Power demonstration by an occupying power
(Photo ma)
by Wolfgang Effenberger,* Germany
(11 June 2022) At the invitation of US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, representatives of 40 countries met on 26 April 2022 at the US Air Base in Ramstein/Rhineland-Palatinate to discuss the war in Ukraine. Among them were countries that are not members of NATO. In the run-up, the US Department of Defence had stressed that the meeting was not taking place under the umbrella of the Alliance.
Why did the meeting not take place in Washington, why not in Brussels, but at the US base in Ramstein? On a military airfield of the “United States Air Force”, which is located on German territory but has immunity similar to an embassy and is thus exempt from German jurisdiction.1
Significance of US base Ramstein
“Ramstein Air Base” also houses the headquarters of the “United States Air Forces Europe”, the “Air Forces Africa” and the “Allied Air Command Ramstein”, a NATO command authority for the command of air forces. The base is also home to the US-603d Air and Space Operations Center,2 which conducts combat drone missions involving the targeted killing of terrorist suspects in Africa (Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan and formerly Afghanistan).3
Potentially illegal US arms shipments and prisoner transfers, which are off-limits to German law enforcement agencies, also pass through Ramstein. Above all, the US base – which has always been a hub for American military operations – has been increasingly used for cargo and troop transportation to Rzeszów-Jasionka in southern Poland, near the Ukrainian border.
On 25 March 2022, US President Joe Biden visited the US garrison there and pointed out the importance of their deployment far beyond Ukraine. Should these US soldiers be wounded, they would be transported to the “Landstuhl Regional Medical Center”, the largest US military hospital outside the United States, located just 13 kilometres from Ramstein Air Base.
it houses the headquarters of the United States Air Forces Europe and NATO's
Allied Air Command. (Photo wikipedia)
Largest and most modern US military hospital
Largely unnoticed by the public, the largest and most modern American military clinic is now being built within walking distance of Ramstein: nine operating theatres, a total of over 4,500 rooms (a large proportion of the costs are borne by the Federal Republic of Germany).4 The best US military surgeons and trauma specialists will work here as early as 2022. The USA is thus well prepared for a major war in Europe.
On his departure from Kiev on 25 April 2022, Austin emphasised that the Ukrainians could win “if they have the right equipment and the right support”.5 As a war goal, Austin formulated: “We want Russia to be weakened to the point where it is no longer capable of something like invading Ukraine.”6 To push Russia even below the status of a regional power means in plain language: to conjure up a nuclear war.
Austin’s pro-war greeting
Defence Minister Lloyd Austin spoke of a “historic meeting” at the opening of the Ukraine consultations in Ramstein.
The Ukraine conflict, he said, was a challenge to all free people around the world.
“We are all here because we admire Ukraine’s courage and because we cannot bear to see your people suffering and civilians being killed.” And to the representatives of Ukraine: “your country has been invaded, your hospitals have been bombed, your citizens have been executed, your children have been traumatised.“7 Austin concluded by praising the outstanding defence performance and predicted that the courage and capabilities of the Ukrainians would go down in military history.
Austin promised Ukraine “our help” even after the end of the war. “We are behind you.” Yet a look at US war history should sober Ukrainians. The USA paid five billion US dollars for the coup it orchestrated in 2013/14 – so a dividend is due.
With this emotionally charged pro-war welcome, there is unlikely to be room for peace making approaches in the “consultations”. Thus, the suffering on both sides is likely to continue and Ukraine will have to put up with unimaginable destruction.
The longer the war lasts, the more difficult the necessary reconciliation will be later on.
And this war does not seem to be just about a proxy war. The USA is implementing the goals formulated in its long-term strategy TRADOC 525-3-1 2014: “Win in a Complex World 2020-2040”. The US armed forces are primarily to reduce the threat posed by Russia and China: This can only be done through one or more wars.
Prohibition of the use of force under international law vs. “pre-emptive war”
Unfortunately, the geopolitical context of the conflict is largely ignored and the blame is placed solely on Russia, which is accused of pursuing a policy of unilateral conquest. Further motives for Russia’s “special military operation” must not be asked.
