The $61 billion will make no difference on the battlefield except to prolong the war, the tens of thousands of deaths and the physical destruction of Ukraine, writes Jeffrey Sachs.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden leaving a press event in July 2021. (White House, Adam Schultz)
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
Common Dreams
President Joe Biden is refusing to fold a losing hand as he bets with Ukrainian lives and U.S. taxpayer money.
Biden and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer propose to squander the lives of tens of thousands more Ukrainians and $61 billions of federal funds to keep Biden’s disastrous foreign policy failure hidden from view until after the November election.
The $61 billion will make no difference on the battlefield except to prolong the war, the tens of thousands of deaths, and the physical destruction of Ukraine. It will not “save” Ukraine. Ukraine’s security can only be achieved at the negotiating table, not by some fantasized military triumph over Russia.
Sixty one billion is not nothing. This worse-than-useless outlay would exceed the combined budgets of the U.S. Department of Labor; Environmental Protection Agency; National Science Foundation; and the Women, Infant and Children nutrition program.
Almost exactly 10 years ago this month, Biden did much to put Ukraine on the path to disaster. This is well known to those who have looked carefully at the facts but is kept hidden from view by the White House, the Senate Democrats, and the mainstream media that back Biden. I have previously provided a detailed chronology, with hyperlinks, here.
[See: Ukraine Timeline Tells the Story]
In 1990, President George H. W. Bush, Sr. and his German counterpart Chancellor Helmut Kohl promised Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastward if the Soviet Union accepted German reunification. When the Soviet Union disbanded in December 1991, with Russia as the successor state, American leaders decided to renege.
President Bill Clinton began NATO expansion over the vociferous opposition of top diplomats like George Kennan and the opposition of his own secretary of defense, William Perry.
In 1997 Zbigniew Brzezinski upped the ante, with a plan for NATO to expand all the way to Ukraine. He famously wrote that without Ukraine, Russia would cease to be a great power.
Russian leaders have repeatedly made clear that NATO expansion to Ukraine is understandably the reddest of Russian redlines. In 2007, President Vladmir Putin stated that NATO enlargement to that date was a cheat on the 1990 promise, and that it must go no further. Despite these clear warnings, including by his own diplomats, George W. Bush Jr. committed in 2008 to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia in order to surround Russia in the Black Sea.
William Burns, now C.I.A. director, and then the U.S. ambassador to Russia, wrote a famous memo entitled “Nyet means Nyet,” explaining that Russia’s opposition to NATO enlargement was across Russia’s political spectrum.
Most Ukrainians themselves were also firmly against the plan, favoring neutrality over NATO membership. The Ukrainian Rada declared Ukraine’s state sovereignty in 1990 on the basis of becoming “a permanently neutral state.” In 2009, the people of Ukraine elected Viktor Yanukovych, who ran on a platform of neutrality.
In early 2014, the U.S. decided to help bring down Yanukovych in a coup. This was standard U.S. deep-state operating procedure, one used on dozens of occasions around the world.
Yanukovych in March 2013, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Kremlin, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
The C.I.A., National Endowment for Democracy, USAID and NGOs like the Open Society Foundation went to work in Ukraine. The point person was Victoria Nuland, who was first Richard Cheney’s principal deputy foreign policy advisor, then George Bush Jr.’s ambassador to NATO, then Hillary Clinton’s spokesperson, and by 2014, assistant secretary of state.
This time, the Russians caught the conspiracy on tape, in an intercepted call between Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt (now assistant secretary of state).
Nuland explains to Pyatt that Vice President Joe Biden will help choose and cement the post-coup government. The 2014 Ukraine team, including Biden, Nuland, Jake Sullivan (then and now Biden’s national security adviser), Geoffrey Pyatt and Antony Blinken (then the deputy national security advisor), remains the Ukraine team today.
