| The US is fuelling a crisis in Ukraine with the aim of pushing Russia to see how far it will go, destabilising Europe and, in its imagination, controlling Asia. Since December the Biden administration has been saying that a move of Russian forces on Ukraine would be met with “severe consequences”. It is quick to add that it does not have military consequences in mind but “economic consequences like none [Putin] has ever seen,” as Biden put it. Why the US thinks such consequences will be more damaging than the sanctions it has imposed in the past, Biden does not say. The main economic consequences raised publicly so far include sanctioning the Russian banking institutions, shutting down Nord Stream 2 gas transmissions to Europe before they even start and even cutting off Moscow’s access to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) international bank messaging system, among others. SWIFT is used by banks and other financial institutions to quickly, accurately and securely send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions. In 2018, around half of all high-value cross-border payments worldwide used the SWIFT network. While the sanctions cause a lot of trouble for Russia, they cause even more trouble for the US. They have led Russia to work out alternative arrangements and European countries to protest the interference in their relations with countries that the US says are not allowed. The US is doing its utmost to disrupt economic co-operation between European countries and Russia, as well as Iran and other countries, so as to control Europe while embroiling Russia in every conceivable conflict. The US sabotaged the Iran nuclear deal and, lately, the multi-billion dollar submarine deal between France and Australia. US support for British withdrawal from the EU is another example. So too is the US pressure to force Europe to turn away Russian natural gas supplies and rely instead on US liquefied natural gas — at many times the cost. The US wants to prevent Europe from strengthening itself by having access to resources where it sees fit. It would rather it relied solely on the US. But Germany, France and other European countries, as well as Europe as an entity, are themselves contenders for control over sources of raw materials and cheap labour, markets and zones for the export of capital and influence. Europeans are already paying close to five times what they were paying last year for natural gas because of the US pressure that Europe not enter into further long-term contracts for gas supply from Russia. Cutting out completely the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is meeting resistance because it would hurt not only Russian-owned Gazprom, but also Shell, Engie, OMV and other European oil and gas monopolies heavily invested in this project. The US has been exploring ways it might cut Russian banks off the SWIFT. The consequences of being cut off are far reaching but here too US highhandedness is being met with a new way of doing things such as the alternative payments systems being put in place by Russia and China that are not subject to oversight by Western countries. German business daily Handelsblatt recently cited German government sources as saying that the SWIFT exclusion is now off the table because it would destabilise global financial markets. The White House National Security Council, however, promptly rejected the Handelsblatt story saying, “No option is off the table. We continue consulting very closely with European counterparts on severe consequences for Russia if it further invades Ukraine,” Reuters reported. It is said that every action is prompted by motive. The US has clear motives, which serve narrow private interests, for its actions that fuel conflict with Russia on its borders. Furthermore, the old adage that who controls Europe dominates Asia belongs to a bygone era. The US has yet to assimilate the fact that China and Russia and other countries are standing on their own two feet and have interests of their own which do not accord with subservience to the US. The unfolding events show that the US will not permit a peaceful solution and has contingency plans to act alone if European members of NATO balk at the prospect of open-if-limited conflict with Russia. On January 18, for example, the warmongering Atlantic Council think tank of NATO wrote that “as the crisis evolves, decisions about how to support Ukraine will become more difficult and there’s a limit to how unified NATO can be”. It added: “While it won’t find a consensus to fight” and even “boosting Kyiv’s military capacity by supporting an insurgency for instance, or sending anti-tank weapons, will be impossible to achieve by consensus […] it could provide the foundation for certain allies to support Ukrainian forces in ways consistent with their national priorities outside of NATO.” It is shameful and disgraceful that Britain is walking in lockstep with US demands. It demonstrates beyond doubt that Britain is at one with the pro-war economy and government of the US. It is even sending military materiel to Ukraine to the detriment of the prospects for peace. The facts reveal that the real threat to European security comes from the US, not Russia. |