Undoubtedly, the Russian leadership has disregarded the prohibition of the use of force under international law by invading Ukraine and with this operation it has united left and right, liberals and conservatives, nationalists and globalists into one front.
In March 1999, at the beginning of the war against Yugoslavia/Kosovo, the USA permanently anchored NATO’s crisis intervention role with the new NATO strategy MC 400/2. Since then, the alliance has reserved the right to intervene militarily even without an explicit mandate from the UN Security Council. Thus Serbia was bombed for 78 days and nights with corresponding enemy propaganda.
In 2001, the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan followed. The only offence: the Taliban had not delivered asylum seeker Osama bin Laden fast enough.
Before the war against Iraq, US President George W. Bush had laid down the “pre-emptive strike” in a National Security Directive to legitimise a new type of war. Since an armed attack on the United States or a state bordering Iraq, which the USA could then have come to the aid of, was not imminent, the “pre-emptive war” was conjured out of the hat.8
It is intended to nip “possible” dangers in the bud – similar to the murder of the children of Bethlehem after the birth of Christ. This concept also includes the “preventive military strike” (e.g. the strike against Iraqi nuclear research on 7 June 1981). In 2003, the destruction of Iraq took place. Scanty evidence of (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction sufficed as a pretext.
In 2011, the Libyan army was destroyed and the country plunged into continuing chaos. And a year later it was Syria’s turn (after 9/11, seven Arab countries were put on a destruction list by the Pentagon in the same month). Today, military units of the NATO countries USA and Turkey are still on Syrian territory in violation of international law, against the declared will of the internationally recognised government.
Since 18 April 2022, NATO member Turkey has been conducting an air and land military operation beyond its borders in the north of Iraq in violation of international law – without any protests from the “Western community of values”. Ankara argues that Turkey has the right to this cross-border military action according to the principle of so-called disadvantages.9
This view is accepted by Washington, and so this war has been simmering away since 1984. Turkey is militarily superior, but cannot defeat the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in the north of Iraq.
For the self-proclaimed Western community of values, the law of the jungle seems to apply, and not only since 1999.
On 25 October 1983, the superpower USA invaded the mini-Caribbean island of Grenada as part of its Operation Urgent Fury. US President Reagan justified the invasion with a preceding violent coup d’état by “left-wing murderers” on the island. It was necessary to “protect our own citizens (on the island) [...] and to help rebuild democratic institutions on Grenada.”10 Following four days, the unequal struggle ended with an absolute victory for the USA.11
“Strength of the law” or “law of the strongest”?
Most people in the world certainly do not want the law of the strongest to prevail. Rather, the strength of the law should prevail. This is always consensual when the value-West wants to assert its interests. For example, Angela Merkel insisted on the primacy of the strength of the law vis-à-vis Russia on the occasion of the Crimean crisis, just as she did vis-à-vis her hosts on a trip to China in 2016. And in January 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz admonished Russia with similar words.
That the US has now rediscovered international law is more than welcome, if not necessarily credible.
In the run-up to the Ukraine consultation in Ramstein, the largest opposition faction in the Bundestag (CDU/CSU) clearly spoke out in favour of supplying heavy weapons to Ukraine, as did FDP defence politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann.12 The Greens’ willingness to do so is undiminished anyway.
And Ramstein will send a clear signal for large-scale deliveries of war-critical material.
The USA wants to help Ukraine defeat Russia, supply it with armaments and support it with advisors, but prevent the USA or NATO from officially becoming a party to the war. This sounds like “wash me, but don’t get me wet”. Such decisions should also take into account the assessment of the facts by the opposing warring party.
Before the heatedly discussed issue of arms deliveries, tones to be taken seriously came from Moscow. On 25 April 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, according to the Interfax news agency, that the Ukraine war could escalate into a world war: “The danger is serious, it is real, it is not to be underestimated”.13 In this context, Russia regards the NATO arms deliveries as legitimate targets for the Russian armed forces: “If NATO enters into a de facto war with Russia via a proxy and arms this proxy,” said Lavrov, “then you do in war what you have to do in war.“14
New admission of NATO members: “the greatest folly”
The looming disaster could have been avoided. For one by the consistent application of international law – even a regime change organised from outside is a crime – as well as the recognition of the rights of others. In the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs, the US political scientist at the University of Chicago, John J. Mearsheimer wrote the seminal article “Why the West is to blame for the Ukraine crisis”.
