Ray McGovern and Lawrence Wilkerson argue the U.S. should accept that no amount of U.S. funding will change Russia’s will and means to prevail in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky displaying a present given by then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after his speech to U.S. Congress on Dec. 21, 2022. (C-Span still)
By Ray McGovern and Lawrence Wilkerson
Special to Consortium News
As U.S. House members grapple with whether to give $60 billion more to Ukraine, they must also grapple with the checkered nature of the intelligence they’ve been fed.
On July 13, 2023, President Joe Biden announced Russian President Vladimir Putin “has already lost the war.” That was six days after C.I.A. Director William Burns, normally a sane voice, had called the war a “strategic failure” for Russia with its “military weaknesses laid bare.”
Earlier, in December 2022, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines reported that the Russians were experiencing “shortages of ammunition” and were “not capable of indigenously producing what they are expending.”
We advise caution, as these same people now say that Ukraine can prevail if the U.S. provides $60 billion more. Do they think they can change geography, overcome Russian industrial might, and persuade the Russians that Ukraine should not be a core interest of theirs?
Obama’s Reasons
Recall President Barack Obama’s reasons for withholding lethal weapons from Ukraine. In 2015, The New York Times reported on Obama’s reluctance: “In part, he has told aides and visitors that arming the Ukrainians would encourage the notion that they could actually defeat the far more powerful Russians, and so it would potentially draw a more forceful response from Moscow.”
Senior State Department officials spelled out this rationale:
“If you’re playing on the military terrain in Ukraine, you’re playing to Russia’s strength, because Russia is right next door. It has a huge amount of military equipment and military force right on the border. Anything we did as countries in terms of military support for Ukraine is likely to be matched and then doubled and tripled and quadrupled by Russia.”
The above words were spoken by then-Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken on March 5, 2015 to an audience in Berlin. It turns out President Obama was right. It is hard to understand why Blinken (and Biden) chose the way of President Donald Trump, who gave lethal weapons to Ukraine, over the way of Obama.
So much for geography and relative strength. What about core interests? In 2016 President Obama told The Atlantic that Ukraine is a core interest of Russia but not of the U.S. He warned that Russia has escalatory dominance there: “We have to be very clear about what our core interests are and what we are willing to go to war for.”
[See: VIPS MEMO: To President Biden —Avoiding a Third World War]
Earlier, when a saner William Burns was ambassador to Russia, he warned of Moscow’s “emotional and neuralgic reaction” to bringing Ukraine into NATO. Braced on the issue by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in February 2008, Burns reported that Russia’s opposition was based on “strategic concerns about the impact on Russia’s interests in the region” and warned then that “Russia now feels itself able to respond more forcefully”.
Burns added:
“In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.”
Regime Change in Kiev
Feb. 18, 2014: Protesters throwing pieces of brick pavement at Ukrainian troops obscured by the smoke of burning tires in Kiev. (Mstyslav Chernov, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
The overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 gave immediacy to Russia’s warnings on Ukraine and its fear that the West would try to effect “regime change” in Russia, as well.
In a major commentary, “Russian Military Power”, published in December 2017, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency concluded:
“The Kremlin is convinced the U.S. is laying the groundwork for regime change in Russia, a conviction further reinforced by the events in Ukraine. Moscow views the United States as the critical driver behind the crisis in Ukraine and the Arab Spring and believes that the overthrow of former Ukrainian President Yanukovych is the latest move in a long-established pattern of U.S.-orchestrated regime change efforts …”
Is Putin paranoid about “U.S. regime change efforts?” D.I.A. did not think him paranoid. And surely Putin has taken note of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s remarks in April 2022:
“One of the US’s goals in Ukraine is to see a weakened Russia. … The US is ready to move heaven and earth to help Ukraine win the war against Russia.”
In sum: Russia has both the will and the means to prevail in Ukraine – no matter how many dollars and arms Ukraine gets.
Obama was right; Russia sees an existential threat from the West in Ukraine. And nuclear powers do not tolerate existential threats on their border. Russia learned this the hard way in Cuba in 1962.
