America Ignored Warning NATO Expansion Would Be Greatest Blunder Since Cold War, Ex-US Diplomat Says

In late 2021, when tensions around Ukraine escalated with the West accusing Russia of plotting an "invasion" of its neighbor, Moscow presented its security proposals to de-escalate the situation in Eastern Europe. Russia has demanded that NATO stop its eastward expansion but the bloc answered that it won't sacrifice its "open-door policy."

Michael Springmann, a former American diplomat and political analyst, believes what the US is really afraid of is "a multipolar world it cannot control" and this is why it has been desperately trying to deter Russia and prevent its deeper cooperation with China. In this regard, Washington's interference in Ukraine's crisis means that the US needs a pretext for starting another military conflict in order to spread its influence further.

Sputnik: The DPR revealed that it has obtained Kiev's offensive plan, which allegedly seeks to clear Donbass of its Russian-speaking population. Why have the US and its allies, who claim to be pro-human rights, been denying the people of eastern Ukraine their rights for years?

Michael Springmann: Because of arrogance and contempt for anybody else in the world or any other country in the world, the American government is deathly afraid of a resurgent Russian Federation. President Putin has strengthened Russia. He's cleaning up the mess left behind by the collapse of the old Soviet Union, which was encouraged by capitalists in the West following the University of Chicago economic theories, which created real problems for Russia. And the Americans fear that Russia is becoming a strong state, able to challenge its idea of a unipolar world. What the United States is involved in is deathly and desperately attempting to prevent the Union of Russia and China, and so far as common interests, and they see that if they don't do something quickly, there will be a multi-polar world which they can't control. Additionally, I think that they don't read history, they don't listen to their own diplomats. The former American ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock, told the United States Senate 25 years ago when it was planning to expand NATO's eastward, that this would be the greatest blundering of the American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.

I think that in summary, the United States fears a resurgent Russia. The United States is using its religious aspects to push this, and the United States wants a pretext for war, or at least if not a war, the limited military conflict, and is doing its best to encourage the Ukrainians by sending them weapons to drive the Donbass inhabitants out of there into Russia. I've seen articles saying that the Russians should be prepared for 700,000 refugees from Donetsk and Lugansk.

Americans don't care about that. They don't care about Yemen and the Saudi war there. They don't care about the Afghans – nearly 20 years of American war and occupation in there. The United States divides the world up into people it likes and people it doesn't like. And while they talk a lot about human rights, when it comes down to it, there aren't any in the American foreign policy. It was the United States that was driving and coordinating refugees from Southwest Asia and North Africa as a result of its wars in Europe to destabilise Europe and split Germany away from Russia. So I think that human rights are basically all talk when it comes to the United States. They haven't done anything about landmines. They haven't done anything about health care in their own country. They do nothing about people in poorer parts of the world except talk.

Sputnik: Why are Western states turning a blind eye to Ukraine violating the Minsk Accords that guaranteed the end of hostilities in 2015?

Michael Springmann: European states follow the lead of the United States. Years ago, Charles de Gaulle said, "What do we want, an American Europe or a European Europe?" And the Americans believe it should be a European and American Europe, with the Europeans toeing the American line, forgetting all about civil rights and human rights and individual rights. And they're looking at a country that essentially is cobbled together from bits and pieces of the old Soviet Union, Poland and eastern Czechoslovakia. I think that the Europeans don't really care, although they have in fact admitted that in Germany at least the expansion of NATO to the East was not a good idea and that it is wrong and that they're not planning to do so.

Sputnik: Why is the West peddling the narrative of a "Russian invasion" and reinforcing the eastern flank instead of adhering to diplomacy?

Michael Springmann: The Americans don't care about diplomacy, don't understand diplomacy, which is the base, the conduct of relations between states on the basis of tact and common sense. The United States believes in force as a basis of diplomacy. In this situation, by reinforcing NATO... NATO has been split by questionable demands for more money and more soldiers, and if the United States can pressure the Europeans into moving NATO's soldiers, especially American NATO soldiers far to the east, up to the doorstep of the Russian Federation, that is a good thing because it threatens Russia and it strengthens NATO, which has been on the edge of crumbling and really should be abolished since it has no reason for its existence anymore. So I think that they're trying to revive a dying animal.

Sputnik: President Biden in his night address once again turned to warmongering rhetoric claiming President Putin "has made the decision to invade Ukraine." Do you think the US president is getting accurate intelligence about what's going on on the ground?

Michael Springmann: Well, yes and no. I think the American intelligence services have been politicised for years, heavily politicised, and they tell the president what he wants to hear and they read the newspapers and they follow the guidance given to them about the dangers of Russia, the mad man Putin, the ex-KGB officer and don't look at reality and don't see any reason why the Russians should attack Ukraine, it is a disaster of a country.

Ukraine has got a neo-Nazi government imposed on them by Victoria Nuland, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. And that as a result of this, the economy has crashed and things are really bad in a country of 44 million people, if you can call it a country since it has that big Russian-speaking majority in the East and other nationalities elsewhere in the land. So basically, the American intelligence services read the newspapers and understand that if they don't give Biden what he wants to hear, they may become unemployed.

Sputnik: Why is the humanitarian crisis in Donbass being ignored by the West?

Michael Springmann: Because it's inconvenient. Just like the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. The American government thinks that the situation can become worse and gives them more room to fish in troubled waters, so to speak. And it makes the Russians look bad. If the American media and the American government all speak with the same voice and they simply are more concerned about problems and injustices and lack of humanitarianism that affect their puppets, their pawns in the game, rather than the people as a whole, rather than Europe as a whole, rather than the world as a whole.