Blinken, third from left, with Nuland on his right, meeting with a Ukrainian delegation on Nov. 13, 2023. (State Department, Freddie Everett)
It is a team of bunglers. They thought that Yanukovych’s overthrow would quickly usher in NATO expansion. Instead, ethnic Russians in Ukraine virulently rejected the Russophobic post-coup government that was installed by Nuland, and called for autonomy of the ethnically Russian regions. In a referendum, Crimea voted overwhelmingly to join Russia.
Obama, Biden and their team armed the post-coup government to attack the ethnically Russian regions, thinking this would be the end of it. Yet the regions resisted.
Ukraine and the breakaway regions signed the Minsk Agreements to bring an end to the fighting and give constitutional autonomy to the ethnically Russian Donbass region. The Minsk II agreement was backed by the U.N. Security Council, but the U.S. privately agreed with the Ukrainian government that it was okay to ignore it.
In 2021, after seven years of fighting and more than 14,000 deaths in the Donbass, Putin called on newly elected President Biden to stop NATO enlargement and engage in negotiations with Russia over mutual security arrangements. Biden rejected Putin’s call to end the gambit of NATO enlargement to Ukraine.
In February 2022, Putin launched the Special Military Operation (SMO) invasion to push Ukraine to the negotiating table.
No Man’s Land between Russian and Ukraining forces during the Battle of Bakhmut, November 2022. (Mil.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky immediately called for negotiations based on Ukraine’s neutrality. Within a month, a framework agreement to end the fighting was reached between Ukraine and Russia, based on Ukraine’s neutrality and an end to NATO’s enlargement to Ukraine. Biden stepped in to stop the deal, with the U.S. informing Zelensky that the U.S. would not support neutrality.
Biden and team had still more failed tricks up their sleeve. They firmly believed that U.S. financial sanctions — freezing Russia’s assets and cutting it out of the SWIFT banking system — would cripple the Russian economy and cause Putin to relent.
In fact, they expected that the ensuing economic crisis would topple him. Of course, nothing of the sort happened.
Then they expected that NATO weaponry would trounce Russia on the battlefield. That did not happen either. Then they expected that Ukraine’s “counter-offensive” in the summer of 2023, backed by Pentagon and C.I.A. planners, would defeat Russia. Instead, Ukraine lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers dead and wounded — its military hardware destroyed.
The entire war, including the loss of Ukrainian territory, the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian casualties, and the utter waste of more than $100 billion of U.S. taxpayer money to date, could easily have been avoided.
Now, Biden and Schumer want to throw more Ukrainian lives and more tens of billions of dollars at this glaring failure. They want to do this in a rushed vote, without any congressional, let alone public, oversight; without hearings and without any strategy. The fact is they want to save Biden from the embarrassment of a decade of puerile and failed plotting, at least until the November election.
There remains one answer for Ukraine’s security: diplomacy and neutrality. That solution doesn’t cost lives or money. It was Ukraine’s choice before the 2014 coup and again in 2022 until stopped by Biden. It is the path that Biden and the Senate Democrats still refuse to take.
Jeffrey D. Sachs is a university professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the West squandered perhaps the greatest opportunity in modern history to achieve a world based on peace and cooperation. Instead, we have endless wars, and the endless death and suffering of millions. And, the same perpetrators keep resurfacing in one US administration after another.
The “utter waste of $100bn” only counts teh US balance. EU has wasted that much, and then (get this!) World Bank, and IMF (the peace-keeping institutions of empire LOL) have wasted at least another $50bn collectively between them! Wait….there’s more….
the WEST will HAVE TO REBUILD UKRAINE. IT WILL have to give Ukraine “an economy” so that Ukraine can AFFORD the rebuild billing by Blackrock!
It doesn’t end. All so that Nuland can eat a celebratory burger in Kalorama and pad her resume.
All so that Yahu can redecorate the middle east!
Muricans are THE STUPIDEST people on the planet.
