The fifth question of the Q&A series is…who is the ultimate provocateur in the Ukraine War? And I really hope this answer doesn’t surprise anyone.
If Russian propaganda has led you to believe that nazi-jewish-gay-demons run Ukraine…maybe this isn’t the video for you. Equally as absurd is the idea that NATO and the US are responsible for Ukraine being in this situation.
The US has seen NATO growth since the Cold War’s end; roughly 20 countries have joined, and many of them are former Soviet territories. But joining NATO is no cakewalk. It’s a grueling process and must be unanimously agreed upon by all members.
So the idea that NATO started this war and has been plotting to eliminate Russia is a tad far stretched. Oh, and when you actively send tens of thousands of troops into another country, it’s pretty hard to get the red off your hands.
Prefer to read the transcript of the video? Click here
Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:
First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.
Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.
And then there’s you.
Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.
CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND
CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY
TRANSCIPT
All right. Next question is, whose fault is this really? Who really started this? Who is the ultimate provocateur? From my point of view, that’s a pretty straightforward question. But let’s look at it from the other side real quick, because we do have a number of people in the United States who are just parroting blindly and brainlessly Russian propaganda.
The argument that the Ukrainians are led by a bunch of Nazi Jewish gay demons, we’re going to put that to the side because that’s as stupid as it sounds. And hopefully for most people, the fact that that is a leading thread in Russian propaganda is indicative of how much truth is behind the rest of what they say. But let’s focus on something a little bit more substantive. The idea that NATO has been very aggressive with the Russians since the end of the Cold War, and it’s ultimately NATO’s fault and specifically the United States is fault that Ukraine is in the position that it is today, and the Russians have to do this for defensive purposes. The very, very short version is that’s utter bullshit, but let’s pick it apart.
The argument is that the United States has been aggressively expanding NATO. And, you know, you make an argument for that because we have seen roughly 20 countries join NATO since the Cold War ended in 1992. But you have to take a look at the NATO accession process, because it is not just an issue of the United States waving a wand. What happens is the countries in question have either a vote or an act of their parliament where they apply for NATO membership. And then every individual government that is in the alliance already has to sign off on that entrance. And then it’s not like you wave a wand, then starts the accession process, which involves military reforms, civil reform, democratic transitions, moving away from a top down cannon fodder style military strategy like the Russians favor in favor of something with better logistics and a lot more forethought in order to help these countries not just defend themselves, but move along the path towards a democratic transition or if already democracies, to consolidate that transition once all of that is done, once the report card is finished, the countries then formally apply and there again have to have either an act of parliament or a vote of the general population, or more likely both. And then once that is done, NATO gives it a rubber stamp. But that’s not the end of the process either. Then the accession has to be signed off by each individual NATO country with a minimum of an act of parliament and in some cases an actual plebiscite. Only then can the countries join. This is not an issue of the United States just saying, Hey, I want to expand NATO to Hungary and it just magically happens. Everyone has to be on board with every step of the process or there is no accession. Now you also have to consider the list of countries that have joined Nieto since the Cold War ended. Estonia. Latvia. Lithuania. Poland. Romania. Bulgaria. The Slovak Republic. The Czech Republic. Hungary. Macedonia or North Macedonia now, Albania and future accession targets are potentially Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan. With very few exceptions, these countries have all either been at war with or occupied by Russia. Oh, I forgot. Finland. Finland too. Anyway, at war with or occupied by Russia. So from their point of view, the defensive argument that Russia is the one that’s threatened by Latvia is just asinine. So thats kind of piece one.
Piece two is what actually happened in the early days of the war, starting in 2020 and 2021. Vladimir Putin and the Russian government in general started talking about the Ukrainians as not really existing, that they were a made up ethnicity designed by the Nazis or by the Americans simply to put a thorn in Russia’s side. And as such, it was Russia’s manifest destiny to reclaim lands that were once it. And as the time went on, the number of territories that were traditional Russian territory, according to this propaganda, expanded to include most of the countries that have joined NATO since 1992. And then by the time we got to December of 2021, the Russians started moving tens of thousands of troops onto Ukraine’s borders. And by the time we got to January and early February, we had over 100,000. By the time we got to February 22nd, the day that troops crossed the border, we were at about 130,000. On the 22nd, over 70,000 troops crossed from the Russian territories into the occupied Ukrainian territories. And we all of a sudden had a mass mobilization in Belarus as well. And then on the 24th, forces crossed from Belarus south and from those occupied territories in the east, further west into Ukraine proper. And never forget that this is not the first war between Russia and Ukraine since 1992. In 2014, the Russians flat out invaded the Donbass territory in the east and also captured Crimea in the south.
So any time somebody tells you that this war is someone’s fault other than Russia, you can tell them to go screw themselves because you’re smarter than that.
Next question.
