The crux of the problem Is NATO on Russia’s Borders. Paul C. Roberts

 By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Global Research, June 16, 2025

 

Have you noticed how many wars there are without being declared? 

Israel launches a military attack on Iran and Iran retaliates, but there is no declaration of war. 

Israel will attack again, and Iran will again respond by retaliating. 

But neither country is at war. 

Russia has been in conflict with Ukraine since February, 2022, but it is a Special Military Operation, not a war. 

Russia’s strategic triad was attacked, but it was merely a terrorist action, not an act of war.  After a couple of years of being bombed, Gaza’s population is now being starved to death, but it is just a matter of clearing the area so a resort can be built. Libya and its leadership were destroyed; Iraq and its leadership were destroyed; Syria and its leadership were destroyed.  But it wasn’t wars, just the imposition of democracy. Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen, but war was not declared. Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and Hezbollah are merely anti-terrorist operations, not war.

War is everywhere but the reality cannot be acknowledged.

The most serious event of all is not even acknowledged. 

Someone in the West gave a green light for an attack on Russia’s nuclear triad despite the fact that Russia’s war doctrine requires a “strategic response” to such an attack. 

Putin sidestepped the issue by declaring the attack to be a terrorist action, not an act of war. 

But whoever gave the green light for an attack that could have initiated nuclear war between Russia and the West has not been identified and held accountable for the risk to which he subjected life on earth.  Indeed, there is zero interest in discovering how the West green lighted an attack that under Russian war doctrine should have initiated nuclear war.  Putin pretends it didn’t happen, and Washington is uninterested in who and how the US could have found itself in nuclear war.

President Trump says he did not know of the planned attack on Russia’s strategic triad.  This should scare Trump to death. But he seems uninterested in who it was that would have initiated nuclear war with Russia had Putin not flinched. 

How is it that the American people, the people of Europe, the Russians, Chinese and the rest of the world can be content that it is not in the hands of President Trump whether a strike on Russia that could result in nuclear war can be initiated?  How is it that an outside third party has the initiative? 

Left unexamined, what will the next reckless provocation be?  At what point will Putin be forced to recognize reality and be forced to respond?

The entire media, governments, and security agencies of the world should be focused on identifying, and preventing, a third party from initiating nuclear conflict between the two major nuclear powers. Instead, there is no interest in the question.  False narratives are in place, and they are running their course.

Despite his boasts, Trump has done nothing to achieve peace.  Trump could easily forestall Israeli attacks on Iran by agreeing to an inspection to certify the extent of Iran’s enrichment of uranium.  Instead, Trump read Iran an ultimatum–which Trump regards as a negotiation–to stop enriching uranium for any purpose or risk being bombed out of existence.  

In other words, for Trump — negotiation means complying with Trump’s demands.  Imposing hegemony is not negotiation. 

Putin says the Ukraine negotiations must address the central issue.  Does anyone in Washington understand that the central issue is NATO on Russia’s borders?  There are US missile bases in Poland and Romania.  The missiles can be loaded with conventional or nuclear warheads.  This is an existential problem for Russia, as were Soviet missile bases in Cuba for the US.  President Trump can diffuse the entire issue by removing the US missile bases on Russia’s borders and by rolling NATO back to the 1997 borders.

Trump could diffuse the situation in the Middle East by announcing publicly that the US will not support any more Israeli aggression, and Trump could cease picking a fight with China.

Ask yourself, what is Russia doing to us?  Nothing.

What is Iran doing to US?  Nothing,

What is China doing to US?  Nothing,

How did three countries that are not hostile toward the West get turned into enemies whose subjugation  is worth the risk of nuclear war?  This is a massive failure of Western foreign policy. Where there is no vision the people are lost.

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Global Research, 2025

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By Dr Paul Craig Roberts / Paul Craig Roberts Institute of Political Economy

Hon. Paul Craig Roberts has had careers in scholarship and academia, public service, and journalism. From 1971 until 2004, he was associated with the Hoover Institution, Stanford University as National Fellow, Research Fellow and Senior Research Fellow. A former editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal and columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service, he is a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate in Los Angeles. In 1992, he received the Warren Brookes Award for Excellence in Journalism. In 1993, the Forbes Media Guide ranked him as one of the top seven journalists in the United States.He was Distinguished Fellow at the Cato Institute from 1993 to 1996. From 1982 through 1993, he held the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. During 1981-82, he served as assistant secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy. President Reagan and Treasury Secretary Regan credited him with a major role in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, and he was awarded the Treasury Department’s Meritorious Service Award for "his outstanding contributions to the formulation of United States economic policy." From 1975 to 1978, Dr. Roberts served on the congressional staff, where he drafted the Kemp-Roth bill and played a leading role in developing bipartisan support for a supply-side economic policy.In 1987, the French government recognized him as "the artisan of a renewal in economic science and policy after half a century of state interventionism" and inducted him into the Legion of Honor.Dr. Roberts’ latest books are The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with IPE Fellow Lawrence Stratton, and published by Prima Publishing in May 2000, and Chile: Two Visions -- The Allende-Pinochet Era, co-authored with IPE Fellow Karen Araujo, and published in Spanish by Universidad Nacional Andres Bello in Santiago, Chile, in November 2000. Harvard University Press published his book, The Supply-Side Revolution, in 1984. Widely reviewed and favorably received, the book was praised by Forbes as "a timely masterpiece that will have real impact on economic thinking in the years ahead." Dr. Roberts has held numerous academic appointments. He has contributed chapters to numerous books and published many articles in journals of scholarship. He has testified before committees of Congress on 30 occasions.Dr. Roberts was educated at the Georgia Institute of Technology (B.S.), the University of Virginia (Ph.D.), the University of California at Berkeley and Oxford University, where he was a member of Merton College.He is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World, and The Dictionary of International Biography.

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(Source: globalresearch.ca; June 16, 2025; https://v.gd/ZMSq5z)
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