The US has transitioned from being the worlds policeman to being the worlds mafia. I would put the turning point to be 2003 when Junior, Cheney, and Powell flat out lied to the American people about Iraq having stockpiles of WMD. All 3 knew that was not true, but getting Saddam out of power was all that mattered. Then we go on to liberating the people of Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. Considering what happened to the standard of living in those 5 countries, if I lived in Taiwan I would definitely vote against any “assistance” from the United States. For me, A multi polar world cannot arrive quickly enough.
I cannot understand why these state department officials are not (also) brought to the international criminal court or icj for their genocide. Can someone explain that please? Can American public sue them, prosecute them?! How can we let these criminals go on like this?!
“I can’t run no more with that lawless crowd. While the killers in high places. Say their prayers out loud. But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up a thundercloud. They’re going to hear from me.” Leonard Cohen, Anthem.
W/o a doubt, Jeffrey Sachs’ “got this!” The background to the present crises rise outta the 2014 regime change operation in Ukraine.
…….“In 1990, President George H. W. Bush, Sr. and his German counterpart Chancellor Helmut Kohl, promised Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastward if the Soviet Union accepted German reunification. When the Soviet Union disbanded in December 1991, with Russia as the successor state, American leaders decided to renege.” Jeffrey Sachs
It’s 2024, Biden’s referred to François Mitterrand, who died in 1996, instead of French President Emmanuel Macron and the late Helmut Kohl, died in 2017, instead of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
…… “In early 2014, the U.S. decided to help bring down Yanukovych in a coup. This was standard U.S. deep-state operating procedure, one used on dozens of occasions around the world.” (Nuland explains to Pyatt that Vice President Joe Biden will help choose and cement the post-coup government). Jeffrey Sachs
“In early 2021, aka J-6.” All signs indicated, J-6 was an inside job to effect a Coo-Coo-Ka-Chew OR an Occupation, a storming of the Capitol, of the people, by the people, for the people. Cui bono? “Is it any surprise that one day a U.S. President would incite violence to exert his power @ home?!?”
From the “Scenes of a Crime:, Biden’s-Harris’ Ukraine/Israel/Middle East “TEAM,” today, are veterans of OhBama’s & Clinton’s Party of War. “They have extensive practice in” lying about illegal spying/surveillance, wars, war crimes, drone missiles, assassinations, humanitarian efforts and genocide.
“The fact is they want to save Biden from the embarrassment of a decade of puerile and failed plotting, at least until the November election.” Jeffrey Sachs
……’It’s too late!!!” Biden’s been exposed. BUSTED! Imo, the gig is up. “Done & Dusted!”
February 8, 2024, per Special Counselor, Robert Hur, declared verbally & in writing, published, everywhere, Joseph Robinette Biden is guilty of willfully, recklessly, openly storing a colossal cache of secrets. All those “Classified” documents he stole outta the scif, 40 f/years ago. Well before his brain drain. The Special Prosecutor, Robert Hur, deemed POTUS (Biden) mentally unfit & physically incapable, w/slow motor skills. Therefore, per Biden’s stunted stamina, the Special Prosecutor deemed Biden incapable of defending himself @ trial, IF, Biden were to be charged!
The Special Prosecutor, Robert Hur, declared Biden’s incapable of recalling his personal & professional past & present, i.e., “Biden “did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013—when did I stop being Vice President?’); And, forgetting, on the second day, of the interview when his term began, ‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?!?” (Joey Robinette Biden, October, 2024)
…… Hence, late in the evening, “the Eagle,” tattered, torn, pissed on, full of piss & vinegar, shuffled to mic, to facilitate a PRESSER, “Live, from the WH.” It’s NOT pretty. Biden yap’n & yell’n about his mental fitness, experience, & the Special Prosecutor’s forensics. The Eagle (Biden) wants everyone thinking, “he’s in his element.” “He’s got this!” His memory is NOT poor or limited. AND, he’s shuffling to “Re-Selection 2024,” b/c he’s the most experienced to be POTUS.
Seriously, a beyond disturbing “deer in the headlights,” PRESSER w/POTUS full of ums, uhs, awh-hahs, duhs,lies, hate, anger & brain freezes. Imo, POTUS is done! Pass GO!
