Europe being pulled into ‘proxy war’ by US

Continent’s interests undermined as it gets dragged into anti-Russia game, ex-CIA analysts say

Geopolitical events are unfolding now with huge consequences for the future of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, two former CIA analysts said at a recent forum that discussed the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions.

“I think Europeans have now begun to see that by joining through NATO, joining the United States in this proxy war against Russia, they have really been brought into a very dangerous and long-term project with huge long-term implications, not what they had bargained for,” said former CIA analyst Graham Fuller at a webinar titled “Investigate Nord Stream Revelations: Stop Nuclear World War III” organized last month by the Schiller Institute.

On Sept 26, 2022, seven months after the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict, two Russian pipelines, Nord Stream 1 and 2, under the Baltic Sea, connecting with Germany and carrying natural gas to Europe, exploded. Both Denmark and Sweden, the nearest coastal states, confirmed the explosion as an act of sabotage.

Last month, Seymour Hersh, a veteran US journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, pinned the blame on the US and Norway in a detailed self-published report on the US portal Substack. The US government termed it “a false story”.

Led by the US, NATO countries are indirectly involved in the Ukraine conflict through sanctions against Russia, and military assistance to kyiv.

Fuller said the Nord Stream explosions and sanctions on Russia were causing the beginning of the deindustrialization of Germany due to a lack of fuel and huge price rises.

“These are profound consequences, and we see the domestic growth rate of almost all European countries now dropping down to below 1 percent. So, the consequences are very serious,” said Fuller.

“I think European populations will perhaps demonstrate their dissatisfaction through the ballot box, demonstrations, writings, or whatever else there, demonstrate their dissatisfaction with joining the United States and what seems increasingly a highly dangerous and unwise venture.”

Fuller said the US and other NATO countries, through huge sanctions which “ironically” have not had a great effect on Russia, built “a massive new wall” between Europe and Russia.

“This is not simply a question of economic sanctions against Russia, but it’s also been an extraordinary cultural assault against the very idea of Russian civilization,” he said.

Fuller, who described himself as a “Cold War warrior” back in those days, worried that the US and its NATO partners’ action now is a “fullscale onslaught” on Russian culture without considering Russia’s security concerns.

Another former CIA analyst, Raymond McGovern, also said at the same webinar that “a new Iron Curtain” has come up. The new Iron Curtain, he said, is between the collective West and the East “with its great plans for economic development” and “the vast majority of the population in the world”.

McGovern said he is optimistic that after a decade or two, Europeans will come to their senses and realize that US politicians have misled them. “Russia is not really just a gas station posing as a country. Russia is a country without whom the rest of Europe is impoverished.”

He also said that the isolation of Russia led by the US is, in fact, the “lily-white West” against the rest of the world, the vast majority of whom are people of color, and it will not succeed.

“How can you say that the US has isolated Russia if 1.4 billion Chinese and 1.4 billion Indians and Indonesians, Brazilians, South Africans and Iranians are all lined up against what’s happening in the lily-white West?” McGovern asked.

Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, recently said at a news conference that China is considering supplying weapons to Russia, which will lead to “consequences”. Beijing strongly denied this allegation.

China is not taking part in the Russia-Ukraine conflict in any military way, Fuller said.

“Clearly, China has an understanding with Russia that it understands Russia’s security needs,” he said. “I would add that both of these countries share a view that they no longer accept a world in which the United States or even NATO or even the West is able to dictate what the security arrangements of the world should be.”