Conor right here: John Helmer particulars one other German basic making an attempt to hit the brakes on Berlin’s assist for Ukraine earlier than the practice goes fully off the tracks.
Sadly, retired Main Normal Harald Kujat’s claims have been ignored within the US and in Germany. That Kujat says the US media have been much less misleading of their reporting of the battle than the German press actually offers you an thought of how dangerous the censorship is there.
Wolfgang Streeck wrote just lately in New Left Evaluate about how stifling the atmosphere has turn into:
In different respects as nicely, the hall of the sayable is quickly, and frighteningly, narrowing. As with the destruction of the pipelines, the strongest taboos relate to the function of the US, each within the historical past of the battle and within the current. In admissible public speech, the Ukrainian battle – which is anticipated to be termed ‘Putin’s battle of aggression’ (Angriffskrieg) by all loyal residents – turns into fully de-contextualized: it has no historical past exterior of the ‘narrative’ of a decade-long brooding of a mad dictator within the Kremlin over the way to greatest wipe out the Ukrainian individuals, facilitated by the stupidity, mixed with greed, of the Germans falling for his low cost gasoline. As this author discovered when an interview he had given to the web version of a centre-right German weekly, Cicero, was minimize with out session, amongst what’s to not be talked about in well mannered German society are the American rejection of Gorbachev’s ‘Widespread European House’, the subversion inside the US of Clinton’s mission of a ‘Partnership for Peace’, and the rebuff as late as 2010 of Putin’s proposal of a European free commerce zone ‘from Lisbon to Vladivostok’. Equally unmentionable is the truth that by the mid-Nineties on the newest, the US had determined that the border of post-communist Europe ought to be an identical to the western border of post-communist Russia, which might even be the jap border of NATO, to the west of which there have been to be no restrictions in any respect on the stationing of troops and weapons programs. The identical holds for the intensive American strategic debates on ‘extending Russia’, as documented in publicly accessible working papers of the RAND Company.
Extra examples of the publicly unsayable embrace the traditionally unprecedented arms build-up on the a part of the US through the ‘battle on terror’, accompanied by the unilateral termination of all remaining arms management agreements with the Soviet Union of previous; the unrelenting American strain on Germany to switch Russian pure gasoline with American liquid pure gasoline after the invention of fracking, culminating within the American determination lengthy earlier than the battle to shut down Nord stream 2, a technique or different; the peace negotiations that preceded the battle, together with the Minsk agreements between Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine, negotiated by amongst others the then German overseas minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, which fell aside beneath strain from the Obama administration and its particular envoy for US-Ukrainian relations, the then Vice President Joe Biden, coinciding with a radicalization of Ukrainian nationalism.
Helmer additionally makes an essential level in regards to the military-industrial advanced in Germany and weapons corporations’ alliance with the war-mongering Inexperienced Get together. In a separate publish immediately, we take a look at the Inexperienced (and particularly overseas minister Baerbock) efforts to extend Germany’s involvement within the Ukraine battle.
By John Helmer who has been the longest repeatedly serving overseas correspondent in Russia, and the one western journalist to have directed his personal bureau unbiased of single nationwide or business ties. Helmer has additionally been a professor of political science, and advisor to authorities heads in Greece, the US, and Asia. Initially revealed at Dances with Bears
A recent German basic has issued a public warning that the battle on the Ukrainian battlefield by the US and NATO armies is misplaced, and that Germany shall be misplaced subsequent if the advance of the Russian forces towards Kiev and Lvov isn’t halted shortly by an armistice, partition and demilitarization of the Ukraine, and time to rebuild the German military.
Retired Main Normal Harald Kujat — son of a Wehrmacht soldier killed combating the Crimson Military who grew as much as turn into chief of the German military after which of the NATO navy staffs — is the creator of a navy evaluation during which he blames the German press, ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel, British prime minister Boris Johnson, and different NATO allies he doesn’t identify for a brand new German model of the stab within the again .
On this scheme, based on Kujat, the NATO allies have aimed toward sabotaging Germany’s energy in Europe. That is being carried out, he mentioned, by escalating the “danger of a standard assault on Germany”, and “pursuing the aim of exposing Germany to Russia specifically”. With out explicitly concentrating on the US, Kujat blames Washington for establishing a direct nuclear risk to Russia within the Aegis missile batteries now put in in Poland and Romania; for making Germany a direct social gathering to the battle within the Ukraine by permitting “the US [to] practice Ukrainian troopers in Germany”; and for destroying the Nord Stream gasoline pipelines to Germany.
