When it comes to Ukraine and Russia, war-mongering neoliberals could learn a thing or two from Karl von Clausewitz

(Karl von Clausewitz)
 

The 19^th century Prussian officer and famed military theoretician Karl von Clausewitz wrote about Napoleon’s failed campaign to conquer Russia in 1812. After failing to drive the English out of Portugal and thus being unable to secure victory in Spain, Napoleon wanted to “avoid being involved in a similarly tedious and costly defensive struggle, upon a theater so much more distant,” Russia.

 

“In the case of Russia, he had against him the prodigious extent of the empire, and the circumstance of its having two capitals (Moscow and St. Petersburg) at a great distance from each other,” von Clausewitz wrote.  Still, Napoleon hoped “the weakness of the Russian government and the dissension which he might hope to succeed in establishing” might overcome the disadvantages.

 

Napoleon was wrong, as his disastrous campaign in Russia proved. Hitler would learn a similar lesson in the next century.

 

Fast forward to the 21^st century, and the neoliberal dream of regime change in Russia that would lead to its disintegration into various republics open to Western exploitation. This was the dream that prompted President Bill Clinton to lead NATO into the bombing of Serbia—long one of Russia’s staunchest allies—in the 1990s. This was the dream that prompted then-U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to assist and applaud the overthrow of the duly elected, Russia-friendly government of Ukraine in 2014.

 

Today, signs finally exist that the futile proxy war between the United States and Russia in Ukraine may finally end as President Donald Trump upends 30 years of anti-Russian meddling and warmongering. That Trump, the bombastic, wheeling-and-dealing former real estate mogul, is leading the charge for peace is no less profoundly ironic than old commie-baiter Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, re-establishing relations with what was once a feared enemy.

 

Trump’s motivations may be simply his desire not to be overseeing a costly losing war. For Ukraine has indeed lost the war. Its troops are surrounded in Russia’s Kursk region. It steadily loses ground to the Russians along its eastern provinces. Its troops are decimated, dispirited, and desperate.

 

Yet, the neoliberals in Washington and especially across western Europe still pine for war and more war in their desire to punish and de-centralize Russia while finally ending Vladimir Putin's 25-year reign. They stupidly actually believe Ukraine could defeat Russia. The ghosts of Napoleon and Hitler finally get to laugh in hell.

 

England’s Keir Starmer, a modern-day labor leader who like his contemporaries in the U.S. loves war and hates Russians, actually believes Britain’s tiny military might can help prevent Russia from overrunning Europe (as if Putin’s Russia has any remote intention of doing that). Same goes for France’s Emmanuel Macron, who loves to rattle those sabers like some modern-day would-be Charles de Gaulle, if not quite Napoleon Bonaparte.

 

Of course, their guy in Ukraine is former comedian Volodymr Zelensky, a would-be strongman in his own country after shutting down all opposition, politically and media-wise. Zelensky got a dressing down in the White House, however, a couple weeks ago, something he’s not used to, after challenging Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s views on the war and Ukraine’s prospects.

 

At that dressing down, Zelensky lied repeatedly, saying Russia had broken peace agreements 15 times, ignoring the fact that it was Ukraine and the West, not Russia, that ultimately violated the two Minsk agreements and another peace initiative in Istanbul. Did mainstream media fact-check his idiotic claims? Of course, not.

 

Now there’s talk of a ceasefire with Ukraine and Europe quickly signing on to a deal that has little in it for Russia, but plenty for them—time to rebuild Ukraine’s defenses, pump more money into its weapons systems, and meanwhile make Russia look like its breaking the deal, not them.

 

Still, it may have been a fine diplomatic slight of hand on the Trump team’s part that got England and France even to endorse the idea of a ceasefire, thus interrupting their incessant cry for more war.

Putin says he’s all for a ceasefire in principle, but “nuances” exist that need to be addressed. He’s winning the war so why should he concede unnecessary ground to an enemy who is losing? Believe me, Putin remembers former German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitting that the West and Ukraine only signed on to the Minsk agreement to give Ukraine time to re-arm.

 

You don’t stay in power in the Kremlin for 25 years by ignoring the lies told you in the past when you’re dealing with the same liars.

 

Like Napoleon, Zelensky, Starmer and Macron believe time and continued war may ultimately expose what von Clausewitz called “the weakness of the Russian government” and cause enough dissension to allow for a Ukrainian victory. 

 

Thank goodness, Donald Trump is giving them a lesson in what the Germans used to call “Realpolitik”.

 

USAID, a front for the CIA, helped foment the Hong Kong protests that put Lee Cheuk-yan in prison

(Lee Cheuk-yan in his Hong Kong office in 2013)

 

President Trump’s current crackdown on USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) and revelations of its close relationship with the CIA and its efforts to undermine foreign governments brought back memories of my time in Hong Kong back in 2013 when I witnessed the huge pro-democracy protests there that years later led to a severe crackdown by the Beijing government.

 

Huge protests in 2019 succeeded in getting the city’s government to drop a hated extradition bill that would have sent criminal suspects to mainland China. However, the protests continued and broadened into a giant, ill-fated movement that Beijing could no longer tolerate. They continued in part due to the meddling of organizations like USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy.