Last, there is zero evidence that after Ukraine, Putin will go after other European countries. The old Soviet Union and its empire are long gone. Thus, President Trump’s recent remarks, in which he threw doubt on the U.S. commitment to defend NATO countries from a nonexistent threat, is nonsense – sheer bombast.
Ray McGovern, former army infantry intelligence officer and later chief of C.I.A.’s Soviet Foreign Policy Branch; was also C.I.A. one-on-one briefer of The President’s Daily Brief 1981-1985.
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel (USA, ret.), Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of William and Mary; former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
In case anyone needs it or is interested, here is context and a link to the Blinken quote and the question he was responding to:
hxxps://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/antonyblinkenhertieschoolukrainespeech.htm
The more I see the recent actions of “our” government, I wonder if we even have a government. Wouldn’t a US government be interested in prioritizing working toward bettering the day to day lives of its own citizens ? Instead it feels like we pay these people to prance around the world destroying country after country, spreading misery among people who have done us no harm while pontificating about democracy and freedom. We’re basically ignored except when it comes to footing the bill. And then our own “democracy” offers us the unpalatable option of Biden or Trump. Seriously, in a population of 350 million people – this is considered the best we can do?
In all my study, I have not learned anything to justify calling the USSR an Empire, at least not an empire in the traditional manner of empires. It did not extract wealth from its provinces; it did not impose its language and culture; it did not attempt conquest other than that of defeating Nazi Germany. All told, it was something different and powerful, and it was instrumental in furthering the anti-colonial struggle in Africa and Asia–I don’t know about Latin America.
I might read this wrong and I would be happy to hear contradictory views.
February 16, 2024: “In sum: Russia has both the will and the means to prevail in Ukraine – no matter how many dollars and arms Ukraine gets.” Ray McGovern/Lawrence Wilkerson
AND, w/o a doubt, the Divided $tates of Corporate America fka the USA “has zero,” nada, zilch “MORAL authority, in today’s world.”
“A government,” Bush-Cheney, Obama-Biden, Trump-Pence, Biden-Harris + their War Chiefs + Congress = 1) to date, 2.18.24, still running a concentration camp @ Guantanamo, 2) ran a torture center in Abu Ghraib, 3) had a kill list review every Tuesday @ the WH; &, 4) has imprisoned the most important journalist of his generation, JULIAN ASSANGE!!!
“Obama was right; Russia sees an existential threat from the West in Ukraine. And nuclear powers do not tolerate existential threats on their border. Russia learned this the hard way in Cuba in 1962.” (Ray McGovern/Lawrence Wilkerson).
…… AND, even then, in 1962, the U.S. President & the Soviet Premier maintained a line of communication.
“Can we roll the tape, again? Did Biden say he’s convinced Putin will invade Ukraine; OR, he’s convinced Putin to invade Ukraine?!?” (Jeffrey St. Clair). Don’t forget, for f/weeks, POTUS’ yappin’ & yellin’, “The Russians are Coming! It’s date certain, Wednesday, February 16, 2022!!!”
Thursday, 2.24.22, “Many people,” believe Russia is NOT the Aggressor. NATO/USG led by Biden-Harris & their war chiefs, used fear to unite, $ell their war, before being gettin’ their ass handed to ‘em!!!
“Saturday, 3.5.22: “The program dubbed Operation Fearless Guardian is Washington’s way of signaling $upport for Ukraine while avoiding a full-on confrontation w/Russia by providing offensive weapons.”
It’s 2.18.24, the universal sentiment is F/JB!!! The NATO/USG vs. Russia War in Ukraine, has been deemed an epic failure. A colossal disaster of NATO’S/USG’S $trategy!!! Biden-Harris + WH + MIC + Congress are Bankrupt! Therefore, “CANCEL” any argument & embrace the truth: The RUSSIAN Bear is in total control; and, the EAGLE is full of piss & vinegar, tattered, torn, & shufflin’ the chairs on his/HER broken deck. The EAGLE is pathetic.
