U.S. intelligence agencies are claiming Russia is close to completing preparations for a large-scale invasion of Ukraine that could leave up to 50,000 civilians killed or wounded, decapitate the government within two days, and launch a humanitarian crisis with up to five million refugees fleeing the resulting chaos. Interviewed by NBC’s Lester Holt on February 10, Biden said that “the window for a diplomatic resolution of the crisis appears to be closing.” In response to being pushed by Holt to address what would happen if Russia did invade Ukraine and U.S. citizens or diplomats had to be evacuated from that country, Biden told U.S. citizens to leave Ukraine now. He said there would be no U.S. military rescue mission into Ukraine—because “that’s a world war when American and Russian troops start shooting at each other.” And Biden said that “things could go crazy quickly” in Ukraine.

Assertions that the U.S. has proof Russia is close to invading Ukraine may or may not be true, but there is a definite and real danger of war breaking out. That war would be a humanitarian nightmare. But the U.S. is not the “good guy” in this crisis.

A major factor behind the conflict over Ukraine is the U.S. insisting on the “right” to make Ukraine part of its NATO military alliance in Europe, which would potentially put U.S. forces and nuclear weapons on the borders of Russia. And NATO is far from a “defensive” alliance as the U.S. claims: NATO forces played a major role in the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan that killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people and drove millions from their homes. And NATO forces dropped nearly 10,000 bombs on Libya to force regime change there in 2011.

Even as the U.S. pursues the “diplomatic” track to oppose Russian moves, and is preparing to impose brutal sanctions that would result in widespread suffering and death for ordinary people, it has been providing Ukraine with billions of dollars worth of advanced weaponry. The U.S. and NATO are beefing up their forces in countries neighboring Ukraine and Russia. And the U.S. is promising to provide aid to armed insurgents there if Russia does occupy Ukrainian territory.

All these factors add up to a nightmarish “game of chicken.” Even if the U.S. would prefer to respond to a Russian invasion with sanctions or other means, things could spiral out of control and out of the bounds either side intended with a real possibility of a full-on war, even a possible nuclear war, but in any event a war that could bring catastrophic death and destruction.

And here’s what is underlying all this: Ukraine—with its 1,426-mile-long land and sea border with Russia, its large geographic size (second only to Russia in Europe), substantial economy, and location in the middle of countries aligned with either Russia or the U.S.—is seen by both sides as having strategic importance in terms of how much of Europe and the world they will dominate and exploit. And both sides have been maneuvering to control Ukraine for decades (for background see revcom.us’s coverage of Ukraine).

Diplomacy Preparing for War and Sanctions

On February 7, Biden met with German leader Scholtz to lean on Germany to go all in on taking part in crippling economic sanctions against Russia in the event of an invasion. The anti-Russia sanctions the U.S. is pushing Germany to collaborate fully on could have a devastating impact on Russia’s 144 million people, including cutting off access to essential imported food and medical supplies (see “The Mafia Logic of U.S. Sanctions Against Russia”). That, in and of itself, would be a “humanitarian crisis.” Germany itself is a powerful capitalist-imperialist country, allied with the U.S. but also concerned for and angling to protect its own interests, including access to Russian gas.

Then on February 12, Biden and Putin held an hour-long phone call. Afterwards, each side accused the other of acting unjustly to advance its own interests regardless of the danger of war. Both sides were right.

People think of diplomacy as an alternative to war, but that’s not how it works. These and other meetings of “world leaders” are part of the contention, jockeying for strategic advantage, and gangster-like threats between rival imperialist powers. They are moves on both sides to claim to be seeking peace, shore up alliances, try to sow discord in the other side’s alliances, and be in a better position for war or other deadly forms of conflict like sanctions.

Our Responsibility in the Belly of the Beast

As we wrote last week, a war between U.S.-backed forces and Russia over Ukraine would be driven not just by a triggering incident (like an invasion) but by the larger insatiable compulsion for imperialist powers to grab more or be pushed off the table of global bloodsuckers.

For people here in the belly of the beast, the homeland of U.S. capitalism-imperialism, standing with humanity means upholding and applying revolutionary defeatism. As Bob Avakian (BA) explains in The New Communism:

Revolutionary defeatism means that you oppose the actions of your own government and ruling class in carrying out their wars, which are wars for empire. It means that you welcome any setbacks they suffer in those wars, because that weakens their oppressive hold over masses of people, here and in the world more generally.

This holds even in a situation where the “other side” in a conflict with the U.S. empire is no good either. BA addresses this challenge in The New Communism:

It is crucial that people come to see what the nature of these wars being waged by their government actually is, and why these wars have to be actively opposed; and even if you can’t, and shouldn’t, support the other side, you still have to have the basic approach of welcoming the defeat of your own government in the wars it is waging. The defeat of these imperialists should be welcomed because, number one, their wars are unjust, even if the people opposing them are also unjust. And, two, every such defeat weakens this system and its ruling class and brings closer the time when people can actually bring it down and bring something liberating into being in its place.