Per Special Prosecutor Hur, any jury would pity, pardon, pass on locking POTUS up, “an elderly man w/a poor, limited memory,” incapable of “standing” for trial defending his “brain power,” lack thereof!!!
Imo, “they,” the Jury would shout, “Four (4) More Years!!!” It’s DC’s animal behavior.
Presently, the Eagle’s grounded…aka “Out of Office, Friday, afternoon-Tuesday, Noon. Itsa standard operating procedure aka “LID,” i.e., POTUS’ homeward bound! Another “Week-end in the REHABoth Compound.” Some R & R, by the beach, w/his doctor, FLOTUS. POTUS’ Handlers’ fix for “a bird that isn’t flying; and, doesn’t know where the harvest is.”
Questions for the Angels:”
1). “When Joey Robinette Biden has proven he’s too, obviously, dementia addled & truth challenged,” will the transfer of power, from Biden to Harris, be peaceful?
2). How f.u.b.a.r., does POTUS have to be before Congress calls it, an emergency?!?”
Not for nothin’; but, Caitlin Johnstone & Tim Foley, GOT THIS, “It’s only because normal people are getting eyes into what’s really happening that this issue is subject to worldwide outcry and condemnation that has placed the empire on the back foot.” hxxps://consortiumnews.com/2024/02/05/caitlin-johnstone-the-war-on-disobedience/
Btw: Coming, Soon:” a Johnstone/Foley, “PODCAST!!!” “We” Heard it here > Listen to Tim Foley reading this article.
TY, Jeffrey Sachs, CN, et al. “Keep It Lit!” Ciao
Sickening as it is to watch the continued death
of Ukrainians (you forgot the Russians too),
how much worse is the Zionist duo, Schumer and
Biden’s now calling for a permanent defunding of United
Nations Relief Agency resources, the only hope
for life during the dirty double’s genocide in Gaza.
Not evil enough to kill over 11 thousand children,
but adding starvation to their torture. Death and
destruction are US.
The people making policy are completely clueless how horrible they appear outside their Washington bubble. They really believe they are the saviors of the world. Of course they are in the pocket of the Western money power, but because US policy is driven by extreme capitalism, which they believe is virtuous, they think we are a force for good in the world. It’s their only point of reference. It’s hard to wrap your mind around being this delusional, but at least a large number of them are. This economic system is the root at the rot of this system. It has to go.
“Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky immediately called for negotiations based on Ukraine’s neutrality. Within a month, a framework agreement to end the fighting was reached between Ukraine and Russia, based on Ukraine’s neutrality and an end to NATO’s enlargement to Ukraine. Biden stepped in to stop the deal, with the U.S. informing Zelensky that the U.S. would not support neutrality”. I find this plausible but is there evidence for it?
Thank you for the hyperlinked timeline.
I have a few suggestions for additional points:
– US withdrawal from the ABM treaty
– Sub – timeline of declarations of independence by the breakaway Ukrainian provinces, and preceding, precipitating events
– Ukrainian military Preparations for onslaught against breakaway provinces proceeding Russia’s special military operation
Thanks again for this resource!
I will say it again for the umpteenth time. The Ukraine war is not about defeating Russia, it is and was always about destroying Ukraine.
The UK/USA has always been paranoid about large strong countries elsewhere in the world and the Ukraine/Russia combination was so frightening that it had to be prevented. These two were the major part of the Soviet Union. Together they control about 50% of world wheat exports and have extremely large mineral resources including oil and gas.
From 1991 until 2010 Ukrainians voted for Governments that were pro-Russian. When Yanukovic was deposed in 2014 (just prior to an election) a pro-western European government was imposed on Ukraine. The one election since then did not take votes from Russian speaking regions of Ukraine.
Breaking Russia is too hard a task, but preventing the union of these two nations can be achieved by breaking Ukraine and NATO is using the Ukrainian nationalists to do this job for them. Ukraine’s enemy is NATO.