Mearsheimer, whose main area of research is international relations, considers it the greatest folly to accept new members into NATO that others are not prepared to defend. Previous NATO expansions, he says, were made on the assumption that, according to the liberal worldview, the alliance would never have to honour its new security guarantees. But the recent Russian power play proves that Russia and the West would be on a collision course should Ukraine become a NATO member.
A continuation of the current policy would strain the West’s relations with Moscow and bring Moscow and Beijing even closer together.
“The US and its European allies are facing a choice on the Ukraine issue. They can continue with their current policy and thus intensify hostilities with Russia and wreck Ukraine – a scenario from which all parties would emerge as losers. Or they can change course and aim for a prosperous but neutral Ukraine that poses no threat to Russia and allows the West to repair its relations with Moscow. With such an approach, all sides would win.“15
Mearsheimer can only be agreed on. However, this honourable approach collides with the Anglo-Saxon competitive ideology of “the winner takes it all”. At the time of publication of his article, Mearsheimer could not have known about the strategy paper TRADOC 525-3-1 “Win in a Complex World 2020-2040”, which was also published in September 2014.
Issuing orders to the dependent allies?
Fatally, the USA’s aggressive policy risks but the destruction of its allies in Europe, so one may well ask to what extent American and European interests are still in unison.
According to Klaus von Dohnany, former Federal Minister of Education and Science and First Mayor of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg from 1981 to 1988, Germany and Europe today are anything but sovereign in matters of security and foreign policy. “It is the USA that is setting the direction here in Europe.”16 Against this background, the choice of the US Air Base in Ramstein as a “place of consultation” in the Ukraine conflict is more than symbolic. It is more likely to have been a matter of issuing orders to the dependent allies.
| * Wolfgang Effenberger, born 1946, is a journalist and author of numerous books. He publishes in German. Here are three of his latest books: “Wiederkehr der Hasardeure, Schattenstrategen, Kriegstreiber, stille Profiteure 1914 und heute”; “Geo-Imperialismus: Die Zerstörung der Welt”, 2016. Most recently, the following was published "Schwarzbuch EU & NATO", 2021 https://zeitgeist-online.de/2013-11-30-00-57-32/1097-wolfgang-effenberger-schwarzbuch-eu-nato.html |
(Translation “Swiss Standpoint”)
1 Scientific services “Der Bundestag”: https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/531932/f011954610186c3edadc3cf94c6f1e86/wd-2-086-17-pdf-data.pdf
2 https://web.archive.org/web/20101227075807/http://www.3af.usafe.af.mil/units/index.asp
6 Ibid.
8 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2717104
10 Grenada invasion: “Ronald Reagan’s finest hour” https://www.spiegel.de/politik/grenada-invasion-ronald-reagans-groesste-stunde-a-0563f4c3-0002-0001-0000-000014024311
11 19 dead on the American side and 70 dead soldiers and 24 civilians on the other side.
12 Bundestag discusses arms delivery https://www.br.de/nachrichten/deutschland-welt/schwere-waffen-fuer-die-ukraine-ein-streitgespraech-im-br24live,T42pojD
13 Lavrov sees “real danger” of a world war – and calls NATO arms deliveries legitimate targets of attack. https://www.merkur.de/politik/ukraine-news-lawrow-russland-dritte-weltkrieg-Nato-waffen-angriffsziele-usa-verhandlungen-zr-91501592.html
14 Ibid.
15 John J. Mearsheimer: Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141769/john-j-mearsheimer/why-the-ukraine-cri-sis-is-the-wests-faul
16 Klaus von Dohnany: Nationale Interessen. Orientierung für deutsche und europäische Politik in Zeiten globaler Umbrüche. Siedlerverlag 2022 [National Interests. Orientation for German and European Politics in Times of Global Upheaval.]