The Uses Of War

Today Alexander Mercouris drew attention to an article that was published in August, 202i, at The National Interest. Mercouris’ interest in the article is that, since its first appearance, it appears to have been edited. Mercouris believes the editing was done to conceal an explicit advocacy for instigating a war on Russia in Ukraine—about a half a year before the event. I’m agnostic on that point. I think the article in either its original or its edited form is fairly clear on that point.

The author of the article is Aaron Wess Mitchell, who prefers the moniker A. Wess Mitchell. He’s a honcho in warhawk/Neocon circles. This quote from Wikipedia will confirm that he’s acceptable to the Political Establishment:

Aaron Wess Mitchell (born April 1, 1977) is an American foreign policy expert and former diplomat who was the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs from October 2017 until February 2019. Prior to assuming the role at State Department, he was president and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis [CEPA]. On July 19, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Mitchell as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.

He was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate in September 2017. On January 22, 2019, it was announced Mitchell would resign from his post in February.

There is some notion that he resigned because of policy disagreements with President Trump, although Mitchell denies that. That he might disagree with Trump’s approach to Russia seems plausible, however. Certain it is that Mitchell is a Russia/China threat monger. His signature theme or brain storm is “deterrence-by-denial”:

At CEPA, the bulk of Mitchell's reports and articles advanced the argument that the United States should increase its diplomatic and military engagement with allies in Central and Eastern Europe and East Asia that could otherwise fall under Russian or Chinese influence. Mitchell was among the earliest proponents of placing U.S. and NATO military personnel in Poland and the Baltic States in the aftermath of the 2008 Russo-Georgia War. He was a critic of the Obama Administration's U.S.-Russia Reset. In November 2008 he wrote that "Moscow could precipitate a major crisis in Ukraine within [the Obama administration’s] first two years in office." In 2009 he wrote: "Signs of [U.S.] retreat... discourag[e] regional democrats and embolden Moscow to push its luck elsewhere, particularly in Ukraine." Mitchell was an early proponent of using deterrence-by-denial to defend vulnerable U.S. allies like Estonia or Taiwan from Russian or Chinese attack. Where deterrence-by-punishment seeks to dissuade aggression by threatening retaliation against the attacker, deterrence-by-denial seeks to dissuade aggression by making the object of attack itself more resistant to attack.

In other words, Mitchell has been a consistent proponent of arming smallish nations—located thousands of miles away from the US—to the teeth. He calls these nations, such as Estonia and Taiwan (and presumably Ukraine) US “allies”. Others might regard them as outposts of the American Empire from which the US attempts to constrict and intimidate Russia and China.

The article itself, with it’s first summary paragraph is as follows:

A Strategy for Avoiding Two-Front War

The greatest risk facing the twenty-first-century United States, short of an outright nuclear attack, is a two-front war involving its strongest military rivals, China and Russia. Such a conflict would entail a scale of national effort and risk unseen in generations, effectively pitting America against the resources of nearly half of the Eurasian landmass.

What the article presents is Mitchell’s scheme for avoiding a two-front war. That scheme is framed within his strategy of “deterrence-by-denial”. But his policy recommendations go beyond simply arming “allies” or vassal states to the teeth. What it’s really about is how to accomplish the long term American Imperial goal of containing China, or, keeping China “down”, depending on your point of view. Trump espoused the same concept, but Trump’s idea appears to have been to reconcile with Russia and deal with Russia as a partner in balancing off against China. Mitchell’s idea is to deliver a smashing defeat to Russia and then give Russia the option of turning East to link with Japan in containing China. In return we would invest—or “colonize”, again depending on your point of view—Russia’s East. Bear in mind, this was put in writing by an influential foreign policy honcho four months before Putin presented his draft treaties to the collective West (but really to the US) in December, 2021, and perhaps six months before Putin decided he had no other option than to embark on a Special Military Operation.

Here is the paragraph that was edited out, which Mercouris found in an archived version of the original article. Note that Mitchell speaks of a Russian stance of “western expansion.” As sketched out, above, in Wikipedia that concept of “expansion” could simply mean Russian economic influence in expanding in Europe. That is something that the Globalist and Neocon West cannot tolerate because it would be the end of their dreams of perpetual Global Empire. So:

Rather than trying to woo or court Russia into a conciliatory stance, we should present it with a combination of insuperable obstacles to western expansion including, if necessary, by inflicting a far more serious defeat than it has heretofore experienced in Ukraine while presenting new opportunities for cooperation in investment and growth in Russia's East.

