Is America Waging a Proxy War in Ukraine?
with Cornel West
Wars fought on foreign soil tend not to stay there. They have repercussions for the domestic life and policy of the nations that wage them. In this clip, I talk with Cornel West about America’s involvement in the Ukraine War and the effects of foreign conflicts on our nation’s communities.
This is a clip from the episode that went out to paying subscribers on Monday. To get access to the full episode, as well as an ad-free podcast feed, comments, Q&As, and other exclusive content and benefits, click below.
I find it hard to get past the irony of people who on the one had are so critical of American power in the world, taking a view of Russia’s actions that essentially says it’s for America to ‘make promises’ on behalf of other states and that this ultimately must be about America, a so called ‘proxy war’. That seems both arrogant and narcissistic.
This argument almost entirely erases the agency not only of Ukrainians, but in the sense of considering the history, the agency of people in former Soviet states and the other Eastern European countries that suffered under Soviet influence.
If after the fall of the Soviet Union these states who moved towards open, market based societies, broadly democratic, broadly free were to say that they had genuine fears based on history and the likely nature of post Soviet Russia and wanted part of security club of western democratic nations, it was for the US to say no, to deny them that request, that the US gets to decide based on ‘promises’?
There is every reason to believe that were these nations not NATO members Russia would have made attempts to control them in some way, to deny them the ability to shape their own futures. Politicians from these countries have been open and clear about this and what’s happening in Ukraine would seem to very much validate those fears.
The analogy to the US and Mexico is ridiculous as the modern US doesn’t have designs and isn’t trying to turn Mexico into a client state.
The Baltic states and others NATO membership is a direct result of those countries very real fears and it insults them to try and argue its really just about American power, empire and a supposed ‘proxy war’ with Russia.
Brother West has ever spoken better sense. What in heck are we Doing with our army and why? Who benefits?.