzer on Teddy Roosevelt, the Dulles Brothers, etc., to see that. The Korean War was no different as by 1950, the transfer of political power to the military from civilians had largely been achieved, at the expense of the American people, and the world. And creating provocative conditions knowing they inevitably will lead to war as our intent is, for “plausible deniability, was by then up there with “Mom, apple pie, and General Motors,” as American symbols. With Korea explained here: https://monthlyreview.org/product/hidden-history-of-the-korean-war-new-edition/
And nothing need be said of Vietnam and OpPlan-34A and how our DOD/CIA geniuses, succeeded in getting over 58,000 Americans killed and well over 1,000,000 “gooks,” as they were so often referred to as, killed. With “Traditional Conservative” deadenders still pushing books like “The Thirty Years War “ of how we were “stabbed in the back” by the media and the antiwar movement which they blame for causing us to "lose our will.” As Ludendorf had of the Socialists, and the “Jews” (to plant an embryonic idea in the German mind, for WW II). The "idea” Conservatives planted was that the “Liberals” made us “fight the war with our hands tied behind our backs,” as we still hear Conservatives say, and see in propagandistic movies overseen by DOD and CIA.
So for anyone who has studied these wars, it should come as no surprise that we are seeing “Vietnam War Redux,” as "Deja Vu"-all over again.” The Ukraine War, as we we’ve been waging it against the ethnic Russias in league with Ukrainian fascists (as Trump officials boast of in escalating that) since before 2014, is so similar to the initial stages of Vietnam that we’re even hearing the Ukrainians are “casualty averse” now. Just as the US complained of the South Vietnamese. Which should have been the first clue that maybe they were the “wrong side?” It just doesn’t seem the “will” is there to fight, and die, as a proxy for the Global Hegemon!
In November 2022, the top US military officer, Gen. Mark Milley, broke ranks with fellow White House principals managing the Ukraine proxy war topublicly call for negotiationswith Russia.
Milley, theNew York Times reported, “made the case in internal meetings that the Ukrainians have achieved about as much as they could reasonably expect on the battlefield before winter sets in and so they should try to cement their gains at the bargaining table.”
Milley underscored his message in a public speech. “When there’s an opportunity to negotiate, when peace can be achieved, seize it,” he said.
Washington’s bipartisan proxy warriors were in no mood for a peace opportunity. Instead, they following month, theystaged an elaborate photo-opfor a visiting Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was hailed as the second coming of Winston Churchill and gifted with a new influx of NATO weaponry.
Nine months and one faltering Ukrainian military campaign later,Politico now reports, “the realities of the counteroffensive are sinking in around Washington.” According to one US official, “We may have missed a window to push for earlier talks... Milley had a point.”
While indeed a sign of reality sinking in, the admission is nonetheless incomplete. The US did not just “miss a window” for diplomacy when Milley called it for it in November. Rather, the US sabotaged diplomacy when it blocked a Russia-Ukraine peace deal in April 2022,as Ukrainian and NATO-allied sources have confirmed, yet no US establishment media outlet has managed to acknowledge.
Another US official tells Politico that the White House is “increasingly asking itself this question”: “If we acknowledge we’re not going to do this forever, then what are we going to do?”
Left unquestioned is why the US has not asked itself that question on multiple occasions dating back to 2014, including when it backed acoup that overthrewUkraine’s government;underminedthe post-coup Minsk peace deal between Ukraine and Russian-backed Donbas rebels; andrejected Russian diplomatic effortsright before the invasion. At this juncture, one answer is obvious: Ukraine is running out of people to sacrifice on its patrons’ behalf.
US intelligence officials, theWashington Postreports, have now concluded that Ukraine’s widely hyped counteroffensive “won’t fulfill its principal objective of severing Russia’s land bridge to Crimea in this year’s push.” This assessment will “likely to prompt finger pointing inside Kyiv and Western capitals about why a counteroffensive that saw tens of billions of dollars of Western weapons and military equipment fell short of its goals.”
The US already knows where to point the finger: it’s the Ukrainians’ fault for hesitating to act as cannon fodder.
According to the Post, Ukraine’s counteroffensive immediately “incurred major casualties against Russia’s well-prepared defenses despite having a range of newly acquired Western equipment.” These “major casualties”, the Post adds, were a centerpiece of a military plan drafted with the US and UK:
Joint war games conducted by the U.S., British and Ukrainian militaries anticipated such losses but envisioned Kyiv accepting the casualties as the cost of piercing through Russia’s main defensive line, said U.S. and Western officials.
But Ukraine chose to stem the losses on the battlefield and switch to a tactic of relying on smaller units to push forward across different areas of the front. That resulted in Ukraine making incremental gains in different pockets over the summer.
Because the White House’s overriding objective is not to defend Ukraine but to weaken Russia, it is perfectly consistent for the US to “envision” battle plans where Ukrainians are required to die in large numbers. Accordingly, Ukrainian aversion to major casualties is interfering with the vision.
American officials are worried that Ukraine’s adjustments will race through precious ammunition supplies, which could benefit President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and disadvantage Ukraine in a war of attrition. But Ukrainian commanders decided the pivot reduced casualties and preserved their frontline fighting force.
American officials say they fear that Ukraine has become casualty averse, one reason it has been cautious about pressing ahead with the counteroffensive. Almost any big push against dug-in Russian defenders protected by minefields would result in huge numbers of losses.
From the point of American proxy warriors, because the Ukrainians are “casualty averse”, they risk squandering an even more “precious” resources than Ukrainian lives: American weapons. And given that Ukrainian lives are deemed subordinate to the US goal of bleeding Russia, the US has no qualms about voicing “fear” at Ukrainian fears of death.
Perhaps fearful proxy warriors can take heart knowing that, as the Times notes, “across Ukraine, in big cities and rural villages, almost everyone knows a family that has lost someone in the fighting,” while “graveyards are filling up in every corner of the country.” Because of this,The Guardianreports in a rare Western media acknowledgment, Ukraine is struggling to replenish its depleted forces.
With Ukraine’s mounting toll, and its increasing “casualty averse” military leadership, US and NATO officials beyond Milley are finally allowing themselves to publicly entertain the diplomacy that they have heretofore shunned.
“I’ll be blunt, it’s failed,” Rep. Andy Harris, Republican co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus,now says of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. “I’m not sure it’s winnable anymore... I think the time has come to realistically call for peace talks.”
But even the new acknowledgment of reality has limitations in NATO circles. Stian Jennsen, the chief of staff to NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg,caused a stirthis week when he floated the possibility of Ukraine relinquishing territory to Russia in exchange for NATO membership.
Jennsen was forced to walk back his comments, which particularly embarrassed his boss Stoltenberg, who has previously declared that “weapons are the way to peace.” But the fact that he could even now float such a scenario reflects a growing recognition that time is running out to continue prolonging the war with no regard for the Ukrainian lives that NATO is ostensibly trying to protect.
For his part, Milley is not convinced that the window for diplomacy – previously blocked by Ukraine’s NATO patrons -- has closed.
“If the end state is Ukraine is a free, independent, sovereign country with its territory intact, that will take a considerable level of effort yet to come,” Milleytold the Washington Postthis week. “That’s gonna take a long, long time, but you can also achieve those objectives — maybe, possibly — through some sort of diplomatic means.”
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