Urgent Memorandum for President Biden: Dealing with Putin’s Threat to Ukraine

Europe and the United States face the greatest challenge to peace, stability and international order since the Berlin crisis of the early 1960s. It is also reminiscent of the Cuban missile crisis when the U.S. and the Soviet Union (USSR) came eyeball to eyeball with the possibility of nuclear war and Dean Rusk said “the other guy blinked”. The gerontocratic Soviet leadership was extremely conservative and sought to avoid further direct confrontation with the U.S. but rather fought several proxy wars which were damaging to the West but also severely damaging to the USSR as well. It foolishly tried to achieve control over uncontrollable Afghanistan. Their war in the graveyard of empires ultimately led to the downfall of the fossilized Communist behemoth and it seemed that we entered a period of a unipolar world and a Pax Americana.

Unfortunately it was not to be. The rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), seemingly our new friend in Asia was not exactly what it seemed. An aggressive nationalistic policy led to a rapidly growing innovative economy, a growing military with a blue water navy and claims against most of its neighbors as it established artificial islands in the South China Sea along with unequal trade relations with the underdeveloped nations of the southern hemisphere. Relations improved between the PRC and the successor of the former USSR, now restyled as the Russian Federation, a rump shadow of its former self. During the 1990s, Russia received significant American aid as it was thought that we had arrived at a long term peaceful situation in the world. However, the U.S. and the West erred. Soviet social imperialism remains, manifesting itself as Russian nationalism with a strong revanchist twist as it seeks to regain its former influence and position in the scheme of nations. Its long time leader, a former KGB operative and Communist Party member, Vladimir Putin, has played his cards extremely well. Today he has utilized the USSR’s policy of infiltrating over the years of its existence millions of ethnic Russians into the various constituent republics of that imperialistic pseudo-nation. For example, in today’s Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, there are signifiant populations of ethnic Russians. The Moscow regime has made it clear that it feels a responsibility to its ethnic kin and would like at some point to return them to the Russian motherland, that is, not just the people, but the territory as well. We have seen this at work in the Caucuses where Russia has tried to destabilize Georgia and has effectively seized South Ossetia. Russification policy has also created an anomaly in Europe, namely the political entity known as Kaliningrad Oblast. This is the historic German city formerly known as Koenigsberg, located in the now defunct German province of East Prussia. Though it is a part of Russia, it is separated from Russia by Belarus, Lithuania and Poland. Russia thus has no direct land contiguity with this enclave. The formerly German population was expelled and totally replaced with ethnic Russians at the end of World War II. This is in direct violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. However, that convention was not adopted until 1950 and in this sense the Soviet acton may at least partially have occurred before then. Russia since then has continued an imperialistic policy as it seized, without any retribution, the Crimean Peninsula, part of the sovereign Ukraine. Now, approximately 135,000 first line Russian troops and equipment are ready to invade Ukraine from three sides. A large number of Russian troops are stationed on the northern Ukrainian border in the Russian satellite nation of Belarus. Of concern is that not a word is heard out of the United Nations (UN). It is long known that that organization is the home of the double standard. It will never criticize Russia or the PRC.

President Biden has warned Russia that it faces very severe sanctions and he has placed 8,500 American troops, currently in the U.S. on high alert. The aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman is also on alert and we have asked for support from our putative NATO allies. Despite former Secretary of State James A. Baker III’s pledge not to move NATO eastward during talks to unite East and West Germany in 1992, under President Bill Clinton, with the advice of former Carter National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, NATO moved eastward to the border of Russia. This is one of Putin’s main complaints as he uses fear of a NATO invasion as the reason for his actions against Ukraine, not a NATO member. Today, NATO is neither North nor Atlantic. Just what it is and what its area of responsibility is is a matter of speculation. What Americans know is that the NATO membership has reneged on its obligations since the creation of the alliance and, as recently as today, Germany has expressed reservations about any actions against Russia and the Croatian president has stated that no Croatian troops will participate in any action against Russia.

Let us remember that President Lyndon Johnson, in 1964, declared that he would not send American boys to Viet Nam to fight a war that Asian boys should fight. Regrettably, after his election as the “peace candidate” he sent over a half million American boys to fight, bleed and die in a war that served no purpose and that no core American interests were at stake.

So how can we deal with Putin’s threat to invade a sovereign nation which is part of Europe, a member of the United Nations but not a NATO member?

