Four years ago, on December 16, 2019, Gen. Wesley Clark (U.S. Army, ret.), former NATO supreme allied commander, Europe, was interviewed by Diane Francis of The Atlantic Council about the situation in Ukraine and its broader impact.
Gen. Clark stated: “We should have given defensive lethal weapons to Ukraine. If we’d given them defensive weapons, many lives could have been saved. There are major human consequences here.”
Echoing Gen. Clark’s statements, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power, who was acting chair of the U.N. Security Council, bluntly stated on December 11, 2015, “Russia continues to arm, train, support and fight alongside separatists in eastern Ukraine.”
As matters stand, Gen. Clark continued, Russia could invade Ukraine with a few brigades, but it won’t for two reasons. The current strategy of harassment and destabilization serves President Vladimir Putin’s overall purpose and, by not overtly using military troops, Mr. Putin believes he can get the Europeans to ease sanctions.
Gen. Clark explained:
“Ukraine is a work in progress by Mr. Putin. He has multiple channels to attack Ukraine, economically, politically, diplomatically, militarily. He wants to get sanctions lifted, so he’s not deepening his [overt] military activities into Ukraine. But every day there are shooting incidents.
“[Putin] has a big game plan and that is to break up the European Union, a weakened NATO, restore Russia’s defensive area [Warsaw Pact] and control Ukraine and Belarus. He’s doing this through covert ops, sabotage in Ukraine, military aggression, the separatist movements, economics, diplomacy, buying people in the EU, and putting FSB money toward environmental groups to protest against fracking to keep Europe dependent on Russian oil and gas.”
“Clearly, Europe has been compromised and had to be dragged into sanctions [against Russia],” he added. “Germany and France bungled things by largely accepting Russia’s terms concerning a ceasefire agreement, then allowing Moscow to flout the agreement without major consequences,” he said.
When he addressed the lack of U.S. involvement in the negotiations, Gen. Clark said, “Our government is worried but not solely focused on Europe. The administration has multiple foreign policy objectives. It has responsibility not just to the overall strategy, but also to American public opinion. Foreign policy reflects domestic politics. President [Barack Obama] decided it was important to get Iran to sign the [nuclear] deal and he needed Putin for that.”
Gen. Clark said that President Obama understood the threat that Mr. Putin posed, but lauded the result that had Iran sign the nuclear agreement.
Gen. Clark underscored the need to keep the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine separate. “…Ukraine must have the ability to defend itself, and a political process must take place to destroy ISIS. Neither Ukraine nor the United States can give in on the legal status of Crimea as part of Ukraine. I was happy to see Vice-President Joe Biden repeat that. We’ve got to support Ukraine. But the administration must work both to support Ukraine and to lead the coalition to destroy ISIS.”
Gen. Clark encouraged the West to stand up to Mr. Putin, just as Turkey did when it shot down a Russian military jet after multiple warnings.
Source: “Ukraine is a Work in Progress by Putin,” by Diane Francis (The Atlantic Council), The Ukrainian Weekly, December 27, 2015-January 3, 2016.