When the assistant U.S. secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs Victoria Nuland resigned her position on January 20, 2017, all those who wanted to see the return to a more stable political order in Europe and the decline of Russophobia or Kremlinoia (as I call it) breathed a sigh of relief. She was perceived by many as the main political instigator of the whole series of the covert efforts to remove and replace top European government officials who did not uncritically accept the principles of Anglo-American geopolitics.
Nuland was best known publicly for her involvement in the Kiev coup against the legitimately elected government of the president Victor Yanukovych. At that time, she was secretly recorded directing the personal make-up of the future Ukrainian government, while, infamously, at one point, referring to the European Union with an expletive.[1]
I have written extensively on Nuland’s intellectual and professional biography and specifically focused on her imperial pro-consul activities in the Balkans in my article “Victoria Nuland & the Balkans” published by BFP in April 2015.[2] At that time, it seemed as if Nuland was on a sure path to becoming the next U.S. secretary of state, because a Democrat (i.e. her long-time ally Hillary Clinton) was greatly favored to win the presidency.
When this did not happen and Donald Trump won instead, the hope was that Nuland’s position in the State Department would be filled by someone less Russophobic and aggressive toward the legitimate security interests of Europe’s Eastern neighbor, Russia.
So many times, during the presidential campaign and after he got elected president, Trump stated that he supported dialogue and cooperation with Russia. However, his choice for Nuland’s successor shows that he either did not really mean what he was saying, or that he was forced to act contrary to his original intentions by the powerful forces of the status quo, which some have described as the deep state.
Enter A. Wess Mitchell
On July 20, 2017, Trump’s White House announced the nomination of A. Wess Mitchell for the position of the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. The U.S. public relations/propaganda service Radio Free Europe described Mitchell as “an expert on NATO and transatlantic relations,” which, in reality, is a code phrase for someone who is a NATO ideologue, a strong advocate of Anglo-American geopolitics, and an enthusiastic anti-Russian lobbyist.[3]
It was also noted that Mitchell was the founder and president of a Washington, DC think tank innocuously called the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Generally speaking, the more formal and bland-sounding the name of an organization, the more subversive the things it deals with. One, for instance, recalls the CIA’s Directorate of Plans, the brain center of the U.S. most lethal covert operations from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Indeed, after carefully analyzing the CEPA website, I have concluded that, though it markets itself as a non-profit, non-partisan policy institute,[4] CEPA is a front organization for the U.S. military-industrial complex. Its major funders include Lockheed Martin Corporation, Raytheon Company, Bell Helicopters, Textron Systems, and BAE Systems, in addition to the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, U.S. Mission to NATO, NATO Public Diplomacy Division, and U.S. Naval Post-Graduate School.[5]
Other CEPA funding comes from a variety of foundations, most of which purvey the globalist mentality of the U.S. as the world’s policeman. Moreover, CEPA is also financially supported by several organizations rooted in the Russophobic political and economic interests of the ruling Eastern European political elites, such as the Baltic American Freedom Foundation, International Visegrad Fund, American Friends of the Czech Republic, Hungary Initiatives Foundation, and Friends of Slovakia. For these elites, Russophobia is a convenient domestic policy propaganda mechanism to divert the minds of their populations from failing economy, rising unemployment and crime, and declining quality of health care and education systems. No wonder that CEPA has an office in Warsaw, Poland as well.
After considering who the funders are, the professional and intellectual references of the staff make sense. On its payroll, CEPA has two of the most Russophobic present-day commentators on European affairs. Edward Lucas, also a senior editor of the British newsweekly The Economist, and the author of several books on Russia pervaded by the mentality of the Cold War, is employed as a senior vice president.[6] Janusz Bugajski, one of the masterminds of the Balkan NATO expansion/occupation strategy, a prolific author of NATO propaganda, and a powerful agent of Atlanticist influence in Eastern Europe, is a senior fellow.[7]
In their hostile treatment of Russia, Mitchell’s own publications do not fall much behind those of Lucas and Bugajski. Together with his CEPA colleague Jakub Grygiel, another professional Russophobe, Mitchell co-authored a book The Unquiet Frontier published by Princeton University Press in 2016.[8] This book is essentially a sequel to Zbigniew Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard, working out its anti-Russia, anti-Iran, and anti-China dimensions in the current geopolitical context. This is particularly ironic, considering that Brzezinski himself abandoned this line of thought in his most recent books, realizing the extremely dangerous, if not apocalyptic, consequences that the pursuit of policies he had called for in The Grand Chessboard could have for the world peace in general.
Still, it appears that Brzezinski had links with CEPA because he is quoted on its website as saying “CEPA’s innovative work on the Central and Eastern Europe region contributes significantly to the transatlantic debate. I am proud to be associated with this unique institute.”[9] What is so innovative about Russophobia, which is one of the most gruesome products of the 18th and early 19th century Western European political thought, is left unexplained.