As a first step all NATO nations must immediately sever diplomatic relations with Belarus, the Russian satellite. It does not behave as an independent nation and thus is not worthy to be treated as one.. All NATO diplomats must leave their posts, all Belarusian diplomats at all levels must be expelled within 24 hours and all commercial, financial, and trade relations must cease. All Belarusian assets abroad must be blocked and Belarusian passports should not be recognized. All educational relations must also be stopped. Belarus must pay a high price for its collaboration with Russia in destabilizing Europe. These measures should serve as a warning to Russia of the effect such actions will have.

It must be made clear to Russia that its territory is not inviolate. NATO troops, from all of NATO’s members, not only Americans, must surround Kaliningrad on all sides from Polish and Lithuanian territory, cutting off land access by Russia to that city. At the same time, a NATO fleet should take position in international waters, prepared to blockade that city if Russian actions against Ukraine commence. Similarly, the Siberian port of Vladivostok should face a similar blockade. All air travel, commerce and economic relations must be stopped, and Russian tourists should not be permitted in the West and western tourist should not be allowed to travel to Russia. All academic and scientific exchanges must be stopped and Russian students in the West must be expelled.

Severe economic sanctions must be applied to Russia and its elite immediately. Trade relations must end completely. This is not a matter of punishing innocent Russians. The Russian people must be made aware of what their government is doing and they have a responsibility to change their regime’s behavior. Regime change in a despotic nation is not America’s responsibility but is that of the citizens of that country. Life can be made unbearable there to the point that Russians will understand that they are better off with a different leadership. Hopefully, these measures, together with tough diplomacy, will convince Russia to cease its aggressive behavior as the price it will pay is too high for anything it may wish to achieve.

Cuba with its Communist totalitarian government remains allied with Russia. Firm warning must be given to its dictators that no provocative action of any sort will be tolerated. The Castro brothers are gone and the new leadership is not popular. If necessary unimaginably severe sanctions can be applied which will stimulate chaos and revolution. No asylum should be granted to fleeing Communists. Our goal is not to overthrow any regime but the stakes are high and Cuba must.behave impeccably.

Appropriate communication should be maintained with the PRC. America is aware of China’s unfortunate history and we are not China’s enemy. In fact, Russia, with its very long border with PRC is an historic enemy and remains a threat. The PRC leadership is certainly aware of this.

It must be understood by all that Putin’s tactics, to a very great degree come from Adolf Hitler’s playbook. We know how the Western democracies, France and the United Kingdom, sacrificed democratic Czechoslovakia to the Nazi tyranny for “peace in our times” as Hitler made his “last territorial demand in Europe”. All he wanted to do was bring ethnic Germans into the Reich. Eleven months after the Munich Conference, World War iI started as Germany attacked Poland without a Declaration of War from three sides. If Putin is not stopped, the next victims will be the Baltic States with their large populations of ethnic Russians. After they fall, Belarus and Lithuania will provide the jumping off points to seize Polish territory to establish Russian land contiguity with Kaliningrad. The world has seen this strategy before. It must not be repeated.

Finally, an all NATO summit conference must be held to determine just what is NATO’s reason for existence and what are its goals. Europe cannot be an American protectorate in perpetuity. The European Union is rich and powerful. Two European nations are nuclear powers and sit in the UN Security Council with veto power. It is not acceptable for Americans to bear the burden of European security while Europeans sit at sidewalk cafes, enjoy life and depend on American blood and treasure. Seventy seven years after the end of World War II, thirty years after the end of the USSR, what are American troops doing in Europe? This needs to be answered. This may be the time to re-establish the European Defense

Community. The twentieth century shows us that Europeans are quite capable of military action. Why do they need America? Madeline Albright calls the U.S. the “indispensable nation”. Really? More importantly, during the height of the Cold War, Charles de Gaulle, on assuming the French Presidency questioned whether the U.S. would trade nuclear strikes with the USSR to defend Western Europe. Would the U.S. take a nuclear attack on American cities to protect European cities? He doubted it and withdrew France from NATO’s military alliance yet remained in the political alliance while shrewdly betting that it would still be defended by NATO if needed. France then established its own nuclear strike force, the Force de Frappe. Today, the question can be reversed. What will Europe do if America is threatened with a nuclear war? Will they take a nuclear hit to defend America? I hope we never need to find out, European history is not encouraging.

Garry S. Sklar

Las Vegas, NV

January 26, 2022