Kujat’s evaluation was revealed in Switzerland on January 18; German publication adopted on January 20. Attacked prior to now by mainstream German media, and by US authorities officers, Kujat’s new assertion has been ignored in Germany and the US.
“The longer the battle lasts, the better the danger of enlargement or escalation,” Kujat warned, including the German military, German territorial safety, and German industrial may would be the loser as a result of “Russia might surpass the Western escalation at any time with its personal.” Kujat meant this to incorporate the usage of nuclear weapons.
Kujat is essentially the most senior German officer to make public an assault on the German and allied battle to defeat Russia in Europe.
He follows Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach, head of the German Navy, who was compelled to resign in January 2022, after a public speech during which he mentioned that “the Crimea Peninsula is gone: It should by no means come again — this can be a reality”; and that Russian safety issues ought to be addressed with “respect”. “What [Putin] actually needs is respect. And, my God, giving somebody respect is low price, even no price. … It’s straightforward to provide him the respect he actually calls for — and possibly additionally deserves.”
After Schönbach’s ouster, no serving German officers have dared to danger public criticism of the battle coverage in Germany. As a substitute, they’re expressing themselves by retired officers. Brigadier Normal Erich Vad, the ex-head of the navy group in Merkel’s chancellery, issued an in depth assault earlier this month; learn the main points right here.
Referring to the resistance by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to sending German Leopard tanks to the Ukraine, Kujat says “the controversy over the provision of sure weapons programs clearly reveals the intention of many media retailers to make coverage themselves. It might be that my unease about this growth is a consequence of my a few years of service in NATO, together with as chairman of the NATO-Russia Council and the NATO-Ukraine Fee of Chiefs of Employees. I discover it significantly annoying that German safety pursuits and the risks to our nation posed by an enlargement and escalation of the battle are given so little consideration. This reveals an absence of duty or, to make use of an old style time period, a extremely unpatriotic perspective.”
Kujat claims to “have at all times believed that this battle should be prevented and that it might have been prevented”. That this has not been the end result he blames on Merkel for her coverage of deceiving Russia, calling that “a blatant breach of belief” and “a breach of worldwide regulation, that’s clear.”
The turning level within the Russian-German safety stability of forces started in Washington in 2002, Kujat says, when US President George W. Bush cancelled the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty, after which in 2008 when Bush “tried to push by an invite from Ukraine and Georgia to affix NATO”. The Obama Administration’s determination in 2009 to deploy “NATO’s ballistic missile protection system in Poland and Romania” was a brand new escalation “as a result of Russia is satisfied that the US might additionally get rid of Russian intercontinental strategic programs from these launch Services and thus endanger the nuclear strategic stability.”
Germany’s survival is imperiled by this nuclear imbalance, based on Kujat, as a result of Russian nuclear arms at the moment are instantly threatened by the US, and by the escalation of standard US and NATO weapons on the Ukrainian battlefield. “You need to reckon with that. The longer the battle lasts, the better the danger of enlargement or escalation. [Question: We already had this in the Cuban Missile Crisis?] It was a comparable state of affairs.”
Like Vad, Kujat has been obliged to publish by a small-circulation Zurich journal, Zeitgeschehen im Fokus (“Present Occasions in Focus”), after which in an obscure German publication primarily based in Frankfurt; referred to as Overton, an English revolutionary identify, this journal reveals nothing about itself besides that it’s “a voice towards debate constriction and moralism. It questions the final narratives and is decidedly not an ideological mouthpiece or organ of pronouncement, however feels dedicated to the Enlightenment.” Vad revealed his navy evaluation in Emma, a Cologne feminist journal.
Vad was express in his criticism of Merkel and the present German overseas minister, Annalena Baerbock. Regardless of being requested about her in his interview, Kujat avoids attacking Baerbock by identify. He additionally claims the US media have been much less misleading of their reporting of the battle than the German press, citing an “article in International Affairs…by Fiona Hill, a former senior White Home Nationwide Safety Council official. She could be very competent and completely dependable.”
Kujat blames the British, not the Individuals, for disrupting the ceasefire phrases he believes the Kremlin was able to signal following the Istanbul negotiations on the finish of March 2022. Observe what occurred in Moscow and in Istanbul on the time on this report.
In Kujat’s model, “Russia had apparently [sic] agreed to withdraw its forces to the extent of February 23, i.e. earlier than the assault on Ukraine started. Now the whole withdrawal is repeatedly demanded as a prerequisite for negotiations… Ukraine had pledged to surrender NATO membership and to not permit any overseas troops or navy installations to be stationed. In return, it ought to obtain safety ensures from states of its selection. The way forward for the occupied territories ought to be resolved diplomatically inside 15 years, with the specific renunciation of navy drive… Based on dependable data [sic], the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson intervened in Kiev on ninth April and prevented a signing. His reasoning was that the West was not prepared for an finish to the battle.”
