Scott Ritter & Ray; Today’s Comments on Ukraine

By Ray McGovern, Feb. 11, 2022

Turns out Scott and I now agree on slim likelihood of Russia invading Ukraine. But that might just mean that we’re both wrong now.

Our views this afternoon on The Critical Hour may garner more interest, given the announcement just now that Biden and Putin will hold a conversation tomorrow morning.

Is ‘Nordstream 2’ Dead in the Water”?

By Ray McGovern, Feb. 8, 2022

Does President Joe Biden consider himself King of Europe, with a kind of eminent (or is it “imminent”) domain over multi-billion-dollar projects like the German-Russian Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline? That’s sure what it sounded line yesterday at the joint press conference with visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Biden’s royal deportment was discussed today on The Critical Hour, as well as the various visits of top European leaders in recent days; Macron to Moscow, as well as Scholz to Washington.

Never before has the subjunctive mood carried such alarming connotation.  Everything depends, you see, on IF Russia Invades Ukraine. I have told my interviewers that, IF Russian troops outrace Godot into Kiev (See: Godot Likely To Arrive Before Russia Invades Ukraine, https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2022/01/21/godot-likely-to-arrive-before-russia-invades-ukraine/ ), I will stand corrected. Today, when I referred back to my insistence for months that Putin is not stupid enough to invade Ukraine (See, for example, https://twitter.com/raymcgovern/status/1466444326062497795 ), my radio hosts mercifully avoided asking whether I thought an invasion was “imminent”.

The ‘Botch From Hell’ on Nordstream 2

Some congress members have been saying for months that, IF the Russians invade Ukraine, “sanctions from hell” will be imposed on Russia. Biden’s misbegotten gaffe, however, might well be described as “the botch from hell”, since he asserted imminent — sorry, I mean eminent — domain over Nordstream 2. Poor Chancellor Scholz was standing right there, no doubt wishing he could hide behind his podium until the next question. He did stay, of course, and in the process proved himself quite accomplished in evasiveness and circumlocution.

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By pre-arrangement, Biden picked a Reuters reporter to ask the first question:

Q    Thank you, Mr.  President.  And thank you, Chancellor Scholz.  Mr. President, I have wanted to ask you about this Nord Stream project that you’ve long opposed.  You didn’t mention it just now by name, nor did Chancellor Scholz.  Did you receive assurances from Chancellor Scholz today that Germany will, in fact, pull the plug on this project if Russia invades Ukraine?  And did you discuss what the definition of “invasion” could be? …

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  The first question first.  If Germany — if Russia invades — that means tanks or troops crossing the — the border of Ukraine again — then there will be — we — there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2.  We will bring an end to it. 

Q    But how will you — how will you do that exactly, since the project and control of the project is within Germany’s control?

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  We will — I promise you, we’ll be able to do it. 

( For the transcript, see: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/02/07/remarks-by-president-biden-and-chancellor-scholz-of-the-federal-republic-of-germany-at-press-conference/ )

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The coming reaction in Germany to Biden’s gaffe d’etat will go a long way toward telling us whether, after 77 years in vassal status, the Germans now, in the pratfall-prone and highly dangerous current circumstances, will finally start acting as adults — quite able to deal with the Russians “all by themselves” (as maturing children tend to put it).

Don’t hold your breath.

Scott Ritter and I Debate U.S.-Russia-China

By Ray McGovern

Scott Ritter and I continued our “Lincoln-Douglas-debate” routine today on The Critical Hour, with a spirited discussion of the objectives and behavior of Russia, China, and the U.S. on the Ukraine imbroglio. A remarkable China-Russia “Joint Statement”, published today with President Putin in Beijing for the Olympics, provided an excellent peg.

In my view, Putin is flying home with a gold medal. It has become increasingly difficult to ignore the new strategic reality that the erstwhile U.S.-Russia-China triangle has evolved from an equilateral triangle, so to speak, into an isosceles one with the U.S. getting the short end.

Two Against One

Today’s rhetoric/choreography was aimed at showing the “unprecedented” (Putin) closeness of today’s Sino-Russian strategic partnership, and brought to mind the publicity given to the highly scripted first minute of the Putin-Xi virtual summit on Dec. 15. (See China Gives Oomph to Russia’s Nyet-on-NATO: https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2022/01/31/china-gives-oomph-to-russias-nyet-on-nato/ .)

In December President Xi told Putin that “in its closeness and effectiveness, this relationship even exceeds an alliance.” ( See: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/world/asia/china-russia-summit-xi-putin.html .)

Today’s Joint Statement stated that the two sides:

“reaffirm that the new inter-state relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era.  Friendship between the two states has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.”

Putting these remarks into some specific context, I called to attention the statement that “the Russian side reaffirms its support for the One-China principle … and opposes any forms of independence of Taiwan” and that “the two sides oppose further enlargement of NATO”.

Of equal importance is section that states:

“The sides call on the United States to respond positively to the Russian initiative, and abandon its plans to deploy intermediate-range and shorter-range ground based missiles in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe.”

Actually, the U.S. “non-paper” responding to Russia on this key issue is “positive”, as can be seen in the text of the “non-paper”, which was leaked to Spain’s El Pais.  ( See “US Makes Putin Offer He Can Hardly Refuse: https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2022/02/02/us-makes-putin-offer-he-can-hardly-refuse/ .)

Scott Ritter took issue with many of my observations — “vociferously”.  He sees a very real risk of war, since Russia has clear military advantage; he believes Putin is not “bluffing” with all those troops deployed near Ukraine.

CrossTalk: Despair or Hope on Ukraine?

By Ray McGovern

This week I welcomed having a few more minutes than usual on TV to discuss NATO/Russia/Ukraine and to offer some guesses as to what may be in store.

The CrossTalk program was pre-recorded on Wednesday morning (EST) Jan. 26th — i.e., just before Secretary of State Blinken announced that Ambassador John Sullivan had handed over Washington’s response to the proposals Russia gave the U.S. on Dec. 15 (and made public two days later).

(Significantly, Blinken made a point of asserting that the U.S. document was sent with the blessing of President Joe Biden, and that Biden was intimately involved in its drafting, making some personal edits. Putin has asked the president to remain personally involved.)

CrossTalk host Peter Lavelle invited Phil Giraldi and Pierre-Emmanuel Thomas to be on with me. The show has gotten close to 20,000 views on YouTube.