Imo, the EAGLE, He & She, need to heed this sound advice, “The U.S., should accept that no amount of U.S. funding will change Russia’s will and means to prevail in Ukraine.” Ray McGovern/Lawrence Wilkerson, 2.16.24
Onward & upwards. Ciao
On Navalny
It took about fourteen minutes for the MSM to come out with headlines like this from Reuters:
Putin Foe Alexei Navalny dies in jail; West holds Putin responsible
For additional perspective see the following analysis from investigative journalist Lucy Komisar (from February 2023)
hxxps://www.thekomisarscoop.com/2023/02/navalny-documentary-nominated-for-march-12-oscar-is-crude-disinformation/
Navalny, stooge of the West?
In sum: Great Britain has both the will and the means to prevail in the American Colonies – no matter how many francs and arms They get.
In sum: The United States has both the will and the means to prevail in Vietnam – no matter how many rubles and arms They get.
“will and means” are mutable. I, just as Mr. McGrovern can also make a prediction. Russia’s NWF will be spent before the end of 2025. At that point they will not have the capabilities to power a war industry. Currently the NWF is supporting the ruble, filling the massive hole in the national budget, supporting oligarchs’ companies for political expediency….. life appears as close as normal as it could, but the NWF is being burnt through as an astounding rate and is infinite.
Shame on this generation for it’s weakness. 84 years ago, the greatest generation did not back away from supporting Britan because They’re “playing on the military terrain ‘of Germany’, you’re playing to ‘Hitler’s’ strength, because ‘Germany’ is right next door. It has a huge amount of military equipment and military force right ‘across the Channel’. Excuses can always be found to accept defeat. Once the world accepts defeat to Putin then we are defeated, and my God help us than.
Russia is simply sitting back eating popcorn and watching the US and its vassals spend themselves into penury and strip their conventional arsenals bare. Don’t interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake.
Ray and Larry seem to leave out another salient fact which is that Trump ALSO resisted arming Ukraine, at least for a while, until the Ukrainian-American warhawk Vindman and numerous Deep State Russophobes like Hill used his attempt at delaying the arms to Ukraine to impeach him.
It’s amazing that people didn’t LISTEN to Putin when he said the three reasons for his SMO: 1. To stop the Nazis (who run Ukraine) from murdering more Russian speakers in the Donbas, the people of which voted overwhelminly to remain Russian.. He waited too long…14000 murdered in the 8 years since the US illegal coup taking out a democratically elected president. 2. Stop NATO from closing the last border free of that US run aggressive entity. The US promised NATO would NOT move past a unified Germany. Yes, you can read this promise in the National Archives. 3. Save Crimea which was Russian since 1773.
There you go. Putin doesn’t lie. Western countries’ leaders lie every time they speak, thus they assume Putin does, too. He doesn’t. I’ve been listening to him speak and reading what he writes since he took office. He has no desire to resurrect the Soviet Union, nor create himself as tsar; those are US propaganda. I was recently in Russia where he brought 70 million people out of poverty and into the middle class. The Russians love him, no matter what you hear here. He loves the Russian people. The US leadership scorn the American public. That’s why Russians have healthcare and education for ALL, like the Cubans and we don’t. P.S. The Russian cities are spotless, with no homeless. Which is the better country?
In the summer of 2017 I taught English in an academic summer camp in Kuznetsk, Pienza Oblast.
On topics of social concern the teenagers saw homelessness as the number one rising problem in Russia. I began looking for it and could not, for the life of me, observe evidence of homelessness.
I came to believe that since housing seems to be a universal right in Russia (salvaged from the rampant privatization of the 90’s) ANY homelessness is too much in the mind of the Russian people. Whom, by the way, were the loveliest people; generous, hospitable, exceedingly polite.
Well Susan S. you got that right. But it is good to
have Ray McG. back on CN.
Let’s not forget that now it’s 1984, and “war is peace.”