 

A trip down memory lane …

 

Lee Cheuk-yan was a busy man the day I interviewed him at his Hong Kong office in 2013. A member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong as well as chair of the Hong Kong Labour Party and leading democratic activist, he had to interrupt the interview to swing over to the council in session in the same building to make brief comments on an issue under consideration.

 

We talked about the recent 40-day dockworkers strike and his role in organizing the annual pro-democracy vigil in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park.

 

“We have to support independent unions, and at the same time, democratic rights,” Lee told me. “We also have the need to support democracy in China. Unless there is democracy in China, it will be far more difficult for Hong Kong to have a real democracy.”

 

Today Lee Cheuk-yan sits in prison, serving two concurrent 18-month sentences for his role in pro-democracy rallies. He has been in prison since early 2021.

 

Lee is one of several leading activists who ended up in prison after the massive pro-democracy protests of 2019 led to Beijing’s crackdown.  Rallies such as that in Victoria Park are now banned, and their leaders are behind bars.

 

Lee might not be in prison if the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID, both fronts for the CIA in its efforts to promote subversion in areas not committed to Western interests, had not interfered.

 

Journalist Dave Lindorff, a veteran China watcher, insists the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong was always home-grown and home-led, but he acknowledges Western organizations likely interfered.

 

“Clearly, the agents of US imperialism are tireless—and utterly without principle … in their efforts to use people,” Lindorff wrote in Counterpunch way back in 2014.  “What we on the left who oppose US empire should be doing is … working to insist that the US government and its secretive agencies of imperialism butt out of Hong Kong.”

 

Although mainstream media has largely ignored USAID’s close ties to CIA subversion, alternative media abound in reports of how the $40 billion-plus organization has been key to efforts over the decades to foment pro-West protest and rebellion in nations such as Ukraine, Cuba, Georgia, Bolivia, Peru, and Haiti.

 

What mainstream media report is USAID’s role in feeding hungry children in Africa and working to contain AIDS and other diseases. They say nothing about how it helped fund the coup that overthrew President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti in 1991 and 2004, worked to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba, worked behind the scenes to make sure opposition parties didn’t challenge the Philippines’ close relationship to the U.S.

 

Trump has fired the inspector general for USAID and appears to be working to dismantle the organization entirely and move its operations into the State Department.

 

If all USAID did was feed hungry children in Africa, it might not have come under the scrutiny of the Trump Administration.  USAID’s bloated budget, more than its covert activities, likely inspired Trump’s attack on the agency.  

 

Still, Trump’s actions have pulled the cover off USAID and exposed its role in interfering with the politics and governance of nations around the world. You won’t read or hear about it in the mainstream media, but who reads or listens to them any more anyway?

 

Donald Trump's moment of truth--workers and peace, or billionaires and war

Nearly one month into the new year of 2025 we have a new president already casting clouds over the promises and expectations of the blue-collar friendly, peacemaker tone of his campaign. Along with jobs and an end to paralyzing inflation, he promised an end to the war in Ukraine. Impressively just before taking office, he forced Israeli leader Netanyahu into a temporary peace deal with Hamas in the Gaza strip.

 

Then on inauguration day Donald Trump peopled the podium behind him with union-busting billionaires. Not much later he was criticizing Russian leader Vladimir Putin for his “ridiculous” war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Israel, with little opposition from the new president, continues its bloody rage on the West Bank and in Lebanon even if its guns have stopped firing in Gaza for the time being.

 

The roundup of undocumented migrants in the U.S. has begun as Trump promised even though there seems to be dissension within his inner circle as to which migrants are desirable and which are not.

 

Labor South is following these issues, and as it reported after the November election, the working-class voters who elected Trump are also watching. After being essentially ignored and taken for granted by the Democratic Party for decades, workers in the United States show no inclination to return to the party once gloriously helmed by Franklin Roosevelt. As they now jostle for space among all those Republican billionaires, they must remember they have the power to elect and to defeat.

 

Will Trump revert back to traditional Republican instincts that always favor the managerial class at the expense of workers? Already he has fired National Labor Relations Board member Gwinne Wilcox and NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, both viewed as pro-labor voices on the board. Wilcox is fighting the action in court.

 

Will he truly push for peace if Putin decides he doesn’t like Trump’s terms?

 

Meanwhile the failed Democratic Party continues to flounder in the wake of its devastating losses last November. Its own billionaire backers are unlikely to pursue the path Bernie Sanders tried to carve out a few years ago. More likely it will move even more to the right on economic issues. On other issues its malaise deepens as its members try to come to term with the long overdue death of identity politics. Only most of the recent candidates to lead the Democratic National Committee and the millionaire winners of the recent Grammy awards believe identity politics are still viable. Further, the party couldn’t even rely on the abortion issue to pull it over the top. What’s left?

 

Trump’s greatest promise is change. He says he’s the man to make it happen. The Deep State abhors change, and it has formidable powers to resist it. For all his bluster and big talk, Trump now has the opportunity to show the world the stuff he’s made of, who he really is. The world awaits.