What would constitute an “insuperable obstacle” to the westward expansion of Russia? I suggest that a terror attack that would destroy the Nordstream pipeline would fit the bill. The US openly (both Nuland and Zhou) assured the world that there would be no Nordstream, that it would not go through, and these assurances were announced long before the event.

As far as “inflicting a far more serious defeat [on Russia] in Ukraine”—part of Russia’s cultural heartland, its “near abroad”, it’s geopolitical backyard—goes, that is a clear military threat. To then suggest that we also offer Russia “new opportunities for cooperation in investment and growth in Russia's East” amounts to an offer of colonization following military defeat. I can’t imagine that Putin would be fooled by such nonsensical scheming, and the fact of the Special Military Operation is proof that he wasn’t fooled. The scheme amounts to: Defeat Russia militarily in Ukraine, then enlist some new and subserviant Russian regime a role in containing China. That was an offer Putin found easy to refuse.

Now, an examination of the current version of this article fleshes all this out and makes it quite explicit—despite the omission of the reference to a “far more serious defeat”. That phrase is simply slight recast, but there can be no doubt whatsoever as to the meaning. This is a scheme for US domination of Russia, which would necessarily involve “regime change”:

… overlaps in U.S.-Russian interests may eventually be found, albeit on a more modest scale. The point is not to oversell the prospect for progress in any of these areas but rather to advocate for the United States to carve out a carefully defined set of issues specific to Asia where a greater Russian presence and focus would benefit the United States and then create incentives for that to happen even as we seek the defeat of Russia’s agenda in the West.

Again, ask yourself: What is Russia’s agenda in the West? Military conquest? Nonsense. Russia seeks business links that will help develop the Russian economy further. Putin has always sought such links. The Globalists and the American Empire oppose such links because they fear the decoupling of Europe—and especially of Germany—from vassalage to the American Empire. In other words, Russia will be forced forego full participation in the world economy and to accept perpetual subservience.

Mitchell’s scheme, borrowed from the past, is to inflict a crushing military defeat on Russia that would force it to reorient itself away from doing business with America’s European vassals.

AN EASTWARD reorientation of Russia’s foreign policy is not as far-fetched as it might at first seem. Earlier great powers [before the American Empire] have used similar techniques to encourage competitors to refocus their energies away from collisions with their own. In the 1870s and 80s, Otto von Bismarck pushed Austria, following its defeat at Sadowa, away from its centuries-old focus on Germany toward a new vocation as a Balkan power. Great Britain successfully encouraged Russia to refocus its attention away from India’s northwestern frontier following the defeat in 1905, and achieved a similar feat in helping to reorient France’s attention away from Egypt following its rebuke at Fashoda.

“[T]echniques to encourage competitors to refocus their energies” is a euphemism for: Inflicting a crushing military defeat to force a change. Now, read this next paragraph carefully. What Mitchell is saying is that to ensure Russia’s good behavior we need a “fulcrum”. That fulcrum is Ukraine. Military defeat of Russia through our proxy Ukraine is a necessary part of this enforced refocus strategy. Russia must be “slammed—hard.” Ukraine is not an end in itself. It’s not about “democracy” are any other such bogus excuse. Ukraine is a tool for the US to use.

A U.S. strategy along similar lines would not, of course, be risk-free. The current Russian leadership could simply pocket the benefits of Japanese investment in Vladivostok or arms sales to India and use these proceeds to fund aggression in the west. To work, the strategy would require the door to westward expansion to be slammed—hard. The worst of all worlds would be to open up opportunities for Russia in its east while going soft in the west. An effective pivot requires a fulcrum, and Ukraine is that fulcrum.

But the risks of the strategy have to be weighed against the risks of failure to “turn off” one of the two theaters requiring significant U.S. military attention in the event of a major crisis. The greatest of those risks would be a two-front war itself. Another is the risk that the threat of such a war could eventually tempt the United States into trying to appease or barter with Russia on its western frontier—a course that is fraught with moral hazard and could paradoxically complicate America’s ability to militarily prioritize the western Pacific. The strategy advocated here would not require the United States to defer a robust defense of its interests in Asia; Indeed, the strategy’s European component can be pursued using current U.S. force levels there—or eventually even less, as the Europeans step up more and more.

So, A. Wess Mitchell

[who] lives in Virginia with his wife and two children [and] speaks German

spends his time plotting geopolitical schemes that have already cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and the effective dissolution of Ukraine as a nation. For the greater glory of Empire. If you read his background and positions that he has held, I don’t think there’s much doubt that this war has been long in the planning. By rank amateurs.