Buffer Zone
Diana Hochman, December 2023
On why Ukraine must never join NATO—a case for peace and stability in geopolitics.
Political buffer zones create space between adversarial powers, in this case the West vs. East, and are uniquely positioned to absorb tensions and promote stability.
HISTORIC BACKDROP
World War II
September 1 1945 — President Truman announced Japan's unconditional surrender and the following day Japan signed the official Instrument of Surrender on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay—which is an 8-point treatise prepared by the War Department and President Truman heralding the end of World War II.
The Cold War
March 12 1947 — President Truman presented the Truman Doctrine, wherein President Truman sought relief (aid) from Congress to defend Greece and Turkey against authoritarian regimes (as designated/perceived by the U.S.), thereby inaugurating the Cold War.
NATO
April 4 1949 — The Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed in Washington, D.C. when 12 countries became signatories to a pact cementing the deal that an attack against one is an attack against all. NATO's sole mission is to both strengthen and embolden the ideological war of West versus East with the ultimate goal of the West dominating the world. Russia, then the USSR, was perceived as a direct threat and foe to Western global dominance (supremacy).
The Warsaw Pact
Created in 1955 to counter NATO's ascendant power (threat) in the West, which included East Germany.
The Berlin Wall
November 9 1989 — The fall of the Berlin Wall was the first step toward German reunification.
In a speech on January 31, 1990, German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genser stated,"There will be no expansion of NATO closer to the borders of the Soviet Union." Europe sought to maintain control of German reunification so that the Soviet Union would not have a say in this process, while also offering assurances to the Soviet Union that NATO did not intend to serve as a threat, as NATO membership of a unified Germany in fact posed a significant concern to the Soviet Union, and rightfully so. February 1991 marked the official end of the Warsaw Pact.
1990-1991
During the times leading up to both the collapse of the USSR and the birth of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the West maintained a de facto policy that NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe was a direct threat to peace and stability in the region.
March 17 1991 — By way of referendum, Boris Yeltsin is elected the first President of Russia.
April 9 1991 — Georgia declared independence from the U.S.S.R., prior to its (USSR) dissolution in December of that year.
August 24 1991 — The Act of Declaration of Independence was ratified by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR. From its inception as an independent nation-state, Ukraine has contended with economic and democratic instability, as well as endemic political corruption.
Belovezha Accords
On December 8 1991, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (the three largest of the 12 Soviet Republics) signed the Belovezha Accords, technically the first Minsk Agreement, which formally acknowledged the official cessation of the USSR, which had come into existence in 1922 (Treaty on the Creation of the USSR)—five years after the fall of the Russian Empire (Romanov's) in 1917 (Bolshevik Revolution). Russia, Ukraine and Belarus now became a commonwealth of independent states. Not unlike the 56 independent countries of the British Commonwealth that were formerly under British Rule.
Article VI
Of particular note Article 6 (Belovezha Accords) specifically states that Russia, Ukraine and Belarus form a common military and strategic space and united armed forces while clearly demarcating that each independent nation maintains territorial integrity. Then Russian President Boris Yeltsin called then President Bush I directly to underscore this facet of the new treaty.
December 21 1991 — 11 of 12 of the Soviet Republics (sans Georgia) signed onto the Belovezha Accords, thereby cementing the collapse of the Soviet Union and the birth of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
December 25, 1991 — Mikhail Gorbachev officially resigned as President of the USSR, ceding control to the President of Russia Boris Yeltsin. The Russian Flag was raised in the Kremlin for the first time. Boris Yeltsin informed the UN Secretary General Javier Cuellar that Russia would assume the Soviet seat at the United Nations.
Collapse of the USSR
December 26, 1991 — In the final act of dissolution, the USSR formally voted itself, and the union, out of existence.
While there is more than one reason as to the cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union, chief among them is the policy of containment by the U.S., as spawned in the Cold War (Truman Doctrine) of 1947.
The Bucharest Summit
In April of 1998, NATO declared that both Georgia and Ukraine would join NATO, but offered no plan to either nation for accession to the alliance. This marked a radical departure from NATO’s overt position of sustained neutrality that guided Western policy up until that point.
December 31 1999 — Boris Yeltsin resigned, appointing then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as his successor.
March 26 2000 — Vladimir Putin was elected as President of Russia for the first time.
Orange Revolution
From November 2004 to January 2005 a series of protests led to great unrest in Ukraine.
Munich Conference
In 2007 in Munich, Germany, Vladimir Putin gave the first speech by a Russian Head of State at the Munich Conference. Much to the dismay of the West, the tenor of this speech decried the Cold War effort to maintain unipolar hegemony. One may visibly note Senator John McCain don a smug mask, as he could not help but smirk at (what the West perceived as) Putin's audacity for declaring a vision of a more just world; wherein the West does not subjugate Russia, or any other nation it arbitrarily deems, as a subordinate.
The Maidan Revolution
In February 2014 deadly clashes—provoked by the West—between the people and the state (Euromaidan Protests) in Kyiv resulted in the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovich. The dial was set back to 2004 (Ukrainian Constitution) sparking the Russo-Ukrainian War, and ultimately resulting in 97% of Crimeans choosing to integrate with Russia by way of referendum.
2014 - 2021
NATO inches ever closer to Russia's border as the West arms Ukraine, stacking military chips.
Minsk I
September 5 2014 — Agreement spearheaded by France and Germany to end the war between Russian separatists and Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics.) This agreement was due to a devastating setback (defeat) to Ukraine’s war efforts.
Minsk II
February 12 2015 — Series of measurements were signed that most notably included (another) ceasefire, prisoner exchanges, and a withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the frontlines.