War in Ukraine keeps Russia occupied, US support of
Israeli genocide, keeps the weapons industry and
Wall Street happy, war preparations against China
keeps the cauldron (Macbeth), bubbling, and bombing
Iran is always on the back burner.
I mean, there’s “nothing hard to understand” about this.
These two and many others need to be in jail, not Julian Assange. Interview Jack Maxey.
hxxps://rumble.com/veb71f-jack-maxey-on-the-contents-of-hunters-laptop-and-why-it-matters-to-every-am.html
There have been a few “Tet Offensive” moments, most recently Adveeka (sp?) – where is Walter Cronkite? Where is Dan Ellsberg? When will we seen the “Ukraine Papers”?
You might want to read Caitlin Johnstone, Max Blumenthal, Aaron Mate, Glenn Greenwald, Patrick Lawrence, Alan McLeod, Ann Wright, Sy Hersh, et al. In other words, real reporters. NOT the MSN.
And you might want to read people who are respected historians and actually grew up and lived in the Soviet Union / Russia – Boris Akunin, Andrey Aksenov, Varlam Shamalov, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Svetlana Alekseivich, Vladimir Bukovsky. Much, much better than reading “commentators” of whatever ilk – most of whom have never set foot in Russia and don’t speak Russian.
I read all off them and more (Mearsheimer, Alistair Crooke, MoA, Wilkerson, Sachs, Hedges, Chomsky, et al).
I stopped reading Greenwald a long time ago.
And Caitlin is fun to read, but she’s a lightweight and not remotely in this camp.
My point was on penetrating public opinion, not on truth tellers in alternate media. And you fail to note my concern with the lack of whistleblowers.
They’re both dead. The ‘Ukraine Papers’ are in Joe Biden’s garage (or is it Hunter’s – whose house is that anyway?). They won’t be questioning him about it because he is too old. Or something.
If McGovern, Wilkerson, Matthew Hoh, Larry Johnson, Douglas Macgregor and some other level headed people were in charge of foreign policy, the USA would have respect in the world and not be 34 trillion in debt.
MacGregor would spend trillions on border security and militarized police, including in schools..
I wish some respected polling agency contacted a broad survey across the country to find out how many Americans are ready to risk a war with Russia to preserve US hegemony in world affairs versus reaching some compromise with Moscow, even if it would mean accepting the fact of world’s transition from unipolar to monopolar security architecture.
The most recent poll has 70% of Americans in favor of a settlement of the Ukraine war. Meanwhile, a roughly equal 70% majority of the U.S. Senate is hell-bent on taking on another 100 Billion in debt to dump down the black hole of corruption in Ukraine, kill even more Palestinian women and children in Gaza and threaten China. Our interest payments on the national debt now exceed the defense budget. We need to ask our Democrat friends why they keep voting for this clear and direct path to our own demise.
The Biden administration is hardly worrying about the unavoidable outcome of the Ukraine
“project” ON Ukraine but only how to delay that outcome, and news about it, beyond the November election.
He does have a powerful ally in that regard – the mass media whose prodigious skills in obfuscation of the most important threads of truth will be put to a critical test before then.
It was the Scottish poet Robert (Robie Burns) who made the penetrating insight into human behaviour when he noted that ”The best laid plans of mice and men (Oft Gang Agley – in Scottish – Go Awry). Moreover, also quoted from the Bible was, that, ‘Vanity of Vanities all is the Vanities’. (I forget where exactly it came in the bible). How many armies and navies and their general staff have been sacrificed to the vanities of the high and mighty who have a unfortunate habit of losing battles.
Our present collection of puffed-up buffoons can do nothing from the starting position other than burn and crash. But such is the feature of our ‘civilization’. It is that the powers-that-be have bitten off more than they can chew is something of a commonplace. Our rulers can apparently be little others than to pretend to be wise. Strange is it not in that the plaudits of high office do not easily measure up to the demands of such .
If you are going to quote Robert Burns you should at the very least get his name and the quote right. He is often called Rabbie – Robie is an inexcusable first – and the quote is ” the best laid schemes o’ Mice ‘an Men, Gang aft agley “.
