America is driving Europe into a nuclear war

by Oskar Lafontaine,* Germany

(15 May 2022) Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the stranglehold of Washington’s gamblers: a negotiated peace with Moscow is becoming ever more urgent.

The Ukraine war is really about a confrontation between the USA and Russia. In his book “The Grand Chessboard”, published in 1997, the former security advisor to US President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, praises the unprecedented military apparatus of the USA as the supreme one with a global radius of action. Of course, Russia and China do not agree with American hegemony. Therefore, the USA must do everything to prevent the emergence of a Eurasian challenger who could bring the Eurasian continent under its rule.

Ukraine is the geopolitical linchpin in the pursuit of this goal. Without Ukraine, Russia is no longer a Eurasian empire. However, if Moscow were to regain control over Ukraine, with its significant mineral resources and access to the Black Sea, Russia would automatically acquire the means to become a powerful empire spanning Europe and Asia.

If one adds to these considerations the core statement of a lecture given by the head of Stratfor, George Friedman, in Chicago on 3 February 2015, according to which the main goal of US policy for centuries has been to ensure that there is no cooperation between Russia and Germany, then one knows what the goal of NATO’s eastward expansion was.

Billions for a puppet

One also understands why the US Deputy Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, freely admitted years ago that the US had spent five billion dollars to install a puppet government in Kiev that suited them. It then becomes clear why Washington has been doing everything for years to prevent the supply of coal, oil and gas from Russia to Europe.

Against this background, it is also more than plausible when the renowned US economist Jeffrey Sachs warns that the US strategy amounts to a long war in Ukraine with thousands of deaths. He recommends Europe to go its own way and to suggest a neutral Ukraine with autonomy for the Donbass as a negotiated solution.

It is astonishing to what extent politicians and journalists in Europe, especially in Germany, fail to recognise these geostrategic connections and blindly follow the highly dangerous US strategy of further fuelling the Ukraine war. It is extremely dangerous because the USA obviously does not want to follow the advice of its former president John F. Kennedy, who said that a nuclear power should never be put in a situation from which it can no longer find a face-saving way out.

It is a great disadvantage that in Germany a government is now in charge in which the leading politicians have little experience in foreign policy. In addition, the largest opposition party, the CDU, is led by the former Blackrock lobbyist Friedrich Merz, whose former employer is earning handsomely from the rise in the share prices of arms companies.

The SPD lacks détente politicians who, like Brandt or Bahr, still knew that security in Germany and Europe can only be achieved together with the nuclear power Russia. In the FDP, too, there is no politician of Hans-Dietrich Genscher’s stature to be seen for miles around, who as foreign minister always had the danger of a nuclear war limited to Europe in mind. Even Guido Westerwelle still had the courage to give the USA the cold shoulder during the invasion of Libya. Which FDP politician would you trust to do that today?

Baerbock’s fascist language

The most consistent and dangerous US vassals in the federal government and the German Bundestag are the Greens, whose erstwhile foreman Joschka Fischer, together with his later business partner Madeleine Albright, pushed Germany’s participation in the war in Yugoslavia, which violated international law.

One thought it could not get any worse, but the new Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock doesn’t hesitate to use fascist language and wants to “ruin” Russia. By her own admission, the recently deceased Madeleine Albright, who justified the death of 500,000 Iraqi children through US sanctions, is her model. Imagine the screams of the Greens if Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov justified the deaths of 500,000 Ukrainian children, on whatever grounds.

In this messy situation, it is not enough for Olaf Scholz to delay arms deliveries. Increasing arms deliveries is the mantra of the Biden administration, which wants to weaken Russia at all costs, without regard for the deaths that will have to be mourned if arms deliveries continue. Does anyone seriously believe that Russia, a nuclear power, can afford to lose the Ukraine war in the current global political situation?

Whether they realise it or not, the fanatical arms suppliers in the Bundestag will share responsibility for the daily increase in the number of dead. How long is the war supposed to last? As long as the war in Afghanistan? Why don’t German politicians learn from the failures of the US-led wars of intervention in which the Bundeswehr has taken part?

There would be a chance, albeit a small one, if the re-elected French President Emmanuel Macron, together with the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, were to fall into the arms of the US warmongers, as François Hollande and Angela Merkel once did, and seek a negotiated solution on the basis of the proposals already advocated by Volodymyr Zelensky – neutrality for Ukraine and autonomy for the Donbass. The Ukrainian president will not be a reliable partner in this, because he is repeatedly put under pressure by the USA and the right-wing extremists in Ukraine.

Why doesn't German policy learn from the failures of the US-led wars of intervention?

The rivalry of the world powers USA, Russia and China forces Europe to try everything to avoid being drawn into a nuclear confrontation between these great powers. Charles de Gaulle had recognised this danger for France and therefore rejected an integration of the French armed forces into the US-led NATO because he did not want to rely on the willingness of the USA to use its nuclear forces in the event of a confrontation with the Soviet Union even if Moscow threatened a counterattack on the USA’s major cities. He therefore insisted that France build up its own nuclear force. “States have no friends, only interests” was his maxim, and when it came to life and death, i.e. war, he was convinced that the decision could not be left to others.

Stable peace thanks to détente

Like de Gaulle, Chancellor Willy Brandt knew that he would only be able to implement his policy of peace and détente in the face of opposition from Washington. Convinced that this was the only way to secure peace in Europe, he implemented his Ostpolitik step by step. The USA was very annoyed, as evidenced by a telephone conversation between Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon, in which Kissinger blatantly wished cancer on Willy Brandt.

At present, an outlandish discussion is taking place in Germany. The policy of détente, the attempt at good cooperation with Russia, was the cause of the current development. Seldom has the truth been turned upside down like this. Never before has it been so clear to what extent US propaganda determines the media and the political debate in Germany. The truth is another.

In the mid-sixties, the policy of détente began, it led to a stable peace in Europe and brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Germany and Eastern Europe. In the 1990s, the policy of confrontation began with the eastward expansion of NATO and the increasing encirclement of Russia. It led to the war in Yugoslavia, which was illegal under international law, and to the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, which was also illegal under international law.

If a negotiated peace cannot be reached soon, the danger of a nuclear war will increase, because those responsible in Moscow have their backs to the wall and the gamblers in Washington have believed for years that a nuclear war could be limited to Europe.

* Oskar Lafontaine, born in 1943, is one of Germany's most independent and courageous politicians. From 1985 to 1998 he was Minister-President of the Saarland (SPD). From 1995 to 1999 he was SPD chair‐man. From September 1998 to March 1999, he worked as Federal Minister of Finance, but then resigned from the Schröder government. With Gregor Gysi, he was parliamentary group leader of the Left Party in the German Bundestag from 2005 to 2009. From 2007 to 2010 he was party leader of the Left Party with Lothar Bisky. On 17 March 2022, he announced his resignation from the Left Party because he no longer agreed with its social and peace policies.

Source: Die Weltwoche No. 17/2022. Reprinted with kind permission of the author.

(Translation “Swiss Standpoint”)