Kujat didn’t reveal the “obvious” and “dependable” sources for his claims. He additionally seems to sign that US officers weren’t behind Johnson’s motion, and what Kujat additionally calls President Vladimir Zelensky’s “repeatedly chang[ing] the strategic aims of Ukrainian warfare”.
Kujat has misrepresented and misreported Hill’s function in escalating US battle goals towards Russia for a number of years; for proof of this, click on to learn the archive. Kujat has finished the identical in claiming Johnson, not US officers, have managed Zelensky.
Like Vad earlier this month, Kujat appeals to the Pentagon, US navy officers, and US weapons makers to cease the escalation of the battle on the Ukrainian battlefield as Russian strategic aims harden, and the tactical defeat of US, German and NATO weapons turns into inevitable. “Based on the US Joint Chiefs of Employees, Normal Mark Milley,” Kujat says, “Ukraine has achieved what it might obtain militarily. Extra just isn’t attainable. That’s the reason diplomatic efforts ought to be made now to realize a negotiated peace. I share this view… it’s questionable whether or not the Ukrainian armed forces nonetheless have a adequate variety of appropriate troopers to have the ability to use these weapons programs in view of the massive losses of current months. In any case, [Ukrainian Chief of Staff General Valery] Zaluzhny’s assertion additionally explains why Western arms provides don’t allow Ukraine to realize its navy aims, however solely lengthen the battle. As well as, Russia might surpass the Western escalation at any time with its personal. Within the German dialogue, these connections should not understood or ignored. The way in which during which some [sic] allies try to publicly urge the federal authorities to ship Leopard 2 battle tanks additionally performs a task. This has not occurred in NATO to this point. It reveals how a lot Germany’s status within the alliance has suffered because of the weakening of the Bundeswehr and the dedication with which some allies are pursuing the aim of exposing Germany to Russia specifically.”
Kujat implies that Chancellor Olaf Scholz is being secretly pressured by the US for causes Kujat doesn’t need to reveal now — aside from his trace that the Individuals and British purpose to weaken Germany politically in Europe, and supplant the German arms trade with their very own corporations. “The present efforts of the USA to induce the Europeans to provide additional arms could have one thing to do with this example. A distinction should be made between the publicly expressed causes and the concrete choices of the Federal Authorities. It might go too far [sic] to enter the entire spectrum of this dialogue. Nevertheless, I would love the Federal Authorities to obtain actually competent recommendation on this concern and – maybe much more importantly – to be receptive and able to judgement in accordance with the significance of this concern.”
Kujat additionally omits to say Baerbock’s and the Inexperienced Get together’s alliance with Germany’s aerospace and defence trade to safe Inexperienced votes in Kiel, Dusseldorf, Munich, and different metropolis and state (Bundesland) electorates the place the Greens purpose to attract massive vote swings from the Social Democratic Get together (SDP) and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Kiel is dwelling to Krauss-Maffei Wegmann Maschinenbau, builder of the Leopard tank. Within the Kiel parliamentary vote of 2021, the Greens gained nearly 14% to attain 28% of the entire, whereas the SDP misplaced floor however held on to the seat with 29.5%. Simply over two thousand votes separated them. The anti-war Left and Alliance for Germany (AfD) candidates misplaced floor in Kiel, ending up with 5% and simply over 7,000 votes every. In Dusseldorf, headquarters for the Rheinmetall group, the Greens gained 13% in 2021 from the SDP and CDU, dropping narrowly to the CDU. Related vote switches to the Greens had been recorded in Essen and Duisburg, the place Thyssen-Krupp directs its navy industrial advanced.
Kujat’s hyperlinks to those main German arms makers are indicated by his chairmanship of the advisory council of the Community Centric Operations Trade Consortium, an affiliation of US, German and different European weapons makers. For extra on the prospects of the German companies he and the consortium signify, learn this.
Kujat is warning that defeat of the US and NATO by the Russian forces within the Ukraine places the longer term profitability of this enterprise in jeopardy. “That is the present state of affairs during which fashionable Western weapons programs are used within the Ukraine battle. In December, Russia launched an intensive program to judge the technical and operational-tactical parameters of captured Western weapons, which ought to enhance the effectiveness of its personal operations and weapon effectiveness.”
