pcr's version of 'everything you wanted to know about ukraine but were afraid to ask';

Everything You Need to Know about the Conflict in Ukraine

Paul Craig Roberts

The Soviet Union collapsed when Soviet President Gorbachev was placed under house arrest by hardline elements in the Politburo who were alarmed by the rapidity with which Gorbachev was establishing friendly and open relations with the West.

For the hardline American neoconservatives, the Soviet Collapse removed the constraint on American unilateralism. The neoconservatives quickly seized the initiative and with the Wolfowitz Doctrine declared US hegemony and stated that the principal goal of US foreign policy was to prevent the rise of any power that could serve as a constraint on Washington’s hegemony. This policy resulted in the hopes of Reagan and Gorbachev and the trust Gorbachev had placed in Washington being frustrated. Washington’s pledge not to move NATO one inch to the East was disavowed, and more hostile steps followed.

By 2007 it was clear to Russia’s President Putin that the promise of a multi-polar world was being over-ridden by a policy of Washington’s hegemony. At the Munich Security Conference, Putin threw down the gauntlet and said that Russia did not accept Washington’s rules based uni-polar world. At that moment the US/NATO went to war against Russia.

The first attack on Russia was a year later in 2008 when Washington sent a US supplied and trained Georgian army into disputed South Ossetia, resulting in the deaths of Russian peace-keepers and many civilians. Putin, caught off guard, returned from the Beijing Olympics, and the Russian army quickly defeated the US trained Georgian forces. Putin is often accused of intending to rebuild the Soviet Empire, but he had in his hands Georgia, historically a part of the Soviet Union and previously of Russia. Instead of reincorporating Georgia back into Russia, he turned them loose to be again subjected to Washington’s plots against Russia........more........