The Minsk Agreements were a disingenuous effort on the part of the West, which unsurprisingly and utterly failed at a ceasefire. The true aim of the agreements was to buy the West time for Ukrainian rearmament in its war effort against Russia. Ukraine's ancillary efforts of cultural and ethnic cleansing of Russia underlined the persecution of Russian people in the Donbas region.
2017-2019
The first Trump Administration approved the sale of javelins to Ukraine in 2017. Soiled with neoconservative war hawks, the Trump Admin I enacted a series of 52 sanctions against Russia during this time frame.
On the ascendant since 2014, in May 2019 comedian turned politician Vladimir Zelensky became Ukraine's sixth president, elected to a five-year term. Later that year (September), in the infamous "do me a favor" quid pro quo phone call between Zelensky and Trump that led to Trump's first impeachment, Trump demanded Zelensky give him dirt on Biden in exchange for (more) military assistance against Russia. Then in October 2019, Trump approved the sale of anti-tank missiles to Ukraine to the tune of $39 billion.
The Geneva Summit
On June 16, 2021, Joe Biden met with Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss the rapidly deteriorating situation between Russia and the United States. Putin reiterated Russia's stance as to the existential need (maintain global stability) for Ukraine to remain a buffer zone, or a Switzerland of Eastern Europe, as it were. Such logical propositions fell on the deaf ears of a Washington career war hawk whose entire life was based on the supremacy of might versus right, and the ideological premise that the United States is king of the world in a superimposed rules-based order of unipolarity.
Soon after this meeting, murmurs of an impending Russian invasion begin to circulate through Washington corridors. The head honchos (staunch neoconservative war hawks from both parties) in Washington, who had long been crafting the defeat of Russia at the hand of the United States, began spinning the story that the West ultimately ran with: “Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia is hellbent on international conquest of the West.” This story became the mainline (and throughline) of all Western Media parroted in 24-hour around-the-clock drips.
By December 31 2021, when Putin and Biden had their last conversation, the forecast was rather gloomy. The long-held secret, or covert mission of the West, had been revealed. As it turns out, the West always intended for Ukraine to join NATO and to ultimately topple Russia.
Special Military Operation
Absent any alternative recourse for remedy, and in an effort to avoid the war to end all wars, Russia finally pushed back against the aggression of the West when Putin formally launched Russia's Special Military Operation on February 24, 2022. This was a last ditch effort on the part of Russia to entice the West to enter into peaceful and constructive dialogue in order to settle the buffer zone matter that had effectively undermined peace in the world since March 12, 1947 (Cold War).
It took the West 44 years to dismantle the USSR and to stage Ukraine as proxy. It took an additional 31 years for the West to inch ever closer to Russia's borders, fomenting a direct confrontation, its ultimate aim or end game—75 years escalating to the point of no return.
If Russia's SMO were an invasion, then Russia would have stormed through Kyiv on Day One and captured its president, in an indiscriminate scorch-earthed manner, while roiling its city to the ground in one fell swoop. Russia's goal was not war, but rather to secure a lasting and just peace, not only for her people, but for all of humankind.
There is an interesting conundrum taking place on the international circuit with regard to Eastern Europe that must be responsibly and honestly dealt with—an unelected official’s signature is null and void.
If Ukraine is a sovereign nation, then it must determine its own destiny. However, if Ukraine is merely a vassal of western hegemony, a puppet nation (primarily of the United States), who is serving as mere proxy in the effort to force a West versus East face-off in a last man standing, shoot 'em up bang bang wild wild west confrontation as has been the case since 1991, then its illegitimate status is notably pronounced by the fact that its current president's tenure ended in May 2024, thus rendering him unable to be signatory to internationally binding treaties.
This writer supports the idea of Ukraine as a sovereign nation per the CIS of December 1991. While also further advocating the indisputable need, i.e., for the sake of the peace and stability of the world, that Ukraine remains a perpetual buffer zone. For Ukraine to join NATO would be for two nuclear power houses to stand in direct confrontation against each other to the detriment of all of humankind. This is dangerous as very little provocation might turn a molehill, and this world, into a mountain of soot. Therefore, Ukraine might fulfill a more lofty spiritual mission as the arbiter of peace in the world, let alone region, that uniquely stands in the way of nuclear war.
The security guarantee that Ukraine seeks may only arise from within its own borders, and is wholly derived from the will to exist as a truly sovereign nation who seeks a path of peace with its brothers and sisters per the Belovheza Accords of 1991. Moreover, while Ukraine's misguided attempt to join NATO serves as the greatest risk to global security in the modern world, there is no global security risk present should Ukraine join the European Union.
Road Map to Peace
Irrevocable discontinuation on the part of the United States to provide Ukraine war aid in any manner, shape or form, whether human capital, or weapons materiel, or intelligence, et al.
Hold new elections in Ukraine so that the will of the Ukrainian People is respected and a president is democratically elected who may enter into internationally recognized and legally binding treaties.
Ratify an International Treaty (Instrument of Surrender [by the West]) between Russia, Ukraine and NATO designating Ukraine as a Buffer Zone in perpetuity, thereby cementing Ukraine's complete surrender of its effort to join NATO for all time (to include articles):
Crimea, Donbas (DPR/LPR), Kherson and Zaporozhye Russian Federation
No Western troops deployed on the front lines of the Ukrainian Border
All Western Sanctions (minimally on the part of the United States) are lifted
Return of all of Russia's stolen money (incl. interest) held in Brussels (Euroclear)
Western Bloc is 100% responsible for rebuilding Ukraine with its own funds
As an act of goodwill, a prisoner exchange might occur only after a treaty is signed and a ceasefire goes into effect. Instead of promoting war "to the last Ukrainian," the West might better fund peace and prosperity, growth and development and reconstruction of a tragically demoralized Ukraine.
May God bless this world with peace and prosperity, and the hearts of men with a brighter vision.