The “vanity” quote comes from Ecclesiastes and is part of the Solomon opus.
C’mon guys, (Larry and Ray)
“Obama was right; Russia sees an existential threat from the West in Ukraine. And nuclear powers do not tolerate existential threats on their border. Russia learned this the hard way in Cuba in 1962.” ‘Russia learned?’ (This sounds like a Larry line.)
Our own supposedly ‘covert’ stationing of Jupiter nuclear missiles in Turkiye near the Russian border was the raison d’ être initiating that horrible existential crisis.
Just what haven’t WE learned since the Clinton/Bush Jr NATO expansions and our revocation of the nuclear arms treaties we were party to in Europe?
One of the things WE (as with the US OPN or officially preferred narrative) haven’t learned is the story of “the invasion” of Ukraine Feb 22 2022. A reader here at CN recommended a New Yorker article the other day maintaining the war started right then on Feb 22, first step in Putin’s Invasion Program which would take in Poland etc. etc. sweeping across Europe, Hitler-style. This same old story was suggested again three days ago in Dubai* when Tucker Carlson was interviewed and challenged why didn’t he push back at Putin’s claiming Russia was not interested in attacking Poland or anywhere else with, “Why did you invade Ukraine, then?” Recall how often even leftish commenters used the term “invasion” and stated how terrible it was and how it shouldn’t have been done no matter what.
That the war started in 2014 or earlier, that 14,000 in the eastern provinces had died in what amounted to a civil war, that an intensified bombardment, massively increased, had started that week, that Russia’s action was an SMO, defensive and protective in nature, more like a police action moving into a neighborhood being assaulted by rogue military forces with the support of the US–none of this was apparent under the deluge of the spin/or the perception management machine. One problem with believing your own BS blindly and relentlessly is that it’s very costly and barbaric and stupid, and hands you a loss as well as disgrace. Apparently, thinking and studying the past is not our long suit.
*PS: The Dubai interview of Tucker three days back, after his Putin interview, has some interesting comments at the beginning where he admits he has been wrong in the past and is learning something new just about every day. He suggests he’s in the midst of a change of viewpoints on many matters. The Dubai interviewer seemed a little testy but Tucker handled it well, almost as though he welcomed that sort of thing.
Re when the war in Ukraine started: Sen. John McCain suggested it was when “Putin annexed Crimea without provocation”. It has been impossible for me to get something substantive into the Washington Post, but nine years ago one gutsy letters-to-the-editor person did sneak the following one in. Here’s the text of my letter:
Letters to the Editor, Washington Post, July 1, 2015
McCain, Ukraine and Mr. Putin
In his June 28 Sunday Opinion essay, “The Ukraine cease-fire fiction,” Sen. John McCain was wrong to write that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea without provocation.
What about the coup in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych with pro-Western leaders favoring membership in NATO? Was that not provocation enough?
This glaring omission is common in The Post. The March 10 World Digest item “Putin had early plan to annex Crimea” described a “secret meeting” Mr. Putin held on Feb. 23, 2014, during which “Russia decided it would take the Crimean Peninsula.” No mention was made of the coup the previous day.
I have searched in vain for credible evidence that, before the coup, Mr. Putin had any intention to annex Crimea. George Friedman, the widely respected president of the think tank Stratfor, has described the putsch on Feb. 22, 2014, as “the most blatant coup in history.”
Ray McGovern
Arlington, VA
Thank you, Ray. I recall from the time following Russia’s action with Crimea the frequency with which the word “seized” was used, as a typical distortion following the US maneuvered coup in 2014. This word is similar to the use of “invasion” of Ukraine in 2022, suggesting an entirely one-sided affair of brutal aggression by Putin. What does not get reported in the West re Crimea is that Russia first took a vote asking Crimeans what they preferred. The result: about 96% preferred Russia.