Whatever they intended it’s another US foreign policy disaster, the US bearing responsibility yet again for much death and destruction without even pretending to engage in diplomacy. At home it’s an election issue. How sick can you get? I can only conclude that the likes of Biden, Blinken and Nuland are monsters, though the roots of this catastrophe go back to the biggest monster of them all, Bill Clinton.
Thank you Jeffery for your clear concise recap of east vs west relations. Your historical perspective is right on the money. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on Tucker’s interview with Putin.
You are an organized and logical thinker. Perhaps you should chair a committee to form a new “Universal” political party dedicated to finding a path to world peace and sustainability….an international political party for the survival of humanity. Some way to bypass the fearful and dogmatic regimes of our cold war past and present. That includes the mobbed up, fractionated UN.
We need a glimmer of light to a sustainable future. Individual humans are not without power. We all have the ability to think and reason. “We all breath the same air” (JFK,1963). We all have the power to resist.
“There comes a time to reach inside the machine…grab the gears….and stop the machine!” (Mario Savio, 1964)
Eric when the so called “conspiracy theorists”, who in truth are first group of serious investigators finally find enough of pieces of the JFK murder puzzle to prove the killing of JFK was an operation which, a the very, very least was facilitated by the CIA refusing to do it’s job, then lying about it to cover for inept despots running counter intelligence and clandestine operations, and not until then, the country might get itself together.
It should be more than obvious to anyone with half a brain to recognize CIA and it’s sister U.S. intelligence agencies are, it seems surely manned to the last man by individuals who are major factors involved in doing the bidding of the Deep State super wealthy elitist world wide. Individuals in the shadows of government who constantly work to divide this country, then and only then, the country might survive. No I cannot finger or otherwise identify these cowards who hide behind blatantly over classified documents using the bogus “sources and methods’ caveat allowed them by a corrupt DOJ.
DOJ as with far too much of the existing U.S. intelligence community is as badly broken as the U.S. faux two party system. This dating IMHO back to the days post the Lincoln assassination and the onset of the “Robber Baron Industrialists” of the 19th century. Excessive wealth led to wholesale corruption the results of which in todays world of the Super Wealthy Elitist, the SWETS.
In my humble opinion The proof is in the pudding. The exorbitant Wealth driven inequity of power brought on the great depression. In the span of a little over a hundred years corruption driven by powerful super wealthy millionaires broke Wall Street. All brought about by the disease of Greed.
Thanks CN
I knew Biden was going to be an awful president before he was even elected, but I did not think he would actually end up being significantly worse than Trump on foreign policy. I didn’t think there was much further to go on Trump’s bad policies, but Biden proved there was plenty of room for even more disastrous policies. I can’t stand either one of them and won’t vote for either of them, but I really must say at this point I think Trump would be less likely to cause WWIII than Biden. If Biden even makes it to the election that is.
I ‘ve never voted for either of those two parties. I have voted for Jill Stein, and will do so again.
And then when DT becomes POTUS again, it will be China, China, China, instead of Russia Russia Russia.
The thing is the “foreign policy establishment” have determined that China is the biggest enemy, then Russia. The JB admin US Defense Strategy outlines this.
Once again, it is not possible to “vote” against the interests of the oligarchy. Chris Hedges has written and spoken a lot about that as well. The late prof. Sheldon Wolin, prof Richard D. Wolff, former pres Jimmy Carter, Margaret Kimberly, the late Bruce Dixon and many others have as well.
I have an idea, let’s put Biden, Schumer, Blinken, Nuland, Zelensky and anyone else who supports this plan on the front lines in Ukraine…
Great idea! I have several other chicken-hawk candidates in mind to join them.
Absolutely, Susan! A great idea, since these clowns have no idea what war is and are ignorant of the costs of war. They think war is the answer and they can win. Nobody wins in wars, and everybody loses.
The one thing that actually scares them more than this proposal would to have them brought to a fair public debate on the topic with worthy opponents.