Certain key insights of The Unquiet Frontier, particularly as it relates to the current state of the U.S.-Russia relations, are summarized in Mitchell’s article “Make NATO Great Again” published in February 2017.[10]
“Make NATO Great Again”
In the very title of his article, Mitchell, now a Trump nominee, subverts the very meaning of the centerpiece of Trump’s presidential campaign – “make America great again.” NATO is a military alliance of 29 countries and its functioning requires that the U.S. sometimes subordinates its own national interests to the interests of other nation-states, most of which have very different social and historical trajectories from the U.S. This is precisely what Trump said the U.S. should never do. For Trump, it is "America First." For Mitchell, however, it is "NATO first," even if other NATO member states are treating the U.S. and its military as the servants of their own national interests.
In fact, within NATO itself, Mitchell extols the examples of its most Russophobic member states, the Baltic states and Poland, and tries to present their national security interests as perceived by the present political elites (but perceived quite differently in some other periods of these countries' histories) as completely identical with the U.S. national security interests.
This is extremely dangerous and irresponsible. The historical relations between these countries and Russia are much more complex than the good v. evil simplistic way that the professional Russophobes describe them. In the last twenty-five years, the Russophobes have become quite sophisticated in falsifying the whole episodes of Eastern European history to make it fall in line with the needs of the present-day Atlanticist ideology.
For example, the Red Army, which has liberated the Baltic states and Poland from the Nazis at the horrendous cost of the hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded, is now portrayed as a brutal, occupying force. Does this mean that perhaps some Russophobes would have preferred that these states remained under the Nazi occupation? If one follows the logic of their arguments and begins looking at historical alternatives, it certainly seems like that. In addition, the links between NATO and former Nazi officers are well-documented by historians.
For Mitchell, NATO's controversial origins and decades-long subversive practices, including the violations of international law and the U.S. Constitution, are not problematic at all. He sees NATO as the embodiment of the "Western civilizational construct" facing off what are presumably the barbarians from the East. He wants NATO to grow and expand. The most dramatic aspect of his grand plans for NATO is the call for the re-location of the U.S. military bases and tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers to Poland (and, probably, to the Baltic states as well).
Needless to say, this would add fuel to the fire in the already extremely tense military stand-off in Eastern Europe. At the same time, it would bring billions of dollars in profits to the U.S. military-industrial complex, which, as I have shown, is the largest funder of Mitchell's CEPA. In addition, it would also strengthen the increasingly unstable Atlanticist regimes in Poland and the Baltic states against their more progressive and peace-oriented opponents.
Not surprisingly, Mitchell's efforts to promote the interests of these regimes did not go unrecognized and unrewarded. Recently, he held high-level meetings with the Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevičius and defense minister Raimundas Karoblis in Vilnius and the Polish foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski in Warsaw.[11] Obviously, these officials, known for their intense Russophobia, will be Mitchell's closest partners once he gets approved by the U.S. Senate, which, judging from the senators' attitude toward Russia, is a sure thing.
Conclusion
While placing U.S. troops and military equipment closer to the Russian borders is a win-win situation for Mitchell and his donors, it portends grave dangers for the rest of the world, including both the U.S. and Russian populations. It sets the U.S. and Russia on a near certain collision course with catastrophic consequences. It means permanent instability in Eastern Europe, increased militarization and police brutality, perpetual surveillance and spying, and, ultimately, more conflicts and wars.
It also means the victory of the war-mongering oligarchs and the defeat of the ordinary people and their dreams and aspirations. Furthermore, it means that Trump deceived his voters when he promised to "clean the swamp." In fact, with the nomination of Mitchell and others who share Mitchell's ideological profile, Trump is adding to it.
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Dr. Filip Kovacevic, Newsbud Analyst & commentator, is a geopolitical author, university professor and the chairman of the Movement for Neutrality of Montenegro. He received his BA and PhD in political science in the US and was a visiting professor at St. Petersburg State University in Russia for two years. He is the author of seven books, dozens of academic articles & conference presentations and hundreds of newspaper columns and media commentaries. He has been invited to lecture throughout the EU, Balkans, ex-USSR and the US. He currently resides in San Francisco. He can be contacted at fk1917@yahoo.com
NOTES
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QxZ8t3V_bk
[2] https://www.newsbud.com/2015/04/29/bfp-exclusive-victoria-nuland-the-balkans/
[3] https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-nominate-chief-diplomat-european-eurasian-affairs/28629164.html
[4] http://cepa.org/about-cepa
[5] http://cepa.org/How-We-Are-Funded
[6] http://cepa.org/experts/edward-lucas
[7] http://cepa.org/experts/janusz-bugajski
[8] https://www.amazon.com/Unquiet-Frontier-Rising-Vulnerable-American/dp/0…- 1&keywords=the+unquiet+frontier
[9] http://cepa.org/about-cepa
[10] http://cepa.org/EuropesEdge/Make-NATO-Great-Again
[11] http://cepa.org/events/Mitchell-Linkevicius ; http://cepa.org/events/Mitchell-Lithuanian-Minister-National-Defence ; http://cepa.org/Events/Mitchell-Poland-MFA