June 23, 2022
I thought I could get a balanced view of news by listening to TV anchors and reading columnists from both the left and the right. I wrote a blog on this a few months ago. That was my thinking until I received an article from my cousin Tamas, who is in Vienna. He sent me an article presenting a scholarly view of the origin of the Ukraine war. The argument floored me.
You thought Russia started the war, right? Russia was massing its military for months on the Ukraine border before attacking. And remember, Russia occupied Crimea in 2014, so this war was a continuation of their aim to gain more territory. But no. Hungarian economist Karoly Lorant explains in an article in the conservative Hungarian daily Magyar Hirlap, that the war started way back in 1998 when the Americans passed a resolution to expand NATO, which President Clinton called a major foreign policy victory.
Going further back, Secretary of State James Baker told Gorbachev that if Germany as a whole could be a member of NATO, “NATO forces would not be extended as much as an inch to the east.” This was at a meeting at the Kremlin on February 9, 1990.
The world situation changed entirely when the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, and fifteen independent states emerged. According to Lorant, one result was the Americans had begun to support the expansion of NATO and talked about a unipolar world, with the US being the global force.
Lorant cites events supporting the expansion of NATO via the “Partnership for Peace Program” to cooperate with and encourage the democratization of Eastern European countries (many belonged to the former Soviet Union).
National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote a book “The Gand Chessboard” (1997) in which he explained that Belorussia and Ukraine were an important part of Russia, without which Russia was a weak country. Lorant’s thesis is that, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia has lost its power, particularly considering the loss of Belorussia and Ukraine. While the Russians were losing ground, the Americans were intent on expanding NATO.
According to Lorant, the Russians have been pushed back since the 1990s and, from their point of view, the situation had become untenable. No surprise that in January 2022, in Geneva, the Russians wanted the Americans to guarantee that Ukraine does not become a member of NATO. The Americans refused the request. So Lorant concludes that the continuous squeezing of Russia since the 1990s has created the condition for the war and the primary culprit is the US.
Although the facts may be true, I do not buy for a minute the conclusions Lorant draws from them. Russia is the transgressor in the Ukraine war; it is an unprovoked war (even Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the right-wing leader of Hungary called Russia the aggressor in his speech on May 16, 2022). Ukraine did not invite the Russians to come in to help, unlike in the Cuban missile crisis (which, some people think, is comparable to the Ukraine situation), when Fidel Castro invited the Russians. Zelenski, the President of Ukraine, was elected democratically, and he did not invite the Russians to come into the country.
Second, the concept of territorial influence, that Russia has influence by right over Ukraine, or that historically Ukraine belongs to Russia, is not convincing today. That doctrine may have held water in the past, but now independent countries have the right to self-determination. In contrast to the Russian aim to recover lost territories, European countries have not gone back to their colonies trying to recover their lost territories.
Third, I think influence shows through technology and industrialization today and less via military action. The last time we visited Hungary, I expressed my surprise to Tamas at the high level of foreign ownership of grocery stores and banks. He explained foreign countries took over Hungary without a single life being lost by taking ownership of industry after Hungary declared independence in 1989 and the Soviets left the country in 1991.
For example, the spread of the iconic iPhone and Facebook has probably created more sustainable influence in countries where they are used than military action could ever provide. That is why brute military might with tanks appears old-fashioned to me and a losing idea in the long run. I thought that by using their natural resources and closer cooperation with the old Soviet satellite states, Russia could have established a successful industrial block. But, no; instead, they invaded a country with brute force.
And now I gather from Mr. Lorant’s scholarship that it was the US that triggered the war after continuous attempts to promote NATO and squeeze Russia until Russia saw no option but to invade Ukraine to regain its former territory.
So I learned that besides reading the full spectrum of left-to-right opinions in the west, which I thought would give me a balanced view, I should also read pro-Russian views, such as Lorant’s article, (based on excellent scholarship), that may substantially differ from our western view. That does not mean that Mr. Lorant changed my mind; he outlined a historical context that is interesting but irrelevant today. Just my opinion.
andrasthehun.ca 