It is refreshing to read Ray McGovern’s and Lawrence Wilkerson’s piece after seeing yet another expression, in today’s Globe and Mail, of the view that Russia’s attack on Crimea, Feb.20, 2014, was an unprovoked, empire-rebuilding land-grab. Omitted from the author’s account was not only reference to the U.S. coup that led to Arseniy Yatsenyuk becoming Prime Minister of Ukraine in Feb. 27, 2014, but also that Yatsenyuk had been very vocal in wanting to eject Russian’s naval base from Sevastopal. (“What Ukraine needs from us,” by Chris Alexander, Feb. 17).
Not surprisingly, Russia responded by sending in forces immediately in anticipation of such ejection.
The Globe and Mail seems, from an earlier editorial, to be in general agreement with Mr. Alexander that NATO weakness will lead to “a Crimea-style attack on a NATO member in the Baltic states,” whereas backing Ukraine’s victory would lead to “the hollow edifice of Moscow’s fascist regime [coming] crashing down.”
What disturbs me is the suppression of key facts that count against the view that Russia is aiming at regaining territory, as distinct from protecting vital interests threatened by more and more powerful weaponry handed by the U.S. and allies to at least one deeply hostile nation, Ukraine.
Mr. McGovern, your comment is excellent, as are all the articles you’ve written that I’ve read, for years.
I, too, have often pushed back against the ‘invasion’ trope. I prefer to recognize “facts on the ground” and call it an intervention. There is enough evidence to conclude that at least the Russians believed that a major (and genuine) invasion by Kyiv on Donbas was imminent. Considering the ideology of the invaders, with shades of Hitler’s Lebensraum, anyone would expect a genocide of Russian civilians in the Donbas. After all, Galicia is poor, Donbas is rich, Viking-bred Banderites are righteous, and Russians are evil orcs.
This an article that should run front page in every news outlet, everywhere in US, Europe, Russia and Asia.
Our mad attachment to war and war power, ours is draining, physically and emotionally for everyone in the world and in the US draining our wealth for no good, no good will and no preservation of life.
This provoked war is a sick gift to war materials contractors and continuing distraction, from our domesitic real problems along with the continuing heating up that will kill us all if we can avoid killing ourselves.
We’re not throwing $60 billion at Ukraine, it’s just more bucks for our rotten, stinking MIC which produces garbage. And American taxpayers go right along with it for the most part.
No we don’t! At least, those of us who aren’t brain dead.
I don’t disagree but there’s not much us plebeians can do about it.
Ray, I noted that you said yesterday,(Friday) on Judging Freedom, that you and the Colonel had “shopped” this article around for a week yet no one except Consortium News was interested.
One imagines that were other outlets to be questioned about why they were not willing to publish this article, the response would be that they were not trying to censor your views but that the article, in their estimation, simply did not add to the discussion.
Which is certainly milder than being publicly called “useful idiots” or “Putin puppets”.
You and the good Colonel were simply disappeared.
Which is an honor and distinction quite a number of us are discovering we share with you.
Much respect and appreciation to you and the Colonel.
The courage of Consortium News in the time of silencing is noted and much valued.
…and it’s more bucks in the poocket of the thief Zelensky whose oligarchs chided him for taking “more than his fair share” of the bilions the stupid US forks over to a country that lost the war to Russia before it began.
Well said!
It was never widely understood that Donetsk has been the subject of an unrelating shelling barrage carried out by the Ukrainian army since 2014; this resulted in a high number of deaths, both civilians and soldiers – 14000 at the last count. Of course this was not made public to the western audience. The fighting in the earlier Eastern areas had actually taken place during 2014 and the fighting also took place in Debaltsevo and Ilovaisk in 2015, where the Donbass irregulars put the Ukie army to flight. The Ukrainian army then received weapons and training from their Western mentors. This time they were going to win, or so they thought. Putin, however, was not going let the Ukies have another shot at the Donbass or not letting them get on the wrong – Eastern side – of the River Dnieper.
But it looks like end is nigh for the Ukrainian Army: It is surrounded by the Russians on all sides and just a matter of time for the inevitable surrender. Little wonder that the Ukrainians would not visit Donetsk any time soon.